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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/3543-8.txt b/3543-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..08b1267 --- /dev/null +++ b/3543-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6467 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Heartbreak House, by George Bernard Shaw + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Heartbreak House + +Author: George Bernard Shaw + +Posting Date: January 13, 2009 [EBook #3543] +Release Date: November, 2002 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HEARTBREAK HOUSE *** + + + + +Produced by Eve Sobol + + + + + +HEARTBREAK HOUSE + +A FANTASIA IN THE RUSSIAN MANNER ON ENGLISH THEMES + + +By Bernard Shaw + + +1913-1916 + + + + +HEARTBREAK HOUSE AND HORSEBACK HALL + + +Where Heartbreak House Stands + +Heartbreak House is not merely the name of the play which follows this +preface. It is cultured, leisured Europe before the war. When the +play was begun not a shot had been fired; and only the professional +diplomatists and the very few amateurs whose hobby is foreign policy +even knew that the guns were loaded. A Russian playwright, Tchekov, had +produced four fascinating dramatic studies of Heartbreak House, of +which three, The Cherry Orchard, Uncle Vanya, and The Seagull, had been +performed in England. Tolstoy, in his Fruits of Enlightenment, had shown +us through it in his most ferociously contemptuous manner. Tolstoy did +not waste any sympathy on it: it was to him the house in which Europe +was stifling its soul; and he knew that our utter enervation and +futilization in that overheated drawingroom atmosphere was delivering +the world over to the control of ignorant and soulless cunning and +energy, with the frightful consequences which have now overtaken +it. Tolstoy was no pessimist: he was not disposed to leave the house +standing if he could bring it down about the ears of its pretty and +amiable voluptuaries; and he wielded the pickaxe with a will. He treated +the case of the inmates as one of opium poisoning, to be dealt with by +seizing the patients roughly and exercising them violently until they +were broad awake. Tchekov, more of a fatalist, had no faith in these +charming people extricating themselves. They would, he thought, be sold +up and sent adrift by the bailiffs; and he therefore had no scruple in +exploiting and even flattering their charm. + + + +The Inhabitants + +Tchekov's plays, being less lucrative than swings and roundabouts, +got no further in England, where theatres are only ordinary commercial +affairs, than a couple of performances by the Stage Society. We stared +and said, "How Russian!" They did not strike me in that way. Just +as Ibsen's intensely Norwegian plays exactly fitted every middle and +professional class suburb in Europe, these intensely Russian plays +fitted all the country houses in Europe in which the pleasures of music, +art, literature, and the theatre had supplanted hunting, shooting, +fishing, flirting, eating, and drinking. The same nice people, the same +utter futility. The nice people could read; some of them could +write; and they were the sole repositories of culture who had social +opportunities of contact with our politicians, administrators, and +newspaper proprietors, or any chance of sharing or influencing their +activities. But they shrank from that contact. They hated politics. They +did not wish to realize Utopia for the common people: they wished to +realize their favorite fictions and poems in their own lives; and, when +they could, they lived without scruple on incomes which they did nothing +to earn. The women in their girlhood made themselves look like variety +theatre stars, and settled down later into the types of beauty imagined +by the previous generation of painters. They took the only part of our +society in which there was leisure for high culture, and made it an +economic, political and; as far as practicable, a moral vacuum; and as +Nature, abhorring the vacuum, immediately filled it up with sex and with +all sorts of refined pleasures, it was a very delightful place at its +best for moments of relaxation. In other moments it was disastrous. For +prime ministers and their like, it was a veritable Capua. + + + +Horseback Hall + +But where were our front benchers to nest if not here? The alternative +to Heartbreak House was Horseback Hall, consisting of a prison for +horses with an annex for the ladies and gentlemen who rode them, hunted +them, talked about them, bought them and sold them, and gave nine-tenths +of their lives to them, dividing the other tenth between charity, +churchgoing (as a substitute for religion), and conservative +electioneering (as a substitute for politics). It is true that the two +establishments got mixed at the edges. Exiles from the library, the +music room, and the picture gallery would be found languishing among the +stables, miserably discontented; and hardy horsewomen who slept at the +first chord of Schumann were born, horribly misplaced, into the garden +of Klingsor; but sometimes one came upon horsebreakers and heartbreakers +who could make the best of both worlds. As a rule, however, the two were +apart and knew little of one another; so the prime minister folk had +to choose between barbarism and Capua. And of the two atmospheres it is +hard to say which was the more fatal to statesmanship. + + +Revolution on the Shelf + +Heartbreak House was quite familiar with revolutionary ideas on paper. +It aimed at being advanced and freethinking, and hardly ever went to +church or kept the Sabbath except by a little extra fun at weekends. +When you spent a Friday to Tuesday in it you found on the shelf in your +bedroom not only the books of poets and novelists, but of revolutionary +biologists and even economists. Without at least a few plays by myself +and Mr Granville Barker, and a few stories by Mr H. G. Wells, Mr Arnold +Bennett, and Mr John Galsworthy, the house would have been out of the +movement. You would find Blake among the poets, and beside him Bergson, +Butler, Scott Haldane, the poems of Meredith and Thomas Hardy, and, +generally speaking, all the literary implements for forming the mind of +the perfect modern Socialist and Creative Evolutionist. It was a curious +experience to spend Sunday in dipping into these books, and the Monday +morning to read in the daily paper that the country had just been +brought to the verge of anarchy because a new Home Secretary or chief of +police without an idea in his head that his great-grandmother might +not have had to apologize for, had refused to "recognize" some powerful +Trade Union, just as a gondola might refuse to recognize a 20,000-ton +liner. + +In short, power and culture were in separate compartments. The +barbarians were not only literally in the saddle, but on the front +bench in the House of commons, with nobody to correct their incredible +ignorance of modern thought and political science but upstarts from +the counting-house, who had spent their lives furnishing their pockets +instead of their minds. Both, however, were practised in dealing with +money and with men, as far as acquiring the one and exploiting the other +went; and although this is as undesirable an expertness as that of the +medieval robber baron, it qualifies men to keep an estate or a business +going in its old routine without necessarily understanding it, just as +Bond Street tradesmen and domestic servants keep fashionable society +going without any instruction in sociology. + + + +The Cherry Orchard + +The Heartbreak people neither could nor would do anything of the sort. +With their heads as full of the Anticipations of Mr H. G. Wells as +the heads of our actual rulers were empty even of the anticipations of +Erasmus or Sir Thomas More, they refused the drudgery of politics, and +would have made a very poor job of it if they had changed their minds. +Not that they would have been allowed to meddle anyhow, as only through +the accident of being a hereditary peer can anyone in these days of +Votes for Everybody get into parliament if handicapped by a serious +modern cultural equipment; but if they had, their habit of living in a +vacuum would have left them helpless end ineffective in public +affairs. Even in private life they were often helpless wasters of their +inheritance, like the people in Tchekov's Cherry Orchard. Even those who +lived within their incomes were really kept going by their solicitors +and agents, being unable to manage an estate or run a business without +continual prompting from those who have to learn how to do such things +or starve. + +From what is called Democracy no corrective to this state of things +could be hoped. It is said that every people has the Government +it deserves. It is more to the point that every Government has the +electorate it deserves; for the orators of the front bench can edify or +debauch an ignorant electorate at will. Thus our democracy moves in a +vicious circle of reciprocal worthiness and unworthiness. + + + +Nature's Long Credits + +Nature's way of dealing with unhealthy conditions is unfortunately not +one that compels us to conduct a solvent hygiene on a cash basis. She +demoralizes us with long credits and reckless overdrafts, and then pulls +us up cruelly with catastrophic bankruptcies. Take, for example, common +domestic sanitation. A whole city generation may neglect it utterly +and scandalously, if not with absolute impunity, yet without any evil +consequences that anyone thinks of tracing to it. In a hospital two +generations of medical students way tolerate dirt and carelessness, and +then go out into general practice to spread the doctrine that fresh +air is a fad, and sanitation an imposture set up to make profits for +plumbers. Then suddenly Nature takes her revenge. She strikes at the +city with a pestilence and at the hospital with an epidemic of hospital +gangrene, slaughtering right and left until the innocent young have paid +for the guilty old, and the account is balanced. And then she goes to +sleep again and gives another period of credit, with the same result. + +This is what has just happened in our political hygiene. Political +science has been as recklessly neglected by Governments and electorates +during my lifetime as sanitary science was in the days of Charles the +Second. In international relations diplomacy has been a boyishly lawless +affair of family intrigues, commercial and territorial brigandage, +torpors of pseudo-goodnature produced by laziness and spasms of +ferocious activity produced by terror. But in these islands we muddled +through. Nature gave us a longer credit than she gave to France or +Germany or Russia. To British centenarians who died in their beds in +1914, any dread of having to hide underground in London from the +shells of an enemy seemed more remote and fantastic than a dread of the +appearance of a colony of cobras and rattlesnakes in Kensington Gardens. +In the prophetic works of Charles Dickens we were warned against +many evils which have since come to pass; but of the evil of being +slaughtered by a foreign foe on our own doorsteps there was no shadow. +Nature gave us a very long credit; and we abused it to the utmost. But +when she struck at last she struck with a vengeance. For four years +she smote our firstborn and heaped on us plagues of which Egypt never +dreamed. They were all as preventable as the great Plague of London, and +came solely because they had not been prevented. They were not undone by +winning the war. The earth is still bursting with the dead bodies of the +victors. + + + +The Wicked Half Century + +It is difficult to say whether indifference and neglect are worse than +false doctrine; but Heartbreak House and Horseback Hall unfortunately +suffered from both. For half a century before the war civilization had +been going to the devil very precipitately under the influence of a +pseudo-science as disastrous as the blackest Calvinism. Calvinism taught +that as we are predestinately saved or damned, nothing that we can do +can alter our destiny. Still, as Calvinism gave the individual no clue +as to whether he had drawn a lucky number or an unlucky one, it left +him a fairly strong interest in encouraging his hopes of salvation and +allaying his fear of damnation by behaving as one of the elect might +be expected to behave rather than as one of the reprobate. But in the +middle of the nineteenth century naturalists and physicists assured +the world, in the name of Science, that salvation and damnation are +all nonsense, and that predestination is the central truth of religion, +inasmuch as human beings are produced by their environment, their sins +and good deeds being only a series of chemical and mechanical reactions +over which they have no control. Such figments as mind, choice, purpose, +conscience, will, and so forth, are, they taught, mere illusions, +produced because they are useful in the continual struggle of the human +machine to maintain its environment in a favorable condition, a process +incidentally involving the ruthless destruction or subjection of its +competitors for the supply (assumed to be limited) of subsistence +available. We taught Prussia this religion; and Prussia bettered our +instruction so effectively that we presently found ourselves confronted +with the necessity of destroying Prussia to prevent Prussia destroying +us. And that has just ended in each destroying the other to an extent +doubtfully reparable in our time. + +It may be asked how so imbecile and dangerous a creed ever came to be +accepted by intelligent beings. I will answer that question more fully +in my next volume of plays, which will be entirely devoted to the +subject. For the present I will only say that there were better reasons +than the obvious one that such sham science as this opened a scientific +career to very stupid men, and all the other careers to shameless +rascals, provided they were industrious enough. It is true that +this motive operated very powerfully; but when the new departure in +scientific doctrine which is associated with the name of the great +naturalist Charles Darwin began, it was not only a reaction against a +barbarous pseudo-evangelical teleology intolerably obstructive to all +scientific progress, but was accompanied, as it happened, by discoveries +of extraordinary interest in physics, chemistry, and that lifeless +method of evolution which its investigators called Natural Selection. +Howbeit, there was only one result possible in the ethical sphere, and +that was the banishment of conscience from human affairs, or, as Samuel +Butler vehemently put it, "of mind from the universe." + + + +Hypochondria + +Now Heartbreak House, with Butler and Bergson and Scott Haldane +alongside Blake and the other major poets on its shelves (to say nothing +of Wagner and the tone poets), was not so completely blinded by the +doltish materialism of the laboratories as the uncultured world outside. +But being an idle house it was a hypochondriacal house, always running +after cures. It would stop eating meat, not on valid Shelleyan grounds, +but in order to get rid of a bogey called Uric Acid; and it would +actually let you pull all its teeth out to exorcise another demon +named Pyorrhea. It was superstitious, and addicted to table-rapping, +materialization seances, clairvoyance, palmistry, crystal-gazing and the +like to such an extent that it may be doubted whether ever before in +the history of the world did soothsayers, astrologers, and unregistered +therapeutic specialists of all sorts flourish as they did during this +half century of the drift to the abyss. The registered doctors and +surgeons were hard put to it to compete with the unregistered. They were +not clever enough to appeal to the imagination and sociability of +the Heartbreakers by the arts of the actor, the orator, the poet, the +winning conversationalist. They had to fall back coarsely on the terror +of infection and death. They prescribed inoculations and operations. +Whatever part of a human being could be cut out without necessarily +killing him they cut out; and he often died (unnecessarily of course) +in consequence. From such trifles as uvulas and tonsils they went on +to ovaries and appendices until at last no one's inside was safe. They +explained that the human intestine was too long, and that nothing could +make a child of Adam healthy except short circuiting the pylorus by +cutting a length out of the lower intestine and fastening it directly to +the stomach. As their mechanist theory taught them that medicine was +the business of the chemist's laboratory, and surgery of the carpenter's +shop, and also that Science (by which they meant their practices) was +so important that no consideration for the interests of any individual +creature, whether frog or philosopher, much less the vulgar commonplaces +of sentimental ethics, could weigh for a moment against the remotest +off-chance of an addition to the body of scientific knowledge, they +operated and vivisected and inoculated and lied on a stupendous scale, +clamoring for and actually acquiring such legal powers over the bodies +of their fellow-citizens as neither king, pope, nor parliament dare ever +have claimed. The Inquisition itself was a Liberal institution compared +to the General Medical Council. + + + +Those who do not know how to live must make a Merit of Dying + +Heartbreak House was far too lazy and shallow to extricate itself from +this palace of evil enchantment. It rhapsodized about love; but it +believed in cruelty. It was afraid of the cruel people; and it saw that +cruelty was at least effective. Cruelty did things that made money, +whereas Love did nothing but prove the soundness of Larochefoucauld's +saying that very few people would fall in love if they had never read +about it. Heartbreak House, in short, did not know how to live, at which +point all that was left to it was the boast that at least it knew how +to die: a melancholy accomplishment which the outbreak of war presently +gave it practically unlimited opportunities of displaying. Thus were the +firstborn of Heartbreak House smitten; and the young, the innocent, the +hopeful, expiated the folly and worthlessness of their elders. + + +War Delirium + +Only those who have lived through a first-rate war, not in the +field, but at home, and kept their heads, can possibly understand +the bitterness of Shakespeare and Swift, who both went through this +experience. The horror of Peer Gynt in the madhouse, when the lunatics, +exalted by illusions of splendid talent and visions of a dawning +millennium, crowned him as their emperor, was tame in comparison. I do +not know whether anyone really kept his head completely except those +who had to keep it because they had to conduct the war at first hand. +I should not have kept my own (as far as I did keep it) if I had not at +once understood that as a scribe and speaker I too was under the most +serious public obligation to keep my grip on realities; but this did +not save me from a considerable degree of hyperaesthesia. There were of +course some happy people to whom the war meant nothing: all political +and general matters lying outside their little circle of interest. But +the ordinary war-conscious civilian went mad, the main symptom being a +conviction that the whole order of nature had been reversed. All +foods, he felt, must now be adulterated. All schools must be closed. +No advertisements must be sent to the newspapers, of which new editions +must appear and be bought up every ten minutes. Travelling must be +stopped, or, that being impossible, greatly hindered. All pretences +about fine art and culture and the like must be flung off as an +intolerable affectation; and the picture galleries and museums and +schools at once occupied by war workers. The British Museum itself was +saved only by a hair's breadth. The sincerity of all this, and of much +more which would not be believed if I chronicled it, may be established +by one conclusive instance of the general craziness. Men were seized +with the illusion that they could win the war by giving away money. +And they not only subscribed millions to Funds of all sorts with no +discoverable object, and to ridiculous voluntary organizations for doing +what was plainly the business of the civil and military authorities, +but actually handed out money to any thief in the street who had the +presence of mind to pretend that he (or she) was "collecting" it for the +annihilation of the enemy. Swindlers were emboldened to take offices; +label themselves Anti-Enemy Leagues; and simply pocket the money that +was heaped on them. Attractively dressed young women found that they had +nothing to do but parade the streets, collecting-box in hand, and live +gloriously on the profits. Many months elapsed before, as a first sign +of returning sanity, the police swept an Anti-Enemy secretary into +prison pour encourages les autres, and the passionate penny collecting +of the Flag Days was brought under some sort of regulation. + + + +Madness in Court + +The demoralization did not spare the Law Courts. Soldiers were +acquitted, even on fully proved indictments for wilful murder, until at +last the judges and magistrates had to announce that what was called the +Unwritten Law, which meant simply that a soldier could do what he liked +with impunity in civil life, was not the law of the land, and that a +Victoria Cross did not carry with it a perpetual plenary indulgence. +Unfortunately the insanity of the juries and magistrates did not always +manifest itself in indulgence. No person unlucky enough to be charged +with any sort of conduct, however reasonable and salutary, that did not +smack of war delirium, had the slightest chance of acquittal. There were +in the country, too, a certain number of people who had conscientious +objections to war as criminal or unchristian. The Act of Parliament +introducing Compulsory Military Service thoughtlessly exempted these +persons, merely requiring them to prove the genuineness of their +convictions. Those who did so were very ill-advised from the point +of view of their own personal interest; for they were persecuted with +savage logicality in spite of the law; whilst those who made no pretence +of having any objection to war at all, and had not only had military +training in Officers' Training Corps, but had proclaimed on public +occasions that they were perfectly ready to engage in civil war on +behalf of their political opinions, were allowed the benefit of the Act +on the ground that they did not approve of this particular war. For the +Christians there was no mercy. In cases where the evidence as to their +being killed by ill treatment was so unequivocal that the verdict +would certainly have been one of wilful murder had the prejudice of +the coroner's jury been on the other side, their tormentors were +gratuitously declared to be blameless. There was only one virtue, +pugnacity: only one vice, pacifism. That is an essential condition of +war; but the Government had not the courage to legislate accordingly; +and its law was set aside for Lynch law. + +The climax of legal lawlessness was reached in France. The greatest +Socialist statesman in Europe, Jaures, was shot and killed by a +gentleman who resented his efforts to avert the war. M. Clemenceau was +shot by another gentleman of less popular opinions, and happily came off +no worse than having to spend a precautionary couple of days in bed. +The slayer of Jaures was recklessly acquitted: the would-be slayer of M. +Clemenceau was carefully found guilty. There is no reason to doubt that +the same thing would have happened in England if the war had begun +with a successful attempt to assassinate Keir Hardie, and ended with an +unsuccessful one to assassinate Mr Lloyd George. + + + +The Long Arm of War + +The pestilence which is the usual accompaniment of war was called +influenza. Whether it was really a war pestilence or not was made +doubtful by the fact that it did its worst in places remote from the +battlefields, notably on the west coast of North America and in India. +But the moral pestilence, which was unquestionably a war pestilence, +reproduced this phenomenon. One would have supposed that the war fever +would have raged most furiously in the countries actually under fire, +and that the others would be more reasonable. Belgium and Flanders, +where over large districts literally not one stone was left upon another +as the opposed armies drove each other back and forward over it +after terrific preliminary bombardments, might have been pardoned for +relieving their feelings more emphatically than by shrugging their +shoulders and saying, "C'est la guerre." England, inviolate for so many +centuries that the swoop of war on her homesteads had long ceased to be +more credible than a return of the Flood, could hardly be expected +to keep her temper sweet when she knew at last what it was to hide in +cellars and underground railway stations, or lie quaking in bed, whilst +bombs crashed, houses crumbled, and aircraft guns distributed shrapnel +on friend and foe alike until certain shop windows in London, formerly +full of fashionable hats, were filled with steel helmets. Slain and +mutilated women and children, and burnt and wrecked dwellings, excuse a +good deal of violent language, and produce a wrath on which many suns go +down before it is appeased. Yet it was in the United States of America +where nobody slept the worse for the war, that the war fever went +beyond all sense and reason. In European Courts there was vindictive +illegality: in American Courts there was raving lunacy. It is not for me +to chronicle the extravagances of an Ally: let some candid American do +that. I can only say that to us sitting in our gardens in England, +with the guns in France making themselves felt by a throb in the air as +unmistakeable as an audible sound, or with tightening hearts studying +the phases of the moon in London in their bearing on the chances whether +our houses would be standing or ourselves alive next morning, the +newspaper accounts of the sentences American Courts were passing on +young girls and old men alike for the expression of opinions which were +being uttered amid thundering applause before huge audiences in England, +and the more private records of the methods by which the American +War Loans were raised, were so amazing that they put the guns and the +possibilities of a raid clean out of our heads for the moment. + + + +The Rabid Watchdogs of Liberty + +Not content with these rancorous abuses of the existing law, the war +maniacs made a frantic rush to abolish all constitutional guarantees of +liberty and well-being. The ordinary law was superseded by Acts under +which newspapers were seized and their printing machinery destroyed by +simple police raids a la Russe, and persons arrested and shot without +any pretence of trial by jury or publicity of procedure or evidence. +Though it was urgently necessary that production should be increased +by the most scientific organization and economy of labor, and though no +fact was better established than that excessive duration and intensity +of toil reduces production heavily instead of increasing it, the factory +laws were suspended, and men and women recklessly over-worked until the +loss of their efficiency became too glaring to be ignored. Remonstrances +and warnings were met either with an accusation of pro-Germanism or the +formula, "Remember that we are at war now." I have said that men assumed +that war had reversed the order of nature, and that all was lost unless +we did the exact opposite of everything we had found necessary and +beneficial in peace. But the truth was worse than that. The war did not +change men's minds in any such impossible way. What really happened was +that the impact of physical death and destruction, the one reality that +every fool can understand, tore off the masks of education, art, science +and religion from our ignorance and barbarism, and left us glorying +grotesquely in the licence suddenly accorded to our vilest passions and +most abject terrors. Ever since Thucydides wrote his history, it has +been on record that when the angel of death sounds his trumpet the +pretences of civilization are blown from men's heads into the mud like +hats in a gust of wind. But when this scripture was fulfilled among us, +the shock was not the less appalling because a few students of Greek +history were not surprised by it. Indeed these students threw themselves +into the orgy as shamelessly as the illiterate. The Christian priest, +joining in the war dance without even throwing off his cassock first, +and the respectable school governor expelling the German professor with +insult and bodily violence, and declaring that no English child should +ever again be taught the language of Luther and Goethe, were kept +in countenance by the most impudent repudiations of every decency of +civilization and every lesson of political experience on the part of the +very persons who, as university professors, historians, philosophers, +and men of science, were the accredited custodians of culture. It was +crudely natural, and perhaps necessary for recruiting purposes, that +German militarism and German dynastic ambition should be painted by +journalists and recruiters in black and red as European dangers (as in +fact they are), leaving it to be inferred that our own militarism and +our own political constitution are millennially democratic (which they +certainly are not); but when it came to frantic denunciations of +German chemistry, German biology, German poetry, German music, German +literature, German philosophy, and even German engineering, as malignant +abominations standing towards British and French chemistry and so forth +in the relation of heaven to hell, it was clear that the utterers of +such barbarous ravings had never really understood or cared for the +arts and sciences they professed and were profaning, and were only the +appallingly degenerate descendants of the men of the seventeenth and +eighteenth centuries who, recognizing no national frontiers in the great +realm of the human mind, kept the European comity of that realm loftily +and even ostentatiously above the rancors of the battle-field. Tearing +the Garter from the Kaiser's leg, striking the German dukes from the +roll of our peerage, changing the King's illustrious and historically +appropriate surname (for the war was the old war of Guelph against +Ghibelline, with the Kaiser as Arch-Ghibelline) to that of a +traditionless locality. One felt that the figure of St. George and the +Dragon on our coinage should be replaced by that of the soldier driving +his spear through Archimedes. But by that time there was no coinage: +only paper money in which ten shillings called itself a pound as +confidently as the people who were disgracing their country called +themselves patriots. + + + +The Sufferings of the Sane + +The mental distress of living amid the obscene din of all these +carmagnoles and corobberies was not the only burden that lay on sane +people during the war. There was also the emotional strain, complicated +by the offended economic sense, produced by the casualty lists. The +stupid, the selfish, the narrow-minded, the callous and unimaginative +were spared a great deal. "Blood and destruction shall be so in use that +mothers shall but smile when they behold their infantes quartered by the +hands of war," was a Shakespearean prophecy that very nearly came true; +for when nearly every house had a slaughtered son to mourn, we should +all have gone quite out of our senses if we had taken our own and our +friend's bereavements at their peace value. It became necessary to give +them a false value; to proclaim the young life worthily and gloriously +sacrificed to redeem the liberty of mankind, instead of to expiate the +heedlessness and folly of their fathers, and expiate it in vain. We +had even to assume that the parents and not the children had made the +sacrifice, until at last the comic papers were driven to satirize fat +old men, sitting comfortably in club chairs, and boasting of the sons +they had "given" to their country. + +No one grudged these anodynes to acute personal grief; but they only +embittered those who knew that the young men were having their teeth +set on edge because their parents had eaten sour political grapes. Then +think of the young men themselves! Many of them had no illusions about +the policy that led to the war: they went clear-sighted to a horribly +repugnant duty. Men essentially gentle and essentially wise, with really +valuable work in hand, laid it down voluntarily and spent months forming +fours in the barrack yard, and stabbing sacks of straw in the public +eye, so that they might go out to kill and maim men as gentle as +themselves. These men, who were perhaps, as a class, our most efficient +soldiers (Frederick Keeling, for example), were not duped for a moment +by the hypocritical melodrama that consoled and stimulated the others. +They left their creative work to drudge at destruction, exactly as they +would have left it to take their turn at the pumps in a sinking ship. +They did not, like some of the conscientious objectors, hold back +because the ship had been neglected by its officers and scuttled by +its wreckers. The ship had to be saved, even if Newton had to leave his +fluxions and Michael Angelo his marbles to save it; so they threw away +the tools of their beneficent and ennobling trades, and took up the +blood-stained bayonet and the murderous bomb, forcing themselves to +pervert their divine instinct for perfect artistic execution to the +effective handling of these diabolical things, and their economic +faculty for organization to the contriving of ruin and slaughter. For +it gave an ironic edge to their tragedy that the very talents they were +forced to prostitute made the prostitution not only effective, but +even interesting; so that some of them were rapidly promoted, and found +themselves actually becoming artists in wax, with a growing relish for +it, like Napoleon and all the other scourges of mankind, in spite of +themselves. For many of them there was not even this consolation. They +"stuck it," and hated it, to the end. + + + +Evil in the Throne of Good + +This distress of the gentle was so acute that those who shared it +in civil life, without having to shed blood with their own hands, or +witness destruction with their own eyes, hardly care to obtrude their +own woes. Nevertheless, even when sitting at home in safety, it was not +easy for those who had to write and speak about the war to throw +away their highest conscience, and deliberately work to a standard of +inevitable evil instead of to the ideal of life more abundant. I can +answer for at least one person who found the change from the wisdom of +Jesus and St. Francis to the morals of Richard III and the madness of +Don Quixote extremely irksome. But that change had to be made; and we +are all the worse for it, except those for whom it was not really a +change at all, but only a relief from hypocrisy. + +Think, too, of those who, though they had neither to write nor to fight, +and had no children of their own to lose, yet knew the inestimable +loss to the world of four years of the life of a generation wasted on +destruction. Hardly one of the epoch-making works of the human mind +might not have been aborted or destroyed by taking their authors +away from their natural work for four critical years. Not only were +Shakespeares and Platos being killed outright; but many of the best +harvests of the survivors had to be sown in the barren soil of the +trenches. And this was no mere British consideration. To the truly +civilized man, to the good European, the slaughter of the German youth +was as disastrous as the slaughter of the English. Fools exulted in +"German losses." They were our losses as well. Imagine exulting in the +death of Beethoven because Bill Sykes dealt him his death blow! + + + +Straining at the Gnat and swallowing the Camel + +But most people could not comprehend these sorrows. There was a +frivolous exultation in death for its own sake, which was at bottom +an inability to realize that the deaths were real deaths and not stage +ones. Again and again, when an air raider dropped a bomb which tore a +child and its mother limb from limb, the people who saw it, though they +had been reading with great cheerfulness of thousands of such happenings +day after day in their newspapers, suddenly burst into furious +imprecations on "the Huns" as murderers, and shrieked for savage and +satisfying vengeance. At such moments it became clear that the deaths +they had not seen meant no more to them than the mimic death of the +cinema screen. Sometimes it was not necessary that death should be +actually witnessed: it had only to take place under circumstances +of sufficient novelty and proximity to bring it home almost as +sensationally and effectively as if it had been actually visible. + +For example, in the spring of 1915 there was an appalling slaughter of +our young soldiers at Neuve Chapelle and at the Gallipoli landing. I +will not go so far as to say that our civilians were delighted to have +such exciting news to read at breakfast. But I cannot pretend that I +noticed either in the papers, or in general intercourse, any feeling +beyond the usual one that the cinema show at the front was going +splendidly, and that our boys were the bravest of the brave. Suddenly +there came the news that an Atlantic liner, the Lusitania, had been +torpedoed, and that several well-known first-class passengers, including +a famous theatrical manager and the author of a popular farce, had been +drowned, among others. The others included Sir Hugh Lane; but as he had +only laid the country under great obligations in the sphere of the fine +arts, no great stress was laid on that loss. Immediately an amazing +frenzy swept through the country. Men who up to that time had kept their +heads now lost them utterly. "Killing saloon passengers! What next?" was +the essence of the whole agitation; but it is far too trivial a phrase +to convey the faintest notion of the rage which possessed us. To me, +with my mind full of the hideous cost of Neuve Chapelle, Ypres, and +the Gallipoli landing, the fuss about the Lusitania seemed almost a +heartless impertinence, though I was well acquainted personally with +the three best-known victims, and understood, better perhaps than +most people, the misfortune of the death of Lane. I even found a grim +satisfaction, very intelligible to all soldiers, in the fact that the +civilians who found the war such splendid British sport should get a +sharp taste of what it was to the actual combatants. I expressed my +impatience very freely, and found that my very straightforward and +natural feeling in the matter was received as a monstrous and heartless +paradox. When I asked those who gaped at me whether they had anything +to say about the holocaust of Festubert, they gaped wider than before, +having totally forgotten it, or rather, having never realized it. They +were not heartless anymore than I was; but the big catastrophe was too +big for them to grasp, and the little one had been just the right size +for them. I was not surprised. Have I not seen a public body for just +the same reason pass a vote for £30,000 without a word, and then spend +three special meetings, prolonged into the night, over an item of seven +shillings for refreshments? + + + +Little Minds and Big Battles + +Nobody will be able to understand the vagaries of public feeling during +the war unless they bear constantly in mind that the war in its entire +magnitude did not exist for the average civilian. He could not conceive +even a battle, much less a campaign. To the suburbs the war was nothing +but a suburban squabble. To the miner and navvy it was only a series of +bayonet fights between German champions and English ones. The enormity +of it was quite beyond most of us. Its episodes had to be reduced to the +dimensions of a railway accident or a shipwreck before it could produce +any effect on our minds at all. To us the ridiculous bombardments of +Scarborough and Ramsgate were colossal tragedies, and the battle of +Jutland a mere ballad. The words "after thorough artillery preparation" +in the news from the front meant nothing to us; but when our seaside +trippers learned that an elderly gentleman at breakfast in a week-end +marine hotel had been interrupted by a bomb dropping into his egg-cup, +their wrath and horror knew no bounds. They declared that this would put +a new spirit into the army; and had no suspicion that the soldiers in +the trenches roared with laughter over it for days, and told each other +that it would do the blighters at home good to have a taste of what the +army was up against. Sometimes the smallness of view was pathetic. A man +would work at home regardless of the call "to make the world safe for +democracy." His brother would be killed at the front. Immediately he +would throw up his work and take up the war as a family blood feud +against the Germans. Sometimes it was comic. A wounded man, entitled to +his discharge, would return to the trenches with a grim determination to +find the Hun who had wounded him and pay him out for it. + +It is impossible to estimate what proportion of us, in khaki or out +of it, grasped the war and its political antecedents as a whole in the +light of any philosophy of history or knowledge of what war is. I doubt +whether it was as high as our proportion of higher mathematicians. +But there can be no doubt that it was prodigiously outnumbered by the +comparatively ignorant and childish. Remember that these people had to +be stimulated to make the sacrifices demanded by the war, and that this +could not be done by appeals to a knowledge which they did not possess, +and a comprehension of which they were incapable. When the armistice +at last set me free to tell the truth about the war at the following +general election, a soldier said to a candidate whom I was supporting, +"If I had known all that in 1914, they would never have got me into +khaki." And that, of course, was precisely why it had been necessary +to stuff him with a romance that any diplomatist would have laughed at. +Thus the natural confusion of ignorance was increased by a deliberately +propagated confusion of nursery bogey stories and melodramatic nonsense, +which at last overreached itself and made it impossible to stop the war +before we had not only achieved the triumph of vanquishing the German +army and thereby overthrowing its militarist monarchy, but made the very +serious mistake of ruining the centre of Europe, a thing that no sane +European State could afford to do. + + + +The Dumb Capables and the Noisy Incapables + +Confronted with this picture of insensate delusion and folly, the +critical reader will immediately counterplead that England all this time +was conducting a war which involved the organization of several +millions of fighting men and of the workers who were supplying them with +provisions, munitions, and transport, and that this could not have been +done by a mob of hysterical ranters. This is fortunately true. To pass +from the newspaper offices and political platforms and club fenders and +suburban drawing-rooms to the Army and the munition factories was to +pass from Bedlam to the busiest and sanest of workaday worlds. It was +to rediscover England, and find solid ground for the faith of those who +still believed in her. But a necessary condition of this efficiency +was that those who were efficient should give all their time to their +business and leave the rabble raving to its heart's content. Indeed the +raving was useful to the efficient, because, as it was always wide +of the mark, it often distracted attention very conveniently from +operations that would have been defeated or hindered by publicity. A +precept which I endeavored vainly to popularize early in the war, "If +you have anything to do go and do it: if not, for heaven's sake get out +of the way," was only half carried out. Certainly the capable people +went and did it; but the incapables would by no means get out of the +way: they fussed and bawled and were only prevented from getting very +seriously into the way by the blessed fact that they never knew where +the way was. Thus whilst all the efficiency of England was silent and +invisible, all its imbecility was deafening the heavens with its clamor +and blotting out the sun with its dust. It was also unfortunately +intimidating the Government by its blusterings into using the +irresistible powers of the State to intimidate the sensible people, thus +enabling a despicable minority of would-be lynchers to set up a reign of +terror which could at any time have been broken by a single stern word +from a responsible minister. But our ministers had not that sort of +courage: neither Heartbreak House nor Horseback Hall had bred it, much +less the suburbs. When matters at last came to the looting of shops by +criminals under patriotic pretexts, it was the police force and not the +Government that put its foot down. There was even one deplorable +moment, during the submarine scare, in which the Government yielded to a +childish cry for the maltreatment of naval prisoners of war, and, to our +great disgrace, was forced by the enemy to behave itself. And yet behind +all this public blundering and misconduct and futile mischief, the +effective England was carrying on with the most formidable capacity and +activity. The ostensible England was making the empire sick with its +incontinences, its ignorances, its ferocities, its panics, and its +endless and intolerable blarings of Allied national anthems in season +and out. The esoteric England was proceeding irresistibly to the +conquest of Europe. + + + +The Practical Business Men + +From the beginning the useless people set up a shriek for "practical +business men." By this they meant men who had become rich by placing +their personal interests before those of the country, and measuring the +success of every activity by the pecuniary profit it brought to them +and to those on whom they depended for their supplies of capital. The +pitiable failure of some conspicuous samples from the first batch we +tried of these poor devils helped to give the whole public side of the +war an air of monstrous and hopeless farce. They proved not only that +they were useless for public work, but that in a well-ordered nation +they would never have been allowed to control private enterprise. + + + +How the Fools shouted the Wise Men down + +Thus, like a fertile country flooded with mud, England showed no sign of +her greatness in the days when she was putting forth all her strength to +save herself from the worst consequences of her littleness. Most of +the men of action, occupied to the last hour of their time with urgent +practical work, had to leave to idler people, or to professional +rhetoricians, the presentation of the war to the reason and imagination +of the country and the world in speeches, poems, manifestoes, picture +posters, and newspaper articles. I have had the privilege of hearing +some of our ablest commanders talking about their work; and I have +shared the common lot of reading the accounts of that work given to the +world by the newspapers. No two experiences could be more different. But +in the end the talkers obtained a dangerous ascendancy over the rank and +file of the men of action; for though the great men of action are always +inveterate talkers and often very clever writers, and therefore cannot +have their minds formed for them by others, the average man of action, +like the average fighter with the bayonet, can give no account of +himself in words even to himself, and is apt to pick up and accept what +he reads about himself and other people in the papers, except when the +writer is rash enough to commit himself on technical points. It was not +uncommon during the war to hear a soldier, or a civilian engaged on war +work, describing events within his own experience that reduced to utter +absurdity the ravings and maunderings of his daily paper, and yet echo +the opinions of that paper like a parrot. Thus, to escape from the +prevailing confusion and folly, it was not enough to seek the company of +the ordinary man of action: one had to get into contact with the master +spirits. This was a privilege which only a handful of people could +enjoy. For the unprivileged citizen there was no escape. To him the +whole country seemed mad, futile, silly, incompetent, with no hope of +victory except the hope that the enemy might be just as mad. Only by +very resolute reflection and reasoning could he reassure himself that if +there was nothing more solid beneath their appalling appearances the +war could not possibly have gone on for a single day without a total +breakdown of its organization. + + + +The Mad Election + +Happy were the fools and the thoughtless men of action in those days. +The worst of it was that the fools were very strongly represented in +parliament, as fools not only elect fools, but can persuade men of +action to elect them too. The election that immediately followed the +armistice was perhaps the maddest that has ever taken place. Soldiers +who had done voluntary and heroic service in the field were defeated +by persons who had apparently never run a risk or spent a farthing that +they could avoid, and who even had in the course of the election to +apologize publicly for bawling Pacifist or Pro-German at their opponent. +Party leaders seek such followers, who can always be depended on to walk +tamely into the lobby at the party whip's orders, provided the leader +will make their seats safe for them by the process which was called, +in derisive reference to the war rationing system, "giving them the +coupon." Other incidents were so grotesque that I cannot mention them +without enabling the reader to identify the parties, which would not be +fair, as they were no more to blame than thousands of others who must +necessarily be nameless. The general result was patently absurd; and +the electorate, disgusted at its own work, instantly recoiled to the +opposite extreme, and cast out all the coupon candidates at the earliest +bye-elections by equally silly majorities. But the mischief of the +general election could not be undone; and the Government had not only to +pretend to abuse its European victory as it had promised, but actually +to do it by starving the enemies who had thrown down their arms. It had, +in short, won the election by pledging itself to be thriftlessly wicked, +cruel, and vindictive; and it did not find it as easy to escape from +this pledge as it had from nobler ones. The end, as I write, is not yet; +but it is clear that this thoughtless savagery will recoil on the +heads of the Allies so severely that we shall be forced by the sternest +necessity to take up our share of healing the Europe we have wounded +almost to death instead of attempting to complete her destruction. + + + +The Yahoo and the Angry Ape + +Contemplating this picture of a state of mankind so recent that no +denial of its truth is possible, one understands Shakespeare comparing +Man to an angry ape, Swift describing him as a Yahoo rebuked by the +superior virtue of the horse, and Wellington declaring that the British +can behave themselves neither in victory nor defeat. Yet none of the +three had seen war as we have seen it. Shakespeare blamed great men, +saying that "Could great men thunder as Jove himself does, Jove would +ne'er be quiet; for every pelting petty officer would use his heaven for +thunder: nothing but thunder." What would Shakespeare have said if he +had seen something far more destructive than thunder in the hand of +every village laborer, and found on the Messines Ridge the craters +of the nineteen volcanoes that were let loose there at the touch of a +finger that might have been a child's finger without the result being a +whit less ruinous? Shakespeare may have seen a Stratford cottage struck +by one of Jove's thunderbolts, and have helped to extinguish the lighted +thatch and clear away the bits of the broken chimney. What would he have +said if he had seen Ypres as it is now, or returned to Stratford, as +French peasants are returning to their homes to-day, to find the old +familiar signpost inscribed "To Stratford, 1 mile," and at the end of +the mile nothing but some holes in the ground and a fragment of a broken +churn here and there? Would not the spectacle of the angry ape endowed +with powers of destruction that Jove never pretended to, have beggared +even his command of words? + +And yet, what is there to say except that war puts a strain on human +nature that breaks down the better half of it, and makes the worse half +a diabolical virtue? Better, for us if it broke it down altogether, for +then the warlike way out of our difficulties would be barred to us, and +we should take greater care not to get into them. In truth, it is, as +Byron said, "not difficult to die," and enormously difficult to live: +that explains why, at bottom, peace is not only better than war, but +infinitely more arduous. Did any hero of the war face the glorious +risk of death more bravely than the traitor Bolo faced the ignominious +certainty of it? Bolo taught us all how to die: can we say that he +taught us all how to live? Hardly a week passes now without some soldier +who braved death in the field so recklessly that he was decorated or +specially commended for it, being haled before our magistrates for +having failed to resist the paltriest temptations of peace, with no +better excuse than the old one that "a man must live." Strange that one +who, sooner than do honest work, will sell his honor for a bottle of +wine, a visit to the theatre, and an hour with a strange woman, all +obtained by passing a worthless cheque, could yet stake his life on +the most desperate chances of the battle-field! Does it not seem as if, +after all, the glory of death were cheaper than the glory of life? If +it is not easier to attain, why do so many more men attain it? At all +events it is clear that the kingdom of the Prince of Peace has not yet +become the kingdom of this world. His attempts at invasion have been +resisted far more fiercely than the Kaiser's. Successful as that +resistance has been, it has piled up a sort of National Debt that is not +the less oppressive because we have no figures for it and do not intend +to pay it. A blockade that cuts off "the grace of our Lord" is in the +long run less bearable than the blockades which merely cut off raw +materials; and against that blockade our Armada is impotent. In the +blockader's house, he has assured us, there are many mansions; but I am +afraid they do not include either Heartbreak House or Horseback Hall. + + + +Plague on Both your Houses! + +Meanwhile the Bolshevist picks and petards are at work on the +foundations of both buildings; and though the Bolshevists may be buried +in the ruins, their deaths will not save the edifices. Unfortunately +they can be built again. Like Doubting Castle, they have been demolished +many times by successive Greathearts, and rebuilt by Simple, Sloth, and +Presumption, by Feeble Mind and Much Afraid, and by all the jurymen of +Vanity Fair. Another generation of "secondary education" at our ancient +public schools and the cheaper institutions that ape them will be quite +sufficient to keep the two going until the next war. For the instruction +of that generation I leave these pages as a record of what civilian +life was during the war: a matter on which history is usually silent. +Fortunately it was a very short war. It is true that the people who +thought it could not last more than six months were very signally +refuted by the event. As Sir Douglas Haig has pointed out, its Waterloos +lasted months instead of hours. But there would have been nothing +surprising in its lasting thirty years. If it had not been for the fact +that the blockade achieved the amazing feat of starving out Europe, +which it could not possibly have done had Europe been properly organized +for war, or even for peace, the war would have lasted until the +belligerents were so tired of it that they could no longer be compelled +to compel themselves to go on with it. Considering its magnitude, the +war of 1914-18 will certainly be classed as the shortest in history. The +end came so suddenly that the combatant literally stumbled over it; +and yet it came a full year later than it should have come if the +belligerents had not been far too afraid of one another to face the +situation sensibly. Germany, having failed to provide for the war she +began, failed again to surrender before she was dangerously exhausted. +Her opponents, equally improvident, went as much too close to bankruptcy +as Germany to starvation. It was a bluff at which both were bluffed. +And, with the usual irony of war, it remains doubtful whether Germany +and Russia, the defeated, will not be the gainers; for the victors are +already busy fastening on themselves the chains they have struck from +the limbs of the vanquished. + + + +How the Theatre fared + +Let us now contract our view rather violently from the European theatre +of war to the theatre in which the fights are sham fights, and the +slain, rising the moment the curtain has fallen, go comfortably home +to supper after washing off their rose-pink wounds. It is nearly twenty +years since I was last obliged to introduce a play in the form of a +book for lack of an opportunity of presenting it in its proper mode by a +performance in a theatre. The war has thrown me back on this expedient. +Heartbreak House has not yet reached the stage. I have withheld it +because the war has completely upset the economic conditions which +formerly enabled serious drama to pay its way in London. The change is +not in the theatres nor in the management of them, nor in the authors +and actors, but in the audiences. For four years the London theatres +were crowded every night with thousands of soldiers on leave from the +front. These soldiers were not seasoned London playgoers. A childish +experience of my own gave me a clue to their condition. When I was a +small boy I was taken to the opera. I did not then know what an opera +was, though I could whistle a good deal of opera music. I had seen in +my mother's album photographs of all the great opera singers, mostly +in evening dress. In the theatre I found myself before a gilded balcony +filled with persons in evening dress whom I took to be the opera +singers. I picked out one massive dark lady as Alboni, and wondered how +soon she would stand up and sing. I was puzzled by the fact that I was +made to sit with my back to the singers instead of facing them. When the +curtain went up, my astonishment and delight were unbounded. + + + +The Soldier at the Theatre Front + +In 1915, I saw in the theatres men in khaki in just the same +predicament. To everyone who had my clue to their state of mind it was +evident that they had never been in a theatre before and did not know +what it was. At one of our great variety theatres I sat beside a young +officer, not at all a rough specimen, who, even when the curtain +rose and enlightened him as to the place where he had to look for his +entertainment, found the dramatic part of it utterly incomprehensible. +He did not know how to play his part of the game. He could understand +the people on the stage singing and dancing and performing gymnastic +feats. He not only understood but intensely enjoyed an artist who +imitated cocks crowing and pigs squeaking. But the people who pretended +that they were somebody else, and that the painted picture behind +them was real, bewildered him. In his presence I realized how very +sophisticated the natural man has to become before the conventions +of the theatre can be easily acceptable, or the purpose of the drama +obvious to him. + +Well, from the moment when the routine of leave for our soldiers was +established, such novices, accompanied by damsels (called flappers) +often as innocent as themselves, crowded the theatres to the doors. It +was hardly possible at first to find stuff crude enough to nurse them +on. The best music-hall comedians ransacked their memories for the +oldest quips and the most childish antics to avoid carrying the military +spectators out of their depth. I believe that this was a mistake as far +as the novices were concerned. Shakespeare, or the dramatized histories +of George Barnwell, Maria Martin, or the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, +would probably have been quite popular with them. But the novices were +only a minority after all. The cultivated soldier, who in time of peace +would look at nothing theatrical except the most advanced postIbsen +plays in the most artistic settings, found himself, to his own +astonishment, thirsting for silly jokes, dances, and brainlessly +sensuous exhibitions of pretty girls. The author of some of the most +grimly serious plays of our time told me that after enduring the +trenches for months without a glimpse of the female of his species, it +gave him an entirely innocent but delightful pleasure merely to see +a flapper. The reaction from the battle-field produced a condition of +hyperaesthesia in which all the theatrical values were altered. Trivial +things gained intensity and stale things novelty. The actor, instead of +having to coax his audiences out of the boredom which had driven them to +the theatre in an ill humor to seek some sort of distraction, had only +to exploit the bliss of smiling men who were no longer under fire and +under military discipline, but actually clean and comfortable and in a +mood to be pleased with anything and everything that a bevy of pretty +girls and a funny man, or even a bevy of girls pretending to be pretty +and a man pretending to be funny, could do for them. + +Then could be seen every night in the theatres oldfashioned farcical +comedies, in which a bedroom, with four doors on each side and a +practicable window in the middle, was understood to resemble exactly the +bedroom in the flats beneath and above, all three inhabited by couples +consumed with jealousy. When these people came home drunk at night; +mistook their neighbor's flats for their own; and in due course got +into the wrong beds, it was not only the novices who found the resulting +complications and scandals exquisitely ingenious and amusing, nor their +equally verdant flappers who could not help squealing in a manner that +astonished the oldest performers when the gentleman who had just come in +drunk through the window pretended to undress, and allowed glimpses of +his naked person to be descried from time to time. + + + +Heartbreak House + +Men who had just read the news that Charles Wyndham was dying, and +were thereby sadly reminded of Pink Dominos and the torrent of farcical +comedies that followed it in his heyday until every trick of that trade +had become so stale that the laughter they provoked turned to loathing: +these veterans also, when they returned from the field, were as much +pleased by what they knew to be stale and foolish as the novices by what +they thought fresh and clever. + + + +Commerce in the Theatre + +Wellington said that an army moves on its belly. So does a London +theatre. Before a man acts he must eat. Before he performs plays he must +pay rent. In London we have no theatres for the welfare of the people: +they are all for the sole purpose of producing the utmost obtainable +rent for the proprietor. If the twin flats and twin beds produce a +guinea more than Shakespeare, out goes Shakespeare and in come the twin +flats and the twin beds. If the brainless bevy of pretty girls and the +funny man outbid Mozart, out goes Mozart. + + + +Unser Shakespeare + +Before the war an effort was made to remedy this by establishing a +national theatre in celebration of the tercentenary of the death of +Shakespeare. A committee was formed; and all sorts of illustrious and +influential persons lent their names to a grand appeal to our national +culture. My play, The Dark Lady of The Sonnets, was one of the incidents +of that appeal. After some years of effort the result was a single +handsome subscription from a German gentleman. Like the celebrated +swearer in the anecdote when the cart containing all his household goods +lost its tailboard at the top of the hill and let its contents roll +in ruin to the bottom, I can only say, "I cannot do justice to this +situation," and let it pass without another word. + + + +The Higher Drama put out of Action + +The effect of the war on the London theatres may now be imagined. The +beds and the bevies drove every higher form of art out of it. Rents +went up to an unprecedented figure. At the same time prices doubled +everywhere except at the theatre pay-boxes, and raised the expenses of +management to such a degree that unless the houses were quite full every +night, profit was impossible. Even bare solvency could not be attained +without a very wide popularity. Now what had made serious drama possible +to a limited extent before the war was that a play could pay its +way even if the theatre were only half full until Saturday and +three-quarters full then. A manager who was an enthusiast and a +desperately hard worker, with an occasional grant-in-aid from an +artistically disposed millionaire, and a due proportion of those rare +and happy accidents by which plays of the higher sort turn out to be +potboilers as well, could hold out for some years, by which time a relay +might arrive in the person of another enthusiast. Thus and not otherwise +occurred that remarkable revival of the British drama at the beginning +of the century which made my own career as a playwright possible in +England. In America I had already established myself, not as part of the +ordinary theatre system, but in association with the exceptional genius +of Richard Mansfield. In Germany and Austria I had no difficulty: the +system of publicly aided theatres there, Court and Municipal, kept drama +of the kind I dealt in alive; so that I was indebted to the Emperor of +Austria for magnificent productions of my works at a time when the sole +official attention paid me by the British Courts was the announcement +to the English-speaking world that certain plays of mine were unfit for +public performance, a substantial set-off against this being that the +British Court, in the course of its private playgoing, paid no regard to +the bad character given me by the chief officer of its household. + +Howbeit, the fact that my plays effected a lodgment on the London stage, +and were presently followed by the plays of Granville Barker, Gilbert +Murray, John Masefield, St. John Hankin, Lawrence Housman, Arnold +Bennett, John Galsworthy, John Drinkwater, and others which would in +the nineteenth century have stood rather less chance of production at a +London theatre than the Dialogues of Plato, not to mention revivals +of the ancient Athenian drama and a restoration to the stage of +Shakespeare's plays as he wrote them, was made economically possible +solely by a supply of theatres which could hold nearly twice as much +money as it cost to rent and maintain them. In such theatres work +appealing to a relatively small class of cultivated persons, and +therefore attracting only from half to three-quarters as many spectators +as the more popular pastimes, could nevertheless keep going in the hands +of young adventurers who were doing it for its own sake, and had not +yet been forced by advancing age and responsibilities to consider the +commercial value of their time and energy too closely. The war struck +this foundation away in the manner I have just described. The expenses +of running the cheapest west-end theatres rose to a sum which exceeded +by twenty-five per cent the utmost that the higher drama can, as an +ascertained matter of fact, be depended on to draw. Thus the higher +drama, which has never really been a commercially sound speculation, +now became an impossible one. Accordingly, attempts are being made to +provide a refuge for it in suburban theatres in London and repertory +theatres in the provinces. But at the moment when the army has at last +disgorged the survivors of the gallant band of dramatic pioneers whom +it swallowed, they find that the economic conditions which formerly +made their work no worse than precarious now put it out of the question +altogether, as far as the west end of London is concerned. + + + +Church and Theatre + +I do not suppose many people care particularly. We are not brought up to +care; and a sense of the national importance of the theatre is not +born in mankind: the natural man, like so many of the soldiers at the +beginning of the war, does not know what a theatre is. But please note +that all these soldiers who did not know what a theatre was, knew what +a church was. And they had been taught to respect churches. Nobody +had ever warned them against a church as a place where frivolous women +paraded in their best clothes; where stories of improper females like +Potiphar's wife, and erotic poetry like the Song of Songs, were +read aloud; where the sensuous and sentimental music of Schubert, +Mendelssohn, Gounod, and Brahms was more popular than severe music by +greater composers; where the prettiest sort of pretty pictures of +pretty saints assailed the imagination and senses through stained-glass +windows; and where sculpture and architecture came to the help of +painting. Nobody ever reminded them that these things had sometimes +produced such developments of erotic idolatry that men who were not only +enthusiastic amateurs of literature, painting, and music, but famous +practitioners of them, had actually exulted when mobs and even regular +troops under express command had mutilated church statues, smashed +church windows, wrecked church organs, and torn up the sheets from which +the church music was read and sung. When they saw broken statues in +churches, they were told that this was the work of wicked, godless +rioters, instead of, as it was, the work partly of zealots bent on +driving the world, the flesh, and the devil out of the temple, and +partly of insurgent men who had become intolerably poor because the +temple had become a den of thieves. But all the sins and perversions +that were so carefully hidden from them in the history of the Church +were laid on the shoulders of the Theatre: that stuffy, uncomfortable +place of penance in which we suffer so much inconvenience on the +slenderest chance of gaining a scrap of food for our starving souls. +When the Germans bombed the Cathedral of Rheims the world rang with +the horror of the sacrilege. When they bombed the Little Theatre in +the Adelphi, and narrowly missed bombing two writers of plays who lived +within a few yards of it, the fact was not even mentioned in the papers. +In point of appeal to the senses no theatre ever built could touch the +fane at Rheims: no actress could rival its Virgin in beauty, nor any +operatic tenor look otherwise than a fool beside its David. Its picture +glass was glorious even to those who had seen the glass of Chartres. +It was wonderful in its very grotesques: who would look at the Blondin +Donkey after seeing its leviathans? In spite of the Adam-Adelphian +decoration on which Miss Kingston had lavished so much taste and care, +the Little Theatre was in comparison with Rheims the gloomiest of little +conventicles: indeed the cathedral must, from the Puritan point of view, +have debauched a million voluptuaries for every one whom the Little +Theatre had sent home thoughtful to a chaste bed after Mr Chesterton's +Magic or Brieux's Les Avaries. Perhaps that is the real reason why +the Church is lauded and the Theatre reviled. Whether or no, the fact +remains that the lady to whose public spirit and sense of the national +value of the theatre I owed the first regular public performance of +a play of mine had to conceal her action as if it had been a crime, +whereas if she had given the money to the Church she would have worn +a halo for it. And I admit, as I have always done, that this state of +things may have been a very sensible one. I have asked Londoners again +and again why they pay half a guinea to go to a theatre when they can +go to St. Paul's or Westminster Abbey for nothing. Their only possible +reply is that they want to see something new and possibly something +wicked; but the theatres mostly disappoint both hopes. If ever a +revolution makes me Dictator, I shall establish a heavy charge for +admission to our churches. But everyone who pays at the church door +shall receive a ticket entitling him or her to free admission to one +performance at any theatre he or she prefers. Thus shall the sensuous +charms of the church service be made to subsidize the sterner virtue of +the drama. + + + +The Next Phase + +The present situation will not last. Although the newspaper I read at +breakfast this morning before writing these words contains a calculation +that no less than twenty-three wars are at present being waged to +confirm the peace, England is no longer in khaki; and a violent reaction +is setting in against the crude theatrical fare of the four terrible +years. Soon the rents of theatres will once more be fixed on the +assumption that they cannot always be full, nor even on the average half +full week in and week out. Prices will change. The higher drama will +be at no greater disadvantage than it was before the war; and it may +benefit, first, by the fact that many of us have been torn from the +fools' paradise in which the theatre formerly traded, and thrust upon +the sternest realities and necessities until we have lost both faith in +and patience with the theatrical pretences that had no root either in +reality or necessity; second, by the startling change made by the war +in the distribution of income. It seems only the other day that a +millionaire was a man with £50,000 a year. To-day, when he has paid his +income tax and super tax, and insured his life for the amount of his +death duties, he is lucky if his net income is 10,000 pounds though his +nominal property remains the same. And this is the result of a Budget +which is called "a respite for the rich." At the other end of the scale +millions of persons have had regular incomes for the first time in +their lives; and their men have been regularly clothed, fed, lodged, and +taught to make up their minds that certain things have to be done, also +for the first time in their lives. Hundreds of thousands of women have +been taken out of their domestic cages and tasted both discipline and +independence. The thoughtless and snobbish middle classes have been +pulled up short by the very unpleasant experience of being ruined to an +unprecedented extent. We have all had a tremendous jolt; and although +the widespread notion that the shock of the war would automatically make +a new heaven and a new earth, and that the dog would never go back to +his vomit nor the sow to her wallowing in the mire, is already seen to +be a delusion, yet we are far more conscious of our condition than we +were, and far less disposed to submit to it. Revolution, lately only +a sensational chapter in history or a demagogic claptrap, is now a +possibility so imminent that hardly by trying to suppress it in +other countries by arms and defamation, and calling the process +anti-Bolshevism, can our Government stave it off at home. + +Perhaps the most tragic figure of the day is the American President who +was once a historian. In those days it became his task to tell us how, +after that great war in America which was more clearly than any other +war of our time a war for an idea, the conquerors, confronted with a +heroic task of reconstruction, turned recreant, and spent fifteen years +in abusing their victory under cover of pretending to accomplish the +task they were doing what they could to make impossible. Alas! Hegel +was right when he said that we learn from history that men never learn +anything from history. With what anguish of mind the President sees that +we, the new conquerors, forgetting everything we professed to fight for, +are sitting down with watering mouths to a good square meal of ten years +revenge upon and humiliation of our prostrate foe, can only be guessed +by those who know, as he does, how hopeless is remonstrance, and how +happy Lincoln was in perishing from the earth before his inspired +messages became scraps of paper. He knows well that from the Peace +Conference will come, in spite of his utmost, no edict on which he will +be able, like Lincoln, to invoke "the considerate judgment of mankind: +and the gracious favor of Almighty God." He led his people to destroy +the militarism of Zabern; and the army they rescued is busy in Cologne +imprisoning every German who does not salute a British officer; whilst +the government at home, asked whether it approves, replies that it +does not propose even to discontinue this Zabernism when the Peace is +concluded, but in effect looks forward to making Germans salute British +officers until the end of the world. That is what war makes of men and +women. It will wear off; and the worst it threatens is already proving +impracticable; but before the humble and contrite heart ceases to be +despised, the President and I, being of the same age, will be dotards. +In the meantime there is, for him, another history to write; for me, +another comedy to stage. Perhaps, after all, that is what wars are for, +and what historians and playwrights are for. If men will not learn until +their lessons are written in blood, why, blood they must have, their own +for preference. + + + +The Ephemeral Thrones and the Eternal Theatre + +To the theatre it will not matter. Whatever Bastilles fall, the theatre +will stand. Apostolic Hapsburg has collapsed; All Highest Hohenzollern +languishes in Holland, threatened with trial on a capital charge of +fighting for his country against England; Imperial Romanoff, said to +have perished miserably by a more summary method of murder, is perhaps +alive or perhaps dead: nobody cares more than if he had been a peasant; +the lord of Hellas is level with his lackeys in republican Switzerland; +Prime Ministers and Commanders-in-Chief have passed from a brief glory +as Solons and Caesars into failure and obscurity as closely on one +another's heels as the descendants of Banquo; but Euripides and +Aristophanes, Shakespeare and Moliere, Goethe and Ibsen remain fixed in +their everlasting seats. + + + +How War muzzles the Dramatic Poet + +As for myself, why, it may be asked, did I not write two plays about +the war instead of two pamphlets on it? The answer is significant. You +cannot make war on war and on your neighbor at the same time. War cannot +bear the terrible castigation of comedy, the ruthless light of laughter +that glares on the stage. When men are heroically dying for their +country, it is not the time to show their lovers and wives and fathers +and mothers how they are being sacrificed to the blunders of +boobies, the cupidity of capitalists, the ambition of conquerors, the +electioneering of demagogues, the Pharisaism of patriots, the lusts and +lies and rancors and bloodthirsts that love war because it opens their +prison doors, and sets them in the thrones of power and popularity. For +unless these things are mercilessly exposed they will hide under the +mantle of the ideals on the stage just as they do in real life. + +And though there may be better things to reveal, it may not, and indeed +cannot, be militarily expedient to reveal them whilst the issue is still +in the balance. Truth telling is not compatible with the defence of +the realm. We are just now reading the revelations of our generals and +admirals, unmuzzled at last by the armistice. During the war, General A, +in his moving despatches from the field, told how General B had covered +himself with deathless glory in such and such a battle. He now tells us +that General B came within an ace of losing us the war by disobeying +his orders on that occasion, and fighting instead of running away as he +ought to have done. An excellent subject for comedy now that the war +is over, no doubt; but if General A had let this out at the time, what +would have been the effect on General B's soldiers? And had the stage +made known what the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for War +who overruled General A thought of him, and what he thought of them, as +now revealed in raging controversy, what would have been the effect on +the nation? That is why comedy, though sorely tempted, had to be loyally +silent; for the art of the dramatic poet knows no patriotism; recognizes +no obligation but truth to natural history; cares not whether Germany +or England perish; is ready to cry with Brynhild, "Lass'uns verderben, +lachend zu grunde geh'n" sooner than deceive or be deceived; and thus +becomes in time of war a greater military danger than poison, steel, or +trinitrotoluene. That is why I had to withhold Heartbreak House from +the footlights during the war; for the Germans might on any night have +turned the last act from play into earnest, and even then might not have +waited for their cues. + +June, 1919. + + + + +HEARTBREAK HOUSE + + + + +ACT I + +The hilly country in the middle of the north edge of Sussex, looking +very pleasant on a fine evening at the end of September, is seen through +the windows of a room which has been built so as to resemble the after +part of an old-fashioned high-pooped ship, with a stern gallery; for the +windows are ship built with heavy timbering, and run right across the +room as continuously as the stability of the wall allows. A row +of lockers under the windows provides an unupholstered windowseat +interrupted by twin glass doors, respectively halfway between the stern +post and the sides. Another door strains the illusion a little by being +apparently in the ship's port side, and yet leading, not to the open +sea, but to the entrance hall of the house. Between this door and the +stern gallery are bookshelves. There are electric light switches beside +the door leading to the hall and the glass doors in the stern gallery. +Against the starboard wall is a carpenter's bench. The vice has a board +in its jaws; and the floor is littered with shavings, overflowing from a +waste-paper basket. A couple of planes and a centrebit are on the bench. +In the same wall, between the bench and the windows, is a narrow doorway +with a half door, above which a glimpse of the room beyond shows that it +is a shelved pantry with bottles and kitchen crockery. + +On the starboard side, but close to the middle, is a plain oak +drawing-table with drawing-board, T-square, straightedges, set +squares, mathematical instruments, saucers of water color, a tumbler +of discolored water, Indian ink, pencils, and brushes on it. The +drawing-board is set so that the draughtsman's chair has the window on +its left hand. On the floor at the end of the table, on its right, is a +ship's fire bucket. On the port side of the room, near the bookshelves, +is a sofa with its back to the windows. It is a sturdy mahogany article, +oddly upholstered in sailcloth, including the bolster, with a couple of +blankets hanging over the back. Between the sofa and the drawing-table +is a big wicker chair, with broad arms and a low sloping back, with its +back to the light. A small but stout table of teak, with a round top +and gate legs, stands against the port wall between the door and the +bookcase. It is the only article in the room that suggests (not at all +convincingly) a woman's hand in the furnishing. The uncarpeted floor of +narrow boards is caulked and holystoned like a deck. + +The garden to which the glass doors lead dips to the south before the +landscape rises again to the hills. Emerging from the hollow is the +cupola of an observatory. Between the observatory and the house is a +flagstaff on a little esplanade, with a hammock on the east side and a +long garden seat on the west. + +A young lady, gloved and hatted, with a dust coat on, is sitting in the +window-seat with her body twisted to enable her to look out at the +view. One hand props her chin: the other hangs down with a volume of the +Temple Shakespeare in it, and her finger stuck in the page she has been +reading. + +A clock strikes six. + +The young lady turns and looks at her watch. She rises with an air of +one who waits, and is almost at the end of her patience. She is a pretty +girl, slender, fair, and intelligent looking, nicely but not expensively +dressed, evidently not a smart idler. + +With a sigh of weary resignation she comes to the draughtsman's chair; +sits down; and begins to read Shakespeare. Presently the book sinks to +her lap; her eyes close; and she dozes into a slumber. + +An elderly womanservant comes in from the hall with three unopened +bottles of rum on a tray. She passes through and disappears in the +pantry without noticing the young lady. She places the bottles on the +shelf and fills her tray with empty bottles. As she returns with these, +the young lady lets her book drop, awakening herself, and startling the +womanservant so that she all but lets the tray fall. + +THE WOMANSERVANT. God bless us! [The young lady picks up the book and +places it on the table]. Sorry to wake you, miss, I'm sure; but you are +a stranger to me. What might you be waiting here for now? + +THE YOUNG LADY. Waiting for somebody to show some signs of knowing that +I have been invited here. + +THE WOMANSERVANT. Oh, you're invited, are you? And has nobody come? +Dear! dear! + +THE YOUNG LADY. A wild-looking old gentleman came and looked in at +the window; and I heard him calling out, "Nurse, there is a young and +attractive female waiting in the poop. Go and see what she wants." Are +you the nurse? + +THE WOMANSERVANT. Yes, miss: I'm Nurse Guinness. That was old Captain +Shotover, Mrs Hushabye's father. I heard him roaring; but I thought it +was for something else. I suppose it was Mrs Hushabye that invited you, +ducky? + +THE YOUNG LADY. I understood her to do so. But really I think I'd better +go. + +NURSE GUINNESS. Oh, don't think of such a thing, miss. If Mrs Hushabye +has forgotten all about it, it will be a pleasant surprise for her to +see you, won't it? + +THE YOUNG LADY. It has been a very unpleasant surprise to me to find +that nobody expects me. + +NURSE GUINNESS. You'll get used to it, miss: this house is full of +surprises for them that don't know our ways. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [looking in from the hall suddenly: an ancient but +still hardy man with an immense white beard, in a reefer jacket with a +whistle hanging from his neck]. Nurse, there is a hold-all and a handbag +on the front steps for everybody to fall over. Also a tennis racquet. +Who the devil left them there? + +THE YOUNG LADY. They are mine, I'm afraid. + +THE CAPTAIN [advancing to the drawing-table]. Nurse, who is this +misguided and unfortunate young lady? + +NURSE GUINNESS. She says Miss Hessy invited her, sir. + +THE CAPTAIN. And had she no friend, no parents, to warn her against my +daughter's invitations? This is a pretty sort of house, by heavens! A +young and attractive lady is invited here. Her luggage is left on the +steps for hours; and she herself is deposited in the poop and abandoned, +tired and starving. This is our hospitality. These are our manners. No +room ready. No hot water. No welcoming hostess. Our visitor is to sleep +in the toolshed, and to wash in the duckpond. + +NURSE GUINNESS. Now it's all right, Captain: I'll get the lady some tea; +and her room shall be ready before she has finished it. [To the young +lady]. Take off your hat, ducky; and make yourself at home [she goes to +the door leading to the hall]. + +THE CAPTAIN [as she passes him]. Ducky! Do you suppose, woman, that +because this young lady has been insulted and neglected, you have the +right to address her as you address my wretched children, whom you +have brought up in ignorance of the commonest decencies of social +intercourse? + +NURSE GUINNESS. Never mind him, doty. [Quite unconcerned, she goes out +into the hall on her way to the kitchen]. + +THE CAPTAIN. Madam, will you favor me with your name? [He sits down in +the big wicker chair]. + +THE YOUNG LADY. My name is Ellie Dunn. + +THE CAPTAIN. Dunn! I had a boatswain whose name was Dunn. He was +originally a pirate in China. He set up as a ship's chandler with stores +which I have every reason to believe he stole from me. No doubt he +became rich. Are you his daughter? + +ELLIE [indignant]. No, certainly not. I am proud to be able to say that +though my father has not been a successful man, nobody has ever had one +word to say against him. I think my father is the best man I have ever +known. + +THE CAPTAIN. He must be greatly changed. Has he attained the seventh +degree of concentration? + +ELLIE. I don't understand. + +THE CAPTAIN. But how could he, with a daughter? I, madam, have two +daughters. One of them is Hesione Hushabye, who invited you here. I +keep this house: she upsets it. I desire to attain the seventh degree +of concentration: she invites visitors and leaves me to entertain them. +[Nurse Guinness returns with the tea-tray, which she places on the teak +table]. I have a second daughter who is, thank God, in a remote part of +the Empire with her numskull of a husband. As a child she thought the +figure-head of my ship, the Dauntless, the most beautiful thing +on earth. He resembled it. He had the same expression: wooden yet +enterprising. She married him, and will never set foot in this house +again. + +NURSE GUINNESS [carrying the table, with the tea-things on it, to +Ellie's side]. Indeed you never were more mistaken. She is in England +this very moment. You have been told three times this week that she is +coming home for a year for her health. And very glad you should be to +see your own daughter again after all these years. + +THE CAPTAIN. I am not glad. The natural term of the affection of the +human animal for its offspring is six years. My daughter Ariadne was +born when I was forty-six. I am now eighty-eight. If she comes, I am not +at home. If she wants anything, let her take it. If she asks for me, let +her be informed that I am extremely old, and have totally forgotten her. + +NURSE GUINNESS. That's no talk to offer to a young lady. Here, ducky, +have some tea; and don't listen to him [she pours out a cup of tea]. + +THE CAPTAIN [rising wrathfully]. Now before high heaven they have given +this innocent child Indian tea: the stuff they tan their own leather +insides with. [He seizes the cup and the tea-pot and empties both into +the leathern bucket]. + +ELLIE [almost in tears]. Oh, please! I am so tired. I should have been +glad of anything. + +NURSE GUINNESS. Oh, what a thing to do! The poor lamb is ready to drop. + +THE CAPTAIN. You shall have some of my tea. Do not touch that fly-blown +cake: nobody eats it here except the dogs. [He disappears into the +pantry]. + +NURSE GUINNESS. There's a man for you! They say he sold himself to the +devil in Zanzibar before he was a captain; and the older he grows the +more I believe them. + +A WOMAN'S VOICE [in the hall]. Is anyone at home? Hesione! Nurse! Papa! +Do come, somebody; and take in my luggage. + +Thumping heard, as of an umbrella, on the wainscot. + +NURSE GUINNESS. My gracious! It's Miss Addy, Lady Utterword, Mrs +Hushabye's sister: the one I told the captain about. [Calling]. Coming, +Miss, coming. + +She carries the table back to its place by the door and is harrying out +when she is intercepted by Lady Utterword, who bursts in much flustered. +Lady Utterword, a blonde, is very handsome, very well dressed, and so +precipitate in speech and action that the first impression (erroneous) +is one of comic silliness. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Oh, is that you, Nurse? How are you? You don't look a +day older. Is nobody at home? Where is Hesione? Doesn't she expect me? +Where are the servants? Whose luggage is that on the steps? Where's +papa? Is everybody asleep? [Seeing Ellie]. Oh! I beg your pardon. I +suppose you are one of my nieces. [Approaching her with outstretched +arms]. Come and kiss your aunt, darling. + +ELLIE. I'm only a visitor. It is my luggage on the steps. + +NURSE GUINNESS. I'll go get you some fresh tea, ducky. [She takes up the +tray]. + +ELLIE. But the old gentleman said he would make some himself. + +NURSE GUINNESS. Bless you! he's forgotten what he went for already. His +mind wanders from one thing to another. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Papa, I suppose? + +NURSE GUINNESS. Yes, Miss. + +LADY UTTERWORD [vehemently]. Don't be silly, Nurse. Don't call me Miss. + +NURSE GUINNESS [placidly]. No, lovey [she goes out with the tea-tray]. + +LADY UTTERWORD [sitting down with a flounce on the sofa]. I know what +you must feel. Oh, this house, this house! I come back to it after +twenty-three years; and it is just the same: the luggage lying on the +steps, the servants spoilt and impossible, nobody at home to receive +anybody, no regular meals, nobody ever hungry because they are always +gnawing bread and butter or munching apples, and, what is worse, the +same disorder in ideas, in talk, in feeling. When I was a child I was +used to it: I had never known anything better, though I was unhappy, and +longed all the time--oh, how I longed!--to be respectable, to be a lady, +to live as others did, not to have to think of everything for myself. +I married at nineteen to escape from it. My husband is Sir Hastings +Utterword, who has been governor of all the crown colonies in +succession. I have always been the mistress of Government House. I +have been so happy: I had forgotten that people could live like this. I +wanted to see my father, my sister, my nephews and nieces (one ought +to, you know), and I was looking forward to it. And now the state of +the house! the way I'm received! the casual impudence of that woman +Guinness, our old nurse! really Hesione might at least have been here: +some preparation might have been made for me. You must excuse my +going on in this way; but I am really very much hurt and annoyed and +disillusioned: and if I had realized it was to be like this, I wouldn't +have come. I have a great mind to go away without another word [she is +on the point of weeping]. + +ELLIE [also very miserable]. Nobody has been here to receive me either. +I thought I ought to go away too. But how can I, Lady Utterword? My +luggage is on the steps; and the station fly has gone. + +The captain emerges from the pantry with a tray of Chinese lacquer and +a very fine tea-set on it. He rests it provisionally on the end of the +table; snatches away the drawing-board, which he stands on the floor +against table legs; and puts the tray in the space thus cleared. Ellie +pours out a cup greedily. + +THE CAPTAIN. Your tea, young lady. What! another lady! I must fetch +another cup [he makes for the pantry]. + +LADY UTTERWORD [rising from the sofa, suffused with emotion]. Papa! +Don't you know me? I'm your daughter. + +THE CAPTAIN. Nonsense! my daughter's upstairs asleep. [He vanishes +through the half door]. + +Lady Utterword retires to the window to conceal her tears. + +ELLIE [going to her with the cup]. Don't be so distressed. Have this cup +of tea. He is very old and very strange: he has been just like that to +me. I know how dreadful it must be: my own father is all the world to +me. Oh, I'm sure he didn't mean it. + +The captain returns with another cup. + +THE CAPTAIN. Now we are complete. [He places it on the tray]. + +LADY UTTERWORD [hysterically]. Papa, you can't have forgotten me. I am +Ariadne. I'm little Paddy Patkins. Won't you kiss me? [She goes to him +and throws her arms round his neck]. + +THE CAPTAIN [woodenly enduring her embrace]. How can you be Ariadne? You +are a middle-aged woman: well preserved, madam, but no longer young. + +LADY UTTERWORD. But think of all the years and years I have been away, +Papa. I have had to grow old, like other people. + +THE CAPTAIN [disengaging himself]. You should grow out of kissing +strange men: they may be striving to attain the seventh degree of +concentration. + +LADY UTTERWORD. But I'm your daughter. You haven't seen me for years. + +THE CAPTAIN. So much the worse! When our relatives are at home, we have +to think of all their good points or it would be impossible to endure +them. But when they are away, we console ourselves for their absence +by dwelling on their vices. That is how I have come to think my absent +daughter Ariadne a perfect fiend; so do not try to ingratiate yourself +here by impersonating her [he walks firmly away to the other side of the +room]. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Ingratiating myself indeed! [With dignity]. Very +well, papa. [She sits down at the drawing-table and pours out tea for +herself]. + +THE CAPTAIN. I am neglecting my social duties. You remember Dunn? Billy +Dunn? + +LADY UTTERWORD. DO you mean that villainous sailor who robbed you? + +THE CAPTAIN [introducing Ellie]. His daughter. [He sits down on the +sofa]. + +ELLIE [protesting]. No-- + +Nurse Guinness returns with fresh tea. + +THE CAPTAIN. Take that hogwash away. Do you hear? + +NURSE. You've actually remembered about the tea! [To Ellie]. Oh, miss, +he didn't forget you after all! You HAVE made an impression. + +THE CAPTAIN [gloomily]. Youth! beauty! novelty! They are badly wanted in +this house. I am excessively old. Hesione is only moderately young. Her +children are not youthful. + +LADY UTTERWORD. How can children be expected to be youthful in this +house? Almost before we could speak we were filled with notions that +might have been all very well for pagan philosophers of fifty, but were +certainly quite unfit for respectable people of any age. + +NURSE. You were always for respectability, Miss Addy. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Nurse, will you please remember that I am Lady +Utterword, and not Miss Addy, nor lovey, nor darling, nor doty? Do you +hear? + +NURSE. Yes, ducky: all right. I'll tell them all they must call you My +Lady. [She takes her tray out with undisturbed placidity]. + +LADY UTTERWORD. What comfort? what sense is there in having servants +with no manners? + +ELLIE [rising and coming to the table to put down her empty cup]. Lady +Utterword, do you think Mrs Hushabye really expects me? + +LADY UTTERWORD. Oh, don't ask me. You can see for yourself that I've +just arrived; her only sister, after twenty-three years' absence! and it +seems that I am not expected. + +THE CAPTAIN. What does it matter whether the young lady is expected or +not? She is welcome. There are beds: there is food. I'll find a room for +her myself [he makes for the door]. + +ELLIE [following him to stop him]. Oh, please--[He goes out]. Lady +Utterword, I don't know what to do. Your father persists in believing +that my father is some sailor who robbed him. + +LADY UTTERWORD. You had better pretend not to notice it. My father is a +very clever man; but he always forgot things; and now that he is old, of +course he is worse. And I must warn you that it is sometimes very hard +to feel quite sure that he really forgets. + +Mrs Hushabye bursts into the room tempestuously and embraces Ellie. She +is a couple of years older than Lady Utterword, and even better looking. +She has magnificent black hair, eyes like the fishpools of Heshbon, and +a nobly modelled neck, short at the back and low between her shoulders +in front. Unlike her sister she is uncorseted and dressed anyhow in a +rich robe of black pile that shows off her white skin and statuesque +contour. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Ellie, my darling, my pettikins [kissing her], how long +have you been here? I've been at home all the time: I was putting +flowers and things in your room; and when I just sat down for a moment +to try how comfortable the armchair was I went off to sleep. Papa woke +me and told me you were here. Fancy your finding no one, and being +neglected and abandoned. [Kissing her again]. My poor love! [She +deposits Ellie on the sofa. Meanwhile Ariadne has left the table and +come over to claim her share of attention]. Oh! you've brought someone +with you. Introduce me. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Hesione, is it possible that you don't know me? + +MRS HUSHABYE [conventionally]. Of course I remember your face quite +well. Where have we met? + +LADY UTTERWORD. Didn't Papa tell you I was here? Oh! this is really too +much. [She throws herself sulkily into the big chair]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Papa! + +LADY UTTERWORD. Yes, Papa. Our papa, you unfeeling wretch! [Rising +angrily]. I'll go straight to a hotel. + +MRS HUSHABYE [seizing her by the shoulders]. My goodness gracious +goodness, you don't mean to say that you're Addy! + +LADY UTTERWORD. I certainly am Addy; and I don't think I can be so +changed that you would not have recognized me if you had any real +affection for me. And Papa didn't think me even worth mentioning! + +MRS HUSHABYE. What a lark! Sit down [she pushes her back into the chair +instead of kissing her, and posts herself behind it]. You DO look +a swell. You're much handsomer than you used to be. You've made the +acquaintance of Ellie, of course. She is going to marry a perfect hog +of a millionaire for the sake of her father, who is as poor as a church +mouse; and you must help me to stop her. + +ELLIE. Oh, please, Hesione! + +MRS HUSHABYE. My pettikins, the man's coming here today with your father +to begin persecuting you; and everybody will see the state of the case +in ten minutes; so what's the use of making a secret of it? + +ELLIE. He is not a hog, Hesione. You don't know how wonderfully good he +was to my father, and how deeply grateful I am to him. + +MRS HUSHABYE [to Lady Utterword]. Her father is a very remarkable man, +Addy. His name is Mazzini Dunn. Mazzini was a celebrity of some kind who +knew Ellie's grandparents. They were both poets, like the Brownings; and +when her father came into the world Mazzini said, "Another soldier born +for freedom!" So they christened him Mazzini; and he has been fighting +for freedom in his quiet way ever since. That's why he is so poor. + +ELLIE. I am proud of his poverty. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Of course you are, pettikins. Why not leave him in it, and +marry someone you love? + +LADY UTTERWORD [rising suddenly and explosively]. Hesione, are you going +to kiss me or are you not? + +MRS HUSHABYE. What do you want to be kissed for? + +LADY UTTERWORD. I DON'T want to be kissed; but I do want you to behave +properly and decently. We are sisters. We have been separated for +twenty-three years. You OUGHT to kiss me. + +MRS HUSHABYE. To-morrow morning, dear, before you make up. I hate the +smell of powder. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Oh! you unfeeling--[she is interrupted by the return of +the captain]. + +THE CAPTAIN [to Ellie]. Your room is ready. [Ellie rises]. The sheets +were damp; but I have changed them [he makes for the garden door on the +port side]. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Oh! What about my sheets? + +THE CAPTAIN [halting at the door]. Take my advice: air them: or take +them off and sleep in blankets. You shall sleep in Ariadne's old room. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Indeed I shall do nothing of the sort. That little hole! +I am entitled to the best spare room. + +THE CAPTAIN [continuing unmoved]. She married a numskull. She told me +she would marry anyone to get away from home. + +LADT UTTERWORD. You are pretending not to know me on purpose. I will +leave the house. + +Mazzini Dunn enters from the hall. He is a little elderly man with +bulging credulous eyes and earnest manners. He is dressed in a blue +serge jacket suit with an unbuttoned mackintosh over it, and carries a +soft black hat of clerical cut. + +ELLIE. At last! Captain Shotover, here is my father. + +THE CAPTAIN. This! Nonsense! not a bit like him [he goes away through +the garden, shutting the door sharply behind him]. + +LADY UTTERWORD. I will not be ignored and pretended to be somebody else. +I will have it out with Papa now, this instant. [To Mazzini]. Excuse me. +[She follows the captain out, making a hasty bow to Mazzini, who returns +it]. + +MRS HUSHABYE [hospitably shaking hands]. How good of you to come, Mr +Dunn! You don't mind Papa, do you? He is as mad as a hatter, you know, +but quite harmless and extremely clever. You will have some delightful +talks with him. + +MAZZINI. I hope so. [To Ellie]. So here you are, Ellie, dear. [He draws +her arm affectionately through his]. I must thank you, Mrs Hushabye, for +your kindness to my daughter. I'm afraid she would have had no holiday +if you had not invited her. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Not at all. Very nice of her to come and attract young +people to the house for us. + +MAZZINI [smiling]. I'm afraid Ellie is not interested in young men, Mrs +Hushabye. Her taste is on the graver, solider side. + +MRS HUSHABYE [with a sudden rather hard brightness in her manner]. Won't +you take off your overcoat, Mr Dunn? You will find a cupboard for coats +and hats and things in the corner of the hall. + +MAZZINI [hastily releasing Ellie]. Yes--thank you--I had better-- [he +goes out]. + +MRS HUSHABYE [emphatically]. The old brute! + +ELLIE. Who? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Who! Him. He. It [pointing after Mazzini]. "Graver, +solider tastes," indeed! + +ELLIE [aghast]. You don't mean that you were speaking like that of my +father! + +MRS HUSHABYE. I was. You know I was. + +ELLIE [with dignity]. I will leave your house at once. [She turns to the +door]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. If you attempt it, I'll tell your father why. + +ELLIE [turning again]. Oh! How can you treat a visitor like this, Mrs +Hushabye? + +MRS HUSHABYE. I thought you were going to call me Hesione. + +ELLIE. Certainly not now? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Very well: I'll tell your father. + +ELLIE [distressed]. Oh! + +MRS HUSHABYE. If you turn a hair--if you take his part against me and +against your own heart for a moment, I'll give that born soldier of +freedom a piece of my mind that will stand him on his selfish old head +for a week. + +ELLIE. Hesione! My father selfish! How little you know-- + +She is interrupted by Mazzini, who returns, excited and perspiring. + +MAZZINI. Ellie, Mangan has come: I thought you'd like to know. Excuse +me, Mrs Hushabye, the strange old gentleman-- + +MRS HUSHABYE. Papa. Quite so. + +MAZZINI. Oh, I beg your pardon, of course: I was a little confused by +his manner. He is making Mangan help him with something in the garden; +and he wants me too-- + +A powerful whistle is heard. + +THE CAPTAIN'S VOICE. Bosun ahoy! [the whistle is repeated]. + +MAZZINI [flustered]. Oh dear! I believe he is whistling for me. [He +hurries out]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Now MY father is a wonderful man if you like. + +ELLIE. Hesione, listen to me. You don't understand. My father and Mr +Mangan were boys together. Mr Ma-- + +MRS HUSHABYE. I don't care what they were: we must sit down if you are +going to begin as far back as that. [She snatches at Ellie's waist, and +makes her sit down on the sofa beside her]. Now, pettikins, tell me all +about Mr Mangan. They call him Boss Mangan, don't they? He is a Napoleon +of industry and disgustingly rich, isn't he? Why isn't your father rich? + +ELLIE. My poor father should never have been in business. His parents +were poets; and they gave him the noblest ideas; but they could not +afford to give him a profession. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Fancy your grandparents, with their eyes in fine frenzy +rolling! And so your poor father had to go into business. Hasn't he +succeeded in it? + +ELLIE. He always used to say he could succeed if he only had some +capital. He fought his way along, to keep a roof over our heads +and bring us up well; but it was always a struggle: always the same +difficulty of not having capital enough. I don't know how to describe it +to you. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Poor Ellie! I know. Pulling the devil by the tail. + +ELLIE [hurt]. Oh, no. Not like that. It was at least dignified. + +MRS HUSHABYE. That made it all the harder, didn't it? I shouldn't +have pulled the devil by the tail with dignity. I should have pulled +hard--[between her teeth] hard. Well? Go on. + +ELLIE. At last it seemed that all our troubles were at an end. Mr Mangan +did an extraordinarily noble thing out of pure friendship for my father +and respect for his character. He asked him how much capital he wanted, +and gave it to him. I don't mean that he lent it to him, or that he +invested it in his business. He just simply made him a present of it. +Wasn't that splendid of him? + +MRS HUSHABYE. On condition that you married him? + +ELLIE. Oh, no, no, no! This was when I was a child. He had never even +seen me: he never came to our house. It was absolutely disinterested. +Pure generosity. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Oh! I beg the gentleman's pardon. Well, what became of the +money? + +ELLIE. We all got new clothes and moved into another house. And I went +to another school for two years. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Only two years? + +ELLIE. That was all: for at the end of two years my father was utterly +ruined. + +MRS HUSHABYE. How? + +ELLIE. I don't know. I never could understand. But it was dreadful. When +we were poor my father had never been in debt. But when he launched out +into business on a large scale, he had to incur liabilities. When the +business went into liquidation he owed more money than Mr Mangan had +given him. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Bit off more than he could chew, I suppose. + +ELLIE. I think you are a little unfeeling about it. + +MRS HUSHABYE. My pettikins, you mustn't mind my way of talking. I was +quite as sensitive and particular as you once; but I have picked up +so much slang from the children that I am really hardly presentable. I +suppose your father had no head for business, and made a mess of it. + +ELLIE. Oh, that just shows how entirely you are mistaken about him. The +business turned out a great success. It now pays forty-four per cent +after deducting the excess profits tax. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Then why aren't you rolling in money? + +ELLIE. I don't know. It seems very unfair to me. You see, my father +was made bankrupt. It nearly broke his heart, because he had persuaded +several of his friends to put money into the business. He was sure it +would succeed; and events proved that he was quite right. But they all +lost their money. It was dreadful. I don't know what we should have done +but for Mr Mangan. + +MRS HUSHABYE. What! Did the Boss come to the rescue again, after all his +money being thrown away? + +ELLIE. He did indeed, and never uttered a reproach to my father. He +bought what was left of the business--the buildings and the machinery +and things--from the official trustee for enough money to enable my +father to pay six-and-eight-pence in the pound and get his discharge. +Everyone pitied Papa so much, and saw so plainly that he was an +honorable man, that they let him off at six-and-eight-pence instead +of ten shillings. Then Mr. Mangan started a company to take up the +business, and made my father a manager in it to save us from starvation; +for I wasn't earning anything then. + +MRS. HUSHABYE. Quite a romance. And when did the Boss develop the tender +passion? + +ELLIE. Oh, that was years after, quite lately. He took the chair one +night at a sort of people's concert. I was singing there. As an amateur, +you know: half a guinea for expenses and three songs with three encores. +He was so pleased with my singing that he asked might he walk home with +me. I never saw anyone so taken aback as he was when I took him home and +introduced him to my father, his own manager. It was then that my father +told me how nobly he had behaved. Of course it was considered a great +chance for me, as he is so rich. And--and--we drifted into a sort +of understanding--I suppose I should call it an engagement--[she is +distressed and cannot go on]. + +MRS HUSHABYE [rising and marching about]. You may have drifted into it; +but you will bounce out of it, my pettikins, if I am to have anything to +do with it. + +ELLIE [hopelessly]. No: it's no use. I am bound in honor and gratitude. +I will go through with it. + +MRS HUSHABYE [behind the sofa, scolding down at her]. You know, of +course, that it's not honorable or grateful to marry a man you don't +love. Do you love this Mangan man? + +ELLIE. Yes. At least-- + +MRS HUSHABYE. I don't want to know about "at least": I want to know +the worst. Girls of your age fall in love with all sorts of impossible +people, especially old people. + +ELLIE. I like Mr Mangan very much; and I shall always be-- + +MRS HUSHABYE [impatiently completing the sentence and prancing away +intolerantly to starboard]. --grateful to him for his kindness to dear +father. I know. Anybody else? + +ELLIE. What do you mean? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Anybody else? Are you in love with anybody else? + +ELLIE. Of course not. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Humph! [The book on the drawing-table catches her eye. She +picks it up, and evidently finds the title very unexpected. She looks at +Ellie, and asks, quaintly] Quite sure you're not in love with an actor? + +ELLIE. No, no. Why? What put such a thing into your head? + +MRS HUSHABYE. This is yours, isn't it? Why else should you be reading +Othello? + +ELLIE. My father taught me to love Shakespeare. + +MRS HUSHAYE [flinging the book down on the table]. Really! your father +does seem to be about the limit. + +ELLIE [naively]. Do you never read Shakespeare, Hesione? That seems to +me so extraordinary. I like Othello. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Do you, indeed? He was jealous, wasn't he? + +ELLIE. Oh, not that. I think all the part about jealousy is horrible. +But don't you think it must have been a wonderful experience for +Desdemona, brought up so quietly at home, to meet a man who had been +out in the world doing all sorts of brave things and having terrible +adventures, and yet finding something in her that made him love to sit +and talk with her and tell her about them? + +MRS HUSHABYE. That's your idea of romance, is it? + +ELLIE. Not romance, exactly. It might really happen. + +Ellie's eyes show that she is not arguing, but in a daydream. Mrs +Hushabye, watching her inquisitively, goes deliberately back to the sofa +and resumes her seat beside her. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Ellie darling, have you noticed that some of those stories +that Othello told Desdemona couldn't have happened--? + +ELLIE. Oh, no. Shakespeare thought they could have happened. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Hm! Desdemona thought they could have happened. But they +didn't. + +ELLIE. Why do you look so enigmatic about it? You are such a sphinx: I +never know what you mean. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Desdemona would have found him out if she had lived, you +know. I wonder was that why he strangled her! + +ELLIE. Othello was not telling lies. + +MRS HUSHABYE. How do you know? + +ELLIE. Shakespeare would have said if he was. Hesione, there are men who +have done wonderful things: men like Othello, only, of course, white, +and very handsome, and-- + +MRS HUSHABYE. Ah! Now we're coming to it. Tell me all about him. I knew +there must be somebody, or you'd never have been so miserable about +Mangan: you'd have thought it quite a lark to marry him. + +ELLIE [blushing vividly]. Hesione, you are dreadful. But I don't want to +make a secret of it, though of course I don't tell everybody. Besides, I +don't know him. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Don't know him! What does that mean? + +ELLIE. Well, of course I know him to speak to. + +MRS HUSHABYE. But you want to know him ever so much more intimately, eh? + +ELLIE. No, no: I know him quite--almost intimately. + +MRS HUSHABYE. You don't know him; and you know him almost intimately. +How lucid! + +ELLIE. I mean that he does not call on us. I--I got into conversation +with him by chance at a concert. + +MRS HUSHABYE. You seem to have rather a gay time at your concerts, +Ellie. + +ELLIE. Not at all: we talk to everyone in the greenroom waiting for our +turns. I thought he was one of the artists: he looked so splendid. But +he was only one of the committee. I happened to tell him that I was +copying a picture at the National Gallery. I make a little money that +way. I can't paint much; but as it's always the same picture I can do it +pretty quickly and get two or three pounds for it. It happened that he +came to the National Gallery one day. + +MRS HUSHABYE. One students' day. Paid sixpence to stumble about through +a crowd of easels, when he might have come in next day for nothing and +found the floor clear! Quite by accident? + +ELLIE [triumphantly]. No. On purpose. He liked talking to me. He knows +lots of the most splendid people. Fashionable women who are all in love +with him. But he ran away from them to see me at the National Gallery +and persuade me to come with him for a drive round Richmond Park in a +taxi. + +MRS HUSHABYE. My pettikins, you have been going it. It's wonderful what +you good girls can do without anyone saying a word. + +ELLIE. I am not in society, Hesione. If I didn't make acquaintances in +that way I shouldn't have any at all. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Well, no harm if you know how to take care of yourself. +May I ask his name? + +ELLIE [slowly and musically]. Marcus Darnley. + +MRS HUSHABYE [echoing the music]. Marcus Darnley! What a splendid name! + +ELLIE. Oh, I'm so glad you think so. I think so too; but I was afraid it +was only a silly fancy of my own. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Hm! Is he one of the Aberdeen Darnleys? + +ELLIE. Nobody knows. Just fancy! He was found in an antique chest-- + +MRS HUSHABYE. A what? + +ELLIE. An antique chest, one summer morning in a rose garden, after a +night of the most terrible thunderstorm. + +MRS HUSHABYE. What on earth was he doing in the chest? Did he get into +it because he was afraid of the lightning? + +ELLIE. Oh, no, no: he was a baby. The name Marcus Darnley was +embroidered on his baby clothes. And five hundred pounds in gold. + +MRS HUSHABYE [Looking hard at her]. Ellie! + +ELLIE. The garden of the Viscount-- + +MRS HUSHABYE. --de Rougemont? + +ELLIE [innocently]. No: de Larochejaquelin. A French family. A vicomte. +His life has been one long romance. A tiger-- + +MRS HUSHABYE. Slain by his own hand? + +ELLIE. Oh, no: nothing vulgar like that. He saved the life of the tiger +from a hunting party: one of King Edward's hunting parties in India. +The King was furious: that was why he never had his military services +properly recognized. But he doesn't care. He is a Socialist and despises +rank, and has been in three revolutions fighting on the barricades. + +MRS HUSHABYE. How can you sit there telling me such lies? You, Ellie, of +all people! And I thought you were a perfectly simple, straightforward, +good girl. + +ELLIE [rising, dignified but very angry]. Do you mean you don't believe +me? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Of course I don't believe you. You're inventing every word +of it. Do you take me for a fool? + +Ellie stares at her. Her candor is so obvious that Mrs Hushabye is +puzzled. + +ELLIE. Goodbye, Hesione. I'm very sorry. I see now that it sounds very +improbable as I tell it. But I can't stay if you think that way about +me. + +MRS HUSHABYE [catching her dress]. You shan't go. I couldn't be so +mistaken: I know too well what liars are like. Somebody has really told +you all this. + +ELLIE [flushing]. Hesione, don't say that you don't believe him. I +couldn't bear that. + +MRS HUSHABYE [soothing her]. Of course I believe him, dearest. But you +should have broken it to me by degrees. [Drawing her back to her seat]. +Now tell me all about him. Are you in love with him? + +ELLIE. Oh, no. I'm not so foolish. I don't fall in love with people. I'm +not so silly as you think. + +MRS HUSHABYE. I see. Only something to think about--to give some +interest and pleasure to life. + +ELLIE. Just so. That's all, really. + +MRS HUSHABYE. It makes the hours go fast, doesn't it? No tedious waiting +to go to sleep at nights and wondering whether you will have a bad +night. How delightful it makes waking up in the morning! How much better +than the happiest dream! All life transfigured! No more wishing one had +an interesting book to read, because life is so much happier than any +book! No desire but to be alone and not to have to talk to anyone: to be +alone and just think about it. + +ELLIE [embracing her]. Hesione, you are a witch. How do you know? Oh, +you are the most sympathetic woman in the world! + +MRS HUSHABYE [caressing her]. Pettikins, my pettikins, how I envy you! +and how I pity you! + +ELLIE. Pity me! Oh, why? + +A very handsome man of fifty, with mousquetaire moustaches, wearing +a rather dandified curly brimmed hat, and carrying an elaborate +walking-stick, comes into the room from the hall, and stops short at +sight of the women on the sofa. + +ELLIE [seeing him and rising in glad surprise]. Oh! Hesione: this is Mr +Marcus Darnley. + +MRS HUSHABYE [rising]. What a lark! He is my husband. + +ELLIE. But now--[she stops suddenly: then turns pale and sways]. + +MRS HUSHABYE [catching her and sitting down with her on the sofa]. +Steady, my pettikins. + +THE MAN [with a mixture of confusion and effrontery, depositing his +hat and stick on the teak table]. My real name, Miss Dunn, is Hector +Hushabye. I leave you to judge whether that is a name any sensitive man +would care to confess to. I never use it when I can possibly help it. I +have been away for nearly a month; and I had no idea you knew my wife, +or that you were coming here. I am none the less delighted to find you +in our little house. + +ELLIE [in great distress]. I don't know what to do. Please, may I speak +to papa? Do leave me. I can't bear it. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Be off, Hector. + +HECTOR. I-- + +MRS HUSHABYE. Quick, quick. Get out. + +HECTOR. If you think it better--[he goes out, taking his hat with him +but leaving the stick on the table]. + +MRS HUSHABYE [laying Ellie down at the end of the sofa]. Now, pettikins, +he is gone. There's nobody but me. You can let yourself go. Don't try to +control yourself. Have a good cry. + +ELLIE [raising her head]. Damn! + +MRS HUSHABYE. Splendid! Oh, what a relief! I thought you were going to +be broken-hearted. Never mind me. Damn him again. + +ELLIE. I am not damning him. I am damning myself for being such a fool. +[Rising]. How could I let myself be taken in so? [She begins prowling to +and fro, her bloom gone, looking curiously older and harder]. + +MRS HUSHABYE [cheerfully]. Why not, pettikins? Very few young women +can resist Hector. I couldn't when I was your age. He is really rather +splendid, you know. + +ELLIE [turning on her]. Splendid! Yes, splendid looking, of course. But +how can you love a liar? + +MRS HUSHABYE. I don't know. But you can, fortunately. Otherwise there +wouldn't be much love in the world. + +ELLIE. But to lie like that! To be a boaster! a coward! + +MRS HUSHABYE [rising in alarm]. Pettikins, none of that, if you please. +If you hint the slightest doubt of Hector's courage, he will go straight +off and do the most horribly dangerous things to convince himself +that he isn't a coward. He has a dreadful trick of getting out of one +third-floor window and coming in at another, just to test his nerve. He +has a whole drawerful of Albert Medals for saving people's lives. + +ELLIE. He never told me that. + +MRS HUSHABYE. He never boasts of anything he really did: he can't +bear it; and it makes him shy if anyone else does. All his stories are +made-up stories. + +ELLIE [coming to her]. Do you mean that he is really brave, and really +has adventures, and yet tells lies about things that he never did and +that never happened? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Yes, pettikins, I do. People don't have their virtues and +vices in sets: they have them anyhow: all mixed. + +ELLIE [staring at her thoughtfully]. There's something odd about this +house, Hesione, and even about you. I don't know why I'm talking to +you so calmly. I have a horrible fear that my heart is broken, but that +heartbreak is not like what I thought it must be. + +MRS HUSHABYE [fondling her]. It's only life educating you, pettikins. +How do you feel about Boss Mangan now? + +ELLIE [disengaging herself with an expression of distaste]. Oh, how can +you remind me of him, Hesione? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Sorry, dear. I think I hear Hector coming back. You don't +mind now, do you, dear? + +ELLIE. Not in the least. I am quite cured. + +Mazzini Dunn and Hector come in from the hall. + +HECTOR [as he opens the door and allows Mazzini to pass in]. One second +more, and she would have been a dead woman! + +MAZZINI. Dear! dear! what an escape! Ellie, my love, Mr Hushabye has +just been telling me the most extraordinary-- + +ELLIE. Yes, I've heard it [she crosses to the other side of the room]. + +HECTOR [following her]. Not this one: I'll tell it to you after dinner. +I think you'll like it. The truth is I made it up for you, and was +looking forward to the pleasure of telling it to you. But in a moment +of impatience at being turned out of the room, I threw it away on your +father. + +ELLIE [turning at bay with her back to the carpenter's bench, scornfully +self-possessed]. It was not thrown away. He believes it. I should not +have believed it. + +MAZZINI [benevolently]. Ellie is very naughty, Mr Hushabye. Of course +she does not really think that. [He goes to the bookshelves, and +inspects the titles of the volumes]. + +Boss Mangan comes in from the hall, followed by the captain. Mangan, +carefully frock-coated as for church or for a diHECTORs' meeting, is +about fifty-five, with a careworn, mistrustful expression, standing +a little on an entirely imaginary dignity, with a dull complexion, +straight, lustreless hair, and features so entirely commonplace that it +is impossible to describe them. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [to Mrs Hushabye, introducing the newcomer]. Says his +name is Mangan. Not able-bodied. + +MRS HUSHABYE [graciously]. How do you do, Mr Mangan? + +MANGAN [shaking hands]. Very pleased. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Dunn's lost his muscle, but recovered his nerve. Men +seldom do after three attacks of delirium tremens [he goes into the +pantry]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. I congratulate you, Mr Dunn. + +MAZZINI [dazed]. I am a lifelong teetotaler. + +MRS HUSHABYE. You will find it far less trouble to let papa have his own +way than try to explain. + +MAZZINI. But three attacks of delirium tremens, really! + +MRS HUSHABYE [to Mangan]. Do you know my husband, Mr Mangan [she +indicates Hector]. + +MANGAN [going to Hector, who meets him with outstretched hand]. Very +pleased. [Turning to Ellie]. I hope, Miss Ellie, you have not found the +journey down too fatiguing. [They shake hands]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Hector, show Mr Dunn his room. + +HECTOR. Certainly. Come along, Mr Dunn. [He takes Mazzini out]. + +ELLIE. You haven't shown me my room yet, Hesione. + +MRS HUSHABYE. How stupid of me! Come along. Make yourself quite at home, +Mr Mangan. Papa will entertain you. [She calls to the captain in the +pantry]. Papa, come and explain the house to Mr Mangan. + +She goes out with Ellie. The captain comes from the pantry. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You're going to marry Dunn's daughter. Don't. You're +too old. + +MANGAN [staggered]. Well! That's fairly blunt, Captain. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It's true. + +MANGAN. She doesn't think so. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. She does. + +MANGAN. Older men than I have-- + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [finishing the sentence for him].--made fools of +themselves. That, also, is true. + +MANGAN [asserting himself]. I don't see that this is any business of +yours. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It is everybody's business. The stars in their courses +are shaken when such things happen. + +MANGAN. I'm going to marry her all the same. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. How do you know? + +MANGAN [playing the strong man]. I intend to. I mean to. See? I never +made up my mind to do a thing yet that I didn't bring it off. That's the +sort of man I am; and there will be a better understanding between us +when you make up your mind to that, Captain. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You frequent picture palaces. + +MANGAN. Perhaps I do. Who told you? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Talk like a man, not like a movie. You mean that you +make a hundred thousand a year. + +MANGAN. I don't boast. But when I meet a man that makes a hundred +thousand a year, I take off my hat to that man, and stretch out my hand +to him and call him brother. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Then you also make a hundred thousand a year, hey? + +MANGAN. No. I can't say that. Fifty thousand, perhaps. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. His half brother only [he turns away from Mangan with +his usual abruptness, and collects the empty tea-cups on the Chinese +tray]. + +MANGAN [irritated]. See here, Captain Shotover. I don't quite understand +my position here. I came here on your daughter's invitation. Am I in her +house or in yours? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You are beneath the dome of heaven, in the house of +God. What is true within these walls is true outside them. Go out on the +seas; climb the mountains; wander through the valleys. She is still too +young. + +MANGAN [weakening]. But I'm very little over fifty. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You are still less under sixty. Boss Mangan, you will +not marry the pirate's child [he carries the tray away into the pantry]. + +MANGAN [following him to the half door]. What pirate's child? What are +you talking about? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [in the pantry]. Ellie Dunn. You will not marry her. + +MANGAN. Who will stop me? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [emerging]. My daughter [he makes for the door leading +to the hall]. + +MANGAN [following him]. Mrs Hushabye! Do you mean to say she brought me +down here to break it off? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [stopping and turning on him]. I know nothing more than +I have seen in her eye. She will break it off. Take my advice: marry +a West Indian negress: they make excellent wives. I was married to one +myself for two years. + +MANGAN. Well, I am damned! + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I thought so. I was, too, for many years. The negress +redeemed me. + +MANGAN [feebly]. This is queer. I ought to walk out of this house. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Why? + +MANGAN. Well, many men would be offended by your style of talking. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Nonsense! It's the other sort of talking that makes +quarrels. Nobody ever quarrels with me. + +A gentleman, whose first-rate tailoring and frictionless manners +proclaim the wellbred West Ender, comes in from the hall. He has an +engaging air of being young and unmarried, but on close inspection is +found to be at least over forty. + +THE GENTLEMAN. Excuse my intruding in this fashion, but there is no +knocker on the door and the bell does not seem to ring. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Why should there be a knocker? Why should the bell +ring? The door is open. + +THE GENTLEMAN. Precisely. So I ventured to come in. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Quite right. I will see about a room for you [he makes +for the door]. + +THE GENTLEMAN [stopping him]. But I'm afraid you don't know who I am. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. DO you suppose that at my age I make distinctions +between one fellow creature and another? [He goes out. Mangan and the +newcomer stare at one another]. + +MANGAN. Strange character, Captain Shotover, sir. + +THE GENTLEMAN. Very. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [shouting outside]. Hesione, another person has arrived +and wants a room. Man about town, well dressed, fifty. + +THE GENTLEMAN. Fancy Hesione's feelings! May I ask are you a member of +the family? + +MANGAN. No. + +THE GENTLEMAN. I am. At least a connection. + +Mrs Hushabye comes back. + +MRS HUSHABYE. How do you do? How good of you to come! + +THE GENTLEMAN. I am very glad indeed to make your acquaintance, Hesione. +[Instead of taking her hand he kisses her. At the same moment the +captain appears in the doorway]. You will excuse my kissing your +daughter, Captain, when I tell you that-- + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Stuff! Everyone kisses my daughter. Kiss her as much +as you like [he makes for the pantry]. + +THE GENTLEMAN. Thank you. One moment, Captain. [The captain halts and +turns. The gentleman goes to him affably]. Do you happen to remember but +probably you don't, as it occurred many years ago-- that your younger +daughter married a numskull? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Yes. She said she'd marry anybody to get away from +this house. I should not have recognized you: your head is no longer +like a walnut. Your aspect is softened. You have been boiled in bread +and milk for years and years, like other married men. Poor devil! [He +disappears into the pantry]. + +MRS HUSHABYE [going past Mangan to the gentleman and scrutinizing him]. +I don't believe you are Hastings Utterword. + +THE GENTLEMAN. I am not. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Then what business had you to kiss me? + +THE GENTLEMAN. I thought I would like to. The fact is, I am Randall +Utterword, the unworthy younger brother of Hastings. I was abroad +diplomatizing when he was married. + +LADY UTTERWORD [dashing in]. Hesione, where is the key of the wardrobe +in my room? My diamonds are in my dressing-bag: I must lock it +up--[recognizing the stranger with a shock] Randall, how dare you? [She +marches at him past Mrs Hushabye, who retreats and joins Mangan near the +sofa]. + +RANDALL. How dare I what? I am not doing anything. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Who told you I was here? + +RANDALL. Hastings. You had just left when I called on you at Claridge's; +so I followed you down here. You are looking extremely well. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Don't presume to tell me so. + +MRS HUSHABYE. What is wrong with Mr Randall, Addy? + +LADY UTTERWORD [recollecting herself]. Oh, nothing. But he has no right +to come bothering you and papa without being invited [she goes to the +window-seat and sits down, turning away from them ill-humoredly and +looking into the garden, where Hector and Ellie are now seen strolling +together]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. I think you have not met Mr Mangan, Addy. + +LADY UTTERWORD [turning her head and nodding coldly to Mangan]. I beg +your pardon. Randall, you have flustered me so: I make a perfect fool of +myself. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Lady Utterword. My sister. My younger sister. + +MANGAN [bowing]. Pleased to meet you, Lady Utterword. + +LADY UTTERWORD [with marked interest]. Who is that gentleman walking in +the garden with Miss Dunn? + +MRS HUSHABYE. I don't know. She quarrelled mortally with my husband only +ten minutes ago; and I didn't know anyone else had come. It must be a +visitor. [She goes to the window to look]. Oh, it is Hector. They've +made it up. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Your husband! That handsome man? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Well, why shouldn't my husband be a handsome man? + +RANDALL [joining them at the window]. One's husband never is, Ariadne +[he sits by Lady Utterword, on her right]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. One's sister's husband always is, Mr Randall. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Don't be vulgar, Randall. And you, Hesione, are just as +bad. + +Ellie and Hector come in from the garden by the starboard door. Randall +rises. Ellie retires into the corner near the pantry. Hector comes +forward; and Lady Utterword rises looking her very best. + +MRS. HUSHABYE. Hector, this is Addy. + +HECTOR [apparently surprised]. Not this lady. + +LADY UTTERWORD [smiling]. Why not? + +HECTOR [looking at her with a piercing glance of deep but respectful +admiration, his moustache bristling]. I thought-- [pulling himself +together]. I beg your pardon, Lady Utterword. I am extremely glad +to welcome you at last under our roof [he offers his hand with grave +courtesy]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. She wants to be kissed, Hector. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Hesione! [But she still smiles]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Call her Addy; and kiss her like a good brother-in-law; +and have done with it. [She leaves them to themselves]. + +HECTOR. Behave yourself, Hesione. Lady Utterword is entitled not only to +hospitality but to civilization. + +LADY UTTERWORD [gratefully]. Thank you, Hector. [They shake hands +cordially]. + +Mazzini Dunn is seen crossing the garden from starboard to port. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [coming from the pantry and addressing Ellie]. Your +father has washed himself. + +ELLIE [quite self-possessed]. He often does, Captain Shotover. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. A strange conversion! I saw him through the pantry +window. + +Mazzini Dunn enters through the port window door, newly washed and +brushed, and stops, smiling benevolently, between Mangan and Mrs +Hushabye. + +MRS HUSHABYE [introducing]. Mr Mazzini Dunn, Lady Ut--oh, I forgot: +you've met. [Indicating Ellie] Miss Dunn. + +MAZZINI [walking across the room to take Ellie's hand, and beaming at +his own naughty irony]. I have met Miss Dunn also. She is my daughter. +[He draws her arm through his caressingly]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Of course: how stupid! Mr Utterword, my sister's--er-- + +RANDALL [shaking hands agreeably]. Her brother-in-law, Mr Dunn. How do +you do? + +MRS HUSHABYE. This is my husband. + +HECTOR. We have met, dear. Don't introduce us any more. [He moves away +to the big chair, and adds] Won't you sit down, Lady Utterword? [She +does so very graciously]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Sorry. I hate it: it's like making people show their +tickets. + +MAZZINI [sententiously]. How little it tells us, after all! The great +question is, not who we are, but what we are. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Ha! What are you? + +MAZZINI [taken aback]. What am I? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. A thief, a pirate, and a murderer. + +MAZZINI. I assure you you are mistaken. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. An adventurous life; but what does it end in? +Respectability. A ladylike daughter. The language and appearance of a +city missionary. Let it be a warning to all of you [he goes out through +the garden]. + +DUNN. I hope nobody here believes that I am a thief, a pirate, or a +murderer. Mrs Hushabye, will you excuse me a moment? I must really go +and explain. [He follows the captain]. + +MRS HUSHABYE [as he goes]. It's no use. You'd really better-- [but Dunn +has vanished]. We had better all go out and look for some tea. We +never have regular tea; but you can always get some when you want: the +servants keep it stewing all day. The kitchen veranda is the best place +to ask. May I show you? [She goes to the starboard door]. + +RANDALL [going with her]. Thank you, I don't think I'll take any tea +this afternoon. But if you will show me the garden-- + +MRS HUSHABYE. There's nothing to see in the garden except papa's +observatory, and a gravel pit with a cave where he keeps dynamite and +things of that sort. However, it's pleasanter out of doors; so come +along. + +RANDALL. Dynamite! Isn't that rather risky? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Well, we don't sit in the gravel pit when there's a +thunderstorm. + +LADY UTTERORRD. That's something new. What is the dynamite for? + +HECTOR. To blow up the human race if it goes too far. He is trying to +discover a psychic ray that will explode all the explosive at the well +of a Mahatma. + +ELLIE. The captain's tea is delicious, Mr Utterword. + +MRS HUSHABYE [stopping in the doorway]. Do you mean to say that you've +had some of my father's tea? that you got round him before you were ten +minutes in the house? + +ELLIE. I did. + +MRS HUSHABYE. You little devil! [She goes out with Randall]. + +MANGAN. Won't you come, Miss Ellie? + +ELLIE. I'm too tired. I'll take a book up to my room and rest a little. +[She goes to the bookshelf]. + +MANGAN. Right. You can't do better. But I'm disappointed. [He follows +Randall and Mrs Hushabye]. + +Ellie, Hector, and Lady Utterword are left. Hector is close to Lady +Utterword. They look at Ellie, waiting for her to go. + +ELLIE [looking at the title of a book]. Do you like stories of +adventure, Lady Utterword? + +LADY UTTERWORD [patronizingly]. Of course, dear. + +ELLIE. Then I'll leave you to Mr Hushabye. [She goes out through the +hall]. + +HECTOR. That girl is mad about tales of adventure. The lies I have to +tell her! + +LADY UTTERWORD [not interested in Ellie]. When you saw me what did you +mean by saying that you thought, and then stopping short? What did you +think? + +HECTOR [folding his arms and looking down at her magnetically]. May I +tell you? + +LADY UTTERWORD. Of course. + +HECTOR. It will not sound very civil. I was on the point of saying, "I +thought you were a plain woman." + +LADY UTTERWORD. Oh, for shame, Hector! What right had you to notice +whether I am plain or not? + +HECTOR. Listen to me, Ariadne. Until today I have seen only photographs +of you; and no photograph can give the strange fascination of the +daughters of that supernatural old man. There is some damnable quality +in them that destroys men's moral sense, and carries them beyond honor +and dishonor. You know that, don't you? + +LADY UTTERWORD. Perhaps I do, Hector. But let me warn you once for all +that I am a rigidly conventional woman. You may think because I'm a +Shotover that I'm a Bohemian, because we are all so horribly Bohemian. +But I'm not. I hate and loathe Bohemianism. No child brought up in a +strict Puritan household ever suffered from Puritanism as I suffered +from our Bohemianism. + +HECTOR. Our children are like that. They spend their holidays in the +houses of their respectable schoolfellows. + +LADY UTTERWORD. I shall invite them for Christmas. + +HECTOR. Their absence leaves us both without our natural chaperones. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Children are certainly very inconvenient sometimes. But +intelligent people can always manage, unless they are Bohemians. + +HECTOR. You are no Bohemian; but you are no Puritan either: your +attraction is alive and powerful. What sort of woman do you count +yourself? + +LADY UTTERWORD. I am a woman of the world, Hector; and I can assure +you that if you will only take the trouble always to do the perfectly +correct thing, and to say the perfectly correct thing, you can do just +what you like. An ill-conducted, careless woman gets simply no chance. +An ill-conducted, careless man is never allowed within arm's length of +any woman worth knowing. + +HECTOR. I see. You are neither a Bohemian woman nor a Puritan woman. You +are a dangerous woman. + +LADY UTTERWORD. On the contrary, I am a safe woman. + +HECTOR. You are a most accursedly attractive woman. Mind, I am not +making love to you. I do not like being attracted. But you had better +know how I feel if you are going to stay here. + +LADY UTTERWORD. You are an exceedingly clever lady-killer, Hector. And +terribly handsome. I am quite a good player, myself, at that game. Is it +quite understood that we are only playing? + +HECTOR. Quite. I am deliberately playing the fool, out of sheer +worthlessness. + +LADY UTTERWORD [rising brightly]. Well, you are my brother-in-law, +Hesione asked you to kiss me. [He seizes her in his arms and kisses her +strenuously]. Oh! that was a little more than play, brother-in-law. [She +pushes him suddenly away]. You shall not do that again. + +HECTOR. In effect, you got your claws deeper into me than I intended. + +MRS HUBHABYE [coming in from the garden]. Don't let me disturb you; I +only want a cap to put on daddiest. The sun is setting; and he'll catch +cold [she makes for the door leading to the hall]. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Your husband is quite charming, darling. He has actually +condescended to kiss me at last. I shall go into the garden: it's cooler +now [she goes out by the port door]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Take care, dear child. I don't believe any man can kiss +Addy without falling in love with her. [She goes into the hall]. + +HECTOR [striking himself on the chest]. Fool! Goat! + +Mrs Hushabye comes back with the captain's cap. + +HECTOR. Your sister is an extremely enterprising old girl. Where's Miss +Dunn! + +MRS HUSHABYE. Mangan says she has gone up to her room for a nap. Addy +won't let you talk to Ellie: she has marked you for her own. + +HECTOR. She has the diabolical family fascination. I began making love +to her automatically. What am I to do? I can't fall in love; and I can't +hurt a woman's feelings by telling her so when she falls in love with +me. And as women are always falling in love with my moustache I get +landed in all sorts of tedious and terrifying flirtations in which I'm +not a bit in earnest. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, neither is Addy. She has never been in love in her +life, though she has always been trying to fall in head over ears. She +is worse than you, because you had one real go at least, with me. + +HECTOR. That was a confounded madness. I can't believe that such an +amazing experience is common. It has left its mark on me. I believe that +is why I have never been able to repeat it. + +MRS HUSHABYE [laughing and caressing his arm]. We were frightfully in +love with one another, Hector. It was such an enchanting dream that I +have never been able to grudge it to you or anyone else since. I have +invited all sorts of pretty women to the house on the chance of giving +you another turn. But it has never come off. + +HECTOR. I don't know that I want it to come off. It was damned +dangerous. You fascinated me; but I loved you; so it was heaven. This +sister of yours fascinates me; but I hate her; so it is hell. I shall +kill her if she persists. + +MRS. HUSHABYE. Nothing will kill Addy; she is as strong as a horse. +[Releasing him]. Now I am going off to fascinate somebody. + +HECTOR. The Foreign Office toff? Randall? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Goodness gracious, no! Why should I fascinate him? + +HECTOR. I presume you don't mean the bloated capitalist, Mangan? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Hm! I think he had better be fascinated by me than by +Ellie. [She is going into the garden when the captain comes in from it +with some sticks in his hand]. What have you got there, daddiest? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Dynamite. + +MRS HUSHABYE. You've been to the gravel pit. Don't drop it about the +house, there's a dear. [She goes into the garden, where the evening +light is now very red]. + +HECTOR. Listen, O sage. How long dare you concentrate on a feeling +without risking having it fixed in your consciousness all the rest of +your life? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Ninety minutes. An hour and a half. [He goes into the +pantry]. + +Hector, left alone, contracts his brows, and falls into a day-dream. He +does not move for some time. Then he folds his arms. Then, throwing his +hands behind him, and gripping one with the other, he strides tragically +once to and fro. Suddenly he snatches his walking stick from the teak +table, and draws it; for it is a swordstick. He fights a desperate +duel with an imaginary antagonist, and after many vicissitudes runs him +through the body up to the hilt. He sheathes his sword and throws it on +the sofa, falling into another reverie as he does so. He looks straight +into the eyes of an imaginary woman; seizes her by the arms; and says +in a deep and thrilling tone, "Do you love me!" The captain comes out +of the pantry at this moment; and Hector, caught with his arms stretched +out and his fists clenched, has to account for his attitude by going +through a series of gymnastic exercises. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. That sort of strength is no good. You will never be as +strong as a gorilla. + +HECTOR. What is the dynamite for? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. To kill fellows like Mangan. + +HECTOR. No use. They will always be able to buy more dynamite than you. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I will make a dynamite that he cannot explode. + +HECTOR. And that you can, eh? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Yes: when I have attained the seventh degree of +concentration. + +HECTOR. What's the use of that? You never do attain it. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What then is to be done? Are we to be kept forever in +the mud by these hogs to whom the universe is nothing but a machine for +greasing their bristles and filling their snouts? + +HECTOR. Are Mangan's bristles worse than Randall's lovelocks? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER,. We must win powers of life and death over them both. +I refuse to die until I have invented the means. + +HECTOR. Who are we that we should judge them? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What are they that they should judge us? Yet they do, +unhesitatingly. There is enmity between our seed and their seed. They +know it and act on it, strangling our souls. They believe in themselves. +When we believe in ourselves, we shall kill them. + +HECTOR. It is the same seed. You forget that your pirate has a very nice +daughter. Mangan's son may be a Plato: Randall's a Shelley. What was my +father? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The damnedst scoundrel I ever met. [He replaces the +drawing-board; sits down at the table; and begins to mix a wash of +color]. + +HECTOR. Precisely. Well, dare you kill his innocent grandchildren? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. They are mine also. + +HECTOR. Just so--we are members one of another. [He throws himself +carelessly on the sofa]. I tell you I have often thought of this killing +of human vermin. Many men have thought of it. Decent men are like Daniel +in the lion's den: their survival is a miracle; and they do not always +survive. We live among the Mangans and Randalls and Billie Dunns as +they, poor devils, live among the disease germs and the doctors and the +lawyers and the parsons and the restaurant chefs and the tradesmen and +the servants and all the rest of the parasites and blackmailers. What +are our terrors to theirs? Give me the power to kill them; and I'll +spare them in sheer-- + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [cutting in sharply]. Fellow feeling? + +HECTOR. No. I should kill myself if I believed that. I must believe that +my spark, small as it is, is divine, and that the red light over their +door is hell fire. I should spare them in simple magnanimous pity. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You can't spare them until you have the power to kill +them. At present they have the power to kill you. There are millions +of blacks over the water for them to train and let loose on us. They're +going to do it. They're doing it already. + +HECTOR. They are too stupid to use their power. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [throwing down his brush and coming to the end of the +sofa]. Do not deceive yourself: they do use it. We kill the better half +of ourselves every day to propitiate them. The knowledge that these +people are there to render all our aspirations barren prevents us having +the aspirations. And when we are tempted to seek their destruction they +bring forth demons to delude us, disguised as pretty daughters, and +singers and poets and the like, for whose sake we spare them. + +HECTOR [sitting up and leaning towards him]. May not Hesione be such a +demon, brought forth by you lest I should slay you? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. That is possible. She has used you up, and left you +nothing but dreams, as some women do. + +HECTOR. Vampire women, demon women. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Men think the world well lost for them, and lose it +accordingly. Who are the men that do things? The husbands of the shrew +and of the drunkard, the men with the thorn in the flesh. [Walking +distractedly away towards the pantry]. I must think these things out. +[Turning suddenly]. But I go on with the dynamite none the less. I will +discover a ray mightier than any X-ray: a mind ray that will explode the +ammunition in the belt of my adversary before he can point his gun at +me. And I must hurry. I am old: I have no time to waste in talk [he is +about to go into the pantry, and Hector is making for the hall, when +Hesione comes back]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Daddiest, you and Hector must come and help me to +entertain all these people. What on earth were you shouting about? + +HECTOR [stopping in the act of turning the door handle]. He is madder +than usual. + +MRS HUSHABYE. We all are. + +HECTOR. I must change [he resumes his door opening]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Stop, stop. Come back, both of you. Come back. [They +return, reluctantly]. Money is running short. + +HECTOR. Money! Where are my April dividends? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Where is the snow that fell last year? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Where is all the money you had for that patent +lifeboat I invented? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Five hundred pounds; and I have made it last since Easter! + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Since Easter! Barely four months! Monstrous +extravagance! I could live for seven years on 500 pounds. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Not keeping open house as we do here, daddiest. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Only 500 pounds for that lifeboat! I got twelve +thousand for the invention before that. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Yes, dear; but that was for the ship with the magnetic +keel that sucked up submarines. Living at the rate we do, you cannot +afford life-saving inventions. Can't you think of something that will +murder half Europe at one bang? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No. I am ageing fast. My mind does not dwell on +slaughter as it did when I was a boy. Why doesn't your husband invent +something? He does nothing but tell lies to women. + +HECTOR. Well, that is a form of invention, is it not? However, you are +right: I ought to support my wife. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Indeed you shall do nothing of the sort: I should never +see you from breakfast to dinner. I want my husband. + +HECTOR [bitterly]. I might as well be your lapdog. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Do you want to be my breadwinner, like the other poor +husbands? + +HECTOR. No, by thunder! What a damned creature a husband is anyhow! + +MRS HUSHABYE [to the captain]. What about that harpoon cannon? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No use. It kills whales, not men. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Why not? You fire the harpoon out of a cannon. It sticks +in the enemy's general; you wind him in; and there you are. + +HECTOR. You are your father's daughter, Hesione. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. There is something in it. Not to wind in generals: +they are not dangerous. But one could fire a grapnel and wind in a +machine gun or even a tank. I will think it out. + +MRS HUSHABYE [squeezing the captain's arm affectionately]. Saved! You +are a darling, daddiest. Now we must go back to these dreadful people +and entertain them. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. They have had no dinner. Don't forget that. + +HECTOR. Neither have I. And it is dark: it must be all hours. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, Guinness will produce some sort of dinner for them. +The servants always take jolly good care that there is food in the +house. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [raising a strange wail in the darkness]. What a house! +What a daughter! + +MRS HUSHABYE [raving]. What a father! + +HECTOR [following suit]. What a husband! + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Is there no thunder in heaven? + +HECTOR. Is there no beauty, no bravery, on earth? + +MRS HUSHABYE. What do men want? They have their food, their firesides, +their clothes mended, and our love at the end of the day. Why are they +not satisfied? Why do they envy us the pain with which we bring them +into the world, and make strange dangers and torments for themselves to +be even with us? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [weirdly chanting]. + + I builded a house for my daughters, and opened the doors + thereof, + That men might come for their choosing, and their betters + spring from their love; + But one of them married a numskull; + +HECTOR [taking up the rhythm]. + + The other a liar wed; + +MRS HUSHABYE [completing the stanza]. + + And now must she lie beside him, even as she made her bed. + +LADY UTTERWORD [calling from the garden]. Hesione! Hesione! Where are +you? + +HECTOR. The cat is on the tiles. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Coming, darling, coming [she goes quickly into the +garden]. + +The captain goes back to his place at the table. + +HECTOR [going out into the hall]. Shall I turn up the lights for you? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No. Give me deeper darkness. Money is not made in the +light. + + + + +ACT II + +The same room, with the lights turned up and the curtains drawn. Ellie +comes in, followed by Mangan. Both are dressed for dinner. She strolls +to the drawing-table. He comes between the table and the wicker chair. + +MANGAN. What a dinner! I don't call it a dinner: I call it a meal. + +ELLIE. I am accustomed to meals, Mr Mangan, and very lucky to get them. +Besides, the captain cooked some maccaroni for me. + +MANGAN [shuddering liverishly]. Too rich: I can't eat such things. I +suppose it's because I have to work so much with my brain. That's the +worst of being a man of business: you are always thinking, thinking, +thinking. By the way, now that we are alone, may I take the opportunity +to come to a little understanding with you? + +ELLIE [settling into the draughtsman's seat]. Certainly. I should like +to. + +MANGAN [taken aback]. Should you? That surprises me; for I thought I +noticed this afternoon that you avoided me all you could. Not for the +first time either. + +ELLIE. I was very tired and upset. I wasn't used to the ways of this +extraordinary house. Please forgive me. + +MANGAN. Oh, that's all right: I don't mind. But Captain Shotover has +been talking to me about you. You and me, you know. + +ELLIE [interested]. The captain! What did he say? + +MANGAN. Well, he noticed the difference between our ages. + +ELLIE. He notices everything. + +MANGAN. You don't mind, then? + +ELLIE. Of course I know quite well that our engagement-- + +MANGAN. Oh! you call it an engagement. + +ELLIE. Well, isn't it? + +MANGAN. Oh, yes, yes: no doubt it is if you hold to it. This is the +first time you've used the word; and I didn't quite know where we stood: +that's all. [He sits down in the wicker chair; and resigns himself to +allow her to lead the conversation]. You were saying--? + +ELLIE. Was I? I forget. Tell me. Do you like this part of the country? I +heard you ask Mr Hushabye at dinner whether there are any nice houses to +let down here. + +MANGAN. I like the place. The air suits me. I shouldn't be surprised if +I settled down here. + +ELLIE. Nothing would please me better. The air suits me too. And I want +to be near Hesione. + +MANGAN [with growing uneasiness]. The air may suit us; but the question +is, should we suit one another? Have you thought about that? + +ELLIE. Mr Mangan, we must be sensible, mustn't we? It's no use +pretending that we are Romeo and Juliet. But we can get on very well +together if we choose to make the best of it. Your kindness of heart +will make it easy for me. + +MANGAN [leaning forward, with the beginning of something like deliberate +unpleasantness in his voice]. Kindness of heart, eh? I ruined your +father, didn't I? + +ELLIE. Oh, not intentionally. + +MANGAN. Yes I did. Ruined him on purpose. + +ELLIE. On purpose! + +MANGAN. Not out of ill-nature, you know. And you'll admit that I kept a +job for him when I had finished with him. But business is business; and +I ruined him as a matter of business. + +ELLIE. I don't understand how that can be. Are you trying to make me +feel that I need not be grateful to you, so that I may choose freely? + +MANGAN [rising aggressively]. No. I mean what I say. + +ELLIE. But how could it possibly do you any good to ruin my father? The +money he lost was yours. + +MANGAN [with a sour laugh]. Was mine! It is mine, Miss Ellie, and all +the money the other fellows lost too. [He shoves his hands into his +pockets and shows his teeth]. I just smoked them out like a hive of +bees. What do you say to that? A bit of shock, eh? + +ELLIE. It would have been, this morning. Now! you can't think how little +it matters. But it's quite interesting. Only, you must explain it to me. +I don't understand it. [Propping her elbows on the drawingboard and her +chin on her hands, she composes herself to listen with a combination of +conscious curiosity with unconscious contempt which provokes him to more +and more unpleasantness, and an attempt at patronage of her ignorance]. + +MANGAN. Of course you don't understand: what do you know about business? +You just listen and learn. Your father's business was a new business; +and I don't start new businesses: I let other fellows start them. They +put all their money and their friends' money into starting them. They +wear out their souls and bodies trying to make a success of them. +They're what you call enthusiasts. But the first dead lift of the thing +is too much for them; and they haven't enough financial experience. In +a year or so they have either to let the whole show go bust, or sell out +to a new lot of fellows for a few deferred ordinary shares: that is, if +they're lucky enough to get anything at all. As likely as not the very +same thing happens to the new lot. They put in more money and a couple +of years' more work; and then perhaps they have to sell out to a third +lot. If it's really a big thing the third lot will have to sell out too, +and leave their work and their money behind them. And that's where the +real business man comes in: where I come in. But I'm cleverer than some: +I don't mind dropping a little money to start the process. I took your +father's measure. I saw that he had a sound idea, and that he would work +himself silly for it if he got the chance. I saw that he was a child +in business, and was dead certain to outrun his expenses and be in too +great a hurry to wait for his market. I knew that the surest way to +ruin a man who doesn't know how to handle money is to give him some. I +explained my idea to some friends in the city, and they found the money; +for I take no risks in ideas, even when they're my own. Your father and +the friends that ventured their money with him were no more to me than +a heap of squeezed lemons. You've been wasting your gratitude: my kind +heart is all rot. I'm sick of it. When I see your father beaming at +me with his moist, grateful eyes, regularly wallowing in gratitude, I +sometimes feel I must tell him the truth or burst. What stops me is that +I know he wouldn't believe me. He'd think it was my modesty, as you did +just now. He'd think anything rather than the truth, which is that he's +a blamed fool, and I am a man that knows how to take care of himself. +[He throws himself back into the big chair with large self approval]. +Now what do you think of me, Miss Ellie? + +ELLIE [dropping her hands]. How strange! that my mother, who knew +nothing at all about business, should have been quite right about you! +She always said not before papa, of course, but to us children--that you +were just that sort of man. + +MANGAN [sitting up, much hurt]. Oh! did she? And yet she'd have let you +marry me. + +ELLIE. Well, you see, Mr Mangan, my mother married a very good man--for +whatever you may think of my father as a man of business, he is the soul +of goodness--and she is not at all keen on my doing the same. + +MANGAN. Anyhow, you don't want to marry me now, do you? + +ELLIE. [very calmly]. Oh, I think so. Why not? + +MANGAN. [rising aghast]. Why not! + +ELLIE. I don't see why we shouldn't get on very well together. + +MANGAN. Well, but look here, you know--[he stops, quite at a loss]. + +ELLIE. [patiently]. Well? + +MANGAN. Well, I thought you were rather particular about people's +characters. + +ELLIE. If we women were particular about men's characters, we should +never get married at all, Mr Mangan. + +MANGAN. A child like you talking of "we women"! What next! You're not in +earnest? + +ELLIE. Yes, I am. Aren't you? + +MANGAN. You mean to hold me to it? + +ELLIE. Do you wish to back out of it? + +MANGAN. Oh, no. Not exactly back out of it. + +ELLIE. Well? + +He has nothing to say. With a long whispered whistle, he drops into +the wicker chair and stares before him like a beggared gambler. But a +cunning look soon comes into his face. He leans over towards her on his +right elbow, and speaks in a low steady voice. + +MANGAN. Suppose I told you I was in love with another woman! + +ELLIE [echoing him]. Suppose I told you I was in love with another man! + +MANGAN [bouncing angrily out of his chair]. I'm not joking. + +ELLIE. Who told you I was? + +MANGAN. I tell you I'm serious. You're too young to be serious; but +you'll have to believe me. I want to be near your friend Mrs Hushabye. +I'm in love with her. Now the murder's out. + +ELLIE. I want to be near your friend Mr Hushabye. I'm in love with +him. [She rises and adds with a frank air] Now we are in one another's +confidence, we shall be real friends. Thank you for telling me. + +MANGAN [almost beside himself]. Do you think I'll be made a convenience +of like this? + +ELLIE. Come, Mr Mangan! you made a business convenience of my father. +Well, a woman's business is marriage. Why shouldn't I make a domestic +convenience of you? + +MANGAN. Because I don't choose, see? Because I'm not a silly gull like +your father. That's why. + +ELLIE [with serene contempt]. You are not good enough to clean my +father's boots, Mr Mangan; and I am paying you a great compliment in +condescending to make a convenience of you, as you call it. Of course +you are free to throw over our engagement if you like; but, if you do, +you'll never enter Hesione's house again: I will take care of that. + +MANGAN [gasping]. You little devil, you've done me. [On the point of +collapsing into the big chair again he recovers himself]. Wait a bit, +though: you're not so cute as you think. You can't beat Boss Mangan as +easy as that. Suppose I go straight to Mrs Hushabye and tell her that +you're in love with her husband. + +ELLIE. She knows it. + +MANGAN. You told her!!! + +ELLIE. She told me. + +MANGAN [clutching at his bursting temples]. Oh, this is a crazy house. +Or else I'm going clean off my chump. Is she making a swop with you--she +to have your husband and you to have hers? + +ELLIE. Well, you don't want us both, do you? + +MANGAN [throwing himself into the chair distractedly]. My brain won't +stand it. My head's going to split. Help! Help me to hold it. Quick: +hold it: squeeze it. Save me. [Ellie comes behind his chair; clasps his +head hard for a moment; then begins to draw her hands from his forehead +back to his ears]. Thank you. [Drowsily]. That's very refreshing. +[Waking a little]. Don't you hypnotize me, though. I've seen men made +fools of by hypnotism. + +ELLIE [steadily]. Be quiet. I've seen men made fools of without +hypnotism. + +MANGAN [humbly]. You don't dislike touching me, I hope. You never +touched me before, I noticed. + +ELLIE. Not since you fell in love naturally with a grown-up nice woman, +who will never expect you to make love to her. And I will never expect +him to make love to me. + +MANGAN. He may, though. + +ELLIE [making her passes rhythmically]. Hush. Go to sleep. Do you hear? +You are to go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep; be quiet, deeply +deeply quiet; sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep. + +He falls asleep. Ellie steals away; turns the light out; and goes into +the garden. + +Nurse Guinness opens the door and is seen in the light which comes in +from the hall. + +GUINNESS [speaking to someone outside]. Mr Mangan's not here, duckie: +there's no one here. It's all dark. + +MRS HUSHABYE [without]. Try the garden. Mr Dunn and I will be in my +boudoir. Show him the way. + +GUINNESS. Yes, ducky. [She makes for the garden door in the dark; +stumbles over the sleeping Mangan and screams]. Ahoo! O Lord, Sir! I +beg your pardon, I'm sure: I didn't see you in the dark. Who is it? [She +goes back to the door and turns on the light]. Oh, Mr Mangan, sir, I +hope I haven't hurt you plumping into your lap like that. [Coming to +him]. I was looking for you, sir. Mrs Hushabye says will you please +[noticing that he remains quite insensible]. Oh, my good Lord, I hope +I haven't killed him. Sir! Mr Mangan! Sir! [She shakes him; and he is +rolling inertly off the chair on the floor when she holds him up and +props him against the cushion]. Miss Hessy! Miss Hessy! quick, doty +darling. Miss Hessy! [Mrs Hushabye comes in from the hall, followed by +Mazzini Dunn]. Oh, Miss Hessy, I've been and killed him. + +Mazzini runs round the back of the chair to Mangan's right hand, and +sees that the nurse's words are apparently only too true. + +MAZZINI. What tempted you to commit such a crime, woman? + +MRS HUSHABYE [trying not to laugh]. Do you mean, you did it on purpose? + +GUINNESS. Now is it likely I'd kill any man on purpose? I fell over +him in the dark; and I'm a pretty tidy weight. He never spoke nor moved +until I shook him; and then he would have dropped dead on the floor. +Isn't it tiresome? + +MRS HUSHABYE [going past the nurse to Mangan's side, and inspecting him +less credulously than Mazzini]. Nonsense! he is not dead: he is only +asleep. I can see him breathing. + +GUINNESS. But why won't he wake? + +MAZZINI [speaking very politely into Mangan's ear]. Mangan! My dear +Mangan! [he blows into Mangan's ear]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. That's no good [she shakes him vigorously]. Mr Mangan, +wake up. Do you hear? [He begins to roll over]. Oh! Nurse, nurse: he's +falling: help me. + +Nurse Guinness rushes to the rescue. With Mazzini's assistance, Mangan +is propped safely up again. + +GUINNESS [behind the chair; bending over to test the case with her +nose]. Would he be drunk, do you think, pet? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Had he any of papa's rum? + +MAZZINI. It can't be that: he is most abstemious. I am afraid he drank +too much formerly, and has to drink too little now. You know, Mrs +Hushabye, I really think he has been hypnotized. + +GUINNESS. Hip no what, sir? + +MAZZINI. One evening at home, after we had seen a hypnotizing +performance, the children began playing at it; and Ellie stroked my +head. I assure you I went off dead asleep; and they had to send for a +professional to wake me up after I had slept eighteen hours. They had to +carry me upstairs; and as the poor children were not very strong, they +let me slip; and I rolled right down the whole flight and never woke up. +[Mrs Hushabye splutters]. Oh, you may laugh, Mrs Hushabye; but I might +have been killed. + +MRS HUSHABYE. I couldn't have helped laughing even if you had been, Mr +Dunn. So Ellie has hypnotized him. What fun! + +MAZZINI. Oh no, no, no. It was such a terrible lesson to her: nothing +would induce her to try such a thing again. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Then who did it? I didn't. + +MAZZINI. I thought perhaps the captain might have done it +unintentionally. He is so fearfully magnetic: I feel vibrations whenever +he comes close to me. + +GUINNESS. The captain will get him out of it anyhow, sir: I'll back him +for that. I'll go fetch him [she makes for the pantry]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Wait a bit. [To Mazzini]. You say he is all right for +eighteen hours? + +MAZZINI. Well, I was asleep for eighteen hours. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Were you any the worse for it? + +MAZZINI. I don't quite remember. They had poured brandy down my throat, +you see; and-- + +MRS HUSHABYE. Quite. Anyhow, you survived. Nurse, darling: go and ask +Miss Dunn to come to us here. Say I want to speak to her particularly. +You will find her with Mr Hushabye probably. + +GUINNESS. I think not, ducky: Miss Addy is with him. But I'll find her +and send her to you. [She goes out into the garden]. + +MRS HUSHABYE [calling Mazzini's attention to the figure on the chair]. +Now, Mr Dunn, look. Just look. Look hard. Do you still intend to +sacrifice your daughter to that thing? + +MAZZINI [troubled]. You have completely upset me, Mrs Hushabye, by all +you have said to me. That anyone could imagine that I--I, a consecrated +soldier of freedom, if I may say so--could sacrifice Ellie to anybody or +anyone, or that I should ever have dreamed of forcing her inclinations +in any way, is a most painful blow to my--well, I suppose you would say +to my good opinion of myself. + +MRS HUSHABYE [rather stolidly]. Sorry. + +MAZZINI [looking forlornly at the body]. What is your objection to +poor Mangan, Mrs Hushabye? He looks all right to me. But then I am so +accustomed to him. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Have you no heart? Have you no sense? Look at the brute! +Think of poor weak innocent Ellie in the clutches of this slavedriver, +who spends his life making thousands of rough violent workmen bend to +his will and sweat for him: a man accustomed to have great masses of +iron beaten into shape for him by steam-hammers! to fight with women +and girls over a halfpenny an hour ruthlessly! a captain of industry, +I think you call him, don't you? Are you going to fling your delicate, +sweet, helpless child into such a beast's claws just because he will +keep her in an expensive house and make her wear diamonds to show how +rich he is? + +MAZZINI [staring at her in wide-eyed amazement]. Bless you, dear Mrs +Hushabye, what romantic ideas of business you have! Poor dear Mangan +isn't a bit like that. + +MRS HUSHABYE [scornfully]. Poor dear Mangan indeed! + +MAZZINI. But he doesn't know anything about machinery. He never goes +near the men: he couldn't manage them: he is afraid of them. I never can +get him to take the least interest in the works: he hardly knows more +about them than you do. People are cruelly unjust to Mangan: they think +he is all rugged strength just because his manners are bad. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Do you mean to tell me he isn't strong enough to crush +poor little Ellie? + +MAZZINI. Of course it's very hard to say how any marriage will turn out; +but speaking for myself, I should say that he won't have a dog's chance +against Ellie. You know, Ellie has remarkable strength of character. I +think it is because I taught her to like Shakespeare when she was very +young. + +MRS HUSHABYE [contemptuously]. Shakespeare! The next thing you will tell +me is that you could have made a great deal more money than Mangan. [She +retires to the sofa, and sits down at the port end of it in the worst of +humors]. + +MAZZINI [following her and taking the other end]. No: I'm no good at +making money. I don't care enough for it, somehow. I'm not ambitious! +that must be it. Mangan is wonderful about money: he thinks of nothing +else. He is so dreadfully afraid of being poor. I am always thinking of +other things: even at the works I think of the things we are doing and +not of what they cost. And the worst of it is, poor Mangan doesn't know +what to do with his money when he gets it. He is such a baby that he +doesn't know even what to eat and drink: he has ruined his liver eating +and drinking the wrong things; and now he can hardly eat at all. Ellie +will diet him splendidly. You will be surprised when you come to know +him better: he is really the most helpless of mortals. You get quite a +protective feeling towards him. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Then who manages his business, pray? + +MAZZINI. I do. And of course other people like me. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Footling people, you mean. + +MAZZINI. I suppose you'd think us so. + +MRS HUSHABYE. And pray why don't you do without him if you're all so +much cleverer? + +MAZZINI. Oh, we couldn't: we should ruin the business in a year. I've +tried; and I know. We should spend too much on everything. We should +improve the quality of the goods and make them too dear. We should be +sentimental about the hard cases among the work people. But Mangan keeps +us in order. He is down on us about every extra halfpenny. We could +never do without him. You see, he will sit up all night thinking of how +to save sixpence. Won't Ellie make him jump, though, when she takes his +house in hand! + +MRS HUSHABYE. Then the creature is a fraud even as a captain of +industry! + +MAZZINI. I am afraid all the captains of industry are what you call +frauds, Mrs Hushabye. Of course there are some manufacturers who really +do understand their own works; but they don't make as high a rate of +profit as Mangan does. I assure you Mangan is quite a good fellow in his +way. He means well. + +MRS HUSHABYE. He doesn't look well. He is not in his first youth, is he? + +MAZZINI. After all, no husband is in his first youth for very long, Mrs +Hushabye. And men can't afford to marry in their first youth nowadays. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Now if I said that, it would sound witty. Why can't you +say it wittily? What on earth is the matter with you? Why don't you +inspire everybody with confidence? with respect? + +MAZZINI [humbly]. I think that what is the matter with me is that I am +poor. You don't know what that means at home. Mind: I don't say they +have ever complained. They've all been wonderful: they've been proud of +my poverty. They've even joked about it quite often. But my wife has had +a very poor time of it. She has been quite resigned-- + +MRS HUSHABYE [shuddering involuntarily!] + +MAZZINI. There! You see, Mrs Hushabye. I don't want Ellie to live on +resignation. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Do you want her to have to resign herself to living with a +man she doesn't love? + +MAZZINI [wistfully]. Are you sure that would be worse than living with a +man she did love, if he was a footling person? + +MRS HUSHABYE [relaxing her contemptuous attitude, quite interested in +Mazzini now]. You know, I really think you must love Ellie very much; +for you become quite clever when you talk about her. + +MAZZINI. I didn't know I was so very stupid on other subjects. + +MRS HUSHABYE. You are, sometimes. + +MAZZINI [turning his head away; for his eyes are wet]. I have learnt a +good deal about myself from you, Mrs Hushabye; and I'm afraid I shall +not be the happier for your plain speaking. But if you thought I needed +it to make me think of Ellie's happiness you were very much mistaken. + +MRS HUSHABYE [leaning towards him kindly]. Have I been a beast? + +MAZZINI [pulling himself together]. It doesn't matter about me, Mrs +Hushabye. I think you like Ellie; and that is enough for me. + +MRS HUSHABYE. I'm beginning to like you a little. I perfectly loathed +you at first. I thought you the most odious, self-satisfied, boresome +elderly prig I ever met. + +MAZZINI [resigned, and now quite cheerful]. I daresay I am all that. +I never have been a favorite with gorgeous women like you. They always +frighten me. + +MRS HUSHABYE [pleased]. Am I a gorgeous woman, Mazzini? I shall fall in +love with you presently. + +MAZZINI [with placid gallantry]. No, you won't, Hesione. But you would +be quite safe. Would you believe it that quite a lot of women have +flirted with me because I am quite safe? But they get tired of me for +the same reason. + +MRS HUSHABYE [mischievously]. Take care. You may not be so safe as you +think. + +MAZZINI. Oh yes, quite safe. You see, I have been in love really: the +sort of love that only happens once. [Softly]. That's why Ellie is such +a lovely girl. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Well, really, you are coming out. Are you quite sure you +won't let me tempt you into a second grand passion? + +MAZZINI. Quite. It wouldn't be natural. The fact is, you don't strike on +my box, Mrs Hushabye; and I certainly don't strike on yours. + +MRS HUSHABYE. I see. Your marriage was a safety match. + +MAZZINI. What a very witty application of the expression I used! I +should never have thought of it. + +Ellie comes in from the garden, looking anything but happy. + +MRS HUSHABYE [rising]. Oh! here is Ellie at last. [She goes behind the +sofa]. + +ELLIE [on the threshold of the starboard door]. Guinness said you wanted +me: you and papa. + +MRS HUSHABYE. You have kept us waiting so long that it almost came +to--well, never mind. Your father is a very wonderful man [she ruffles +his hair affectionately]: the only one I ever met who could resist me +when I made myself really agreeable. [She comes to the big chair, on +Mangan's left]. Come here. I have something to show you. [Ellie strolls +listlessly to the other side of the chair]. Look. + +ELLIE [contemplating Mangan without interest]. I know. He is only +asleep. We had a talk after dinner; and he fell asleep in the middle of +it. + +MRS HUSHABYE. You did it, Ellie. You put him asleep. + +MAZZINI [rising quickly and coming to the back of the chair]. Oh, I hope +not. Did you, Ellie? + +ELLIE [wearily]. He asked me to. + +MAZZINI. But it's dangerous. You know what happened to me. + +ELLIE [utterly indifferent]. Oh, I daresay I can wake him. If not, +somebody else can. + +MRS HUSHABYE. It doesn't matter, anyhow, because I have at last +persuaded your father that you don't want to marry him. + +ELLIE [suddenly coming out of her listlessness, much vexed]. But why did +you do that, Hesione? I do want to marry him. I fully intend to marry +him. + +MAZZINI. Are you quite sure, Ellie? Mrs Hushabye has made me feel that I +may have been thoughtless and selfish about it. + +ELLIE [very clearly and steadily]. Papa. When Mrs. Hushabye takes it on +herself to explain to you what I think or don't think, shut your ears +tight; and shut your eyes too. Hesione knows nothing about me: she +hasn't the least notion of the sort of person I am, and never will. I +promise you I won't do anything I don't want to do and mean to do for my +own sake. + +MAZZINI. You are quite, quite sure? + +ELLIE. Quite, quite sure. Now you must go away and leave me to talk to +Mrs Hushabye. + +MAZZINI. But I should like to hear. Shall I be in the way? + +ELLIE [inexorable]. I had rather talk to her alone. + +MAZZINI [affectionately]. Oh, well, I know what a nuisance parents are, +dear. I will be good and go. [He goes to the garden door]. By the way, +do you remember the address of that professional who woke me up? Don't +you think I had better telegraph to him? + +MRS HUSHABYE [moving towards the sofa]. It's too late to telegraph +tonight. + +MAZZINI. I suppose so. I do hope he'll wake up in the course of the +night. [He goes out into the garden]. + +ELLIE [turning vigorously on Hesione the moment her father is out of the +room]. Hesione, what the devil do you mean by making mischief with my +father about Mangan? + +MRS HUSHABYE [promptly losing her temper]. Don't you dare speak to me +like that, you little minx. Remember that you are in my house. + +ELLIE. Stuff! Why don't you mind your own business? What is it to you +whether I choose to marry Mangan or not? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Do you suppose you can bully me, you miserable little +matrimonial adventurer? + +ELLIE. Every woman who hasn't any money is a matrimonial adventurer. +It's easy for you to talk: you have never known what it is to want +money; and you can pick up men as if they were daisies. I am poor and +respectable-- + +MRS HUSHABYE [interrupting]. Ho! respectable! How did you pick up +Mangan? How did you pick up my husband? You have the audacity to tell me +that I am a--a--a-- + +ELLIE. A siren. So you are. You were born to lead men by the nose: if +you weren't, Marcus would have waited for me, perhaps. + +MRS HUSHABYE [suddenly melting and half laughing]. Oh, my poor Ellie, my +pettikins, my unhappy darling! I am so sorry about Hector. But what can +I do? It's not my fault: I'd give him to you if I could. + +ELLIE. I don't blame you for that. + +MRS HUSHABYE. What a brute I was to quarrel with you and call you names! +Do kiss me and say you're not angry with me. + +ELLIE [fiercely]. Oh, don't slop and gush and be sentimental. Don't you +see that unless I can be hard--as hard as nails--I shall go mad? I don't +care a damn about your calling me names: do you think a woman in my +situation can feel a few hard words? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Poor little woman! Poor little situation! + +ELLIE. I suppose you think you're being sympathetic. You are just +foolish and stupid and selfish. You see me getting a smasher right in +the face that kills a whole part of my life: the best part that can +never come again; and you think you can help me over it by a little +coaxing and kissing. When I want all the strength I can get to lean on: +something iron, something stony, I don't care how cruel it is, you +go all mushy and want to slobber over me. I'm not angry; I'm not +unfriendly; but for God's sake do pull yourself together; and don't +think that because you're on velvet and always have been, women who are +in hell can take it as easily as you. + +MRS HUSHABYE [shrugging her shoulders]. Very well. [She sits down on the +sofa in her old place.] But I warn you that when I am neither coaxing and +kissing nor laughing, I am just wondering how much longer I can stand +living in this cruel, damnable world. You object to the siren: well, +I drop the siren. You want to rest your wounded bosom against a +grindstone. Well [folding her arms] here is the grindstone. + +ELLIE [sitting down beside her, appeased]. That's better: you really +have the trick of falling in with everyone's mood; but you don't +understand, because you are not the sort of woman for whom there is only +one man and only one chance. + +MRS HUSHABYE. I certainly don't understand how your marrying that object +[indicating Mangan] will console you for not being able to marry Hector. + +ELLIE. Perhaps you don't understand why I was quite a nice girl this +morning, and am now neither a girl nor particularly nice. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, yes, I do. It's because you have made up your mind to +do something despicable and wicked. + +ELLIE. I don't think so, Hesione. I must make the best of my ruined +house. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Pooh! You'll get over it. Your house isn't ruined. + +ELLIE. Of course I shall get over it. You don't suppose I'm going to sit +down and die of a broken heart, I hope, or be an old maid living on a +pittance from the Sick and Indigent Roomkeepers' Association. But my +heart is broken, all the same. What I mean by that is that I know that +what has happened to me with Marcus will not happen to me ever again. In +the world for me there is Marcus and a lot of other men of whom one is +just the same as another. Well, if I can't have love, that's no reason +why I should have poverty. If Mangan has nothing else, he has money. + +MRS HUSHABYE. And are there no YOUNG men with money? + +ELLIE. Not within my reach. Besides, a young man would have the right +to expect love from me, and would perhaps leave me when he found I could +not give it to him. Rich young men can get rid of their wives, you know, +pretty cheaply. But this object, as you call him, can expect nothing +more from me than I am prepared to give him. + +MRS HUSHABYE. He will be your owner, remember. If he buys you, he will +make the bargain pay him and not you. Ask your father. + +ELLIE [rising and strolling to the chair to contemplate their subject]. +You need not trouble on that score, Hesione. I have more to give Boss +Mangan than he has to give me: it is I who am buying him, and at a +pretty good price too, I think. Women are better at that sort of bargain +than men. I have taken the Boss's measure; and ten Boss Mangans shall +not prevent me doing far more as I please as his wife than I have ever +been able to do as a poor girl. [Stooping to the recumbent figure]. +Shall they, Boss? I think not. [She passes on to the drawing-table, and +leans against the end of it, facing the windows]. I shall not have to +spend most of my time wondering how long my gloves will last, anyhow. + +MRS HUSHABYE [rising superbly]. Ellie, you are a wicked, sordid little +beast. And to think that I actually condescended to fascinate that +creature there to save you from him! Well, let me tell you this: if you +make this disgusting match, you will never see Hector again if I can +help it. + +ELLIE [unmoved]. I nailed Mangan by telling him that if he did not marry +me he should never see you again [she lifts herself on her wrists and +seats herself on the end of the table]. + +MRS HUSHABYE [recoiling]. Oh! + +ELLIE. So you see I am not unprepared for your playing that trump +against me. Well, you just try it: that's all. I should have made a man +of Marcus, not a household pet. + +MRS HUSHABYE [flaming]. You dare! + +ELLIE [looking almost dangerous]. Set him thinking about me if you dare. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Well, of all the impudent little fiends I ever met! Hector +says there is a certain point at which the only answer you can give to a +man who breaks all the rules is to knock him down. What would you say if +I were to box your ears? + +ELLIE [calmly]. I should pull your hair. + +MRS HUSHABYE [mischievously]. That wouldn't hurt me. Perhaps it comes +off at night. + +ELLIE [so taken aback that she drops off the table and runs to her]. Oh, +you don't mean to say, Hesione, that your beautiful black hair is false? + +MRS HUSHABYE [patting it]. Don't tell Hector. He believes in it. + +ELLIE [groaning]. Oh! Even the hair that ensnared him false! Everything +false! + +MRS HUSHABYE. Pull it and try. Other women can snare men in their hair; +but I can swing a baby on mine. Aha! you can't do that, Goldylocks. + +ELLIE [heartbroken]. No. You have stolen my babies. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Pettikins, don't make me cry. You know what you said about +my making a household pet of him is a little true. Perhaps he ought to +have waited for you. Would any other woman on earth forgive you? + +ELLIE. Oh, what right had you to take him all for yourself! [Pulling +herself together]. There! You couldn't help it: neither of us could help +it. He couldn't help it. No, don't say anything more: I can't bear it. +Let us wake the object. [She begins stroking Mangan's head, reversing +the movement with which she put him to sleep]. Wake up, do you hear? You +are to wake up at once. Wake up, wake up, wake-- + +MANGAN [bouncing out of the chair in a fury and turning on them]. Wake +up! So you think I've been asleep, do you? [He kicks the chair violently +back out of his way, and gets between them]. You throw me into a trance +so that I can't move hand or foot--I might have been buried alive! it's +a mercy I wasn't--and then you think I was only asleep. If you'd let +me drop the two times you rolled me about, my nose would have been +flattened for life against the floor. But I've found you all out, +anyhow. I know the sort of people I'm among now. I've heard every word +you've said, you and your precious father, and [to Mrs Hushabye] you +too. So I'm an object, am I? I'm a thing, am I? I'm a fool that hasn't +sense enough to feed myself properly, am I? I'm afraid of the men that +would starve if it weren't for the wages I give them, am I? I'm nothing +but a disgusting old skinflint to be made a convenience of by designing +women and fool managers of my works, am I? I'm-- + +MRS HUSHABYE [with the most elegant aplomb]. Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh! Mr Mangan, +you are bound in honor to obliterate from your mind all you heard while +you were pretending to be asleep. It was not meant for you to hear. + +MANGAN. Pretending to be asleep! Do you think if I was only pretending +that I'd have sprawled there helpless, and listened to such unfairness, +such lies, such injustice and plotting and backbiting and slandering of +me, if I could have up and told you what I thought of you! I wonder I +didn't burst. + +MRS HUSHABYE [sweetly]. You dreamt it all, Mr Mangan. We were only +saying how beautifully peaceful you looked in your sleep. That was all, +wasn't it, Ellie? Believe me, Mr Mangan, all those unpleasant things +came into your mind in the last half second before you woke. Ellie +rubbed your hair the wrong way; and the disagreeable sensation suggested +a disagreeable dream. + +MANGAN [doggedly]. I believe in dreams. + +MRS HUSHABYE. So do I. But they go by contraries, don't they? + +MANGAN [depths of emotion suddenly welling up in him]. I shan't forget, +to my dying day, that when you gave me the glad eye that time in the +garden, you were making a fool of me. That was a dirty low mean thing +to do. You had no right to let me come near you if I disgusted you. +It isn't my fault if I'm old and haven't a moustache like a bronze +candlestick as your husband has. There are things no decent woman would +do to a man--like a man hitting a woman in the breast. + +Hesione, utterly shamed, sits down on the sofa and covers her face with +her hands. Mangan sits down also on his chair and begins to cry like a +child. Ellie stares at them. Mrs Hushabye, at the distressing sound he +makes, takes down her hands and looks at him. She rises and runs to him. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Don't cry: I can't bear it. Have I broken your heart? I +didn't know you had one. How could I? + +MANGAN. I'm a man, ain't I? + +MRS HUSHABYE [half coaxing, half rallying, altogether tenderly]. Oh no: +not what I call a man. Only a Boss: just that and nothing else. What +business has a Boss with a heart? + +MANGAN. Then you're not a bit sorry for what you did, nor ashamed? + +MRS HUSHABYE. I was ashamed for the first time in my life when you said +that about hitting a woman in the breast, and I found out what I'd done. +My very bones blushed red. You've had your revenge, Boss. Aren't you +satisfied? + +MANGAN. Serve you right! Do you hear? Serve you right! You're just +cruel. Cruel. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Yes: cruelty would be delicious if one could only find +some sort of cruelty that didn't really hurt. By the way [sitting down +beside him on the arm of the chair], what's your name? It's not really +Boss, is it? + +MANGAN [shortly]. If you want to know, my name's Alfred. + +MRS HUSHABYE [springs up]. Alfred!! Ellie, he was christened after +Tennyson!!! + +MANGAN [rising]. I was christened after my uncle, and never had a penny +from him, damn him! What of it? + +MRS HUSHABYE. It comes to me suddenly that you are a real person: that +you had a mother, like anyone else. [Putting her hands on his shoulders +and surveying him]. Little Alf! + +MANGAN. Well, you have a nerve. + +MRS HUSHABYE. And you have a heart, Alfy, a whimpering little heart, but +a real one. [Releasing him suddenly]. Now run and make it up with Ellie. +She has had time to think what to say to you, which is more than I had +[she goes out quickly into the garden by the port door]. + +MANGAN. That woman has a pair of hands that go right through you. + +ELLIE. Still in love with her, in spite of all we said about you? + +MANGAN. Are all women like you two? Do they never think of anything +about a man except what they can get out of him? You weren't even +thinking that about me. You were only thinking whether your gloves would +last. + +ELLIE. I shall not have to think about that when we are married. + +MANGAN. And you think I am going to marry you after what I heard there! + +ELLIE. You heard nothing from me that I did not tell you before. + +MANGAN. Perhaps you think I can't do without you. + +ELLIE. I think you would feel lonely without us all, now, after coming +to know us so well. + +MANGAN [with something like a yell of despair]. Am I never to have the +last word? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [appearing at the starboard garden door]. There is a +soul in torment here. What is the matter? + +MANGAN. This girl doesn't want to spend her life wondering how long her +gloves will last. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [passing through]. Don't wear any. I never do [he goes +into the pantry]. + +LADY UTTERWORD [appearing at the port garden door, in a handsome dinner +dress]. Is anything the matter? + +ELLIE. This gentleman wants to know is he never to have the last word? + +LADY UTTERWORD [coming forward to the sofa]. I should let him have it, +my dear. The important thing is not to have the last word, but to have +your own way. + +MANGAN. She wants both. + +LADY UTTERWORD. She won't get them, Mr Mangan. Providence always has the +last word. + +MANGAN [desperately]. Now you are going to come religion over me. In +this house a man's mind might as well be a football. I'm going. [He +makes for the hall, but is stopped by a hail from the Captain, who has +just emerged from his pantry]. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Whither away, Boss Mangan? + +MANGAN. To hell out of this house: let that be enough for you and all +here. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You were welcome to come: you are free to go. The wide +earth, the high seas, the spacious skies are waiting for you outside. + +LADY UTTERWORD. But your things, Mr Mangan. Your bag, your comb and +brushes, your pyjamas-- + +HECTOR [who has just appeared in the port doorway in a handsome Arab +costume]. Why should the escaping slave take his chains with him? + +MANGAN. That's right, Hushabye. Keep the pyjamas, my lady, and much good +may they do you. + +HECTOR [advancing to Lady Utterword's left hand]. Let us all go out into +the night and leave everything behind us. + +MANGAN. You stay where you are, the lot of you. I want no company, +especially female company. + +ELLIE. Let him go. He is unhappy here. He is angry with us. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Go, Boss Mangan; and when you have found the land +where there is happiness and where there are no women, send me its +latitude and longitude; and I will join you there. + +LADY UTTERWORD. You will certainly not be comfortable without your +luggage, Mr Mangan. + +ELLIE [impatient]. Go, go: why don't you go? It is a heavenly night: you +can sleep on the heath. Take my waterproof to lie on: it is hanging up +in the hall. + +HECTOR. Breakfast at nine, unless you prefer to breakfast with the +captain at six. + +ELLIE. Good night, Alfred. + +HECTOR. Alfred! [He runs back to the door and calls into the garden]. +Randall, Mangan's Christian name is Alfred. + +RANDALL [appearing in the starboard doorway in evening dress]. Then +Hesione wins her bet. + +Mrs Hushabye appears in the port doorway. She throws her left arm round +Hector's neck: draws him with her to the back of the sofa: and throws +her right arm round Lady Utterword's neck. + +MRS HUSHABYE. They wouldn't believe me, Alf. + +They contemplate him. + +MANGAN. Is there any more of you coming in to look at me, as if I was +the latest thing in a menagerie? + +MRS HUSHABYE. You are the latest thing in this menagerie. + +Before Mangan can retort, a fall of furniture is heard from upstairs: +then a pistol shot, and a yell of pain. The staring group breaks up in +consternation. + +MAZZINI'S VOICE [from above]. Help! A burglar! Help! + +HECTOR [his eyes blazing]. A burglar!!! + +MRS HUSHABYE. No, Hector: you'll be shot [but it is too late; he has +dashed out past Mangan, who hastily moves towards the bookshelves out of +his way]. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [blowing his whistle]. All hands aloft! [He strides out +after Hector]. + +LADY UTTERWORD. My diamonds! [She follows the captain]. + +RANDALL [rushing after her]. No. Ariadne. Let me. + +ELLIE. Oh, is papa shot? [She runs out]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Are you frightened, Alf? + +MANGAN. No. It ain't my house, thank God. + +MRS HUSHABYE. If they catch a burglar, shall we have to go into court as +witnesses, and be asked all sorts of questions about our private lives? + +MANGAN. You won't be believed if you tell the truth. + +Mazzini, terribly upset, with a duelling pistol in his hand, comes from +the hall, and makes his way to the drawing-table. + +MAZZINI. Oh, my dear Mrs Hushabye, I might have killed him. [He throws +the pistol on the table and staggers round to the chair]. I hope you +won't believe I really intended to. + +Hector comes in, marching an old and villainous looking man before him +by the collar. He plants him in the middle of the room and releases him. + +Ellie follows, and immediately runs across to the back of her father's +chair and pats his shoulders. + +RANDALL [entering with a poker]. Keep your eye on this door, Mangan. +I'll look after the other [he goes to the starboard door and stands on +guard there]. + +Lady Utterword comes in after Randall, and goes between Mrs Hushabye and +Mangan. + +Nurse Guinness brings up the rear, and waits near the door, on Mangan's +left. + +MRS HUSHABYE. What has happened? + +MAZZINI. Your housekeeper told me there was somebody upstairs, and gave +me a pistol that Mr Hushabye had been practising with. I thought it +would frighten him; but it went off at a touch. + +THE BURGLAR. Yes, and took the skin off my ear. Precious near took the +top off my head. Why don't you have a proper revolver instead of a thing +like that, that goes off if you as much as blow on it? + +HECTOR. One of my duelling pistols. Sorry. + +MAZZINI. He put his hands up and said it was a fair cop. + +THE BURGLAR. So it was. Send for the police. + +HECTOR. No, by thunder! It was not a fair cop. We were four to one. + +MRS HUSHABYE. What will they do to him? + +THE BURGLAR. Ten years. Beginning with solitary. Ten years off my life. +I shan't serve it all: I'm too old. It will see me out. + +LADY UTTERWORD. You should have thought of that before you stole my +diamonds. + +THE BURGLAR. Well, you've got them back, lady, haven't you? Can you give +me back the years of my life you are going to take from me? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, we can't bury a man alive for ten years for a few +diamonds. + +THE BURGLAR. Ten little shining diamonds! Ten long black years! + +LADY UTTERWORD. Think of what it is for us to be dragged through the +horrors of a criminal court, and have all our family affairs in the +papers! If you were a native, and Hastings could order you a good +beating and send you away, I shouldn't mind; but here in England there +is no real protection for any respectable person. + +THE BURGLAR. I'm too old to be giv a hiding, lady. Send for the police +and have done with it. It's only just and right you should. + +RANDALL [who has relaxed his vigilance on seeing the burglar so +pacifically disposed, and comes forward swinging the poker between his +fingers like a well folded umbrella]. It is neither just nor right +that we should be put to a lot of inconvenience to gratify your moral +enthusiasm, my friend. You had better get out, while you have the +chance. + +THE BURGLAR [inexorably]. No. I must work my sin off my conscience. +This has come as a sort of call to me. Let me spend the rest of my life +repenting in a cell. I shall have my reward above. + +MANGAN [exasperated]. The very burglars can't behave naturally in this +house. + +HECTOR. My good sir, you must work out your salvation at somebody else's +expense. Nobody here is going to charge you. + +THE BURGLAR. Oh, you won't charge me, won't you? + +HECTOR. No. I'm sorry to be inhospitable; but will you kindly leave the +house? + +THE BURGLAR. Right. I'll go to the police station and give myself up. +[He turns resolutely to the door: but Hector stops him]. + +HECTOR. { Oh, no. You mustn't do that. + +RANDALL. [speaking together] { No no. Clear out man, can't you; and + don't be a fool. + +MRS. HUSHABYE { Don't be so silly. Can't you repent at + home? + +LADY UTTERWORD. You will have to do as you are told. + +THE BURGLAR. It's compounding a felony, you know. + +MRS HUSHABYE. This is utterly ridiculous. Are we to be forced to +prosecute this man when we don't want to? + +THE BURGLAR. Am I to be robbed of my salvation to save you the trouble +of spending a day at the sessions? Is that justice? Is it right? Is it +fair to me? + +MAZZINI [rising and leaning across the table persuasively as if it were +a pulpit desk or a shop counter]. Come, come! let me show you how you +can turn your very crimes to account. Why not set up as a locksmith? You +must know more about locks than most honest men? + +THE BURGLAR. That's true, sir. But I couldn't set up as a locksmith +under twenty pounds. + +RANDALL. Well, you can easily steal twenty pounds. You will find it in +the nearest bank. + +THE BURGLAR [horrified]. Oh, what a thing for a gentleman to put into +the head of a poor criminal scrambling out of the bottomless pit as it +were! Oh, shame on you, sir! Oh, God forgive you! [He throws himself +into the big chair and covers his face as if in prayer]. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Really, Randall! + +HECTOR. It seems to me that we shall have to take up a collection for +this inopportunely contrite sinner. + +LADY UTTERWORD. But twenty pounds is ridiculous. + +THE BURGLAR [looking up quickly]. I shall have to buy a lot of tools, +lady. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Nonsense: you have your burgling kit. + +THE BURGLAR. What's a jimmy and a centrebit and an acetylene welding +plant and a bunch of skeleton keys? I shall want a forge, and a smithy, +and a shop, and fittings. I can't hardly do it for twenty. + +HECTOR. My worthy friend, we haven't got twenty pounds. + +THE BURGLAR [now master of the situation]. You can raise it among you, +can't you? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Give him a sovereign, Hector, and get rid of him. + +HECTOR [giving him a pound]. There! Off with you. + +THE BURGLAR [rising and taking the money very ungratefully]. I won't +promise nothing. You have more on you than a quid: all the lot of you, I +mean. + +LADY UTTERWORD [vigorously]. Oh, let us prosecute him and have done with +it. I have a conscience too, I hope; and I do not feel at all sure that +we have any right to let him go, especially if he is going to be greedy +and impertinent. + +THE BURGLAR [quickly]. All right, lady, all right. I've no wish to be +anything but agreeable. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen; and thank +you kindly. + +He is hurrying out when he is confronted in the doorway by Captain +Shotover. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [fixing the burglar with a piercing regard]. What's +this? Are there two of you? + +THE BURGLAR [falling on his knees before the captain in abject terror]. +Oh, my good Lord, what have I done? Don't tell me it's your house I've +broken into, Captain Shotover. + +The captain seizes him by the collar: drags him to his feet: and leads +him to the middle of the group, Hector falling back beside his wife to +make way for them. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [turning him towards Ellie]. Is that your daughter? [He +releases him]. + +THE BURGLAR. Well, how do I know, Captain? You know the sort of life you +and me has led. Any young lady of that age might be my daughter anywhere +in the wide world, as you might say. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [to Mazzini]. You are not Billy Dunn. This is Billy +Dunn. Why have you imposed on me? + +THE BURGLAR [indignantly to Mazzini]. Have you been giving yourself +out to be me? You, that nigh blew my head off! Shooting yourself, in a +manner of speaking! + +MAZZINI. My dear Captain Shotover, ever since I came into this house I +have done hardly anything else but assure you that I am not Mr William +Dunn, but Mazzini Dunn, a very different person. + +THE BURGLAR. He don't belong to my branch, Captain. There's two sets in +the family: the thinking Dunns and the drinking Dunns, each going their +own ways. I'm a drinking Dunn: he's a thinking Dunn. But that didn't +give him any right to shoot me. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. So you've turned burglar, have you? + +THE BURGLAR. No, Captain: I wouldn't disgrace our old sea calling by +such a thing. I am no burglar. + +LADY UTTERWORD. What were you doing with my diamonds? + +GUINNESS. What did you break into the house for if you're no burglar? + +RANDALL. Mistook the house for your own and came in by the wrong window, +eh? + +THE BURGLAR. Well, it's no use my telling you a lie: I can take in most +captains, but not Captain Shotover, because he sold himself to the devil +in Zanzibar, and can divine water, spot gold, explode a cartridge in +your pocket with a glance of his eye, and see the truth hidden in the +heart of man. But I'm no burglar. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Are you an honest man? + +THE BURGLAR. I don't set up to be better than my fellow-creatures, and +never did, as you well know, Captain. But what I do is innocent and +pious. I enquire about for houses where the right sort of people live. I +work it on them same as I worked it here. I break into the house; put a +few spoons or diamonds in my pocket; make a noise; get caught; and take +up a collection. And you wouldn't believe how hard it is to get caught +when you're actually trying to. I have knocked over all the chairs in a +room without a soul paying any attention to me. In the end I have had to +walk out and leave the job. + +RANDALL. When that happens, do you put back the spoons and diamonds? + +THE BURGLAR. Well, I don't fly in the face of Providence, if that's what +you want to know. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Guinness, you remember this man? + +GUINNESS. I should think I do, seeing I was married to him, the +blackguard! + +HESIONE } [exclaiming { Married to him! LADY UTTERWORD } together] { +Guinness!! + +THE BURGLAR. It wasn't legal. I've been married to no end of women. No +use coming that over me. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Take him to the forecastle [he flings him to the door +with a strength beyond his years]. + +GUINNESS. I suppose you mean the kitchen. They won't have him there. Do +you expect servants to keep company with thieves and all sorts? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Land-thieves and water-thieves are the same flesh and +blood. I'll have no boatswain on my quarter-deck. Off with you both. + +THE BURGLAR. Yes, Captain. [He goes out humbly]. + +MAZZINI. Will it be safe to have him in the house like that? + +GUINNESS. Why didn't you shoot him, sir? If I'd known who he was, I'd +have shot him myself. [She goes out]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Do sit down, everybody. [She sits down on the sofa]. + +They all move except Ellie. Mazzini resumes his seat. Randall sits down +in the window-seat near the starboard door, again making a pendulum of +his poker, and studying it as Galileo might have done. Hector sits on +his left, in the middle. Mangan, forgotten, sits in the port corner. +Lady Utterword takes the big chair. Captain Shotover goes into the +pantry in deep abstraction. They all look after him: and Lady Utterword +coughs consciously. + +MRS HUSHABYE. So Billy Dunn was poor nurse's little romance. I knew +there had been somebody. + +RANDALL. They will fight their battles over again and enjoy themselves +immensely. + +LADY UTTERWORD [irritably]. You are not married; and you know nothing +about it, Randall. Hold your tongue. + +RANDALL. Tyrant! + +MRS HUSHABYE. Well, we have had a very exciting evening. Everything will +be an anticlimax after it. We'd better all go to bed. + +RANDALL. Another burglar may turn up. + +MAZZINI. Oh, impossible! I hope not. + +RANDALL. Why not? There is more than one burglar in England. + +MRS HUSHABYE. What do you say, Alf? + +MANGAN [huffily]. Oh, I don't matter. I'm forgotten. The burglar has put +my nose out of joint. Shove me into a corner and have done with me. + +MRS HUSHABYE [jumping up mischievously, and going to him]. Would you +like a walk on the heath, Alfred? With me? + +ELLIE. Go, Mr Mangan. It will do you good. Hesione will soothe you. + +MRS HUSHABYE [slipping her arm under his and pulling him upright]. Come, +Alfred. There is a moon: it's like the night in Tristan and Isolde. [She +caresses his arm and draws him to the port garden door]. + +MANGAN [writhing but yielding]. How you can have the face-the heart-[he +breaks down and is heard sobbing as she takes him out]. + +LADY UTTERWORD. What an extraordinary way to behave! What is the matter +with the man? + +ELLIE [in a strangely calm voice, staring into an imaginary distance]. +His heart is breaking: that is all. [The captain appears at the pantry +door, listening]. It is a curious sensation: the sort of pain that goes +mercifully beyond our powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your +boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness +and the beginning of peace. + +LADY UTTERWORD [suddenly rising in a rage, to the astonishment of the +rest]. How dare you? + +HECTOR. Good heavens! What's the matter? + +RANDALL [in a warning whisper]. Tch--tch-tch! Steady. + +ELLIE [surprised and haughty]. I was not addressing you particularly, +Lady Utterword. And I am not accustomed to being asked how dare I. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Of course not. Anyone can see how badly you have been +brought up. + +MAZZINI. Oh, I hope not, Lady Utterword. Really! + +LADY UTTERWORD. I know very well what you meant. The impudence! + +ELLIE. What on earth do you mean? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [advancing to the table]. She means that her heart will +not break. She has been longing all her life for someone to break it. At +last she has become afraid she has none to break. + +LADY UTTERWORD [flinging herself on her knees and throwing her arms +round him]. Papa, don't say you think I've no heart. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [raising her with grim tenderness]. If you had no heart +how could you want to have it broken, child? + +HECTOR [rising with a bound]. Lady Utterword, you are not to be trusted. +You have made a scene [he runs out into the garden through the starboard +door]. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Oh! Hector, Hector! [she runs out after him]. + +RANDALL. Only nerves, I assure you. [He rises and follows her, waving +the poker in his agitation]. Ariadne! Ariadne! For God's sake, be +careful. You will--[he is gone]. + +MAZZINI [rising]. How distressing! Can I do anything, I wonder? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [promptly taking his chair and setting to work at the +drawing-board]. No. Go to bed. Good-night. + +MAZZINI [bewildered]. Oh! Perhaps you are right. + +ELLIE. Good-night, dearest. [She kisses him]. + +MAZZINI. Good-night, love. [He makes for the door, but turns aside to +the bookshelves]. I'll just take a book [he takes one]. Good-night. [He +goes out, leaving Ellie alone with the captain]. + +The captain is intent on his drawing. Ellie, standing sentry over his +chair, contemplates him for a moment. + +ELLIE. Does nothing ever disturb you, Captain Shotover? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I've stood on the bridge for eighteen hours in a +typhoon. Life here is stormier; but I can stand it. + +ELLIE. Do you think I ought to marry Mr Mangan? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [never looking up]. One rock is as good as another to +be wrecked on. + +ELLIE. I am not in love with him. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Who said you were? + +ELLIE. You are not surprised? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Surprised! At my age! + +ELLIE. It seems to me quite fair. He wants me for one thing: I want him +for another. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Money? + +ELLIE. Yes. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Well, one turns the cheek: the other kisses it. One +provides the cash: the other spends it. + +ELLIE. Who will have the best of the bargain, I wonder? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You. These fellows live in an office all day. You will +have to put up with him from dinner to breakfast; but you will both be +asleep most of that time. All day you will be quit of him; and you +will be shopping with his money. If that is too much for you, marry a +seafaring man: you will be bothered with him only three weeks in the +year, perhaps. + +ELLIE. That would be best of all, I suppose. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It's a dangerous thing to be married right up to the +hilt, like my daughter's husband. The man is at home all day, like a +damned soul in hell. + +ELLIE. I never thought of that before. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. If you're marrying for business, you can't be too +businesslike. + +ELLIE. Why do women always want other women's husbands? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Why do horse-thieves prefer a horse that is broken-in +to one that is wild? + +ELLIE [with a short laugh]. I suppose so. What a vile world it is! + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It doesn't concern me. I'm nearly out of it. + +ELLIE. And I'm only just beginning. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Yes; so look ahead. + +ELLIE. Well, I think I am being very prudent. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I didn't say prudent. I said look ahead. + +ELLIE. What's the difference? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It's prudent to gain the whole world and lose your own +soul. But don't forget that your soul sticks to you if you stick to it; +but the world has a way of slipping through your fingers. + +ELLIE [wearily, leaving him and beginning to wander restlessly about the +room]. I'm sorry, Captain Shotover; but it's no use talking like that +to me. Old-fashioned people are no use to me. Old-fashioned people think +you can have a soul without money. They think the less money you have, +the more soul you have. Young people nowadays know better. A soul is a +very expensive thing to keep: much more so than a motor car. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Is it? How much does your soul eat? + +ELLIE. Oh, a lot. It eats music and pictures and books and mountains and +lakes and beautiful things to wear and nice people to be with. In this +country you can't have them without lots of money: that is why our souls +are so horribly starved. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Mangan's soul lives on pig's food. + +ELLIE. Yes: money is thrown away on him. I suppose his soul was starved +when he was young. But it will not be thrown away on me. It is just +because I want to save my soul that I am marrying for money. All the +women who are not fools do. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. There are other ways of getting money. Why don't you +steal it? + +ELLIE. Because I don't want to go to prison. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Is that the only reason? Are you quite sure honesty +has nothing to do with it? + +ELLIE. Oh, you are very very old-fashioned, Captain. Does any modern +girl believe that the legal and illegal ways of getting money are the +honest and dishonest ways? Mangan robbed my father and my father's +friends. I should rob all the money back from Mangan if the police would +let me. As they won't, I must get it back by marrying him. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I can't argue: I'm too old: my mind is made up and +finished. All I can tell you is that, old-fashioned or new-fashioned, +if you sell yourself, you deal your soul a blow that all the books and +pictures and concerts and scenery in the world won't heal [he gets up +suddenly and makes for the pantry]. + +ELLIE [running after him and seizing him by the sleeve]. Then why did +you sell yourself to the devil in Zanzibar? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [stopping, startled]. What? + +ELLIE. You shall not run away before you answer. I have found out that +trick of yours. If you sold yourself, why shouldn't I? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I had to deal with men so degraded that they wouldn't +obey me unless I swore at them and kicked them and beat them with my +fists. Foolish people took young thieves off the streets; flung them +into a training ship where they were taught to fear the cane instead of +fearing God; and thought they'd made men and sailors of them by private +subscription. I tricked these thieves into believing I'd sold myself +to the devil. It saved my soul from the kicking and swearing that was +damning me by inches. + +ELLIE [releasing him]. I shall pretend to sell myself to Boss Mangan to +save my soul from the poverty that is damning me by inches. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Riches will damn you ten times deeper. Riches won't +save even your body. + +ELLIE. Old-fashioned again. We know now that the soul is the body, and +the body the soul. They tell us they are different because they want to +persuade us that we can keep our souls if we let them make slaves of our +bodies. I am afraid you are no use to me, Captain. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What did you expect? A Savior, eh? Are you +old-fashioned enough to believe in that? + +ELLIE. No. But I thought you were very wise, and might help me. Now I +have found you out. You pretend to be busy, and think of fine things to +say, and run in and out to surprise people by saying them, and get away +before they can answer you. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It confuses me to be answered. It discourages me. I +cannot bear men and women. I have to run away. I must run away now [he +tries to]. + +ELLIE [again seizing his arm]. You shall not run away from me. I can +hypnotize you. You are the only person in the house I can say what I +like to. I know you are fond of me. Sit down. [She draws him to the +sofa]. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [yielding]. Take care: I am in my dotage. Old men are +dangerous: it doesn't matter to them what is going to happen to the +world. + +They sit side by side on the sofa. She leans affectionately against him +with her head on his shoulder and her eyes half closed. + +ELLIE [dreamily]. I should have thought nothing else mattered to +old men. They can't be very interested in what is going to happen to +themselves. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. A man's interest in the world is only the overflow +from his interest in himself. When you are a child your vessel is not +yet full; so you care for nothing but your own affairs. When you grow +up, your vessel overflows; and you are a politician, a philosopher, or +an explorer and adventurer. In old age the vessel dries up: there is +no overflow: you are a child again. I can give you the memories of my +ancient wisdom: mere scraps and leavings; but I no longer really care +for anything but my own little wants and hobbies. I sit here working +out my old ideas as a means of destroying my fellow-creatures. I see my +daughters and their men living foolish lives of romance and sentiment +and snobbery. I see you, the younger generation, turning from their +romance and sentiment and snobbery to money and comfort and hard common +sense. I was ten times happier on the bridge in the typhoon, or frozen +into Arctic ice for months in darkness, than you or they have ever been. +You are looking for a rich husband. At your age I looked for hardship, +danger, horror, and death, that I might feel the life in me more +intensely. I did not let the fear of death govern my life; and my reward +was, I had my life. You are going to let the fear of poverty govern your +life; and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live. + +ELLIE [sitting up impatiently]. But what can I do? I am not a sea +captain: I can't stand on bridges in typhoons, or go slaughtering +seals and whales in Greenland's icy mountains. They won't let women be +captains. Do you want me to be a stewardess? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. There are worse lives. The stewardesses could come +ashore if they liked; but they sail and sail and sail. + +ELLIE. What could they do ashore but marry for money? I don't want to be +a stewardess: I am too bad a sailor. Think of something else for me. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I can't think so long and continuously. I am too old. +I must go in and out. [He tries to rise]. + +ELLIE [pulling him back]. You shall not. You are happy here, aren't you? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I tell you it's dangerous to keep me. I can't keep +awake and alert. + +ELLIE. What do you run away for? To sleep? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No. To get a glass of rum. + +ELLIE [frightfully disillusioned]. Is that it? How disgusting! Do you +like being drunk? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No: I dread being drunk more than anything in the +world. To be drunk means to have dreams; to go soft; to be easily +pleased and deceived; to fall into the clutches of women. Drink does +that for you when you are young. But when you are old: very very old, +like me, the dreams come by themselves. You don't know how terrible that +is: you are young: you sleep at night only, and sleep soundly. But later +on you will sleep in the afternoon. Later still you will sleep even in +the morning; and you will awake tired, tired of life. You will never be +free from dozing and dreams; the dreams will steal upon your work every +ten minutes unless you can awaken yourself with rum. I drink now to keep +sober; but the dreams are conquering: rum is not what it was: I have +had ten glasses since you came; and it might be so much water. Go get me +another: Guinness knows where it is. You had better see for yourself the +horror of an old man drinking. + +ELLIE. You shall not drink. Dream. I like you to dream. You must never +be in the real world when we talk together. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I am too weary to resist, or too weak. I am in my +second childhood. I do not see you as you really are. I can't remember +what I really am. I feel nothing but the accursed happiness I have +dreaded all my life long: the happiness that comes as life goes, the +happiness of yielding and dreaming instead of resisting and doing, the +sweetness of the fruit that is going rotten. + +ELLIE. You dread it almost as much as I used to dread losing my dreams +and having to fight and do things. But that is all over for me: my +dreams are dashed to pieces. I should like to marry a very old, very +rich man. I should like to marry you. I had much rather marry you than +marry Mangan. Are you very rich? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No. Living from hand to mouth. And I have a wife +somewhere in Jamaica: a black one. My first wife. Unless she's dead. + +ELLIE. What a pity! I feel so happy with you. [She takes his hand, +almost unconsciously, and pats it]. I thought I should never feel happy +again. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Why? + +ELLIE. Don't you know? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No. + +ELLIE. Heartbreak. I fell in love with Hector, and didn't know he was +married. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Heartbreak? Are you one of those who are so sufficient +to themselves that they are only happy when they are stripped of +everything, even of hope? + +ELLIE [gripping the hand]. It seems so; for I feel now as if there was +nothing I could not do, because I want nothing. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. That's the only real strength. That's genius. That's +better than rum. + +ELLIE [throwing away his hand]. Rum! Why did you spoil it? + +Hector and Randall come in from the garden through the starboard door. + +HECTOR. I beg your pardon. We did not know there was anyone here. + +ELLIE [rising]. That means that you want to tell Mr Randall the story +about the tiger. Come, Captain: I want to talk to my father; and you had +better come with me. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [rising]. Nonsense! the man is in bed. + +ELLIE. Aha! I've caught you. My real father has gone to bed; but the +father you gave me is in the kitchen. You knew quite well all along. +Come. [She draws him out into the garden with her through the port +door]. + +HECTOR. That's an extraordinary girl. She has the Ancient Mariner on a +string like a Pekinese dog. + +RANDALL. Now that they have gone, shall we have a friendly chat? + +HECTOR. You are in what is supposed to be my house. I am at your +disposal. + +Hector sits down in the draughtsman's chair, turning it to face Randall, +who remains standing, leaning at his ease against the carpenter's bench. + +RANDALL. I take it that we may be quite frank. I mean about Lady +Utterword. + +HECTOR. You may. I have nothing to be frank about. I never met her until +this afternoon. + +RANDALL [straightening up]. What! But you are her sister's husband. + +HECTOR. Well, if you come to that, you are her husband's brother. + +RANDALL. But you seem to be on intimate terms with her. + +HECTOR. So do you. + +RANDALL. Yes: but I AM on intimate terms with her. I have known her for +years. + +HECTOR. It took her years to get to the same point with you that she got +to with me in five minutes, it seems. + +RANDALL [vexed]. Really, Ariadne is the limit [he moves away huffishly +towards the windows]. + +HECTOR [coolly]. She is, as I remarked to Hesione, a very enterprising +woman. + +RANDALL [returning, much troubled]. You see, Hushabye, you are what +women consider a good-looking man. + +HECTOR. I cultivated that appearance in the days of my vanity; and +Hesione insists on my keeping it up. She makes me wear these ridiculous +things [indicating his Arab costume] because she thinks me absurd in +evening dress. + +RANDALL. Still, you do keep it up, old chap. Now, I assure you I have +not an atom of jealousy in my disposition. + +HECTOR. The question would seem to be rather whether your brother has +any touch of that sort. + +RANDALL. What! Hastings! Oh, don't trouble about Hastings. He has the +gift of being able to work sixteen hours a day at the dullest detail, +and actually likes it. That gets him to the top wherever he goes. As +long as Ariadne takes care that he is fed regularly, he is only too +thankful to anyone who will keep her in good humor for him. + +HECTOR. And as she has all the Shotover fascination, there is plenty of +competition for the job, eh? + +RANDALL [angrily]. She encourages them. Her conduct is perfectly +scandalous. I assure you, my dear fellow, I haven't an atom of jealousy +in my composition; but she makes herself the talk of every place she +goes to by her thoughtlessness. It's nothing more: she doesn't really +care for the men she keeps hanging about her; but how is the world to +know that? It's not fair to Hastings. It's not fair to me. + +HECTOR. Her theory is that her conduct is so correct + +RANDALL. Correct! She does nothing but make scenes from morning till +night. You be careful, old chap. She will get you into trouble: that is, +she would if she really cared for you. + +HECTOR. Doesn't she? + +RANDALL. Not a scrap. She may want your scalp to add to her collection; +but her true affection has been engaged years ago. You had really better +be careful. + +HECTOR. Do you suffer much from this jealousy? + +RANDALL. Jealousy! I jealous! My dear fellow, haven't I told you that +there is not an atom of-- + +HECTOR. Yes. And Lady Utterword told me she never made scenes. Well, +don't waste your jealousy on my moustache. Never waste jealousy on a +real man: it is the imaginary hero that supplants us all in the long +run. Besides, jealousy does not belong to your easy man-of-the-world +pose, which you carry so well in other respects. + +RANDALL. Really, Hushabye, I think a man may be allowed to be a +gentleman without being accused of posing. + +HECTOR. It is a pose like any other. In this house we know all the +poses: our game is to find out the man under the pose. The man under +your pose is apparently Ellie's favorite, Othello. + +RANDALL. Some of your games in this house are damned annoying, let me +tell you. + +HECTOR. Yes: I have been their victim for many years. I used to writhe +under them at first; but I became accustomed to them. At last I learned +to play them. + +RANDALL. If it's all the same to you I had rather you didn't play them +on me. You evidently don't quite understand my character, or my notions +of good form. + +HECTOR. Is it your notion of good form to give away Lady Utterword? + +RANDALL [a childishly plaintive note breaking into his huff]. I have +not said a word against Lady Utterword. This is just the conspiracy over +again. + +HECTOR. What conspiracy? + +RANDALL. You know very well, sir. A conspiracy to make me out to be +pettish and jealous and childish and everything I am not. Everyone knows +I am just the opposite. + +HECTOR [rising]. Something in the air of the house has upset you. It +often does have that effect. [He goes to the garden door and calls Lady +Utterword with commanding emphasis]. Ariadne! + +LADY UTTERWORD [at some distance]. Yes. + +RANDALL. What are you calling her for? I want to speak-- + +LADY UTTERWORD [arriving breathless]. Yes. You really are a terribly +commanding person. What's the matter? + +HECTOR. I do not know how to manage your friend Randall. No doubt you +do. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Randall: have you been making yourself ridiculous, +as usual? I can see it in your face. Really, you are the most pettish +creature. + +RANDALL. You know quite well, Ariadne, that I have not an ounce of +pettishness in my disposition. I have made myself perfectly pleasant +here. I have remained absolutely cool and imperturbable in the face of +a burglar. Imperturbability is almost too strong a point of mine. But +[putting his foot down with a stamp, and walking angrily up and down the +room] I insist on being treated with a certain consideration. I will +not allow Hushabye to take liberties with me. I will not stand your +encouraging people as you do. + +HECTOR. The man has a rooted delusion that he is your husband. + +LADY UTTERWORD. I know. He is jealous. As if he had any right to be! He +compromises me everywhere. He makes scenes all over the place. Randall: +I will not allow it. I simply will not allow it. You had no right to +discuss me with Hector. I will not be discussed by men. + +HECTOR. Be reasonable, Ariadne. Your fatal gift of beauty forces men to +discuss you. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Oh indeed! what about YOUR fatal gift of beauty? + +HECTOR. How can I help it? + +LADY UTTERWORD. You could cut off your moustache: I can't cut off my +nose. I get my whole life messed up with people falling in love with me. +And then Randall says I run after men. + +RANDALL. I-- + +LADY UTTERWORD. Yes you do: you said it just now. Why can't you think +of something else than women? Napoleon was quite right when he said that +women are the occupation of the idle man. Well, if ever there was an +idle man on earth, his name is Randall Utterword. + +RANDALL. Ariad-- + +LADY UTTERWORD [overwhelming him with a torrent of words]. Oh yes you +are: it's no use denying it. What have you ever done? What good are you? +You are as much trouble in the house as a child of three. You couldn't +live without your valet. + +RANDALL. This is-- + +LADY UTTERWORD. Laziness! You are laziness incarnate. You are +selfishness itself. You are the most uninteresting man on earth. You +can't even gossip about anything but yourself and your grievances and +your ailments and the people who have offended you. [Turning to Hector]. +Do you know what they call him, Hector? + +HECTOR } [speaking { Please don't tell me. RANDALL } together] { I'll +not stand it-- + +LADY UTTERWORD. Randall the Rotter: that is his name in good society. + +RANDALL [shouting]. I'll not bear it, I tell you. Will you listen to me, +you infernal--[he chokes]. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Well: go on. What were you going to call me? An infernal +what? Which unpleasant animal is it to be this time? + +RANDALL [foaming]. There is no animal in the world so hateful as a woman +can be. You are a maddening devil. Hushabye, you will not believe me +when I tell you that I have loved this demon all my life; but God knows +I have paid for it [he sits down in the draughtsman's chair, weeping]. + +LADY UTTERWORD [standing over him with triumphant contempt]. Cry-baby! + +HECTOR [gravely, coming to him]. My friend, the Shotover sisters have +two strange powers over men. They can make them love; and they can make +them cry. Thank your stars that you are not married to one of them. + +LADY UTTERWORD [haughtily]. And pray, Hector-- + +HECTOR [suddenly catching her round the shoulders: swinging her right +round him and away from Randall: and gripping her throat with the other +hand]. Ariadne, if you attempt to start on me, I'll choke you: do you +hear? The cat-and-mouse game with the other sex is a good game; but I +can play your head off at it. [He throws her, not at all gently, into +the big chair, and proceeds, less fiercely but firmly]. It is true that +Napoleon said that woman is the occupation of the idle man. But he added +that she is the relaxation of the warrior. Well, I am the warrior. So +take care. + +LADY UTTERWORD [not in the least put out, and rather pleased by his +violence]. My dear Hector, I have only done what you asked me to do. + +HECTOR. How do you make that out, pray? + +LADY UTTERWORD. You called me in to manage Randall, didn't you? You said +you couldn't manage him yourself. + +HECTOR. Well, what if I did? I did not ask you to drive the man mad. + +LADY UTTERWORD. He isn't mad. That's the way to manage him. If you were +a mother, you'd understand. + +HECTOR. Mother! What are you up to now? + +LADY UTTERWORD. It's quite simple. When the children got nerves and +were naughty, I smacked them just enough to give them a good cry and +a healthy nervous shock. They went to sleep and were quite good +afterwards. Well, I can't smack Randall: he is too big; so when he gets +nerves and is naughty, I just rag him till he cries. He will be all +right now. Look: he is half asleep already [which is quite true]. + +RANDALL [waking up indignantly]. I'm not. You are most cruel, Ariadne. +[Sentimentally]. But I suppose I must forgive you, as usual [he checks +himself in the act of yawning]. + +LADY UTTERWORD [to Hector]. Is the explanation satisfactory, dread +warrior? + +HECTOR. Some day I shall kill you, if you go too far. I thought you were +a fool. + +LADY UTTERWORD [laughing]. Everybody does, at first. But I am not such +a fool as I look. [She rises complacently]. Now, Randall, go to bed. You +will be a good boy in the morning. + +RANDALL [only very faintly rebellious]. I'll go to bed when I like. It +isn't ten yet. + +LADY UTTERWORD. It is long past ten. See that he goes to bed at once, +Hector. [She goes into the garden]. + +HECTOR. Is there any slavery on earth viler than this slavery of men to +women? + +RANDALL [rising resolutely]. I'll not speak to her tomorrow. I'll not +speak to her for another week. I'll give her such a lesson. I'll go +straight to bed without bidding her good-night. [He makes for the door +leading to the hall]. + +HECTOR. You are under a spell, man. Old Shotover sold himself to the +devil in Zanzibar. The devil gave him a black witch for a wife; and +these two demon daughters are their mystical progeny. I am tied to +Hesione's apron-string; but I'm her husband; and if I did go stark +staring mad about her, at least we became man and wife. But why should +you let yourself be dragged about and beaten by Ariadne as a toy donkey +is dragged about and beaten by a child? What do you get by it? Are you +her lover? + +RANDALL. You must not misunderstand me. In a higher sense--in a Platonic +sense-- + +HECTOR. Psha! Platonic sense! She makes you her servant; and when +pay-day comes round, she bilks you: that is what you mean. + +RANDALL [feebly]. Well, if I don't mind, I don't see what business it is +of yours. Besides, I tell you I am going to punish her. You shall see: +I know how to deal with women. I'm really very sleepy. Say good-night to +Mrs Hushabye for me, will you, like a good chap. Good-night. [He hurries +out]. + +HECTOR. Poor wretch! Oh women! women! women! [He lifts his fists in +invocation to heaven]. Fall. Fall and crush. [He goes out into the +garden]. + + + + +ACT III + +In the garden, Hector, as he comes out through the glass door of the +poop, finds Lady Utterword lying voluptuously in the hammock on the east +side of the flagstaff, in the circle of light cast by the electric arc, +which is like a moon in its opal globe. Beneath the head of the hammock, +a campstool. On the other side of the flagstaff, on the long garden +seat, Captain Shotover is asleep, with Ellie beside him, leaning +affectionately against him on his right hand. On his left is a deck +chair. Behind them in the gloom, Hesione is strolling about with Mangan. +It is a fine still night, moonless. + +LADY UTTERWORD. What a lovely night! It seems made for us. + +HECTOR. The night takes no interest in us. What are we to the night? [He +sits down moodily in the deck chair]. + +ELLIE [dreamily, nestling against the captain]. Its beauty soaks into my +nerves. In the night there is peace for the old and hope for the young. + +HECTOR. Is that remark your own? + +ELLIE. No. Only the last thing the captain said before he went to sleep. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I'm not asleep. + +HECTOR. Randall is. Also Mr Mazzini Dunn. Mangan, too, probably. + +MANGAN. No. + +HECTOR. Oh, you are there. I thought Hesione would have sent you to bed +by this time. + +MRS HUSHABYE [coming to the back of the garden seat, into the light, +with Mangan]. I think I shall. He keeps telling me he has a presentiment +that he is going to die. I never met a man so greedy for sympathy. + +MANGAN [plaintively]. But I have a presentiment. I really have. And you +wouldn't listen. + +MRS HUSHABYE. I was listening for something else. There was a sort of +splendid drumming in the sky. Did none of you hear it? It came from a +distance and then died away. + +MANGAN. I tell you it was a train. + +MRS HUSHABYE. And I tell you, Alf, there is no train at this hour. The +last is nine forty-five. + +MANGAN. But a goods train. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Not on our little line. They tack a truck on to the +passenger train. What can it have been, Hector? + +HECTOR. Heaven's threatening growl of disgust at us useless futile +creatures. [Fiercely]. I tell you, one of two things must happen. Either +out of that darkness some new creation will come to supplant us as we +have supplanted the animals, or the heavens will fall in thunder and +destroy us. + +LADY UTTERWORD [in a cool instructive manner, wallowing comfortably in +her hammock]. We have not supplanted the animals, Hector. Why do you ask +heaven to destroy this house, which could be made quite comfortable if +Hesione had any notion of how to live? Don't you know what is wrong with +it? + +HECTOR. We are wrong with it. There is no sense in us. We are useless, +dangerous, and ought to be abolished. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Nonsense! Hastings told me the very first day he came +here, nearly twenty-four years ago, what is wrong with the house. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What! The numskull said there was something wrong with +my house! + +LADY UTTERWORD. I said Hastings said it; and he is not in the least a +numskull. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What's wrong with my house? + +LADY UTTERWORD. Just what is wrong with a ship, papa. Wasn't it clever +of Hastings to see that? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The man's a fool. There's nothing wrong with a ship. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Yes, there is. + +MRS HUSHABYE. But what is it? Don't be aggravating, Addy. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Guess. + +HECTOR. Demons. Daughters of the witch of Zanzibar. Demons. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Not a bit. I assure you, all this house needs to make it +a sensible, healthy, pleasant house, with good appetites and sound sleep +in it, is horses. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Horses! What rubbish! + +LADY UTTERWORD. Yes: horses. Why have we never been able to let this +house? Because there are no proper stables. Go anywhere in England where +there are natural, wholesome, contented, and really nice English people; +and what do you always find? That the stables are the real centre of +the household; and that if any visitor wants to play the piano the whole +room has to be upset before it can be opened, there are so many things +piled on it. I never lived until I learned to ride; and I shall never +ride really well because I didn't begin as a child. There are only +two classes in good society in England: the equestrian classes and the +neurotic classes. It isn't mere convention: everybody can see that the +people who hunt are the right people and the people who don't are the +wrong ones. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. There is some truth in this. My ship made a man of me; +and a ship is the horse of the sea. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Exactly how Hastings explained your being a gentleman. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Not bad for a numskull. Bring the man here with you +next time: I must talk to him. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Why is Randall such an obvious rotter? He is well bred; +he has been at a public school and a university; he has been in the +Foreign Office; he knows the best people and has lived all his life +among them. Why is he so unsatisfactory, so contemptible? Why can't he +get a valet to stay with him longer than a few months? Just because he +is too lazy and pleasure-loving to hunt and shoot. He strums the piano, +and sketches, and runs after married women, and reads literary books and +poems. He actually plays the flute; but I never let him bring it into my +house. If he would only--[she is interrupted by the melancholy strains +of a flute coming from an open window above. She raises herself +indignantly in the hammock]. Randall, you have not gone to bed. Have +you been listening? [The flute replies pertly]. How vulgar! Go to bed +instantly, Randall: how dare you? [The window is slammed down. She +subsides]. How can anyone care for such a creature! + +MRS HUSHABYE. Addy: do you think Ellie ought to marry poor Alfred merely +for his money? + +MANGAN [much alarmed]. What's that? Mrs Hushabye, are my affairs to be +discussed like this before everybody? + +LADY UTTERWORD. I don't think Randall is listening now. + +MANGAN. Everybody is listening. It isn't right. + +MRS HUSHABYE. But in the dark, what does it matter? Ellie doesn't mind. +Do you, Ellie? + +ELLIE. Not in the least. What is your opinion, Lady Utterword? You have +so much good sense. + +MANGAN. But it isn't right. It--[Mrs Hushabye puts her hand on his +mouth]. Oh, very well. + +LADY UTTERWORD. How much money have you, Mr. Mangan? + +MANGAN. Really--No: I can't stand this. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Nonsense, Mr Mangan! It all turns on your income, +doesn't it? + +MANGAN. Well, if you come to that, how much money has she? + +ELLIE. None. + +LADY UTTERWORD. You are answered, Mr Mangan. And now, as you have made +Miss Dunn throw her cards on the table, you cannot refuse to show your +own. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Come, Alf! out with it! How much? + +MANGAN [baited out of all prudence]. Well, if you want to know, I have +no money and never had any. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Alfred, you mustn't tell naughty stories. + +MANGAN. I'm not telling you stories. I'm telling you the raw truth. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Then what do you live on, Mr Mangan? + +MANGAN. Travelling expenses. And a trifle of commission. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What more have any of us but travelling expenses for +our life's journey? + +MRS HUSHABYE. But you have factories and capital and things? + +MANGAN. People think I have. People think I'm an industrial Napoleon. +That's why Miss Ellie wants to marry me. But I tell you I have nothing. + +ELLIE. Do you mean that the factories are like Marcus's tigers? That +they don't exist? + +MANGAN. They exist all right enough. But they're not mine. They belong +to syndicates and shareholders and all sorts of lazy good-for-nothing +capitalists. I get money from such people to start the factories. I find +people like Miss Dunn's father to work them, and keep a tight hand so as +to make them pay. Of course I make them keep me going pretty well; but +it's a dog's life; and I don't own anything. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Alfred, Alfred, you are making a poor mouth of it to get +out of marrying Ellie. + +MANGAN. I'm telling the truth about my money for the first time in my +life; and it's the first time my word has ever been doubted. + +LADY UTTERWORD. How sad! Why don't you go in for politics, Mr Mangan? + +MANGAN. Go in for politics! Where have you been living? I am in +politics. + +LADY UTTERWORD. I'm sure I beg your pardon. I never heard of you. + +MANGAN. Let me tell you, Lady Utterword, that the Prime Minister of this +country asked me to join the Government without even going through the +nonsense of an election, as the dictator of a great public department. + +LADY UTTERWORD. As a Conservative or a Liberal? + +MANGAN. No such nonsense. As a practical business man. [They all burst +out laughing]. What are you all laughing at? + +MRS HUSHARYE. Oh, Alfred, Alfred! + +ELLIE. You! who have to get my father to do everything for you! + +MRS HUSHABYE. You! who are afraid of your own workmen! + +HECTOR. You! with whom three women have been playing cat and mouse all +the evening! + +LADY UTTERWORD. You must have given an immense sum to the party funds, +Mr Mangan. + +MANGAN. Not a penny out of my own pocket. The syndicate found the money: +they knew how useful I should be to them in the Government. + +LADY UTTERWORD. This is most interesting and unexpected, Mr Mangan. And +what have your administrative achievements been, so far? + +MANGAN. Achievements? Well, I don't know what you call achievements; +but I've jolly well put a stop to the games of the other fellows in the +other departments. Every man of them thought he was going to save the +country all by himself, and do me out of the credit and out of my chance +of a title. I took good care that if they wouldn't let me do it they +shouldn't do it themselves either. I may not know anything about my own +machinery; but I know how to stick a ramrod into the other fellow's. And +now they all look the biggest fools going. + +HECTOR. And in heaven's name, what do you look like? + +MANGAN. I look like the fellow that was too clever for all the others, +don't I? If that isn't a triumph of practical business, what is? + +HECTOR. Is this England, or is it a madhouse? + +LADY UTTERWORD. Do you expect to save the country, Mr Mangan? + +MANGAN. Well, who else will? Will your Mr Randall save it? + +LADY UTTERWORD. Randall the rotter! Certainly not. + +MANGAN. Will your brother-in-law save it with his moustache and his fine +talk? + +HECTOR. Yes, if they will let me. + +MANGAN [sneering]. Ah! Will they let you? + +HECTOR. No. They prefer you. + +MANGAN. Very well then, as you're in a world where I'm appreciated and +you're not, you'd best be civil to me, hadn't you? Who else is there but +me? + +LADY UTTERWORD. There is Hastings. Get rid of your ridiculous sham +democracy; and give Hastings the necessary powers, and a good supply +of bamboo to bring the British native to his senses: he will save the +country with the greatest ease. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It had better be lost. Any fool can govern with a +stick in his hand. I could govern that way. It is not God's way. The man +is a numskull. + +LADY UTTERWORD. The man is worth all of you rolled into one. What do you +say, Miss Dunn? + +ELLIE. I think my father would do very well if people did not put upon +him and cheat him and despise him because he is so good. + +MANGAN [contemptuously]. I think I see Mazzini Dunn getting into +parliament or pushing his way into the Government. We've not come to +that yet, thank God! What do you say, Mrs Hushabye? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, I say it matters very little which of you governs the +country so long as we govern you. + +HECTOR. We? Who is we, pray? + +MRS HUSHABYE. The devil's granddaughters, dear. The lovely women. + +HECTOR [raising his hands as before]. Fall, I say, and deliver us from +the lures of Satan! + +ELLIE. There seems to be nothing real in the world except my father and +Shakespeare. Marcus's tigers are false; Mr Mangan's millions are false; +there is nothing really strong and true about Hesione but her beautiful +black hair; and Lady Utterword's is too pretty to be real. The one thing +that was left to me was the Captain's seventh degree of concentration; +and that turns out to be-- + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Rum. + +LADY UTTERWORD [placidly]. A good deal of my hair is quite genuine. The +Duchess of Dithering offered me fifty guineas for this [touching her +forehead] under the impression that it was a transformation; but it is +all natural except the color. + +MANGAN [wildly]. Look here: I'm going to take off all my clothes [he +begins tearing off his coat]. + +LADY UTTERWORD. [in consternation] { Mr. Mangan! + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER { What's that? + +HECTOR. { Ha! Ha! Do. Do. + +ELLIE { Please don't. + +MRS HUSHABYE [catching his arm and stopping him]. Alfred, for shame! Are +you mad? + +MANGAN. Shame! What shame is there in this house? Let's all strip stark +naked. We may as well do the thing thoroughly when we're about it. +We've stripped ourselves morally naked: well, let us strip ourselves +physically naked as well, and see how we like it. I tell you I can't +bear this. I was brought up to be respectable. I don't mind the women +dyeing their hair and the men drinking: it's human nature. But it's not +human nature to tell everybody about it. Every time one of you opens +your mouth I go like this [he cowers as if to avoid a missile], afraid +of what will come next. How are we to have any self-respect if we don't +keep it up that we're better than we really are? + +LADY UTTERWORD. I quite sympathize with you, Mr Mangan. I have been +through it all; and I know by experience that men and women are delicate +plants and must be cultivated under glass. Our family habit of throwing +stones in all directions and letting the air in is not only unbearably +rude, but positively dangerous. Still, there is no use catching physical +colds as well as moral ones; so please keep your clothes on. + +MANGAN. I'll do as I like: not what you tell me. Am I a child or a grown +man? I won't stand this mothering tyranny. I'll go back to the city, +where I'm respected and made much of. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Goodbye, Alf. Think of us sometimes in the city. Think of +Ellie's youth! + +ELLIE. Think of Hesione's eyes and hair! + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Think of this garden in which you are not a dog +barking to keep the truth out! + +HECTOR. Think of Lady Utterword's beauty! her good sense! her style! + +LADY UTTERWORD. Flatterer. Think, Mr. Mangan, whether you can really do +any better for yourself elsewhere: that is the essential point, isn't +it? + +MANGAN [surrendering]. All right: all right. I'm done. Have it your own +way. Only let me alone. I don't know whether I'm on my head or my heels +when you all start on me like this. I'll stay. I'll marry her. I'll do +anything for a quiet life. Are you satisfied now? + +ELLIE. No. I never really intended to make you marry me, Mr Mangan. +Never in the depths of my soul. I only wanted to feel my strength: to +know that you could not escape if I chose to take you. + +MANGAN [indignantly]. What! Do you mean to say you are going to throw me +over after my acting so handsome? + +LADY UTTERWORD. I should not be too hasty, Miss Dunn. You can throw +Mr Mangan over at any time up to the last moment. Very few men in his +position go bankrupt. You can live very comfortably on his reputation +for immense wealth. + +ELLIE. I cannot commit bigamy, Lady Utterword. + +MRS HUSHABYE. { Bigamy! Whatever on earth are + you talking about, Ellie? + +LADY UTTERWORD [exclaiming altogether { Bigamy! What do you mean, Miss + Dunn? + +MANGAN { Bigamy! Do you mean to say + you're married already? + +HECTOR { Bigamy! This is some enigma. + +ELLIE. Only half an hour ago I became Captain Shotover's white wife. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Ellie! What nonsense! Where? + +ELLIE. In heaven, where all true marriages are made. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Really, Miss Dunn! Really, papa! + +MANGAN. He told me I was too old! And him a mummy! + +HECTOR [quoting Shelley]. + + "Their altar the grassy earth outspreads + And their priest the muttering wind." + +ELLIE. Yes: I, Ellie Dunn, give my broken heart and my strong sound soul +to its natural captain, my spiritual husband and second father. + +She draws the captain's arm through hers, and pats his hand. The captain +remains fast asleep. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, that's very clever of you, pettikins. Very clever. +Alfred, you could never have lived up to Ellie. You must be content with +a little share of me. + +MANGAN [snifflng and wiping his eyes]. It isn't kind--[his emotion +chokes him]. + +LADY UTTERWORD. You are well out of it, Mr Mangan. Miss Dunn is the most +conceited young woman I have met since I came back to England. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, Ellie isn't conceited. Are you, pettikins? + +ELLIE. I know my strength now, Hesione. + +MANGAN. Brazen, I call you. Brazen. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Tut, tut, Alfred: don't be rude. Don't you feel how +lovely this marriage night is, made in heaven? Aren't you happy, you and +Hector? Open your eyes: Addy and Ellie look beautiful enough to please +the most fastidious man: we live and love and have not a care in the +world. We women have managed all that for you. Why in the name of common +sense do you go on as if you were two miserable wretches? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I tell you happiness is no good. You can be happy when +you are only half alive. I am happier now I am half dead than ever I was +in my prime. But there is no blessing on my happiness. + +ELLIE [her face lighting up]. Life with a blessing! that is what I want. +Now I know the real reason why I couldn't marry Mr Mangan: there would +be no blessing on our marriage. There is a blessing on my broken heart. +There is a blessing on your beauty, Hesione. There is a blessing on your +father's spirit. Even on the lies of Marcus there is a blessing; but on +Mr Mangan's money there is none. + +MANGAN. I don't understand a word of that. + +ELLIE. Neither do I. But I know it means something. + +MANGAN. Don't say there was any difficulty about the blessing. I was +ready to get a bishop to marry us. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Isn't he a fool, pettikins? + +HECTOR [fiercely]. Do not scorn the man. We are all fools. + +Mazzini, in pyjamas and a richly colored silk dressing gown, comes from +the house, on Lady Utterword's side. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Oh! here comes the only man who ever resisted me. What's +the matter, Mr Dunn? Is the house on fire? + +MAZZINI. Oh, no: nothing's the matter: but really it's impossible to +go to sleep with such an interesting conversation going on under one's +window, and on such a beautiful night too. I just had to come down and +join you all. What has it all been about? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, wonderful things, soldier of freedom. + +HECTOR. For example, Mangan, as a practical business man, has tried +to undress himself and has failed ignominiously; whilst you, as an +idealist, have succeeded brilliantly. + +MAZZINI. I hope you don't mind my being like this, Mrs Hushabye. [He +sits down on the campstool]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. On the contrary, I could wish you always like that. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Your daughter's match is off, Mr Dunn. It seems that Mr +Mangan, whom we all supposed to be a man of property, owns absolutely +nothing. + +MAZZINI. Well, of course I knew that, Lady Utterword. But if people +believe in him and are always giving him money, whereas they don't +believe in me and never give me any, how can I ask poor Ellie to depend +on what I can do for her? + +MANGAN. Don't you run away with this idea that I have nothing. I-- + +HECTOR. Oh, don't explain. We understand. You have a couple of thousand +pounds in exchequer bills, 50,000 shares worth tenpence a dozen, and +half a dozen tabloids of cyanide of potassium to poison yourself with +when you are found out. That's the reality of your millions. + +MAZZINI. Oh no, no, no. He is quite honest: the businesses are genuine +and perfectly legal. + +HECTOR [disgusted]. Yah! Not even a great swindler! + +MANGAN. So you think. But I've been too many for some honest men, for +all that. + +LADY UTTERWORD. There is no pleasing you, Mr Mangan. You are determined +to be neither rich nor poor, honest nor dishonest. + +MANGAN. There you go again. Ever since I came into this silly house I +have been made to look like a fool, though I'm as good a man in this +house as in the city. + +ELLIE [musically]. Yes: this silly house, this strangely happy house, +this agonizing house, this house without foundations. I shall call it +Heartbreak House. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Stop, Ellie; or I shall howl like an animal. + +MANGAN [breaks into a low snivelling]!!! + +MRS HUSAHBYE. There! you have set Alfred off. + +ELLIE. I like him best when he is howling. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Silence! [Mangan subsides into silence]. I say, let +the heart break in silence. + +HECTOR. Do you accept that name for your house? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It is not my house: it is only my kennel. + +HECTOR. We have been too long here. We do not live in this house: we +haunt it. + +LADY UTTERWORD [heart torn]. It is dreadful to think how you have been +here all these years while I have gone round the world. I escaped young; +but it has drawn me back. It wants to break my heart too. But it shan't. +I have left you and it behind. It was silly of me to come back. I +felt sentimental about papa and Hesione and the old place. I felt them +calling to me. + +MAZZINI. But what a very natural and kindly and charming human feeling, +Lady Utterword! + +LADY UTTERWORD. So I thought, Mr Dunn. But I know now that it was only +the last of my influenza. I found that I was not remembered and not +wanted. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You left because you did not want us. Was there no +heartbreak in that for your father? You tore yourself up by the roots; +and the ground healed up and brought forth fresh plants and forgot you. +What right had you to come back and probe old wounds? + +MRS HUSHABYE. You were a complete stranger to me at first, Addy; but now +I feel as if you had never been away. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Thank you, Hesione; but the influenza is quite cured. +The place may be Heartbreak House to you, Miss Dunn, and to this +gentleman from the city who seems to have so little self-control; but to +me it is only a very ill-regulated and rather untidy villa without any +stables. + +HECTOR. Inhabited by--? + +ELLIE. A crazy old sea captain and a young singer who adores him. + +MRS HUSHABYE. A sluttish female, trying to stave off a double chin and +an elderly spread, vainly wooing a born soldier of freedom. + +MAZZINI. Oh, really, Mrs Hushabye-- + +MANGAN. A member of His Majesty's Government that everybody sets down as +a nincompoop: don't forget him, Lady Utterword. + +LADY UTTERWORD. And a very fascinating gentleman whose chief occupation +is to be married to my sister. + +HECTOR. All heartbroken imbeciles. + +MAZZINI. Oh no. Surely, if I may say so, rather a favorable specimen of +what is best in our English culture. You are very charming people, +most advanced, unprejudiced, frank, humane, unconventional, democratic, +free-thinking, and everything that is delightful to thoughtful people. + +MRS HUSHABYE. You do us proud, Mazzini. + +MAZZINI. I am not flattering, really. Where else could I feel perfectly +at ease in my pyjamas? I sometimes dream that I am in very distinguished +society, and suddenly I have nothing on but my pyjamas! Sometimes I +haven't even pyjamas. And I always feel overwhelmed with confusion. But +here, I don't mind in the least: it seems quite natural. + +LADY UTTERWORD. An infallible sign that you are now not in really +distinguished society, Mr Dunn. If you were in my house, you would feel +embarrassed. + +MAZZINI. I shall take particular care to keep out of your house, Lady +Utterword. + +LADY UTTERWORD. You will be quite wrong, Mr Dunn. I should make you very +comfortable; and you would not have the trouble and anxiety of wondering +whether you should wear your purple and gold or your green and crimson +dressing-gown at dinner. You complicate life instead of simplifying it +by doing these ridiculous things. + +ELLIE. Your house is not Heartbreak House: is it, Lady Utterword? + +HECTOR. Yet she breaks hearts, easy as her house is. That poor devil +upstairs with his flute howls when she twists his heart, just as Mangan +howls when my wife twists his. + +LADY UTTERWORD. That is because Randall has nothing to do but have +his heart broken. It is a change from having his head shampooed. Catch +anyone breaking Hastings' heart! + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The numskull wins, after all. + +LADY UTTERWORD. I shall go back to my numskull with the greatest +satisfaction when I am tired of you all, clever as you are. + +MANGAN [huffily]. I never set up to be clever. + +LADY UTTERWORD. I forgot you, Mr Mangan. + +MANGAN. Well, I don't see that quite, either. + +LADY UTTERWORD. You may not be clever, Mr Mangan; but you are +successful. + +MANGAN. But I don't want to be regarded merely as a successful man. I +have an imagination like anyone else. I have a presentiment. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, you are impossible, Alfred. Here I am devoting myself +to you; and you think of nothing but your ridiculous presentiment. You +bore me. Come and talk poetry to me under the stars. [She drags him away +into the darkness]. + +MANGAN [tearfully, as he disappears]. Yes: it's all very well to make +fun of me; but if you only knew-- + +HECTOR [impatiently]. How is all this going to end? + +MAZZINI. It won't end, Mr Hushabye. Life doesn't end: it goes on. + +ELLIE. Oh, it can't go on forever. I'm always expecting something. I +don't know what it is; but life must come to a point sometime. + +LADY UTTERWORD. The point for a young woman of your age is a baby. + +HECTOR. Yes, but, damn it, I have the same feeling; and I can't have a +baby. + +LADY UTTERWORD. By deputy, Hector. + +HECTOR. But I have children. All that is over and done with for me: +and yet I too feel that this can't last. We sit here talking, and leave +everything to Mangan and to chance and to the devil. Think of the powers +of destruction that Mangan and his mutual admiration gang wield! It's +madness: it's like giving a torpedo to a badly brought up child to play +at earthquakes with. + +MAZZINI. I know. I used often to think about that when I was young. + +HECTOR. Think! What's the good of thinking about it? Why didn't you do +something? + +MAZZINI. But I did. I joined societies and made speeches and wrote +pamphlets. That was all I could do. But, you know, though the people in +the societies thought they knew more than Mangan, most of them wouldn't +have joined if they had known as much. You see they had never had +any money to handle or any men to manage. Every year I expected a +revolution, or some frightful smash-up: it seemed impossible that we +could blunder and muddle on any longer. But nothing happened, except, +of course, the usual poverty and crime and drink that we are used to. +Nothing ever does happen. It's amazing how well we get along, all things +considered. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Perhaps somebody cleverer than you and Mr Mangan was at +work all the time. + +MAZZINI. Perhaps so. Though I was brought up not to believe in anything, +I often feel that there is a great deal to be said for the theory of an +over-ruling Providence, after all. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Providence! I meant Hastings. + +MAZZINI. Oh, I beg your pardon, Lady Utterword. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Every drunken skipper trusts to Providence. But one +of the ways of Providence with drunken skippers is to run them on the +rocks. + +MAZZINI. Very true, no doubt, at sea. But in politics, I assure you, +they only run into jellyfish. Nothing happens. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. At sea nothing happens to the sea. Nothing happens to +the sky. The sun comes up from the east and goes down to the west. The +moon grows from a sickle to an arc lamp, and comes later and later until +she is lost in the light as other things are lost in the darkness. After +the typhoon, the flying-fish glitter in the sunshine like birds. It's +amazing how they get along, all things considered. Nothing happens, +except something not worth mentioning. + +ELLIE. What is that, O Captain, O my captain? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [savagely]. Nothing but the smash of the drunken +skipper's ship on the rocks, the splintering of her rotten timbers, the +tearing of her rusty plates, the drowning of the crew like rats in a +trap. + +ELLIE. Moral: don't take rum. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [vehemently]. That is a lie, child. Let a man drink ten +barrels of rum a day, he is not a drunken skipper until he is a drifting +skipper. Whilst he can lay his course and stand on his bridge and steer +it, he is no drunkard. It is the man who lies drinking in his bunk and +trusts to Providence that I call the drunken skipper, though he drank +nothing but the waters of the River Jordan. + +ELLIE. Splendid! And you haven't had a drop for an hour. You see you +don't need it: your own spirit is not dead. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Echoes: nothing but echoes. The last shot was fired +years ago. + +HECTOR. And this ship that we are all in? This soul's prison we call +England? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The captain is in his bunk, drinking bottled +ditch-water; and the crew is gambling in the forecastle. She will strike +and sink and split. Do you think the laws of God will be suspended in +favor of England because you were born in it? + +HECTOR. Well, I don't mean to be drowned like a rat in a trap. I still +have the will to live. What am I to do? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Do? Nothing simpler. Learn your business as an +Englishman. + +HECTOR. And what may my business as an Englishman be, pray? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Navigation. Learn it and live; or leave it and be +damned. + +ELLIE. Quiet, quiet: you'll tire yourself. + +MAZZINI. I thought all that once, Captain; but I assure you nothing will +happen. + +A dull distant explosion is heard. + +HECTOR [starting up]. What was that? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Something happening [he blows his whistle]. Breakers +ahead! + +The light goes out. + +HECTOR [furiously]. Who put that light out? Who dared put that light +out? + +NURSE GUINNESS [running in from the house to the middle of the +esplanade]. I did, sir. The police have telephoned to say we'll be +summoned if we don't put that light out: it can be seen for miles. + +HECTOR. It shall be seen for a hundred miles [he dashes into the house]. + +NURSE GUINNESS. The Rectory is nothing but a heap of bricks, they say. +Unless we can give the Rector a bed he has nowhere to lay his head this +night. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The Church is on the rocks, breaking up. I told him it +would unless it headed for God's open sea. + +NURSE GUINNESS. And you are all to go down to the cellars. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Go there yourself, you and all the crew. Batten down +the hatches. + +NURSE GUINNESS. And hide beside the coward I married! I'll go on the +roof first. [The lamp lights up again]. There! Mr Hushabye's turned it +on again. + +THE BURGLAR [hurrying in and appealing to Nurse Guinness]. Here: where's +the way to that gravel pit? The boot-boy says there's a cave in the +gravel pit. Them cellars is no use. Where's the gravel pit, Captain? + +NURSE GUINNESS. Go straight on past the flagstaff until you fall into +it and break your dirty neck. [She pushes him contemptuously towards the +flagstaff, and herself goes to the foot of the hammock and waits there, +as it were by Ariadne's cradle]. + +Another and louder explosion is heard. The burglar stops and stands +trembling. + +ELLIE [rising]. That was nearer. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The next one will get us. [He rises]. Stand by, all +hands, for judgment. + +THE BURGLAR. Oh my Lordy God! [He rushes away frantically past the +flagstaff into the gloom]. + +MRS HUSHABYE [emerging panting from the darkness]. Who was that running +away? [She comes to Ellie]. Did you hear the explosions? And the sound +in the sky: it's splendid: it's like an orchestra: it's like Beethoven. + +ELLIE. By thunder, Hesione: it is Beethoven. + +She and Hesione throw themselves into one another's arms in wild +excitement. The light increases. + +MAZZINI [anxiously]. The light is getting brighter. + +NURSE GUINNESS [looking up at the house]. It's Mr Hushabye turning on +all the lights in the house and tearing down the curtains. + +RANDALL [rushing in in his pyjamas, distractedly waving a flute]. +Ariadne, my soul, my precious, go down to the cellars: I beg and implore +you, go down to the cellars! + +LADY UTTERWORD [quite composed in her hammock]. The governor's wife in +the cellars with the servants! Really, Randall! + +RANDALL. But what shall I do if you are killed? + +LADY UTTERWORD. You will probably be killed, too, Randall. Now play your +flute to show that you are not afraid; and be good. Play us "Keep the +home fires burning." + +NURSE GUINNESS [grimly]. THEY'LL keep the home fires burning for us: +them up there. + +RANDALL [having tried to play]. My lips are trembling. I can't get a +sound. + +MAZZINI. I hope poor Mangan is safe. + +MRS HUSHABYE. He is hiding in the cave in the gravel pit. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. My dynamite drew him there. It is the hand of God. + +HECTOR [returning from the house and striding across to his former +place]. There is not half light enough. We should be blazing to the +skies. + +ELLIE [tense with excitement]. Set fire to the house, Marcus. + +MRS HUSHABYE. My house! No. + +HECTOR. I thought of that; but it would not be ready in time. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The judgment has come. Courage will not save you; but +it will show that your souls are still live. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Sh-sh! Listen: do you hear it now? It's magnificent. + +They all turn away from the house and look up, listening. + +HECTOR [gravely]. Miss Dunn, you can do no good here. We of this house +are only moths flying into the candle. You had better go down to the +cellar. + +ELLIE [scornfully]. I don't think. + +MAZZINI. Ellie, dear, there is no disgrace in going to the cellar. An +officer would order his soldiers to take cover. Mr Hushabye is behaving +like an amateur. Mangan and the burglar are acting very sensibly; and it +is they who will survive. + +ELLIE. Let them. I shall behave like an amateur. But why should you run +any risk? + +MAZZINI. Think of the risk those poor fellows up there are running! + +NURSE GUINNESS. Think of them, indeed, the murdering blackguards! What +next? + +A terrific explosion shakes the earth. They reel back into their seats, +or clutch the nearest support. They hear the falling of the shattered +glass from the windows. + +MAZZINI. Is anyone hurt? + +HECTOR. Where did it fall? + +NURSE GUINNESS [in hideous triumph]. Right in the gravel pit: I seen +it. Serve un right! I seen it [she runs away towards the gravel pit, +laughing harshly]. + +HECTOR. One husband gone. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Thirty pounds of good dynamite wasted. + +MAZZINI. Oh, poor Mangan! + +HECTOR. Are you immortal that you need pity him? Our turn next. + +They wait in silence and intense expectation. Hesione and Ellie hold +each other's hand tight. + +A distant explosion is heard. + +MRS HUSHABYE [relaxing her grip]. Oh! they have passed us. + +LADY UTTERWORD. The danger is over, Randall. Go to bed. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Turn in, all hands. The ship is safe. [He sits down +and goes asleep]. + +ELLIE [disappointedly]. Safe! + +HECTOR [disgustedly]. Yes, safe. And how damnably dull the world has +become again suddenly! [he sits down]. + +MAZZINI [sitting down]. I was quite wrong, after all. It is we who have +survived; and Mangan and the burglar-- + +HECTOR. --the two burglars-- + +LADY UTTERWORD. --the two practical men of business-- + +MAZZINI. --both gone. And the poor clergyman will have to get a new +house. + +MRS HUSHABYE. But what a glorious experience! I hope they'll come again +tomorrow night. + +ELLIE [radiant at the prospect]. Oh, I hope so. + +Randall at last succeeds in keeping the home fires burning on his flute. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Heartbreak House, by George Bernard Shaw + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HEARTBREAK HOUSE *** + +***** This file should be named 3543-8.txt or 3543-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/4/3543/ + +Produced by Eve Sobol + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/3543-8.zip b/3543-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0b5a5f4 --- /dev/null +++ b/3543-8.zip diff --git a/3543-h.zip b/3543-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8da5beb --- /dev/null +++ b/3543-h.zip diff --git a/3543-h/3543-h.htm b/3543-h/3543-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1301309 --- /dev/null +++ b/3543-h/3543-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7981 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + Heartbreak House, by Bernard Shaw + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Heartbreak House, by George Bernard Shaw + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Heartbreak House + +Author: George Bernard Shaw + +Release Date: January 13, 2009 [EBook #3543] +Last Updated: December 10, 2012 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HEARTBREAK HOUSE *** + + + + +Produced by Eve Sobol, and David Widger + + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h1> + HEARTBREAK HOUSE + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + A FANTASIA IN THE RUSSIAN MANNER ON ENGLISH THEMES + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Bernard Shaw + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h3> + 1913-1916 + </h3> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <h3> + Contents + </h3> + <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto"> + <tr> + <td> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> HEARTBREAK HOUSE AND HORSEBACK HALL </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> HEARTBREAK HOUSE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> ACT I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> ACT II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> ACT III </a> + </p> + </td> + </tr> + </table> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h2> + HEARTBREAK HOUSE AND HORSEBACK HALL + </h2> + <p> + Where Heartbreak House Stands + </p> + <p> + Heartbreak House is not merely the name of the play which follows this + preface. It is cultured, leisured Europe before the war. When the play was + begun not a shot had been fired; and only the professional diplomatists + and the very few amateurs whose hobby is foreign policy even knew that the + guns were loaded. A Russian playwright, Tchekov, had produced four + fascinating dramatic studies of Heartbreak House, of which three, The + Cherry Orchard, Uncle Vanya, and The Seagull, had been performed in + England. Tolstoy, in his Fruits of Enlightenment, had shown us through it + in his most ferociously contemptuous manner. Tolstoy did not waste any + sympathy on it: it was to him the house in which Europe was stifling its + soul; and he knew that our utter enervation and futilization in that + overheated drawingroom atmosphere was delivering the world over to the + control of ignorant and soulless cunning and energy, with the frightful + consequences which have now overtaken it. Tolstoy was no pessimist: he was + not disposed to leave the house standing if he could bring it down about + the ears of its pretty and amiable voluptuaries; and he wielded the + pickaxe with a will. He treated the case of the inmates as one of opium + poisoning, to be dealt with by seizing the patients roughly and exercising + them violently until they were broad awake. Tchekov, more of a fatalist, + had no faith in these charming people extricating themselves. They would, + he thought, be sold up and sent adrift by the bailiffs; and he therefore + had no scruple in exploiting and even flattering their charm. + </p> + <p> + The Inhabitants + </p> + <p> + Tchekov's plays, being less lucrative than swings and roundabouts, got no + further in England, where theatres are only ordinary commercial affairs, + than a couple of performances by the Stage Society. We stared and said, + "How Russian!" They did not strike me in that way. Just as Ibsen's + intensely Norwegian plays exactly fitted every middle and professional + class suburb in Europe, these intensely Russian plays fitted all the + country houses in Europe in which the pleasures of music, art, literature, + and the theatre had supplanted hunting, shooting, fishing, flirting, + eating, and drinking. The same nice people, the same utter futility. The + nice people could read; some of them could write; and they were the sole + repositories of culture who had social opportunities of contact with our + politicians, administrators, and newspaper proprietors, or any chance of + sharing or influencing their activities. But they shrank from that + contact. They hated politics. They did not wish to realize Utopia for the + common people: they wished to realize their favorite fictions and poems in + their own lives; and, when they could, they lived without scruple on + incomes which they did nothing to earn. The women in their girlhood made + themselves look like variety theatre stars, and settled down later into + the types of beauty imagined by the previous generation of painters. They + took the only part of our society in which there was leisure for high + culture, and made it an economic, political and; as far as practicable, a + moral vacuum; and as Nature, abhorring the vacuum, immediately filled it + up with sex and with all sorts of refined pleasures, it was a very + delightful place at its best for moments of relaxation. In other moments + it was disastrous. For prime ministers and their like, it was a veritable + Capua. + </p> + <p> + Horseback Hall + </p> + <p> + But where were our front benchers to nest if not here? The alternative to + Heartbreak House was Horseback Hall, consisting of a prison for horses + with an annex for the ladies and gentlemen who rode them, hunted them, + talked about them, bought them and sold them, and gave nine-tenths of + their lives to them, dividing the other tenth between charity, churchgoing + (as a substitute for religion), and conservative electioneering (as a + substitute for politics). It is true that the two establishments got mixed + at the edges. Exiles from the library, the music room, and the picture + gallery would be found languishing among the stables, miserably + discontented; and hardy horsewomen who slept at the first chord of + Schumann were born, horribly misplaced, into the garden of Klingsor; but + sometimes one came upon horsebreakers and heartbreakers who could make the + best of both worlds. As a rule, however, the two were apart and knew + little of one another; so the prime minister folk had to choose between + barbarism and Capua. And of the two atmospheres it is hard to say which + was the more fatal to statesmanship. + </p> + <p> + Revolution on the Shelf + </p> + <p> + Heartbreak House was quite familiar with revolutionary ideas on paper. It + aimed at being advanced and freethinking, and hardly ever went to church + or kept the Sabbath except by a little extra fun at weekends. When you + spent a Friday to Tuesday in it you found on the shelf in your bedroom not + only the books of poets and novelists, but of revolutionary biologists and + even economists. Without at least a few plays by myself and Mr Granville + Barker, and a few stories by Mr H. G. Wells, Mr Arnold Bennett, and Mr + John Galsworthy, the house would have been out of the movement. You would + find Blake among the poets, and beside him Bergson, Butler, Scott Haldane, + the poems of Meredith and Thomas Hardy, and, generally speaking, all the + literary implements for forming the mind of the perfect modern Socialist + and Creative Evolutionist. It was a curious experience to spend Sunday in + dipping into these books, and the Monday morning to read in the daily + paper that the country had just been brought to the verge of anarchy + because a new Home Secretary or chief of police without an idea in his + head that his great-grandmother might not have had to apologize for, had + refused to "recognize" some powerful Trade Union, just as a gondola might + refuse to recognize a 20,000-ton liner. + </p> + <p> + In short, power and culture were in separate compartments. The barbarians + were not only literally in the saddle, but on the front bench in the House + of commons, with nobody to correct their incredible ignorance of modern + thought and political science but upstarts from the counting-house, who + had spent their lives furnishing their pockets instead of their minds. + Both, however, were practised in dealing with money and with men, as far + as acquiring the one and exploiting the other went; and although this is + as undesirable an expertness as that of the medieval robber baron, it + qualifies men to keep an estate or a business going in its old routine + without necessarily understanding it, just as Bond Street tradesmen and + domestic servants keep fashionable society going without any instruction + in sociology. + </p> + <p> + The Cherry Orchard + </p> + <p> + The Heartbreak people neither could nor would do anything of the sort. + With their heads as full of the Anticipations of Mr H. G. Wells as the + heads of our actual rulers were empty even of the anticipations of Erasmus + or Sir Thomas More, they refused the drudgery of politics, and would have + made a very poor job of it if they had changed their minds. Not that they + would have been allowed to meddle anyhow, as only through the accident of + being a hereditary peer can anyone in these days of Votes for Everybody + get into parliament if handicapped by a serious modern cultural equipment; + but if they had, their habit of living in a vacuum would have left them + helpless end ineffective in public affairs. Even in private life they were + often helpless wasters of their inheritance, like the people in Tchekov's + Cherry Orchard. Even those who lived within their incomes were really kept + going by their solicitors and agents, being unable to manage an estate or + run a business without continual prompting from those who have to learn + how to do such things or starve. + </p> + <p> + From what is called Democracy no corrective to this state of things could + be hoped. It is said that every people has the Government it deserves. It + is more to the point that every Government has the electorate it deserves; + for the orators of the front bench can edify or debauch an ignorant + electorate at will. Thus our democracy moves in a vicious circle of + reciprocal worthiness and unworthiness. + </p> + <p> + Nature's Long Credits + </p> + <p> + Nature's way of dealing with unhealthy conditions is unfortunately not one + that compels us to conduct a solvent hygiene on a cash basis. She + demoralizes us with long credits and reckless overdrafts, and then pulls + us up cruelly with catastrophic bankruptcies. Take, for example, common + domestic sanitation. A whole city generation may neglect it utterly and + scandalously, if not with absolute impunity, yet without any evil + consequences that anyone thinks of tracing to it. In a hospital two + generations of medical students way tolerate dirt and carelessness, and + then go out into general practice to spread the doctrine that fresh air is + a fad, and sanitation an imposture set up to make profits for plumbers. + Then suddenly Nature takes her revenge. She strikes at the city with a + pestilence and at the hospital with an epidemic of hospital gangrene, + slaughtering right and left until the innocent young have paid for the + guilty old, and the account is balanced. And then she goes to sleep again + and gives another period of credit, with the same result. + </p> + <p> + This is what has just happened in our political hygiene. Political science + has been as recklessly neglected by Governments and electorates during my + lifetime as sanitary science was in the days of Charles the Second. In + international relations diplomacy has been a boyishly lawless affair of + family intrigues, commercial and territorial brigandage, torpors of + pseudo-goodnature produced by laziness and spasms of ferocious activity + produced by terror. But in these islands we muddled through. Nature gave + us a longer credit than she gave to France or Germany or Russia. To + British centenarians who died in their beds in 1914, any dread of having + to hide underground in London from the shells of an enemy seemed more + remote and fantastic than a dread of the appearance of a colony of cobras + and rattlesnakes in Kensington Gardens. In the prophetic works of Charles + Dickens we were warned against many evils which have since come to pass; + but of the evil of being slaughtered by a foreign foe on our own doorsteps + there was no shadow. Nature gave us a very long credit; and we abused it + to the utmost. But when she struck at last she struck with a vengeance. + For four years she smote our firstborn and heaped on us plagues of which + Egypt never dreamed. They were all as preventable as the great Plague of + London, and came solely because they had not been prevented. They were not + undone by winning the war. The earth is still bursting with the dead + bodies of the victors. + </p> + <p> + The Wicked Half Century + </p> + <p> + It is difficult to say whether indifference and neglect are worse than + false doctrine; but Heartbreak House and Horseback Hall unfortunately + suffered from both. For half a century before the war civilization had + been going to the devil very precipitately under the influence of a + pseudo-science as disastrous as the blackest Calvinism. Calvinism taught + that as we are predestinately saved or damned, nothing that we can do can + alter our destiny. Still, as Calvinism gave the individual no clue as to + whether he had drawn a lucky number or an unlucky one, it left him a + fairly strong interest in encouraging his hopes of salvation and allaying + his fear of damnation by behaving as one of the elect might be expected to + behave rather than as one of the reprobate. But in the middle of the + nineteenth century naturalists and physicists assured the world, in the + name of Science, that salvation and damnation are all nonsense, and that + predestination is the central truth of religion, inasmuch as human beings + are produced by their environment, their sins and good deeds being only a + series of chemical and mechanical reactions over which they have no + control. Such figments as mind, choice, purpose, conscience, will, and so + forth, are, they taught, mere illusions, produced because they are useful + in the continual struggle of the human machine to maintain its environment + in a favorable condition, a process incidentally involving the ruthless + destruction or subjection of its competitors for the supply (assumed to be + limited) of subsistence available. We taught Prussia this religion; and + Prussia bettered our instruction so effectively that we presently found + ourselves confronted with the necessity of destroying Prussia to prevent + Prussia destroying us. And that has just ended in each destroying the + other to an extent doubtfully reparable in our time. + </p> + <p> + It may be asked how so imbecile and dangerous a creed ever came to be + accepted by intelligent beings. I will answer that question more fully in + my next volume of plays, which will be entirely devoted to the subject. + For the present I will only say that there were better reasons than the + obvious one that such sham science as this opened a scientific career to + very stupid men, and all the other careers to shameless rascals, provided + they were industrious enough. It is true that this motive operated very + powerfully; but when the new departure in scientific doctrine which is + associated with the name of the great naturalist Charles Darwin began, it + was not only a reaction against a barbarous pseudo-evangelical teleology + intolerably obstructive to all scientific progress, but was accompanied, + as it happened, by discoveries of extraordinary interest in physics, + chemistry, and that lifeless method of evolution which its investigators + called Natural Selection. Howbeit, there was only one result possible in + the ethical sphere, and that was the banishment of conscience from human + affairs, or, as Samuel Butler vehemently put it, "of mind from the + universe." + </p> + <p> + Hypochondria + </p> + <p> + Now Heartbreak House, with Butler and Bergson and Scott Haldane alongside + Blake and the other major poets on its shelves (to say nothing of Wagner + and the tone poets), was not so completely blinded by the doltish + materialism of the laboratories as the uncultured world outside. But being + an idle house it was a hypochondriacal house, always running after cures. + It would stop eating meat, not on valid Shelleyan grounds, but in order to + get rid of a bogey called Uric Acid; and it would actually let you pull + all its teeth out to exorcise another demon named Pyorrhea. It was + superstitious, and addicted to table-rapping, materialization seances, + clairvoyance, palmistry, crystal-gazing and the like to such an extent + that it may be doubted whether ever before in the history of the world did + soothsayers, astrologers, and unregistered therapeutic specialists of all + sorts flourish as they did during this half century of the drift to the + abyss. The registered doctors and surgeons were hard put to it to compete + with the unregistered. They were not clever enough to appeal to the + imagination and sociability of the Heartbreakers by the arts of the actor, + the orator, the poet, the winning conversationalist. They had to fall back + coarsely on the terror of infection and death. They prescribed + inoculations and operations. Whatever part of a human being could be cut + out without necessarily killing him they cut out; and he often died + (unnecessarily of course) in consequence. From such trifles as uvulas and + tonsils they went on to ovaries and appendices until at last no one's + inside was safe. They explained that the human intestine was too long, and + that nothing could make a child of Adam healthy except short circuiting + the pylorus by cutting a length out of the lower intestine and fastening + it directly to the stomach. As their mechanist theory taught them that + medicine was the business of the chemist's laboratory, and surgery of the + carpenter's shop, and also that Science (by which they meant their + practices) was so important that no consideration for the interests of any + individual creature, whether frog or philosopher, much less the vulgar + commonplaces of sentimental ethics, could weigh for a moment against the + remotest off-chance of an addition to the body of scientific knowledge, + they operated and vivisected and inoculated and lied on a stupendous + scale, clamoring for and actually acquiring such legal powers over the + bodies of their fellow-citizens as neither king, pope, nor parliament dare + ever have claimed. The Inquisition itself was a Liberal institution + compared to the General Medical Council. + </p> + <p> + Those who do not know how to live must make a Merit of Dying + </p> + <p> + Heartbreak House was far too lazy and shallow to extricate itself from + this palace of evil enchantment. It rhapsodized about love; but it + believed in cruelty. It was afraid of the cruel people; and it saw that + cruelty was at least effective. Cruelty did things that made money, + whereas Love did nothing but prove the soundness of Larochefoucauld's + saying that very few people would fall in love if they had never read + about it. Heartbreak House, in short, did not know how to live, at which + point all that was left to it was the boast that at least it knew how to + die: a melancholy accomplishment which the outbreak of war presently gave + it practically unlimited opportunities of displaying. Thus were the + firstborn of Heartbreak House smitten; and the young, the innocent, the + hopeful, expiated the folly and worthlessness of their elders. + </p> + <p> + War Delirium + </p> + <p> + Only those who have lived through a first-rate war, not in the field, but + at home, and kept their heads, can possibly understand the bitterness of + Shakespeare and Swift, who both went through this experience. The horror + of Peer Gynt in the madhouse, when the lunatics, exalted by illusions of + splendid talent and visions of a dawning millennium, crowned him as their + emperor, was tame in comparison. I do not know whether anyone really kept + his head completely except those who had to keep it because they had to + conduct the war at first hand. I should not have kept my own (as far as I + did keep it) if I had not at once understood that as a scribe and speaker + I too was under the most serious public obligation to keep my grip on + realities; but this did not save me from a considerable degree of + hyperaesthesia. There were of course some happy people to whom the war + meant nothing: all political and general matters lying outside their + little circle of interest. But the ordinary war-conscious civilian went + mad, the main symptom being a conviction that the whole order of nature + had been reversed. All foods, he felt, must now be adulterated. All + schools must be closed. No advertisements must be sent to the newspapers, + of which new editions must appear and be bought up every ten minutes. + Travelling must be stopped, or, that being impossible, greatly hindered. + All pretences about fine art and culture and the like must be flung off as + an intolerable affectation; and the picture galleries and museums and + schools at once occupied by war workers. The British Museum itself was + saved only by a hair's breadth. The sincerity of all this, and of much + more which would not be believed if I chronicled it, may be established by + one conclusive instance of the general craziness. Men were seized with the + illusion that they could win the war by giving away money. And they not + only subscribed millions to Funds of all sorts with no discoverable + object, and to ridiculous voluntary organizations for doing what was + plainly the business of the civil and military authorities, but actually + handed out money to any thief in the street who had the presence of mind + to pretend that he (or she) was "collecting" it for the annihilation of + the enemy. Swindlers were emboldened to take offices; label themselves + Anti-Enemy Leagues; and simply pocket the money that was heaped on them. + Attractively dressed young women found that they had nothing to do but + parade the streets, collecting-box in hand, and live gloriously on the + profits. Many months elapsed before, as a first sign of returning sanity, + the police swept an Anti-Enemy secretary into prison pour encourages les + autres, and the passionate penny collecting of the Flag Days was brought + under some sort of regulation. + </p> + <p> + Madness in Court + </p> + <p> + The demoralization did not spare the Law Courts. Soldiers were acquitted, + even on fully proved indictments for wilful murder, until at last the + judges and magistrates had to announce that what was called the Unwritten + Law, which meant simply that a soldier could do what he liked with + impunity in civil life, was not the law of the land, and that a Victoria + Cross did not carry with it a perpetual plenary indulgence. Unfortunately + the insanity of the juries and magistrates did not always manifest itself + in indulgence. No person unlucky enough to be charged with any sort of + conduct, however reasonable and salutary, that did not smack of war + delirium, had the slightest chance of acquittal. There were in the + country, too, a certain number of people who had conscientious objections + to war as criminal or unchristian. The Act of Parliament introducing + Compulsory Military Service thoughtlessly exempted these persons, merely + requiring them to prove the genuineness of their convictions. Those who + did so were very ill-advised from the point of view of their own personal + interest; for they were persecuted with savage logicality in spite of the + law; whilst those who made no pretence of having any objection to war at + all, and had not only had military training in Officers' Training Corps, + but had proclaimed on public occasions that they were perfectly ready to + engage in civil war on behalf of their political opinions, were allowed + the benefit of the Act on the ground that they did not approve of this + particular war. For the Christians there was no mercy. In cases where the + evidence as to their being killed by ill treatment was so unequivocal that + the verdict would certainly have been one of wilful murder had the + prejudice of the coroner's jury been on the other side, their tormentors + were gratuitously declared to be blameless. There was only one virtue, + pugnacity: only one vice, pacifism. That is an essential condition of war; + but the Government had not the courage to legislate accordingly; and its + law was set aside for Lynch law. + </p> + <p> + The climax of legal lawlessness was reached in France. The greatest + Socialist statesman in Europe, Jaures, was shot and killed by a gentleman + who resented his efforts to avert the war. M. Clemenceau was shot by + another gentleman of less popular opinions, and happily came off no worse + than having to spend a precautionary couple of days in bed. The slayer of + Jaures was recklessly acquitted: the would-be slayer of M. Clemenceau was + carefully found guilty. There is no reason to doubt that the same thing + would have happened in England if the war had begun with a successful + attempt to assassinate Keir Hardie, and ended with an unsuccessful one to + assassinate Mr Lloyd George. + </p> + <p> + The Long Arm of War + </p> + <p> + The pestilence which is the usual accompaniment of war was called + influenza. Whether it was really a war pestilence or not was made doubtful + by the fact that it did its worst in places remote from the battlefields, + notably on the west coast of North America and in India. But the moral + pestilence, which was unquestionably a war pestilence, reproduced this + phenomenon. One would have supposed that the war fever would have raged + most furiously in the countries actually under fire, and that the others + would be more reasonable. Belgium and Flanders, where over large districts + literally not one stone was left upon another as the opposed armies drove + each other back and forward over it after terrific preliminary + bombardments, might have been pardoned for relieving their feelings more + emphatically than by shrugging their shoulders and saying, "C'est la + guerre." England, inviolate for so many centuries that the swoop of war on + her homesteads had long ceased to be more credible than a return of the + Flood, could hardly be expected to keep her temper sweet when she knew at + last what it was to hide in cellars and underground railway stations, or + lie quaking in bed, whilst bombs crashed, houses crumbled, and aircraft + guns distributed shrapnel on friend and foe alike until certain shop + windows in London, formerly full of fashionable hats, were filled with + steel helmets. Slain and mutilated women and children, and burnt and + wrecked dwellings, excuse a good deal of violent language, and produce a + wrath on which many suns go down before it is appeased. Yet it was in the + United States of America where nobody slept the worse for the war, that + the war fever went beyond all sense and reason. In European Courts there + was vindictive illegality: in American Courts there was raving lunacy. It + is not for me to chronicle the extravagances of an Ally: let some candid + American do that. I can only say that to us sitting in our gardens in + England, with the guns in France making themselves felt by a throb in the + air as unmistakeable as an audible sound, or with tightening hearts + studying the phases of the moon in London in their bearing on the chances + whether our houses would be standing or ourselves alive next morning, the + newspaper accounts of the sentences American Courts were passing on young + girls and old men alike for the expression of opinions which were being + uttered amid thundering applause before huge audiences in England, and the + more private records of the methods by which the American War Loans were + raised, were so amazing that they put the guns and the possibilities of a + raid clean out of our heads for the moment. + </p> + <p> + The Rabid Watchdogs of Liberty + </p> + <p> + Not content with these rancorous abuses of the existing law, the war + maniacs made a frantic rush to abolish all constitutional guarantees of + liberty and well-being. The ordinary law was superseded by Acts under + which newspapers were seized and their printing machinery destroyed by + simple police raids a la Russe, and persons arrested and shot without any + pretence of trial by jury or publicity of procedure or evidence. Though it + was urgently necessary that production should be increased by the most + scientific organization and economy of labor, and though no fact was + better established than that excessive duration and intensity of toil + reduces production heavily instead of increasing it, the factory laws were + suspended, and men and women recklessly over-worked until the loss of + their efficiency became too glaring to be ignored. Remonstrances and + warnings were met either with an accusation of pro-Germanism or the + formula, "Remember that we are at war now." I have said that men assumed + that war had reversed the order of nature, and that all was lost unless we + did the exact opposite of everything we had found necessary and beneficial + in peace. But the truth was worse than that. The war did not change men's + minds in any such impossible way. What really happened was that the impact + of physical death and destruction, the one reality that every fool can + understand, tore off the masks of education, art, science and religion + from our ignorance and barbarism, and left us glorying grotesquely in the + licence suddenly accorded to our vilest passions and most abject terrors. + Ever since Thucydides wrote his history, it has been on record that when + the angel of death sounds his trumpet the pretences of civilization are + blown from men's heads into the mud like hats in a gust of wind. But when + this scripture was fulfilled among us, the shock was not the less + appalling because a few students of Greek history were not surprised by + it. Indeed these students threw themselves into the orgy as shamelessly as + the illiterate. The Christian priest, joining in the war dance without + even throwing off his cassock first, and the respectable school governor + expelling the German professor with insult and bodily violence, and + declaring that no English child should ever again be taught the language + of Luther and Goethe, were kept in countenance by the most impudent + repudiations of every decency of civilization and every lesson of + political experience on the part of the very persons who, as university + professors, historians, philosophers, and men of science, were the + accredited custodians of culture. It was crudely natural, and perhaps + necessary for recruiting purposes, that German militarism and German + dynastic ambition should be painted by journalists and recruiters in black + and red as European dangers (as in fact they are), leaving it to be + inferred that our own militarism and our own political constitution are + millennially democratic (which they certainly are not); but when it came + to frantic denunciations of German chemistry, German biology, German + poetry, German music, German literature, German philosophy, and even + German engineering, as malignant abominations standing towards British and + French chemistry and so forth in the relation of heaven to hell, it was + clear that the utterers of such barbarous ravings had never really + understood or cared for the arts and sciences they professed and were + profaning, and were only the appallingly degenerate descendants of the men + of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries who, recognizing no national + frontiers in the great realm of the human mind, kept the European comity + of that realm loftily and even ostentatiously above the rancors of the + battle-field. Tearing the Garter from the Kaiser's leg, striking the + German dukes from the roll of our peerage, changing the King's illustrious + and historically appropriate surname (for the war was the old war of + Guelph against Ghibelline, with the Kaiser as Arch-Ghibelline) to that of + a traditionless locality. One felt that the figure of St. George and the + Dragon on our coinage should be replaced by that of the soldier driving + his spear through Archimedes. But by that time there was no coinage: only + paper money in which ten shillings called itself a pound as confidently as + the people who were disgracing their country called themselves patriots. + </p> + <p> + The Sufferings of the Sane + </p> + <p> + The mental distress of living amid the obscene din of all these + carmagnoles and corobberies was not the only burden that lay on sane + people during the war. There was also the emotional strain, complicated by + the offended economic sense, produced by the casualty lists. The stupid, + the selfish, the narrow-minded, the callous and unimaginative were spared + a great deal. "Blood and destruction shall be so in use that mothers shall + but smile when they behold their infantes quartered by the hands of war," + was a Shakespearean prophecy that very nearly came true; for when nearly + every house had a slaughtered son to mourn, we should all have gone quite + out of our senses if we had taken our own and our friend's bereavements at + their peace value. It became necessary to give them a false value; to + proclaim the young life worthily and gloriously sacrificed to redeem the + liberty of mankind, instead of to expiate the heedlessness and folly of + their fathers, and expiate it in vain. We had even to assume that the + parents and not the children had made the sacrifice, until at last the + comic papers were driven to satirize fat old men, sitting comfortably in + club chairs, and boasting of the sons they had "given" to their country. + </p> + <p> + No one grudged these anodynes to acute personal grief; but they only + embittered those who knew that the young men were having their teeth set + on edge because their parents had eaten sour political grapes. Then think + of the young men themselves! Many of them had no illusions about the + policy that led to the war: they went clear-sighted to a horribly + repugnant duty. Men essentially gentle and essentially wise, with really + valuable work in hand, laid it down voluntarily and spent months forming + fours in the barrack yard, and stabbing sacks of straw in the public eye, + so that they might go out to kill and maim men as gentle as themselves. + These men, who were perhaps, as a class, our most efficient soldiers + (Frederick Keeling, for example), were not duped for a moment by the + hypocritical melodrama that consoled and stimulated the others. They left + their creative work to drudge at destruction, exactly as they would have + left it to take their turn at the pumps in a sinking ship. They did not, + like some of the conscientious objectors, hold back because the ship had + been neglected by its officers and scuttled by its wreckers. The ship had + to be saved, even if Newton had to leave his fluxions and Michael Angelo + his marbles to save it; so they threw away the tools of their beneficent + and ennobling trades, and took up the blood-stained bayonet and the + murderous bomb, forcing themselves to pervert their divine instinct for + perfect artistic execution to the effective handling of these diabolical + things, and their economic faculty for organization to the contriving of + ruin and slaughter. For it gave an ironic edge to their tragedy that the + very talents they were forced to prostitute made the prostitution not only + effective, but even interesting; so that some of them were rapidly + promoted, and found themselves actually becoming artists in wax, with a + growing relish for it, like Napoleon and all the other scourges of + mankind, in spite of themselves. For many of them there was not even this + consolation. They "stuck it," and hated it, to the end. + </p> + <p> + Evil in the Throne of Good + </p> + <p> + This distress of the gentle was so acute that those who shared it in civil + life, without having to shed blood with their own hands, or witness + destruction with their own eyes, hardly care to obtrude their own woes. + Nevertheless, even when sitting at home in safety, it was not easy for + those who had to write and speak about the war to throw away their highest + conscience, and deliberately work to a standard of inevitable evil instead + of to the ideal of life more abundant. I can answer for at least one + person who found the change from the wisdom of Jesus and St. Francis to + the morals of Richard III and the madness of Don Quixote extremely + irksome. But that change had to be made; and we are all the worse for it, + except those for whom it was not really a change at all, but only a relief + from hypocrisy. + </p> + <p> + Think, too, of those who, though they had neither to write nor to fight, + and had no children of their own to lose, yet knew the inestimable loss to + the world of four years of the life of a generation wasted on destruction. + Hardly one of the epoch-making works of the human mind might not have been + aborted or destroyed by taking their authors away from their natural work + for four critical years. Not only were Shakespeares and Platos being + killed outright; but many of the best harvests of the survivors had to be + sown in the barren soil of the trenches. And this was no mere British + consideration. To the truly civilized man, to the good European, the + slaughter of the German youth was as disastrous as the slaughter of the + English. Fools exulted in "German losses." They were our losses as well. + Imagine exulting in the death of Beethoven because Bill Sykes dealt him + his death blow! + </p> + <p> + Straining at the Gnat and swallowing the Camel + </p> + <p> + But most people could not comprehend these sorrows. There was a frivolous + exultation in death for its own sake, which was at bottom an inability to + realize that the deaths were real deaths and not stage ones. Again and + again, when an air raider dropped a bomb which tore a child and its mother + limb from limb, the people who saw it, though they had been reading with + great cheerfulness of thousands of such happenings day after day in their + newspapers, suddenly burst into furious imprecations on "the Huns" as + murderers, and shrieked for savage and satisfying vengeance. At such + moments it became clear that the deaths they had not seen meant no more to + them than the mimic death of the cinema screen. Sometimes it was not + necessary that death should be actually witnessed: it had only to take + place under circumstances of sufficient novelty and proximity to bring it + home almost as sensationally and effectively as if it had been actually + visible. + </p> + <p> + For example, in the spring of 1915 there was an appalling slaughter of our + young soldiers at Neuve Chapelle and at the Gallipoli landing. I will not + go so far as to say that our civilians were delighted to have such + exciting news to read at breakfast. But I cannot pretend that I noticed + either in the papers, or in general intercourse, any feeling beyond the + usual one that the cinema show at the front was going splendidly, and that + our boys were the bravest of the brave. Suddenly there came the news that + an Atlantic liner, the Lusitania, had been torpedoed, and that several + well-known first-class passengers, including a famous theatrical manager + and the author of a popular farce, had been drowned, among others. The + others included Sir Hugh Lane; but as he had only laid the country under + great obligations in the sphere of the fine arts, no great stress was laid + on that loss. Immediately an amazing frenzy swept through the country. Men + who up to that time had kept their heads now lost them utterly. "Killing + saloon passengers! What next?" was the essence of the whole agitation; but + it is far too trivial a phrase to convey the faintest notion of the rage + which possessed us. To me, with my mind full of the hideous cost of Neuve + Chapelle, Ypres, and the Gallipoli landing, the fuss about the Lusitania + seemed almost a heartless impertinence, though I was well acquainted + personally with the three best-known victims, and understood, better + perhaps than most people, the misfortune of the death of Lane. I even + found a grim satisfaction, very intelligible to all soldiers, in the fact + that the civilians who found the war such splendid British sport should + get a sharp taste of what it was to the actual combatants. I expressed my + impatience very freely, and found that my very straightforward and natural + feeling in the matter was received as a monstrous and heartless paradox. + When I asked those who gaped at me whether they had anything to say about + the holocaust of Festubert, they gaped wider than before, having totally + forgotten it, or rather, having never realized it. They were not heartless + anymore than I was; but the big catastrophe was too big for them to grasp, + and the little one had been just the right size for them. I was not + surprised. Have I not seen a public body for just the same reason pass a + vote for £30,000 without a word, and then spend three special meetings, + prolonged into the night, over an item of seven shillings for + refreshments? + </p> + <p> + Little Minds and Big Battles + </p> + <p> + Nobody will be able to understand the vagaries of public feeling during + the war unless they bear constantly in mind that the war in its entire + magnitude did not exist for the average civilian. He could not conceive + even a battle, much less a campaign. To the suburbs the war was nothing + but a suburban squabble. To the miner and navvy it was only a series of + bayonet fights between German champions and English ones. The enormity of + it was quite beyond most of us. Its episodes had to be reduced to the + dimensions of a railway accident or a shipwreck before it could produce + any effect on our minds at all. To us the ridiculous bombardments of + Scarborough and Ramsgate were colossal tragedies, and the battle of + Jutland a mere ballad. The words "after thorough artillery preparation" in + the news from the front meant nothing to us; but when our seaside trippers + learned that an elderly gentleman at breakfast in a week-end marine hotel + had been interrupted by a bomb dropping into his egg-cup, their wrath and + horror knew no bounds. They declared that this would put a new spirit into + the army; and had no suspicion that the soldiers in the trenches roared + with laughter over it for days, and told each other that it would do the + blighters at home good to have a taste of what the army was up against. + Sometimes the smallness of view was pathetic. A man would work at home + regardless of the call "to make the world safe for democracy." His brother + would be killed at the front. Immediately he would throw up his work and + take up the war as a family blood feud against the Germans. Sometimes it + was comic. A wounded man, entitled to his discharge, would return to the + trenches with a grim determination to find the Hun who had wounded him and + pay him out for it. + </p> + <p> + It is impossible to estimate what proportion of us, in khaki or out of it, + grasped the war and its political antecedents as a whole in the light of + any philosophy of history or knowledge of what war is. I doubt whether it + was as high as our proportion of higher mathematicians. But there can be + no doubt that it was prodigiously outnumbered by the comparatively + ignorant and childish. Remember that these people had to be stimulated to + make the sacrifices demanded by the war, and that this could not be done + by appeals to a knowledge which they did not possess, and a comprehension + of which they were incapable. When the armistice at last set me free to + tell the truth about the war at the following general election, a soldier + said to a candidate whom I was supporting, "If I had known all that in + 1914, they would never have got me into khaki." And that, of course, was + precisely why it had been necessary to stuff him with a romance that any + diplomatist would have laughed at. Thus the natural confusion of ignorance + was increased by a deliberately propagated confusion of nursery bogey + stories and melodramatic nonsense, which at last overreached itself and + made it impossible to stop the war before we had not only achieved the + triumph of vanquishing the German army and thereby overthrowing its + militarist monarchy, but made the very serious mistake of ruining the + centre of Europe, a thing that no sane European State could afford to do. + </p> + <p> + The Dumb Capables and the Noisy Incapables + </p> + <p> + Confronted with this picture of insensate delusion and folly, the critical + reader will immediately counterplead that England all this time was + conducting a war which involved the organization of several millions of + fighting men and of the workers who were supplying them with provisions, + munitions, and transport, and that this could not have been done by a mob + of hysterical ranters. This is fortunately true. To pass from the + newspaper offices and political platforms and club fenders and suburban + drawing-rooms to the Army and the munition factories was to pass from + Bedlam to the busiest and sanest of workaday worlds. It was to rediscover + England, and find solid ground for the faith of those who still believed + in her. But a necessary condition of this efficiency was that those who + were efficient should give all their time to their business and leave the + rabble raving to its heart's content. Indeed the raving was useful to the + efficient, because, as it was always wide of the mark, it often distracted + attention very conveniently from operations that would have been defeated + or hindered by publicity. A precept which I endeavored vainly to + popularize early in the war, "If you have anything to do go and do it: if + not, for heaven's sake get out of the way," was only half carried out. + Certainly the capable people went and did it; but the incapables would by + no means get out of the way: they fussed and bawled and were only + prevented from getting very seriously into the way by the blessed fact + that they never knew where the way was. Thus whilst all the efficiency of + England was silent and invisible, all its imbecility was deafening the + heavens with its clamor and blotting out the sun with its dust. It was + also unfortunately intimidating the Government by its blusterings into + using the irresistible powers of the State to intimidate the sensible + people, thus enabling a despicable minority of would-be lynchers to set up + a reign of terror which could at any time have been broken by a single + stern word from a responsible minister. But our ministers had not that + sort of courage: neither Heartbreak House nor Horseback Hall had bred it, + much less the suburbs. When matters at last came to the looting of shops + by criminals under patriotic pretexts, it was the police force and not the + Government that put its foot down. There was even one deplorable moment, + during the submarine scare, in which the Government yielded to a childish + cry for the maltreatment of naval prisoners of war, and, to our great + disgrace, was forced by the enemy to behave itself. And yet behind all + this public blundering and misconduct and futile mischief, the effective + England was carrying on with the most formidable capacity and activity. + The ostensible England was making the empire sick with its incontinences, + its ignorances, its ferocities, its panics, and its endless and + intolerable blarings of Allied national anthems in season and out. The + esoteric England was proceeding irresistibly to the conquest of Europe. + </p> + <p> + The Practical Business Men + </p> + <p> + From the beginning the useless people set up a shriek for "practical + business men." By this they meant men who had become rich by placing their + personal interests before those of the country, and measuring the success + of every activity by the pecuniary profit it brought to them and to those + on whom they depended for their supplies of capital. The pitiable failure + of some conspicuous samples from the first batch we tried of these poor + devils helped to give the whole public side of the war an air of monstrous + and hopeless farce. They proved not only that they were useless for public + work, but that in a well-ordered nation they would never have been allowed + to control private enterprise. + </p> + <p> + How the Fools shouted the Wise Men down + </p> + <p> + Thus, like a fertile country flooded with mud, England showed no sign of + her greatness in the days when she was putting forth all her strength to + save herself from the worst consequences of her littleness. Most of the + men of action, occupied to the last hour of their time with urgent + practical work, had to leave to idler people, or to professional + rhetoricians, the presentation of the war to the reason and imagination of + the country and the world in speeches, poems, manifestoes, picture + posters, and newspaper articles. I have had the privilege of hearing some + of our ablest commanders talking about their work; and I have shared the + common lot of reading the accounts of that work given to the world by the + newspapers. No two experiences could be more different. But in the end the + talkers obtained a dangerous ascendancy over the rank and file of the men + of action; for though the great men of action are always inveterate + talkers and often very clever writers, and therefore cannot have their + minds formed for them by others, the average man of action, like the + average fighter with the bayonet, can give no account of himself in words + even to himself, and is apt to pick up and accept what he reads about + himself and other people in the papers, except when the writer is rash + enough to commit himself on technical points. It was not uncommon during + the war to hear a soldier, or a civilian engaged on war work, describing + events within his own experience that reduced to utter absurdity the + ravings and maunderings of his daily paper, and yet echo the opinions of + that paper like a parrot. Thus, to escape from the prevailing confusion + and folly, it was not enough to seek the company of the ordinary man of + action: one had to get into contact with the master spirits. This was a + privilege which only a handful of people could enjoy. For the unprivileged + citizen there was no escape. To him the whole country seemed mad, futile, + silly, incompetent, with no hope of victory except the hope that the enemy + might be just as mad. Only by very resolute reflection and reasoning could + he reassure himself that if there was nothing more solid beneath their + appalling appearances the war could not possibly have gone on for a single + day without a total breakdown of its organization. + </p> + <p> + The Mad Election + </p> + <p> + Happy were the fools and the thoughtless men of action in those days. The + worst of it was that the fools were very strongly represented in + parliament, as fools not only elect fools, but can persuade men of action + to elect them too. The election that immediately followed the armistice + was perhaps the maddest that has ever taken place. Soldiers who had done + voluntary and heroic service in the field were defeated by persons who had + apparently never run a risk or spent a farthing that they could avoid, and + who even had in the course of the election to apologize publicly for + bawling Pacifist or Pro-German at their opponent. Party leaders seek such + followers, who can always be depended on to walk tamely into the lobby at + the party whip's orders, provided the leader will make their seats safe + for them by the process which was called, in derisive reference to the war + rationing system, "giving them the coupon." Other incidents were so + grotesque that I cannot mention them without enabling the reader to + identify the parties, which would not be fair, as they were no more to + blame than thousands of others who must necessarily be nameless. The + general result was patently absurd; and the electorate, disgusted at its + own work, instantly recoiled to the opposite extreme, and cast out all the + coupon candidates at the earliest bye-elections by equally silly + majorities. But the mischief of the general election could not be undone; + and the Government had not only to pretend to abuse its European victory + as it had promised, but actually to do it by starving the enemies who had + thrown down their arms. It had, in short, won the election by pledging + itself to be thriftlessly wicked, cruel, and vindictive; and it did not + find it as easy to escape from this pledge as it had from nobler ones. The + end, as I write, is not yet; but it is clear that this thoughtless + savagery will recoil on the heads of the Allies so severely that we shall + be forced by the sternest necessity to take up our share of healing the + Europe we have wounded almost to death instead of attempting to complete + her destruction. + </p> + <p> + The Yahoo and the Angry Ape + </p> + <p> + Contemplating this picture of a state of mankind so recent that no denial + of its truth is possible, one understands Shakespeare comparing Man to an + angry ape, Swift describing him as a Yahoo rebuked by the superior virtue + of the horse, and Wellington declaring that the British can behave + themselves neither in victory nor defeat. Yet none of the three had seen + war as we have seen it. Shakespeare blamed great men, saying that "Could + great men thunder as Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet; for + every pelting petty officer would use his heaven for thunder: nothing but + thunder." What would Shakespeare have said if he had seen something far + more destructive than thunder in the hand of every village laborer, and + found on the Messines Ridge the craters of the nineteen volcanoes that + were let loose there at the touch of a finger that might have been a + child's finger without the result being a whit less ruinous? Shakespeare + may have seen a Stratford cottage struck by one of Jove's thunderbolts, + and have helped to extinguish the lighted thatch and clear away the bits + of the broken chimney. What would he have said if he had seen Ypres as it + is now, or returned to Stratford, as French peasants are returning to + their homes to-day, to find the old familiar signpost inscribed "To + Stratford, 1 mile," and at the end of the mile nothing but some holes in + the ground and a fragment of a broken churn here and there? Would not the + spectacle of the angry ape endowed with powers of destruction that Jove + never pretended to, have beggared even his command of words? + </p> + <p> + And yet, what is there to say except that war puts a strain on human + nature that breaks down the better half of it, and makes the worse half a + diabolical virtue? Better, for us if it broke it down altogether, for then + the warlike way out of our difficulties would be barred to us, and we + should take greater care not to get into them. In truth, it is, as Byron + said, "not difficult to die," and enormously difficult to live: that + explains why, at bottom, peace is not only better than war, but infinitely + more arduous. Did any hero of the war face the glorious risk of death more + bravely than the traitor Bolo faced the ignominious certainty of it? Bolo + taught us all how to die: can we say that he taught us all how to live? + Hardly a week passes now without some soldier who braved death in the + field so recklessly that he was decorated or specially commended for it, + being haled before our magistrates for having failed to resist the + paltriest temptations of peace, with no better excuse than the old one + that "a man must live." Strange that one who, sooner than do honest work, + will sell his honor for a bottle of wine, a visit to the theatre, and an + hour with a strange woman, all obtained by passing a worthless cheque, + could yet stake his life on the most desperate chances of the + battle-field! Does it not seem as if, after all, the glory of death were + cheaper than the glory of life? If it is not easier to attain, why do so + many more men attain it? At all events it is clear that the kingdom of the + Prince of Peace has not yet become the kingdom of this world. His attempts + at invasion have been resisted far more fiercely than the Kaiser's. + Successful as that resistance has been, it has piled up a sort of National + Debt that is not the less oppressive because we have no figures for it and + do not intend to pay it. A blockade that cuts off "the grace of our Lord" + is in the long run less bearable than the blockades which merely cut off + raw materials; and against that blockade our Armada is impotent. In the + blockader's house, he has assured us, there are many mansions; but I am + afraid they do not include either Heartbreak House or Horseback Hall. + </p> + <p> + Plague on Both your Houses! + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile the Bolshevist picks and petards are at work on the foundations + of both buildings; and though the Bolshevists may be buried in the ruins, + their deaths will not save the edifices. Unfortunately they can be built + again. Like Doubting Castle, they have been demolished many times by + successive Greathearts, and rebuilt by Simple, Sloth, and Presumption, by + Feeble Mind and Much Afraid, and by all the jurymen of Vanity Fair. + Another generation of "secondary education" at our ancient public schools + and the cheaper institutions that ape them will be quite sufficient to + keep the two going until the next war. For the instruction of that + generation I leave these pages as a record of what civilian life was + during the war: a matter on which history is usually silent. Fortunately + it was a very short war. It is true that the people who thought it could + not last more than six months were very signally refuted by the event. As + Sir Douglas Haig has pointed out, its Waterloos lasted months instead of + hours. But there would have been nothing surprising in its lasting thirty + years. If it had not been for the fact that the blockade achieved the + amazing feat of starving out Europe, which it could not possibly have done + had Europe been properly organized for war, or even for peace, the war + would have lasted until the belligerents were so tired of it that they + could no longer be compelled to compel themselves to go on with it. + Considering its magnitude, the war of 1914-18 will certainly be classed as + the shortest in history. The end came so suddenly that the combatant + literally stumbled over it; and yet it came a full year later than it + should have come if the belligerents had not been far too afraid of one + another to face the situation sensibly. Germany, having failed to provide + for the war she began, failed again to surrender before she was + dangerously exhausted. Her opponents, equally improvident, went as much + too close to bankruptcy as Germany to starvation. It was a bluff at which + both were bluffed. And, with the usual irony of war, it remains doubtful + whether Germany and Russia, the defeated, will not be the gainers; for the + victors are already busy fastening on themselves the chains they have + struck from the limbs of the vanquished. + </p> + <p> + How the Theatre fared + </p> + <p> + Let us now contract our view rather violently from the European theatre of + war to the theatre in which the fights are sham fights, and the slain, + rising the moment the curtain has fallen, go comfortably home to supper + after washing off their rose-pink wounds. It is nearly twenty years since + I was last obliged to introduce a play in the form of a book for lack of + an opportunity of presenting it in its proper mode by a performance in a + theatre. The war has thrown me back on this expedient. Heartbreak House + has not yet reached the stage. I have withheld it because the war has + completely upset the economic conditions which formerly enabled serious + drama to pay its way in London. The change is not in the theatres nor in + the management of them, nor in the authors and actors, but in the + audiences. For four years the London theatres were crowded every night + with thousands of soldiers on leave from the front. These soldiers were + not seasoned London playgoers. A childish experience of my own gave me a + clue to their condition. When I was a small boy I was taken to the opera. + I did not then know what an opera was, though I could whistle a good deal + of opera music. I had seen in my mother's album photographs of all the + great opera singers, mostly in evening dress. In the theatre I found + myself before a gilded balcony filled with persons in evening dress whom I + took to be the opera singers. I picked out one massive dark lady as + Alboni, and wondered how soon she would stand up and sing. I was puzzled + by the fact that I was made to sit with my back to the singers instead of + facing them. When the curtain went up, my astonishment and delight were + unbounded. + </p> + <p> + The Soldier at the Theatre Front + </p> + <p> + In 1915, I saw in the theatres men in khaki in just the same predicament. + To everyone who had my clue to their state of mind it was evident that + they had never been in a theatre before and did not know what it was. At + one of our great variety theatres I sat beside a young officer, not at all + a rough specimen, who, even when the curtain rose and enlightened him as + to the place where he had to look for his entertainment, found the + dramatic part of it utterly incomprehensible. He did not know how to play + his part of the game. He could understand the people on the stage singing + and dancing and performing gymnastic feats. He not only understood but + intensely enjoyed an artist who imitated cocks crowing and pigs squeaking. + But the people who pretended that they were somebody else, and that the + painted picture behind them was real, bewildered him. In his presence I + realized how very sophisticated the natural man has to become before the + conventions of the theatre can be easily acceptable, or the purpose of the + drama obvious to him. + </p> + <p> + Well, from the moment when the routine of leave for our soldiers was + established, such novices, accompanied by damsels (called flappers) often + as innocent as themselves, crowded the theatres to the doors. It was + hardly possible at first to find stuff crude enough to nurse them on. The + best music-hall comedians ransacked their memories for the oldest quips + and the most childish antics to avoid carrying the military spectators out + of their depth. I believe that this was a mistake as far as the novices + were concerned. Shakespeare, or the dramatized histories of George + Barnwell, Maria Martin, or the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, would + probably have been quite popular with them. But the novices were only a + minority after all. The cultivated soldier, who in time of peace would + look at nothing theatrical except the most advanced postIbsen plays in the + most artistic settings, found himself, to his own astonishment, thirsting + for silly jokes, dances, and brainlessly sensuous exhibitions of pretty + girls. The author of some of the most grimly serious plays of our time + told me that after enduring the trenches for months without a glimpse of + the female of his species, it gave him an entirely innocent but delightful + pleasure merely to see a flapper. The reaction from the battle-field + produced a condition of hyperaesthesia in which all the theatrical values + were altered. Trivial things gained intensity and stale things novelty. + The actor, instead of having to coax his audiences out of the boredom + which had driven them to the theatre in an ill humor to seek some sort of + distraction, had only to exploit the bliss of smiling men who were no + longer under fire and under military discipline, but actually clean and + comfortable and in a mood to be pleased with anything and everything that + a bevy of pretty girls and a funny man, or even a bevy of girls pretending + to be pretty and a man pretending to be funny, could do for them. + </p> + <p> + Then could be seen every night in the theatres oldfashioned farcical + comedies, in which a bedroom, with four doors on each side and a + practicable window in the middle, was understood to resemble exactly the + bedroom in the flats beneath and above, all three inhabited by couples + consumed with jealousy. When these people came home drunk at night; + mistook their neighbor's flats for their own; and in due course got into + the wrong beds, it was not only the novices who found the resulting + complications and scandals exquisitely ingenious and amusing, nor their + equally verdant flappers who could not help squealing in a manner that + astonished the oldest performers when the gentleman who had just come in + drunk through the window pretended to undress, and allowed glimpses of his + naked person to be descried from time to time. + </p> + <p> + Heartbreak House + </p> + <p> + Men who had just read the news that Charles Wyndham was dying, and were + thereby sadly reminded of Pink Dominos and the torrent of farcical + comedies that followed it in his heyday until every trick of that trade + had become so stale that the laughter they provoked turned to loathing: + these veterans also, when they returned from the field, were as much + pleased by what they knew to be stale and foolish as the novices by what + they thought fresh and clever. + </p> + <p> + Commerce in the Theatre + </p> + <p> + Wellington said that an army moves on its belly. So does a London theatre. + Before a man acts he must eat. Before he performs plays he must pay rent. + In London we have no theatres for the welfare of the people: they are all + for the sole purpose of producing the utmost obtainable rent for the + proprietor. If the twin flats and twin beds produce a guinea more than + Shakespeare, out goes Shakespeare and in come the twin flats and the twin + beds. If the brainless bevy of pretty girls and the funny man outbid + Mozart, out goes Mozart. + </p> + <p> + Unser Shakespeare + </p> + <p> + Before the war an effort was made to remedy this by establishing a + national theatre in celebration of the tercentenary of the death of + Shakespeare. A committee was formed; and all sorts of illustrious and + influential persons lent their names to a grand appeal to our national + culture. My play, The Dark Lady of The Sonnets, was one of the incidents + of that appeal. After some years of effort the result was a single + handsome subscription from a German gentleman. Like the celebrated swearer + in the anecdote when the cart containing all his household goods lost its + tailboard at the top of the hill and let its contents roll in ruin to the + bottom, I can only say, "I cannot do justice to this situation," and let + it pass without another word. + </p> + <p> + The Higher Drama put out of Action + </p> + <p> + The effect of the war on the London theatres may now be imagined. The beds + and the bevies drove every higher form of art out of it. Rents went up to + an unprecedented figure. At the same time prices doubled everywhere except + at the theatre pay-boxes, and raised the expenses of management to such a + degree that unless the houses were quite full every night, profit was + impossible. Even bare solvency could not be attained without a very wide + popularity. Now what had made serious drama possible to a limited extent + before the war was that a play could pay its way even if the theatre were + only half full until Saturday and three-quarters full then. A manager who + was an enthusiast and a desperately hard worker, with an occasional + grant-in-aid from an artistically disposed millionaire, and a due + proportion of those rare and happy accidents by which plays of the higher + sort turn out to be potboilers as well, could hold out for some years, by + which time a relay might arrive in the person of another enthusiast. Thus + and not otherwise occurred that remarkable revival of the British drama at + the beginning of the century which made my own career as a playwright + possible in England. In America I had already established myself, not as + part of the ordinary theatre system, but in association with the + exceptional genius of Richard Mansfield. In Germany and Austria I had no + difficulty: the system of publicly aided theatres there, Court and + Municipal, kept drama of the kind I dealt in alive; so that I was indebted + to the Emperor of Austria for magnificent productions of my works at a + time when the sole official attention paid me by the British Courts was + the announcement to the English-speaking world that certain plays of mine + were unfit for public performance, a substantial set-off against this + being that the British Court, in the course of its private playgoing, paid + no regard to the bad character given me by the chief officer of its + household. + </p> + <p> + Howbeit, the fact that my plays effected a lodgment on the London stage, + and were presently followed by the plays of Granville Barker, Gilbert + Murray, John Masefield, St. John Hankin, Lawrence Housman, Arnold Bennett, + John Galsworthy, John Drinkwater, and others which would in the nineteenth + century have stood rather less chance of production at a London theatre + than the Dialogues of Plato, not to mention revivals of the ancient + Athenian drama and a restoration to the stage of Shakespeare's plays as he + wrote them, was made economically possible solely by a supply of theatres + which could hold nearly twice as much money as it cost to rent and + maintain them. In such theatres work appealing to a relatively small class + of cultivated persons, and therefore attracting only from half to + three-quarters as many spectators as the more popular pastimes, could + nevertheless keep going in the hands of young adventurers who were doing + it for its own sake, and had not yet been forced by advancing age and + responsibilities to consider the commercial value of their time and energy + too closely. The war struck this foundation away in the manner I have just + described. The expenses of running the cheapest west-end theatres rose to + a sum which exceeded by twenty-five per cent the utmost that the higher + drama can, as an ascertained matter of fact, be depended on to draw. Thus + the higher drama, which has never really been a commercially sound + speculation, now became an impossible one. Accordingly, attempts are being + made to provide a refuge for it in suburban theatres in London and + repertory theatres in the provinces. But at the moment when the army has + at last disgorged the survivors of the gallant band of dramatic pioneers + whom it swallowed, they find that the economic conditions which formerly + made their work no worse than precarious now put it out of the question + altogether, as far as the west end of London is concerned. + </p> + <p> + Church and Theatre + </p> + <p> + I do not suppose many people care particularly. We are not brought up to + care; and a sense of the national importance of the theatre is not born in + mankind: the natural man, like so many of the soldiers at the beginning of + the war, does not know what a theatre is. But please note that all these + soldiers who did not know what a theatre was, knew what a church was. And + they had been taught to respect churches. Nobody had ever warned them + against a church as a place where frivolous women paraded in their best + clothes; where stories of improper females like Potiphar's wife, and + erotic poetry like the Song of Songs, were read aloud; where the sensuous + and sentimental music of Schubert, Mendelssohn, Gounod, and Brahms was + more popular than severe music by greater composers; where the prettiest + sort of pretty pictures of pretty saints assailed the imagination and + senses through stained-glass windows; and where sculpture and architecture + came to the help of painting. Nobody ever reminded them that these things + had sometimes produced such developments of erotic idolatry that men who + were not only enthusiastic amateurs of literature, painting, and music, + but famous practitioners of them, had actually exulted when mobs and even + regular troops under express command had mutilated church statues, smashed + church windows, wrecked church organs, and torn up the sheets from which + the church music was read and sung. When they saw broken statues in + churches, they were told that this was the work of wicked, godless + rioters, instead of, as it was, the work partly of zealots bent on driving + the world, the flesh, and the devil out of the temple, and partly of + insurgent men who had become intolerably poor because the temple had + become a den of thieves. But all the sins and perversions that were so + carefully hidden from them in the history of the Church were laid on the + shoulders of the Theatre: that stuffy, uncomfortable place of penance in + which we suffer so much inconvenience on the slenderest chance of gaining + a scrap of food for our starving souls. When the Germans bombed the + Cathedral of Rheims the world rang with the horror of the sacrilege. When + they bombed the Little Theatre in the Adelphi, and narrowly missed bombing + two writers of plays who lived within a few yards of it, the fact was not + even mentioned in the papers. In point of appeal to the senses no theatre + ever built could touch the fane at Rheims: no actress could rival its + Virgin in beauty, nor any operatic tenor look otherwise than a fool beside + its David. Its picture glass was glorious even to those who had seen the + glass of Chartres. It was wonderful in its very grotesques: who would look + at the Blondin Donkey after seeing its leviathans? In spite of the + Adam-Adelphian decoration on which Miss Kingston had lavished so much + taste and care, the Little Theatre was in comparison with Rheims the + gloomiest of little conventicles: indeed the cathedral must, from the + Puritan point of view, have debauched a million voluptuaries for every one + whom the Little Theatre had sent home thoughtful to a chaste bed after Mr + Chesterton's Magic or Brieux's Les Avaries. Perhaps that is the real + reason why the Church is lauded and the Theatre reviled. Whether or no, + the fact remains that the lady to whose public spirit and sense of the + national value of the theatre I owed the first regular public performance + of a play of mine had to conceal her action as if it had been a crime, + whereas if she had given the money to the Church she would have worn a + halo for it. And I admit, as I have always done, that this state of things + may have been a very sensible one. I have asked Londoners again and again + why they pay half a guinea to go to a theatre when they can go to St. + Paul's or Westminster Abbey for nothing. Their only possible reply is that + they want to see something new and possibly something wicked; but the + theatres mostly disappoint both hopes. If ever a revolution makes me + Dictator, I shall establish a heavy charge for admission to our churches. + But everyone who pays at the church door shall receive a ticket entitling + him or her to free admission to one performance at any theatre he or she + prefers. Thus shall the sensuous charms of the church service be made to + subsidize the sterner virtue of the drama. + </p> + <p> + The Next Phase + </p> + <p> + The present situation will not last. Although the newspaper I read at + breakfast this morning before writing these words contains a calculation + that no less than twenty-three wars are at present being waged to confirm + the peace, England is no longer in khaki; and a violent reaction is + setting in against the crude theatrical fare of the four terrible years. + Soon the rents of theatres will once more be fixed on the assumption that + they cannot always be full, nor even on the average half full week in and + week out. Prices will change. The higher drama will be at no greater + disadvantage than it was before the war; and it may benefit, first, by the + fact that many of us have been torn from the fools' paradise in which the + theatre formerly traded, and thrust upon the sternest realities and + necessities until we have lost both faith in and patience with the + theatrical pretences that had no root either in reality or necessity; + second, by the startling change made by the war in the distribution of + income. It seems only the other day that a millionaire was a man with + £50,000 a year. To-day, when he has paid his income tax and super tax, and + insured his life for the amount of his death duties, he is lucky if his + net income is 10,000 pounds though his nominal property remains the same. + And this is the result of a Budget which is called "a respite for the + rich." At the other end of the scale millions of persons have had regular + incomes for the first time in their lives; and their men have been + regularly clothed, fed, lodged, and taught to make up their minds that + certain things have to be done, also for the first time in their lives. + Hundreds of thousands of women have been taken out of their domestic cages + and tasted both discipline and independence. The thoughtless and snobbish + middle classes have been pulled up short by the very unpleasant experience + of being ruined to an unprecedented extent. We have all had a tremendous + jolt; and although the widespread notion that the shock of the war would + automatically make a new heaven and a new earth, and that the dog would + never go back to his vomit nor the sow to her wallowing in the mire, is + already seen to be a delusion, yet we are far more conscious of our + condition than we were, and far less disposed to submit to it. Revolution, + lately only a sensational chapter in history or a demagogic claptrap, is + now a possibility so imminent that hardly by trying to suppress it in + other countries by arms and defamation, and calling the process + anti-Bolshevism, can our Government stave it off at home. + </p> + <p> + Perhaps the most tragic figure of the day is the American President who + was once a historian. In those days it became his task to tell us how, + after that great war in America which was more clearly than any other war + of our time a war for an idea, the conquerors, confronted with a heroic + task of reconstruction, turned recreant, and spent fifteen years in + abusing their victory under cover of pretending to accomplish the task + they were doing what they could to make impossible. Alas! Hegel was right + when he said that we learn from history that men never learn anything from + history. With what anguish of mind the President sees that we, the new + conquerors, forgetting everything we professed to fight for, are sitting + down with watering mouths to a good square meal of ten years revenge upon + and humiliation of our prostrate foe, can only be guessed by those who + know, as he does, how hopeless is remonstrance, and how happy Lincoln was + in perishing from the earth before his inspired messages became scraps of + paper. He knows well that from the Peace Conference will come, in spite of + his utmost, no edict on which he will be able, like Lincoln, to invoke + "the considerate judgment of mankind: and the gracious favor of Almighty + God." He led his people to destroy the militarism of Zabern; and the army + they rescued is busy in Cologne imprisoning every German who does not + salute a British officer; whilst the government at home, asked whether it + approves, replies that it does not propose even to discontinue this + Zabernism when the Peace is concluded, but in effect looks forward to + making Germans salute British officers until the end of the world. That is + what war makes of men and women. It will wear off; and the worst it + threatens is already proving impracticable; but before the humble and + contrite heart ceases to be despised, the President and I, being of the + same age, will be dotards. In the meantime there is, for him, another + history to write; for me, another comedy to stage. Perhaps, after all, + that is what wars are for, and what historians and playwrights are for. If + men will not learn until their lessons are written in blood, why, blood + they must have, their own for preference. + </p> + <p> + The Ephemeral Thrones and the Eternal Theatre + </p> + <p> + To the theatre it will not matter. Whatever Bastilles fall, the theatre + will stand. Apostolic Hapsburg has collapsed; All Highest Hohenzollern + languishes in Holland, threatened with trial on a capital charge of + fighting for his country against England; Imperial Romanoff, said to have + perished miserably by a more summary method of murder, is perhaps alive or + perhaps dead: nobody cares more than if he had been a peasant; the lord of + Hellas is level with his lackeys in republican Switzerland; Prime + Ministers and Commanders-in-Chief have passed from a brief glory as Solons + and Caesars into failure and obscurity as closely on one another's heels + as the descendants of Banquo; but Euripides and Aristophanes, Shakespeare + and Moliere, Goethe and Ibsen remain fixed in their everlasting seats. + </p> + <p> + How War muzzles the Dramatic Poet + </p> + <p> + As for myself, why, it may be asked, did I not write two plays about the + war instead of two pamphlets on it? The answer is significant. You cannot + make war on war and on your neighbor at the same time. War cannot bear the + terrible castigation of comedy, the ruthless light of laughter that glares + on the stage. When men are heroically dying for their country, it is not + the time to show their lovers and wives and fathers and mothers how they + are being sacrificed to the blunders of boobies, the cupidity of + capitalists, the ambition of conquerors, the electioneering of demagogues, + the Pharisaism of patriots, the lusts and lies and rancors and + bloodthirsts that love war because it opens their prison doors, and sets + them in the thrones of power and popularity. For unless these things are + mercilessly exposed they will hide under the mantle of the ideals on the + stage just as they do in real life. + </p> + <p> + And though there may be better things to reveal, it may not, and indeed + cannot, be militarily expedient to reveal them whilst the issue is still + in the balance. Truth telling is not compatible with the defence of the + realm. We are just now reading the revelations of our generals and + admirals, unmuzzled at last by the armistice. During the war, General A, + in his moving despatches from the field, told how General B had covered + himself with deathless glory in such and such a battle. He now tells us + that General B came within an ace of losing us the war by disobeying his + orders on that occasion, and fighting instead of running away as he ought + to have done. An excellent subject for comedy now that the war is over, no + doubt; but if General A had let this out at the time, what would have been + the effect on General B's soldiers? And had the stage made known what the + Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for War who overruled General A + thought of him, and what he thought of them, as now revealed in raging + controversy, what would have been the effect on the nation? That is why + comedy, though sorely tempted, had to be loyally silent; for the art of + the dramatic poet knows no patriotism; recognizes no obligation but truth + to natural history; cares not whether Germany or England perish; is ready + to cry with Brynhild, "Lass'uns verderben, lachend zu grunde geh'n" sooner + than deceive or be deceived; and thus becomes in time of war a greater + military danger than poison, steel, or trinitrotoluene. That is why I had + to withhold Heartbreak House from the footlights during the war; for the + Germans might on any night have turned the last act from play into + earnest, and even then might not have waited for their cues. + </p> + <p> + June, 1919. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + HEARTBREAK HOUSE + </h2> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <div class="play"> + <h2> + ACT I + </h2> + <p> + The hilly country in the middle of the north edge of Sussex, looking + very pleasant on a fine evening at the end of September, is seen through + the windows of a room which has been built so as to resemble the after + part of an old-fashioned high-pooped ship, with a stern gallery; for the + windows are ship built with heavy timbering, and run right across the + room as continuously as the stability of the wall allows. A row of + lockers under the windows provides an unupholstered windowseat + interrupted by twin glass doors, respectively halfway between the stern + post and the sides. Another door strains the illusion a little by being + apparently in the ship's port side, and yet leading, not to the open + sea, but to the entrance hall of the house. Between this door and the + stern gallery are bookshelves. There are electric light switches beside + the door leading to the hall and the glass doors in the stern gallery. + Against the starboard wall is a carpenter's bench. The vice has a board + in its jaws; and the floor is littered with shavings, overflowing from a + waste-paper basket. A couple of planes and a centrebit are on the bench. + In the same wall, between the bench and the windows, is a narrow doorway + with a half door, above which a glimpse of the room beyond shows that it + is a shelved pantry with bottles and kitchen crockery. + </p> + <p> + On the starboard side, but close to the middle, is a plain oak + drawing-table with drawing-board, T-square, straightedges, set squares, + mathematical instruments, saucers of water color, a tumbler of + discolored water, Indian ink, pencils, and brushes on it. The + drawing-board is set so that the draughtsman's chair has the window on + its left hand. On the floor at the end of the table, on its right, is a + ship's fire bucket. On the port side of the room, near the bookshelves, + is a sofa with its back to the windows. It is a sturdy mahogany article, + oddly upholstered in sailcloth, including the bolster, with a couple of + blankets hanging over the back. Between the sofa and the drawing-table + is a big wicker chair, with broad arms and a low sloping back, with its + back to the light. A small but stout table of teak, with a round top and + gate legs, stands against the port wall between the door and the + bookcase. It is the only article in the room that suggests (not at all + convincingly) a woman's hand in the furnishing. The uncarpeted floor of + narrow boards is caulked and holystoned like a deck. + </p> + <p> + The garden to which the glass doors lead dips to the south before the + landscape rises again to the hills. Emerging from the hollow is the + cupola of an observatory. Between the observatory and the house is a + flagstaff on a little esplanade, with a hammock on the east side and a + long garden seat on the west. + </p> + <p> + A young lady, gloved and hatted, with a dust coat on, is sitting in the + window-seat with her body twisted to enable her to look out at the view. + One hand props her chin: the other hangs down with a volume of the + Temple Shakespeare in it, and her finger stuck in the page she has been + reading. + </p> + <p> + A clock strikes six. + </p> + <p> + The young lady turns and looks at her watch. She rises with an air of + one who waits, and is almost at the end of her patience. She is a pretty + girl, slender, fair, and intelligent looking, nicely but not expensively + dressed, evidently not a smart idler. + </p> + <p> + With a sigh of weary resignation she comes to the draughtsman's chair; + sits down; and begins to read Shakespeare. Presently the book sinks to + her lap; her eyes close; and she dozes into a slumber. + </p> + <p> + An elderly womanservant comes in from the hall with three unopened + bottles of rum on a tray. She passes through and disappears in the + pantry without noticing the young lady. She places the bottles on the + shelf and fills her tray with empty bottles. As she returns with these, + the young lady lets her book drop, awakening herself, and startling the + womanservant so that she all but lets the tray fall. + </p> + <p> + THE WOMANSERVANT. God bless us! [The young lady picks up the book and + places it on the table]. Sorry to wake you, miss, I'm sure; but you are + a stranger to me. What might you be waiting here for now? + </p> + <p> + THE YOUNG LADY. Waiting for somebody to show some signs of knowing that + I have been invited here. + </p> + <p> + THE WOMANSERVANT. Oh, you're invited, are you? And has nobody come? + Dear! dear! + </p> + <p> + THE YOUNG LADY. A wild-looking old gentleman came and looked in at the + window; and I heard him calling out, "Nurse, there is a young and + attractive female waiting in the poop. Go and see what she wants." Are + you the nurse? + </p> + <p> + THE WOMANSERVANT. Yes, miss: I'm Nurse Guinness. That was old Captain + Shotover, Mrs Hushabye's father. I heard him roaring; but I thought it + was for something else. I suppose it was Mrs Hushabye that invited you, + ducky? + </p> + <p> + THE YOUNG LADY. I understood her to do so. But really I think I'd better + go. + </p> + <p> + NURSE GUINNESS. Oh, don't think of such a thing, miss. If Mrs Hushabye + has forgotten all about it, it will be a pleasant surprise for her to + see you, won't it? + </p> + <p> + THE YOUNG LADY. It has been a very unpleasant surprise to me to find + that nobody expects me. + </p> + <p> + NURSE GUINNESS. You'll get used to it, miss: this house is full of + surprises for them that don't know our ways. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [looking in from the hall suddenly: an ancient but + still hardy man with an immense white beard, in a reefer jacket with a + whistle hanging from his neck]. Nurse, there is a hold-all and a handbag + on the front steps for everybody to fall over. Also a tennis racquet. + Who the devil left them there? + </p> + <p> + THE YOUNG LADY. They are mine, I'm afraid. + </p> + <p> + THE CAPTAIN [advancing to the drawing-table]. Nurse, who is this + misguided and unfortunate young lady? + </p> + <p> + NURSE GUINNESS. She says Miss Hessy invited her, sir. + </p> + <p> + THE CAPTAIN. And had she no friend, no parents, to warn her against my + daughter's invitations? This is a pretty sort of house, by heavens! A + young and attractive lady is invited here. Her luggage is left on the + steps for hours; and she herself is deposited in the poop and abandoned, + tired and starving. This is our hospitality. These are our manners. No + room ready. No hot water. No welcoming hostess. Our visitor is to sleep + in the toolshed, and to wash in the duckpond. + </p> + <p> + NURSE GUINNESS. Now it's all right, Captain: I'll get the lady some tea; + and her room shall be ready before she has finished it. [To the young + lady]. Take off your hat, ducky; and make yourself at home [she goes to + the door leading to the hall]. + </p> + <p> + THE CAPTAIN [as she passes him]. Ducky! Do you suppose, woman, that + because this young lady has been insulted and neglected, you have the + right to address her as you address my wretched children, whom you have + brought up in ignorance of the commonest decencies of social + intercourse? + </p> + <p> + NURSE GUINNESS. Never mind him, doty. [Quite unconcerned, she goes out + into the hall on her way to the kitchen]. + </p> + <p> + THE CAPTAIN. Madam, will you favor me with your name? [He sits down in + the big wicker chair]. + </p> + <p> + THE YOUNG LADY. My name is Ellie Dunn. + </p> + <p> + THE CAPTAIN. Dunn! I had a boatswain whose name was Dunn. He was + originally a pirate in China. He set up as a ship's chandler with stores + which I have every reason to believe he stole from me. No doubt he + became rich. Are you his daughter? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [indignant]. No, certainly not. I am proud to be able to say that + though my father has not been a successful man, nobody has ever had one + word to say against him. I think my father is the best man I have ever + known. + </p> + <p> + THE CAPTAIN. He must be greatly changed. Has he attained the seventh + degree of concentration? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. I don't understand. + </p> + <p> + THE CAPTAIN. But how could he, with a daughter? I, madam, have two + daughters. One of them is Hesione Hushabye, who invited you here. I keep + this house: she upsets it. I desire to attain the seventh degree of + concentration: she invites visitors and leaves me to entertain them. + [Nurse Guinness returns with the tea-tray, which she places on the teak + table]. I have a second daughter who is, thank God, in a remote part of + the Empire with her numskull of a husband. As a child she thought the + figure-head of my ship, the Dauntless, the most beautiful thing on + earth. He resembled it. He had the same expression: wooden yet + enterprising. She married him, and will never set foot in this house + again. + </p> + <p> + NURSE GUINNESS [carrying the table, with the tea-things on it, to + Ellie's side]. Indeed you never were more mistaken. She is in England + this very moment. You have been told three times this week that she is + coming home for a year for her health. And very glad you should be to + see your own daughter again after all these years. + </p> + <p> + THE CAPTAIN. I am not glad. The natural term of the affection of the + human animal for its offspring is six years. My daughter Ariadne was + born when I was forty-six. I am now eighty-eight. If she comes, I am not + at home. If she wants anything, let her take it. If she asks for me, let + her be informed that I am extremely old, and have totally forgotten her. + </p> + <p> + NURSE GUINNESS. That's no talk to offer to a young lady. Here, ducky, + have some tea; and don't listen to him [she pours out a cup of tea]. + </p> + <p> + THE CAPTAIN [rising wrathfully]. Now before high heaven they have given + this innocent child Indian tea: the stuff they tan their own leather + insides with. [He seizes the cup and the tea-pot and empties both into + the leathern bucket]. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [almost in tears]. Oh, please! I am so tired. I should have been + glad of anything. + </p> + <p> + NURSE GUINNESS. Oh, what a thing to do! The poor lamb is ready to drop. + </p> + <p> + THE CAPTAIN. You shall have some of my tea. Do not touch that fly-blown + cake: nobody eats it here except the dogs. [He disappears into the + pantry]. + </p> + <p> + NURSE GUINNESS. There's a man for you! They say he sold himself to the + devil in Zanzibar before he was a captain; and the older he grows the + more I believe them. + </p> + <p> + A WOMAN'S VOICE [in the hall]. Is anyone at home? Hesione! Nurse! Papa! + Do come, somebody; and take in my luggage. + </p> + <p> + Thumping heard, as of an umbrella, on the wainscot. + </p> + <p> + NURSE GUINNESS. My gracious! It's Miss Addy, Lady Utterword, Mrs + Hushabye's sister: the one I told the captain about. [Calling]. Coming, + Miss, coming. + </p> + <p> + She carries the table back to its place by the door and is harrying out + when she is intercepted by Lady Utterword, who bursts in much flustered. + Lady Utterword, a blonde, is very handsome, very well dressed, and so + precipitate in speech and action that the first impression (erroneous) + is one of comic silliness. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Oh, is that you, Nurse? How are you? You don't look a + day older. Is nobody at home? Where is Hesione? Doesn't she expect me? + Where are the servants? Whose luggage is that on the steps? Where's + papa? Is everybody asleep? [Seeing Ellie]. Oh! I beg your pardon. I + suppose you are one of my nieces. [Approaching her with outstretched + arms]. Come and kiss your aunt, darling. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. I'm only a visitor. It is my luggage on the steps. + </p> + <p> + NURSE GUINNESS. I'll go get you some fresh tea, ducky. [She takes up the + tray]. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. But the old gentleman said he would make some himself. + </p> + <p> + NURSE GUINNESS. Bless you! he's forgotten what he went for already. His + mind wanders from one thing to another. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Papa, I suppose? + </p> + <p> + NURSE GUINNESS. Yes, Miss. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD [vehemently]. Don't be silly, Nurse. Don't call me Miss. + </p> + <p> + NURSE GUINNESS [placidly]. No, lovey [she goes out with the tea-tray]. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD [sitting down with a flounce on the sofa]. I know what + you must feel. Oh, this house, this house! I come back to it after + twenty-three years; and it is just the same: the luggage lying on the + steps, the servants spoilt and impossible, nobody at home to receive + anybody, no regular meals, nobody ever hungry because they are always + gnawing bread and butter or munching apples, and, what is worse, the + same disorder in ideas, in talk, in feeling. When I was a child I was + used to it: I had never known anything better, though I was unhappy, and + longed all the time—oh, how I longed!—to be respectable, to + be a lady, to live as others did, not to have to think of everything for + myself. I married at nineteen to escape from it. My husband is Sir + Hastings Utterword, who has been governor of all the crown colonies in + succession. I have always been the mistress of Government House. I have + been so happy: I had forgotten that people could live like this. I + wanted to see my father, my sister, my nephews and nieces (one ought to, + you know), and I was looking forward to it. And now the state of the + house! the way I'm received! the casual impudence of that woman + Guinness, our old nurse! really Hesione might at least have been here: + some preparation might have been made for me. You must excuse my going + on in this way; but I am really very much hurt and annoyed and + disillusioned: and if I had realized it was to be like this, I wouldn't + have come. I have a great mind to go away without another word [she is + on the point of weeping]. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [also very miserable]. Nobody has been here to receive me either. + I thought I ought to go away too. But how can I, Lady Utterword? My + luggage is on the steps; and the station fly has gone. + </p> + <p> + The captain emerges from the pantry with a tray of Chinese lacquer and a + very fine tea-set on it. He rests it provisionally on the end of the + table; snatches away the drawing-board, which he stands on the floor + against table legs; and puts the tray in the space thus cleared. Ellie + pours out a cup greedily. + </p> + <p> + THE CAPTAIN. Your tea, young lady. What! another lady! I must fetch + another cup [he makes for the pantry]. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD [rising from the sofa, suffused with emotion]. Papa! + Don't you know me? I'm your daughter. + </p> + <p> + THE CAPTAIN. Nonsense! my daughter's upstairs asleep. [He vanishes + through the half door]. + </p> + <p> + Lady Utterword retires to the window to conceal her tears. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [going to her with the cup]. Don't be so distressed. Have this cup + of tea. He is very old and very strange: he has been just like that to + me. I know how dreadful it must be: my own father is all the world to + me. Oh, I'm sure he didn't mean it. + </p> + <p> + The captain returns with another cup. + </p> + <p> + THE CAPTAIN. Now we are complete. [He places it on the tray]. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD [hysterically]. Papa, you can't have forgotten me. I am + Ariadne. I'm little Paddy Patkins. Won't you kiss me? [She goes to him + and throws her arms round his neck]. + </p> + <p> + THE CAPTAIN [woodenly enduring her embrace]. How can you be Ariadne? You + are a middle-aged woman: well preserved, madam, but no longer young. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. But think of all the years and years I have been away, + Papa. I have had to grow old, like other people. + </p> + <p> + THE CAPTAIN [disengaging himself]. You should grow out of kissing + strange men: they may be striving to attain the seventh degree of + concentration. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. But I'm your daughter. You haven't seen me for years. + </p> + <p> + THE CAPTAIN. So much the worse! When our relatives are at home, we have + to think of all their good points or it would be impossible to endure + them. But when they are away, we console ourselves for their absence by + dwelling on their vices. That is how I have come to think my absent + daughter Ariadne a perfect fiend; so do not try to ingratiate yourself + here by impersonating her [he walks firmly away to the other side of the + room]. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Ingratiating myself indeed! [With dignity]. Very well, + papa. [She sits down at the drawing-table and pours out tea for + herself]. + </p> + <p> + THE CAPTAIN. I am neglecting my social duties. You remember Dunn? Billy + Dunn? + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. DO you mean that villainous sailor who robbed you? + </p> + <p> + THE CAPTAIN [introducing Ellie]. His daughter. [He sits down on the + sofa]. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [protesting]. No— + </p> + <p> + Nurse Guinness returns with fresh tea. + </p> + <p> + THE CAPTAIN. Take that hogwash away. Do you hear? + </p> + <p> + NURSE. You've actually remembered about the tea! [To Ellie]. Oh, miss, + he didn't forget you after all! You HAVE made an impression. + </p> + <p> + THE CAPTAIN [gloomily]. Youth! beauty! novelty! They are badly wanted in + this house. I am excessively old. Hesione is only moderately young. Her + children are not youthful. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. How can children be expected to be youthful in this + house? Almost before we could speak we were filled with notions that + might have been all very well for pagan philosophers of fifty, but were + certainly quite unfit for respectable people of any age. + </p> + <p> + NURSE. You were always for respectability, Miss Addy. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Nurse, will you please remember that I am Lady + Utterword, and not Miss Addy, nor lovey, nor darling, nor doty? Do you + hear? + </p> + <p> + NURSE. Yes, ducky: all right. I'll tell them all they must call you My + Lady. [She takes her tray out with undisturbed placidity]. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. What comfort? what sense is there in having servants + with no manners? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [rising and coming to the table to put down her empty cup]. Lady + Utterword, do you think Mrs Hushabye really expects me? + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Oh, don't ask me. You can see for yourself that I've + just arrived; her only sister, after twenty-three years' absence! and it + seems that I am not expected. + </p> + <p> + THE CAPTAIN. What does it matter whether the young lady is expected or + not? She is welcome. There are beds: there is food. I'll find a room for + her myself [he makes for the door]. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [following him to stop him]. Oh, please—[He goes out]. Lady + Utterword, I don't know what to do. Your father persists in believing + that my father is some sailor who robbed him. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. You had better pretend not to notice it. My father is a + very clever man; but he always forgot things; and now that he is old, of + course he is worse. And I must warn you that it is sometimes very hard + to feel quite sure that he really forgets. + </p> + <p> + Mrs Hushabye bursts into the room tempestuously and embraces Ellie. She + is a couple of years older than Lady Utterword, and even better looking. + She has magnificent black hair, eyes like the fishpools of Heshbon, and + a nobly modelled neck, short at the back and low between her shoulders + in front. Unlike her sister she is uncorseted and dressed anyhow in a + rich robe of black pile that shows off her white skin and statuesque + contour. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Ellie, my darling, my pettikins [kissing her], how long + have you been here? I've been at home all the time: I was putting + flowers and things in your room; and when I just sat down for a moment + to try how comfortable the armchair was I went off to sleep. Papa woke + me and told me you were here. Fancy your finding no one, and being + neglected and abandoned. [Kissing her again]. My poor love! [She + deposits Ellie on the sofa. Meanwhile Ariadne has left the table and + come over to claim her share of attention]. Oh! you've brought someone + with you. Introduce me. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Hesione, is it possible that you don't know me? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [conventionally]. Of course I remember your face quite + well. Where have we met? + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Didn't Papa tell you I was here? Oh! this is really too + much. [She throws herself sulkily into the big chair]. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Papa! + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Yes, Papa. Our papa, you unfeeling wretch! [Rising + angrily]. I'll go straight to a hotel. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [seizing her by the shoulders]. My goodness gracious + goodness, you don't mean to say that you're Addy! + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. I certainly am Addy; and I don't think I can be so + changed that you would not have recognized me if you had any real + affection for me. And Papa didn't think me even worth mentioning! + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. What a lark! Sit down [she pushes her back into the chair + instead of kissing her, and posts herself behind it]. You DO look a + swell. You're much handsomer than you used to be. You've made the + acquaintance of Ellie, of course. She is going to marry a perfect hog of + a millionaire for the sake of her father, who is as poor as a church + mouse; and you must help me to stop her. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Oh, please, Hesione! + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. My pettikins, the man's coming here today with your father + to begin persecuting you; and everybody will see the state of the case + in ten minutes; so what's the use of making a secret of it? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. He is not a hog, Hesione. You don't know how wonderfully good he + was to my father, and how deeply grateful I am to him. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [to Lady Utterword]. Her father is a very remarkable man, + Addy. His name is Mazzini Dunn. Mazzini was a celebrity of some kind who + knew Ellie's grandparents. They were both poets, like the Brownings; and + when her father came into the world Mazzini said, "Another soldier born + for freedom!" So they christened him Mazzini; and he has been fighting + for freedom in his quiet way ever since. That's why he is so poor. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. I am proud of his poverty. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Of course you are, pettikins. Why not leave him in it, and + marry someone you love? + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD [rising suddenly and explosively]. Hesione, are you going + to kiss me or are you not? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. What do you want to be kissed for? + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. I DON'T want to be kissed; but I do want you to behave + properly and decently. We are sisters. We have been separated for + twenty-three years. You OUGHT to kiss me. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. To-morrow morning, dear, before you make up. I hate the + smell of powder. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Oh! you unfeeling—[she is interrupted by the + return of the captain]. + </p> + <p> + THE CAPTAIN [to Ellie]. Your room is ready. [Ellie rises]. The sheets + were damp; but I have changed them [he makes for the garden door on the + port side]. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Oh! What about my sheets? + </p> + <p> + THE CAPTAIN [halting at the door]. Take my advice: air them: or take + them off and sleep in blankets. You shall sleep in Ariadne's old room. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Indeed I shall do nothing of the sort. That little hole! + I am entitled to the best spare room. + </p> + <p> + THE CAPTAIN [continuing unmoved]. She married a numskull. She told me + she would marry anyone to get away from home. + </p> + <p> + LADT UTTERWORD. You are pretending not to know me on purpose. I will + leave the house. + </p> + <p> + Mazzini Dunn enters from the hall. He is a little elderly man with + bulging credulous eyes and earnest manners. He is dressed in a blue + serge jacket suit with an unbuttoned mackintosh over it, and carries a + soft black hat of clerical cut. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. At last! Captain Shotover, here is my father. + </p> + <p> + THE CAPTAIN. This! Nonsense! not a bit like him [he goes away through + the garden, shutting the door sharply behind him]. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. I will not be ignored and pretended to be somebody else. + I will have it out with Papa now, this instant. [To Mazzini]. Excuse me. + [She follows the captain out, making a hasty bow to Mazzini, who returns + it]. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [hospitably shaking hands]. How good of you to come, Mr + Dunn! You don't mind Papa, do you? He is as mad as a hatter, you know, + but quite harmless and extremely clever. You will have some delightful + talks with him. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. I hope so. [To Ellie]. So here you are, Ellie, dear. [He draws + her arm affectionately through his]. I must thank you, Mrs Hushabye, for + your kindness to my daughter. I'm afraid she would have had no holiday + if you had not invited her. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Not at all. Very nice of her to come and attract young + people to the house for us. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI [smiling]. I'm afraid Ellie is not interested in young men, Mrs + Hushabye. Her taste is on the graver, solider side. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [with a sudden rather hard brightness in her manner]. Won't + you take off your overcoat, Mr Dunn? You will find a cupboard for coats + and hats and things in the corner of the hall. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI [hastily releasing Ellie]. Yes—thank you—I had + better— [he goes out]. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [emphatically]. The old brute! + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Who? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Who! Him. He. It [pointing after Mazzini]. "Graver, + solider tastes," indeed! + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [aghast]. You don't mean that you were speaking like that of my + father! + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. I was. You know I was. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [with dignity]. I will leave your house at once. [She turns to the + door]. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. If you attempt it, I'll tell your father why. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [turning again]. Oh! How can you treat a visitor like this, Mrs + Hushabye? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. I thought you were going to call me Hesione. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Certainly not now? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Very well: I'll tell your father. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [distressed]. Oh! + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. If you turn a hair—if you take his part against me + and against your own heart for a moment, I'll give that born soldier of + freedom a piece of my mind that will stand him on his selfish old head + for a week. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Hesione! My father selfish! How little you know— + </p> + <p> + She is interrupted by Mazzini, who returns, excited and perspiring. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. Ellie, Mangan has come: I thought you'd like to know. Excuse + me, Mrs Hushabye, the strange old gentleman— + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Papa. Quite so. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. Oh, I beg your pardon, of course: I was a little confused by + his manner. He is making Mangan help him with something in the garden; + and he wants me too— + </p> + <p> + A powerful whistle is heard. + </p> + <p> + THE CAPTAIN'S VOICE. Bosun ahoy! [the whistle is repeated]. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI [flustered]. Oh dear! I believe he is whistling for me. [He + hurries out]. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Now MY father is a wonderful man if you like. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Hesione, listen to me. You don't understand. My father and Mr + Mangan were boys together. Mr Ma— + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. I don't care what they were: we must sit down if you are + going to begin as far back as that. [She snatches at Ellie's waist, and + makes her sit down on the sofa beside her]. Now, pettikins, tell me all + about Mr Mangan. They call him Boss Mangan, don't they? He is a Napoleon + of industry and disgustingly rich, isn't he? Why isn't your father rich? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. My poor father should never have been in business. His parents + were poets; and they gave him the noblest ideas; but they could not + afford to give him a profession. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Fancy your grandparents, with their eyes in fine frenzy + rolling! And so your poor father had to go into business. Hasn't he + succeeded in it? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. He always used to say he could succeed if he only had some + capital. He fought his way along, to keep a roof over our heads and + bring us up well; but it was always a struggle: always the same + difficulty of not having capital enough. I don't know how to describe it + to you. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Poor Ellie! I know. Pulling the devil by the tail. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [hurt]. Oh, no. Not like that. It was at least dignified. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. That made it all the harder, didn't it? I shouldn't have + pulled the devil by the tail with dignity. I should have pulled hard—[between + her teeth] hard. Well? Go on. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. At last it seemed that all our troubles were at an end. Mr Mangan + did an extraordinarily noble thing out of pure friendship for my father + and respect for his character. He asked him how much capital he wanted, + and gave it to him. I don't mean that he lent it to him, or that he + invested it in his business. He just simply made him a present of it. + Wasn't that splendid of him? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. On condition that you married him? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Oh, no, no, no! This was when I was a child. He had never even + seen me: he never came to our house. It was absolutely disinterested. + Pure generosity. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Oh! I beg the gentleman's pardon. Well, what became of the + money? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. We all got new clothes and moved into another house. And I went + to another school for two years. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Only two years? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. That was all: for at the end of two years my father was utterly + ruined. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. How? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. I don't know. I never could understand. But it was dreadful. When + we were poor my father had never been in debt. But when he launched out + into business on a large scale, he had to incur liabilities. When the + business went into liquidation he owed more money than Mr Mangan had + given him. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Bit off more than he could chew, I suppose. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. I think you are a little unfeeling about it. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. My pettikins, you mustn't mind my way of talking. I was + quite as sensitive and particular as you once; but I have picked up so + much slang from the children that I am really hardly presentable. I + suppose your father had no head for business, and made a mess of it. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Oh, that just shows how entirely you are mistaken about him. The + business turned out a great success. It now pays forty-four per cent + after deducting the excess profits tax. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Then why aren't you rolling in money? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. I don't know. It seems very unfair to me. You see, my father was + made bankrupt. It nearly broke his heart, because he had persuaded + several of his friends to put money into the business. He was sure it + would succeed; and events proved that he was quite right. But they all + lost their money. It was dreadful. I don't know what we should have done + but for Mr Mangan. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. What! Did the Boss come to the rescue again, after all his + money being thrown away? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. He did indeed, and never uttered a reproach to my father. He + bought what was left of the business—the buildings and the + machinery and things—from the official trustee for enough money to + enable my father to pay six-and-eight-pence in the pound and get his + discharge. Everyone pitied Papa so much, and saw so plainly that he was + an honorable man, that they let him off at six-and-eight-pence instead + of ten shillings. Then Mr. Mangan started a company to take up the + business, and made my father a manager in it to save us from starvation; + for I wasn't earning anything then. + </p> + <p> + MRS. HUSHABYE. Quite a romance. And when did the Boss develop the tender + passion? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Oh, that was years after, quite lately. He took the chair one + night at a sort of people's concert. I was singing there. As an amateur, + you know: half a guinea for expenses and three songs with three encores. + He was so pleased with my singing that he asked might he walk home with + me. I never saw anyone so taken aback as he was when I took him home and + introduced him to my father, his own manager. It was then that my father + told me how nobly he had behaved. Of course it was considered a great + chance for me, as he is so rich. And—and—we drifted into a + sort of understanding—I suppose I should call it an engagement—[she + is distressed and cannot go on]. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [rising and marching about]. You may have drifted into it; + but you will bounce out of it, my pettikins, if I am to have anything to + do with it. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [hopelessly]. No: it's no use. I am bound in honor and gratitude. + I will go through with it. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [behind the sofa, scolding down at her]. You know, of + course, that it's not honorable or grateful to marry a man you don't + love. Do you love this Mangan man? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Yes. At least— + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. I don't want to know about "at least": I want to know the + worst. Girls of your age fall in love with all sorts of impossible + people, especially old people. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. I like Mr Mangan very much; and I shall always be— + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [impatiently completing the sentence and prancing away + intolerantly to starboard]. —grateful to him for his kindness to + dear father. I know. Anybody else? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. What do you mean? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Anybody else? Are you in love with anybody else? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Of course not. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Humph! [The book on the drawing-table catches her eye. She + picks it up, and evidently finds the title very unexpected. She looks at + Ellie, and asks, quaintly] Quite sure you're not in love with an actor? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. No, no. Why? What put such a thing into your head? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. This is yours, isn't it? Why else should you be reading + Othello? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. My father taught me to love Shakespeare. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHAYE [flinging the book down on the table]. Really! your father + does seem to be about the limit. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [naively]. Do you never read Shakespeare, Hesione? That seems to + me so extraordinary. I like Othello. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Do you, indeed? He was jealous, wasn't he? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Oh, not that. I think all the part about jealousy is horrible. + But don't you think it must have been a wonderful experience for + Desdemona, brought up so quietly at home, to meet a man who had been out + in the world doing all sorts of brave things and having terrible + adventures, and yet finding something in her that made him love to sit + and talk with her and tell her about them? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. That's your idea of romance, is it? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Not romance, exactly. It might really happen. + </p> + <p> + Ellie's eyes show that she is not arguing, but in a daydream. Mrs + Hushabye, watching her inquisitively, goes deliberately back to the sofa + and resumes her seat beside her. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Ellie darling, have you noticed that some of those stories + that Othello told Desdemona couldn't have happened—? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Oh, no. Shakespeare thought they could have happened. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Hm! Desdemona thought they could have happened. But they + didn't. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Why do you look so enigmatic about it? You are such a sphinx: I + never know what you mean. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Desdemona would have found him out if she had lived, you + know. I wonder was that why he strangled her! + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Othello was not telling lies. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. How do you know? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Shakespeare would have said if he was. Hesione, there are men who + have done wonderful things: men like Othello, only, of course, white, + and very handsome, and— + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Ah! Now we're coming to it. Tell me all about him. I knew + there must be somebody, or you'd never have been so miserable about + Mangan: you'd have thought it quite a lark to marry him. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [blushing vividly]. Hesione, you are dreadful. But I don't want to + make a secret of it, though of course I don't tell everybody. Besides, I + don't know him. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Don't know him! What does that mean? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Well, of course I know him to speak to. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. But you want to know him ever so much more intimately, eh? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. No, no: I know him quite—almost intimately. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. You don't know him; and you know him almost intimately. + How lucid! + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. I mean that he does not call on us. I—I got into + conversation with him by chance at a concert. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. You seem to have rather a gay time at your concerts, + Ellie. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Not at all: we talk to everyone in the greenroom waiting for our + turns. I thought he was one of the artists: he looked so splendid. But + he was only one of the committee. I happened to tell him that I was + copying a picture at the National Gallery. I make a little money that + way. I can't paint much; but as it's always the same picture I can do it + pretty quickly and get two or three pounds for it. It happened that he + came to the National Gallery one day. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. One students' day. Paid sixpence to stumble about through + a crowd of easels, when he might have come in next day for nothing and + found the floor clear! Quite by accident? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [triumphantly]. No. On purpose. He liked talking to me. He knows + lots of the most splendid people. Fashionable women who are all in love + with him. But he ran away from them to see me at the National Gallery + and persuade me to come with him for a drive round Richmond Park in a + taxi. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. My pettikins, you have been going it. It's wonderful what + you good girls can do without anyone saying a word. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. I am not in society, Hesione. If I didn't make acquaintances in + that way I shouldn't have any at all. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Well, no harm if you know how to take care of yourself. + May I ask his name? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [slowly and musically]. Marcus Darnley. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [echoing the music]. Marcus Darnley! What a splendid name! + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Oh, I'm so glad you think so. I think so too; but I was afraid it + was only a silly fancy of my own. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Hm! Is he one of the Aberdeen Darnleys? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Nobody knows. Just fancy! He was found in an antique chest— + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. A what? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. An antique chest, one summer morning in a rose garden, after a + night of the most terrible thunderstorm. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. What on earth was he doing in the chest? Did he get into + it because he was afraid of the lightning? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Oh, no, no: he was a baby. The name Marcus Darnley was + embroidered on his baby clothes. And five hundred pounds in gold. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [Looking hard at her]. Ellie! + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. The garden of the Viscount— + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. —de Rougemont? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [innocently]. No: de Larochejaquelin. A French family. A vicomte. + His life has been one long romance. A tiger— + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Slain by his own hand? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Oh, no: nothing vulgar like that. He saved the life of the tiger + from a hunting party: one of King Edward's hunting parties in India. The + King was furious: that was why he never had his military services + properly recognized. But he doesn't care. He is a Socialist and despises + rank, and has been in three revolutions fighting on the barricades. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. How can you sit there telling me such lies? You, Ellie, of + all people! And I thought you were a perfectly simple, straightforward, + good girl. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [rising, dignified but very angry]. Do you mean you don't believe + me? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Of course I don't believe you. You're inventing every word + of it. Do you take me for a fool? + </p> + <p> + Ellie stares at her. Her candor is so obvious that Mrs Hushabye is + puzzled. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Goodbye, Hesione. I'm very sorry. I see now that it sounds very + improbable as I tell it. But I can't stay if you think that way about + me. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [catching her dress]. You shan't go. I couldn't be so + mistaken: I know too well what liars are like. Somebody has really told + you all this. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [flushing]. Hesione, don't say that you don't believe him. I + couldn't bear that. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [soothing her]. Of course I believe him, dearest. But you + should have broken it to me by degrees. [Drawing her back to her seat]. + Now tell me all about him. Are you in love with him? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Oh, no. I'm not so foolish. I don't fall in love with people. I'm + not so silly as you think. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. I see. Only something to think about—to give some + interest and pleasure to life. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Just so. That's all, really. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. It makes the hours go fast, doesn't it? No tedious waiting + to go to sleep at nights and wondering whether you will have a bad + night. How delightful it makes waking up in the morning! How much better + than the happiest dream! All life transfigured! No more wishing one had + an interesting book to read, because life is so much happier than any + book! No desire but to be alone and not to have to talk to anyone: to be + alone and just think about it. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [embracing her]. Hesione, you are a witch. How do you know? Oh, + you are the most sympathetic woman in the world! + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [caressing her]. Pettikins, my pettikins, how I envy you! + and how I pity you! + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Pity me! Oh, why? + </p> + <p> + A very handsome man of fifty, with mousquetaire moustaches, wearing a + rather dandified curly brimmed hat, and carrying an elaborate + walking-stick, comes into the room from the hall, and stops short at + sight of the women on the sofa. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [seeing him and rising in glad surprise]. Oh! Hesione: this is Mr + Marcus Darnley. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [rising]. What a lark! He is my husband. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. But now—[she stops suddenly: then turns pale and sways]. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [catching her and sitting down with her on the sofa]. + Steady, my pettikins. + </p> + <p> + THE MAN [with a mixture of confusion and effrontery, depositing his hat + and stick on the teak table]. My real name, Miss Dunn, is Hector + Hushabye. I leave you to judge whether that is a name any sensitive man + would care to confess to. I never use it when I can possibly help it. I + have been away for nearly a month; and I had no idea you knew my wife, + or that you were coming here. I am none the less delighted to find you + in our little house. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [in great distress]. I don't know what to do. Please, may I speak + to papa? Do leave me. I can't bear it. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Be off, Hector. + </p> + HECTOR. I— + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Quick, quick. Get out. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. If you think it better—[he goes out, taking his hat with + him but leaving the stick on the table]. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [laying Ellie down at the end of the sofa]. Now, pettikins, + he is gone. There's nobody but me. You can let yourself go. Don't try to + control yourself. Have a good cry. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [raising her head]. Damn! + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Splendid! Oh, what a relief! I thought you were going to + be broken-hearted. Never mind me. Damn him again. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. I am not damning him. I am damning myself for being such a fool. + [Rising]. How could I let myself be taken in so? [She begins prowling to + and fro, her bloom gone, looking curiously older and harder]. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [cheerfully]. Why not, pettikins? Very few young women can + resist Hector. I couldn't when I was your age. He is really rather + splendid, you know. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [turning on her]. Splendid! Yes, splendid looking, of course. But + how can you love a liar? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. I don't know. But you can, fortunately. Otherwise there + wouldn't be much love in the world. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. But to lie like that! To be a boaster! a coward! + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [rising in alarm]. Pettikins, none of that, if you please. + If you hint the slightest doubt of Hector's courage, he will go straight + off and do the most horribly dangerous things to convince himself that + he isn't a coward. He has a dreadful trick of getting out of one + third-floor window and coming in at another, just to test his nerve. He + has a whole drawerful of Albert Medals for saving people's lives. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. He never told me that. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. He never boasts of anything he really did: he can't bear + it; and it makes him shy if anyone else does. All his stories are + made-up stories. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [coming to her]. Do you mean that he is really brave, and really + has adventures, and yet tells lies about things that he never did and + that never happened? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Yes, pettikins, I do. People don't have their virtues and + vices in sets: they have them anyhow: all mixed. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [staring at her thoughtfully]. There's something odd about this + house, Hesione, and even about you. I don't know why I'm talking to you + so calmly. I have a horrible fear that my heart is broken, but that + heartbreak is not like what I thought it must be. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [fondling her]. It's only life educating you, pettikins. + How do you feel about Boss Mangan now? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [disengaging herself with an expression of distaste]. Oh, how can + you remind me of him, Hesione? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Sorry, dear. I think I hear Hector coming back. You don't + mind now, do you, dear? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Not in the least. I am quite cured. + </p> + <p> + Mazzini Dunn and Hector come in from the hall. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR [as he opens the door and allows Mazzini to pass in]. One second + more, and she would have been a dead woman! + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. Dear! dear! what an escape! Ellie, my love, Mr Hushabye has + just been telling me the most extraordinary— + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Yes, I've heard it [she crosses to the other side of the room]. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR [following her]. Not this one: I'll tell it to you after dinner. + I think you'll like it. The truth is I made it up for you, and was + looking forward to the pleasure of telling it to you. But in a moment of + impatience at being turned out of the room, I threw it away on your + father. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [turning at bay with her back to the carpenter's bench, scornfully + self-possessed]. It was not thrown away. He believes it. I should not + have believed it. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI [benevolently]. Ellie is very naughty, Mr Hushabye. Of course + she does not really think that. [He goes to the bookshelves, and + inspects the titles of the volumes]. + </p> + <p> + Boss Mangan comes in from the hall, followed by the captain. Mangan, + carefully frock-coated as for church or for a diHECTORs' meeting, is + about fifty-five, with a careworn, mistrustful expression, standing a + little on an entirely imaginary dignity, with a dull complexion, + straight, lustreless hair, and features so entirely commonplace that it + is impossible to describe them. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [to Mrs Hushabye, introducing the newcomer]. Says his + name is Mangan. Not able-bodied. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [graciously]. How do you do, Mr Mangan? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [shaking hands]. Very pleased. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Dunn's lost his muscle, but recovered his nerve. Men + seldom do after three attacks of delirium tremens [he goes into the + pantry]. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. I congratulate you, Mr Dunn. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI [dazed]. I am a lifelong teetotaler. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. You will find it far less trouble to let papa have his own + way than try to explain. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. But three attacks of delirium tremens, really! + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [to Mangan]. Do you know my husband, Mr Mangan [she + indicates Hector]. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [going to Hector, who meets him with outstretched hand]. Very + pleased. [Turning to Ellie]. I hope, Miss Ellie, you have not found the + journey down too fatiguing. [They shake hands]. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Hector, show Mr Dunn his room. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Certainly. Come along, Mr Dunn. [He takes Mazzini out]. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. You haven't shown me my room yet, Hesione. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. How stupid of me! Come along. Make yourself quite at home, + Mr Mangan. Papa will entertain you. [She calls to the captain in the + pantry]. Papa, come and explain the house to Mr Mangan. + </p> + <p> + She goes out with Ellie. The captain comes from the pantry. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You're going to marry Dunn's daughter. Don't. You're + too old. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [staggered]. Well! That's fairly blunt, Captain. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It's true. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. She doesn't think so. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. She does. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Older men than I have— + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [finishing the sentence for him].—made fools of + themselves. That, also, is true. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [asserting himself]. I don't see that this is any business of + yours. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It is everybody's business. The stars in their courses + are shaken when such things happen. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. I'm going to marry her all the same. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. How do you know? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [playing the strong man]. I intend to. I mean to. See? I never + made up my mind to do a thing yet that I didn't bring it off. That's the + sort of man I am; and there will be a better understanding between us + when you make up your mind to that, Captain. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You frequent picture palaces. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Perhaps I do. Who told you? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Talk like a man, not like a movie. You mean that you + make a hundred thousand a year. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. I don't boast. But when I meet a man that makes a hundred + thousand a year, I take off my hat to that man, and stretch out my hand + to him and call him brother. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Then you also make a hundred thousand a year, hey? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. No. I can't say that. Fifty thousand, perhaps. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. His half brother only [he turns away from Mangan with + his usual abruptness, and collects the empty tea-cups on the Chinese + tray]. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [irritated]. See here, Captain Shotover. I don't quite understand + my position here. I came here on your daughter's invitation. Am I in her + house or in yours? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You are beneath the dome of heaven, in the house of + God. What is true within these walls is true outside them. Go out on the + seas; climb the mountains; wander through the valleys. She is still too + young. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [weakening]. But I'm very little over fifty. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You are still less under sixty. Boss Mangan, you will + not marry the pirate's child [he carries the tray away into the pantry]. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [following him to the half door]. What pirate's child? What are + you talking about? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [in the pantry]. Ellie Dunn. You will not marry her. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Who will stop me? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [emerging]. My daughter [he makes for the door leading + to the hall]. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [following him]. Mrs Hushabye! Do you mean to say she brought me + down here to break it off? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [stopping and turning on him]. I know nothing more than + I have seen in her eye. She will break it off. Take my advice: marry a + West Indian negress: they make excellent wives. I was married to one + myself for two years. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Well, I am damned! + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I thought so. I was, too, for many years. The negress + redeemed me. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [feebly]. This is queer. I ought to walk out of this house. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Why? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Well, many men would be offended by your style of talking. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Nonsense! It's the other sort of talking that makes + quarrels. Nobody ever quarrels with me. + </p> + <p> + A gentleman, whose first-rate tailoring and frictionless manners + proclaim the wellbred West Ender, comes in from the hall. He has an + engaging air of being young and unmarried, but on close inspection is + found to be at least over forty. + </p> + <p> + THE GENTLEMAN. Excuse my intruding in this fashion, but there is no + knocker on the door and the bell does not seem to ring. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Why should there be a knocker? Why should the bell + ring? The door is open. + </p> + <p> + THE GENTLEMAN. Precisely. So I ventured to come in. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Quite right. I will see about a room for you [he makes + for the door]. + </p> + <p> + THE GENTLEMAN [stopping him]. But I'm afraid you don't know who I am. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. DO you suppose that at my age I make distinctions + between one fellow creature and another? [He goes out. Mangan and the + newcomer stare at one another]. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Strange character, Captain Shotover, sir. + </p> + <p> + THE GENTLEMAN. Very. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [shouting outside]. Hesione, another person has arrived + and wants a room. Man about town, well dressed, fifty. + </p> + <p> + THE GENTLEMAN. Fancy Hesione's feelings! May I ask are you a member of + the family? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. No. + </p> + <p> + THE GENTLEMAN. I am. At least a connection. + </p> + <p> + Mrs Hushabye comes back. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. How do you do? How good of you to come! + </p> + <p> + THE GENTLEMAN. I am very glad indeed to make your acquaintance, Hesione. + [Instead of taking her hand he kisses her. At the same moment the + captain appears in the doorway]. You will excuse my kissing your + daughter, Captain, when I tell you that— + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Stuff! Everyone kisses my daughter. Kiss her as much + as you like [he makes for the pantry]. + </p> + <p> + THE GENTLEMAN. Thank you. One moment, Captain. [The captain halts and + turns. The gentleman goes to him affably]. Do you happen to remember but + probably you don't, as it occurred many years ago— that your + younger daughter married a numskull? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Yes. She said she'd marry anybody to get away from + this house. I should not have recognized you: your head is no longer + like a walnut. Your aspect is softened. You have been boiled in bread + and milk for years and years, like other married men. Poor devil! [He + disappears into the pantry]. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [going past Mangan to the gentleman and scrutinizing him]. + I don't believe you are Hastings Utterword. + </p> + <p> + THE GENTLEMAN. I am not. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Then what business had you to kiss me? + </p> + <p> + THE GENTLEMAN. I thought I would like to. The fact is, I am Randall + Utterword, the unworthy younger brother of Hastings. I was abroad + diplomatizing when he was married. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD [dashing in]. Hesione, where is the key of the wardrobe + in my room? My diamonds are in my dressing-bag: I must lock it up—[recognizing + the stranger with a shock] Randall, how dare you? [She marches at him + past Mrs Hushabye, who retreats and joins Mangan near the sofa]. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL. How dare I what? I am not doing anything. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Who told you I was here? + </p> + <p> + RANDALL. Hastings. You had just left when I called on you at Claridge's; + so I followed you down here. You are looking extremely well. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Don't presume to tell me so. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. What is wrong with Mr Randall, Addy? + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD [recollecting herself]. Oh, nothing. But he has no right + to come bothering you and papa without being invited [she goes to the + window-seat and sits down, turning away from them ill-humoredly and + looking into the garden, where Hector and Ellie are now seen strolling + together]. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. I think you have not met Mr Mangan, Addy. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD [turning her head and nodding coldly to Mangan]. I beg + your pardon. Randall, you have flustered me so: I make a perfect fool of + myself. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Lady Utterword. My sister. My younger sister. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [bowing]. Pleased to meet you, Lady Utterword. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD [with marked interest]. Who is that gentleman walking in + the garden with Miss Dunn? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. I don't know. She quarrelled mortally with my husband only + ten minutes ago; and I didn't know anyone else had come. It must be a + visitor. [She goes to the window to look]. Oh, it is Hector. They've + made it up. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Your husband! That handsome man? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Well, why shouldn't my husband be a handsome man? + </p> + <p> + RANDALL [joining them at the window]. One's husband never is, Ariadne + [he sits by Lady Utterword, on her right]. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. One's sister's husband always is, Mr Randall. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Don't be vulgar, Randall. And you, Hesione, are just as + bad. + </p> + <p> + Ellie and Hector come in from the garden by the starboard door. Randall + rises. Ellie retires into the corner near the pantry. Hector comes + forward; and Lady Utterword rises looking her very best. + </p> + <p> + MRS. HUSHABYE. Hector, this is Addy. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR [apparently surprised]. Not this lady. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD [smiling]. Why not? + </p> + <p> + HECTOR [looking at her with a piercing glance of deep but respectful + admiration, his moustache bristling]. I thought— [pulling himself + together]. I beg your pardon, Lady Utterword. I am extremely glad to + welcome you at last under our roof [he offers his hand with grave + courtesy]. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. She wants to be kissed, Hector. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Hesione! [But she still smiles]. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Call her Addy; and kiss her like a good brother-in-law; + and have done with it. [She leaves them to themselves]. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Behave yourself, Hesione. Lady Utterword is entitled not only to + hospitality but to civilization. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD [gratefully]. Thank you, Hector. [They shake hands + cordially]. + </p> + <p> + Mazzini Dunn is seen crossing the garden from starboard to port. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [coming from the pantry and addressing Ellie]. Your + father has washed himself. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [quite self-possessed]. He often does, Captain Shotover. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. A strange conversion! I saw him through the pantry + window. + </p> + <p> + Mazzini Dunn enters through the port window door, newly washed and + brushed, and stops, smiling benevolently, between Mangan and Mrs + Hushabye. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [introducing]. Mr Mazzini Dunn, Lady Ut—oh, I forgot: + you've met. [Indicating Ellie] Miss Dunn. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI [walking across the room to take Ellie's hand, and beaming at + his own naughty irony]. I have met Miss Dunn also. She is my daughter. + [He draws her arm through his caressingly]. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Of course: how stupid! Mr Utterword, my sister's—er— + </p> + <p> + RANDALL [shaking hands agreeably]. Her brother-in-law, Mr Dunn. How do + you do? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. This is my husband. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. We have met, dear. Don't introduce us any more. [He moves away + to the big chair, and adds] Won't you sit down, Lady Utterword? [She + does so very graciously]. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Sorry. I hate it: it's like making people show their + tickets. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI [sententiously]. How little it tells us, after all! The great + question is, not who we are, but what we are. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Ha! What are you? + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI [taken aback]. What am I? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. A thief, a pirate, and a murderer. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. I assure you you are mistaken. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. An adventurous life; but what does it end in? + Respectability. A ladylike daughter. The language and appearance of a + city missionary. Let it be a warning to all of you [he goes out through + the garden]. + </p> + <p> + DUNN. I hope nobody here believes that I am a thief, a pirate, or a + murderer. Mrs Hushabye, will you excuse me a moment? I must really go + and explain. [He follows the captain]. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [as he goes]. It's no use. You'd really better— [but + Dunn has vanished]. We had better all go out and look for some tea. We + never have regular tea; but you can always get some when you want: the + servants keep it stewing all day. The kitchen veranda is the best place + to ask. May I show you? [She goes to the starboard door]. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL [going with her]. Thank you, I don't think I'll take any tea + this afternoon. But if you will show me the garden— + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. There's nothing to see in the garden except papa's + observatory, and a gravel pit with a cave where he keeps dynamite and + things of that sort. However, it's pleasanter out of doors; so come + along. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL. Dynamite! Isn't that rather risky? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Well, we don't sit in the gravel pit when there's a + thunderstorm. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERORRD. That's something new. What is the dynamite for? + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. To blow up the human race if it goes too far. He is trying to + discover a psychic ray that will explode all the explosive at the well + of a Mahatma. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. The captain's tea is delicious, Mr Utterword. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [stopping in the doorway]. Do you mean to say that you've + had some of my father's tea? that you got round him before you were ten + minutes in the house? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. I did. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. You little devil! [She goes out with Randall]. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Won't you come, Miss Ellie? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. I'm too tired. I'll take a book up to my room and rest a little. + [She goes to the bookshelf]. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Right. You can't do better. But I'm disappointed. [He follows + Randall and Mrs Hushabye]. + </p> + <p> + Ellie, Hector, and Lady Utterword are left. Hector is close to Lady + Utterword. They look at Ellie, waiting for her to go. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [looking at the title of a book]. Do you like stories of + adventure, Lady Utterword? + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD [patronizingly]. Of course, dear. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Then I'll leave you to Mr Hushabye. [She goes out through the + hall]. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. That girl is mad about tales of adventure. The lies I have to + tell her! + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD [not interested in Ellie]. When you saw me what did you + mean by saying that you thought, and then stopping short? What did you + think? + </p> + <p> + HECTOR [folding his arms and looking down at her magnetically]. May I + tell you? + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Of course. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. It will not sound very civil. I was on the point of saying, "I + thought you were a plain woman." + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Oh, for shame, Hector! What right had you to notice + whether I am plain or not? + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Listen to me, Ariadne. Until today I have seen only photographs + of you; and no photograph can give the strange fascination of the + daughters of that supernatural old man. There is some damnable quality + in them that destroys men's moral sense, and carries them beyond honor + and dishonor. You know that, don't you? + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Perhaps I do, Hector. But let me warn you once for all + that I am a rigidly conventional woman. You may think because I'm a + Shotover that I'm a Bohemian, because we are all so horribly Bohemian. + But I'm not. I hate and loathe Bohemianism. No child brought up in a + strict Puritan household ever suffered from Puritanism as I suffered + from our Bohemianism. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Our children are like that. They spend their holidays in the + houses of their respectable schoolfellows. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. I shall invite them for Christmas. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Their absence leaves us both without our natural chaperones. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Children are certainly very inconvenient sometimes. But + intelligent people can always manage, unless they are Bohemians. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. You are no Bohemian; but you are no Puritan either: your + attraction is alive and powerful. What sort of woman do you count + yourself? + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. I am a woman of the world, Hector; and I can assure you + that if you will only take the trouble always to do the perfectly + correct thing, and to say the perfectly correct thing, you can do just + what you like. An ill-conducted, careless woman gets simply no chance. + An ill-conducted, careless man is never allowed within arm's length of + any woman worth knowing. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. I see. You are neither a Bohemian woman nor a Puritan woman. You + are a dangerous woman. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. On the contrary, I am a safe woman. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. You are a most accursedly attractive woman. Mind, I am not + making love to you. I do not like being attracted. But you had better + know how I feel if you are going to stay here. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. You are an exceedingly clever lady-killer, Hector. And + terribly handsome. I am quite a good player, myself, at that game. Is it + quite understood that we are only playing? + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Quite. I am deliberately playing the fool, out of sheer + worthlessness. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD [rising brightly]. Well, you are my brother-in-law, + Hesione asked you to kiss me. [He seizes her in his arms and kisses her + strenuously]. Oh! that was a little more than play, brother-in-law. [She + pushes him suddenly away]. You shall not do that again. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. In effect, you got your claws deeper into me than I intended. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUBHABYE [coming in from the garden]. Don't let me disturb you; I + only want a cap to put on daddiest. The sun is setting; and he'll catch + cold [she makes for the door leading to the hall]. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Your husband is quite charming, darling. He has actually + condescended to kiss me at last. I shall go into the garden: it's cooler + now [she goes out by the port door]. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Take care, dear child. I don't believe any man can kiss + Addy without falling in love with her. [She goes into the hall]. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR [striking himself on the chest]. Fool! Goat! + </p> + <p> + Mrs Hushabye comes back with the captain's cap. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Your sister is an extremely enterprising old girl. Where's Miss + Dunn! + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Mangan says she has gone up to her room for a nap. Addy + won't let you talk to Ellie: she has marked you for her own. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. She has the diabolical family fascination. I began making love + to her automatically. What am I to do? I can't fall in love; and I can't + hurt a woman's feelings by telling her so when she falls in love with + me. And as women are always falling in love with my moustache I get + landed in all sorts of tedious and terrifying flirtations in which I'm + not a bit in earnest. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, neither is Addy. She has never been in love in her + life, though she has always been trying to fall in head over ears. She + is worse than you, because you had one real go at least, with me. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. That was a confounded madness. I can't believe that such an + amazing experience is common. It has left its mark on me. I believe that + is why I have never been able to repeat it. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [laughing and caressing his arm]. We were frightfully in + love with one another, Hector. It was such an enchanting dream that I + have never been able to grudge it to you or anyone else since. I have + invited all sorts of pretty women to the house on the chance of giving + you another turn. But it has never come off. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. I don't know that I want it to come off. It was damned + dangerous. You fascinated me; but I loved you; so it was heaven. This + sister of yours fascinates me; but I hate her; so it is hell. I shall + kill her if she persists. + </p> + <p> + MRS. HUSHABYE. Nothing will kill Addy; she is as strong as a horse. + [Releasing him]. Now I am going off to fascinate somebody. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. The Foreign Office toff? Randall? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Goodness gracious, no! Why should I fascinate him? + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. I presume you don't mean the bloated capitalist, Mangan? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Hm! I think he had better be fascinated by me than by + Ellie. [She is going into the garden when the captain comes in from it + with some sticks in his hand]. What have you got there, daddiest? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Dynamite. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. You've been to the gravel pit. Don't drop it about the + house, there's a dear. [She goes into the garden, where the evening + light is now very red]. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Listen, O sage. How long dare you concentrate on a feeling + without risking having it fixed in your consciousness all the rest of + your life? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Ninety minutes. An hour and a half. [He goes into the + pantry]. + </p> + <p> + Hector, left alone, contracts his brows, and falls into a day-dream. He + does not move for some time. Then he folds his arms. Then, throwing his + hands behind him, and gripping one with the other, he strides tragically + once to and fro. Suddenly he snatches his walking stick from the teak + table, and draws it; for it is a swordstick. He fights a desperate duel + with an imaginary antagonist, and after many vicissitudes runs him + through the body up to the hilt. He sheathes his sword and throws it on + the sofa, falling into another reverie as he does so. He looks straight + into the eyes of an imaginary woman; seizes her by the arms; and says in + a deep and thrilling tone, "Do you love me!" The captain comes out of + the pantry at this moment; and Hector, caught with his arms stretched + out and his fists clenched, has to account for his attitude by going + through a series of gymnastic exercises. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. That sort of strength is no good. You will never be as + strong as a gorilla. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. What is the dynamite for? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. To kill fellows like Mangan. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. No use. They will always be able to buy more dynamite than you. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I will make a dynamite that he cannot explode. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. And that you can, eh? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Yes: when I have attained the seventh degree of + concentration. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. What's the use of that? You never do attain it. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What then is to be done? Are we to be kept forever in + the mud by these hogs to whom the universe is nothing but a machine for + greasing their bristles and filling their snouts? + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Are Mangan's bristles worse than Randall's lovelocks? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER,. We must win powers of life and death over them both. + I refuse to die until I have invented the means. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Who are we that we should judge them? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What are they that they should judge us? Yet they do, + unhesitatingly. There is enmity between our seed and their seed. They + know it and act on it, strangling our souls. They believe in themselves. + When we believe in ourselves, we shall kill them. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. It is the same seed. You forget that your pirate has a very nice + daughter. Mangan's son may be a Plato: Randall's a Shelley. What was my + father? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The damnedst scoundrel I ever met. [He replaces the + drawing-board; sits down at the table; and begins to mix a wash of + color]. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Precisely. Well, dare you kill his innocent grandchildren? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. They are mine also. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Just so—we are members one of another. [He throws himself + carelessly on the sofa]. I tell you I have often thought of this killing + of human vermin. Many men have thought of it. Decent men are like Daniel + in the lion's den: their survival is a miracle; and they do not always + survive. We live among the Mangans and Randalls and Billie Dunns as + they, poor devils, live among the disease germs and the doctors and the + lawyers and the parsons and the restaurant chefs and the tradesmen and + the servants and all the rest of the parasites and blackmailers. What + are our terrors to theirs? Give me the power to kill them; and I'll + spare them in sheer— + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [cutting in sharply]. Fellow feeling? + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. No. I should kill myself if I believed that. I must believe that + my spark, small as it is, is divine, and that the red light over their + door is hell fire. I should spare them in simple magnanimous pity. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You can't spare them until you have the power to kill + them. At present they have the power to kill you. There are millions of + blacks over the water for them to train and let loose on us. They're + going to do it. They're doing it already. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. They are too stupid to use their power. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [throwing down his brush and coming to the end of the + sofa]. Do not deceive yourself: they do use it. We kill the better half + of ourselves every day to propitiate them. The knowledge that these + people are there to render all our aspirations barren prevents us having + the aspirations. And when we are tempted to seek their destruction they + bring forth demons to delude us, disguised as pretty daughters, and + singers and poets and the like, for whose sake we spare them. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR [sitting up and leaning towards him]. May not Hesione be such a + demon, brought forth by you lest I should slay you? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. That is possible. She has used you up, and left you + nothing but dreams, as some women do. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Vampire women, demon women. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Men think the world well lost for them, and lose it + accordingly. Who are the men that do things? The husbands of the shrew + and of the drunkard, the men with the thorn in the flesh. [Walking + distractedly away towards the pantry]. I must think these things out. + [Turning suddenly]. But I go on with the dynamite none the less. I will + discover a ray mightier than any X-ray: a mind ray that will explode the + ammunition in the belt of my adversary before he can point his gun at + me. And I must hurry. I am old: I have no time to waste in talk [he is + about to go into the pantry, and Hector is making for the hall, when + Hesione comes back]. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Daddiest, you and Hector must come and help me to + entertain all these people. What on earth were you shouting about? + </p> + <p> + HECTOR [stopping in the act of turning the door handle]. He is madder + than usual. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. We all are. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. I must change [he resumes his door opening]. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Stop, stop. Come back, both of you. Come back. [They + return, reluctantly]. Money is running short. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Money! Where are my April dividends? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Where is the snow that fell last year? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Where is all the money you had for that patent + lifeboat I invented? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Five hundred pounds; and I have made it last since Easter! + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Since Easter! Barely four months! Monstrous + extravagance! I could live for seven years on 500 pounds. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Not keeping open house as we do here, daddiest. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Only 500 pounds for that lifeboat! I got twelve + thousand for the invention before that. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Yes, dear; but that was for the ship with the magnetic + keel that sucked up submarines. Living at the rate we do, you cannot + afford life-saving inventions. Can't you think of something that will + murder half Europe at one bang? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No. I am ageing fast. My mind does not dwell on + slaughter as it did when I was a boy. Why doesn't your husband invent + something? He does nothing but tell lies to women. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Well, that is a form of invention, is it not? However, you are + right: I ought to support my wife. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Indeed you shall do nothing of the sort: I should never + see you from breakfast to dinner. I want my husband. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR [bitterly]. I might as well be your lapdog. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Do you want to be my breadwinner, like the other poor + husbands? + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. No, by thunder! What a damned creature a husband is anyhow! + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [to the captain]. What about that harpoon cannon? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No use. It kills whales, not men. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Why not? You fire the harpoon out of a cannon. It sticks + in the enemy's general; you wind him in; and there you are. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. You are your father's daughter, Hesione. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. There is something in it. Not to wind in generals: + they are not dangerous. But one could fire a grapnel and wind in a + machine gun or even a tank. I will think it out. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [squeezing the captain's arm affectionately]. Saved! You + are a darling, daddiest. Now we must go back to these dreadful people + and entertain them. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. They have had no dinner. Don't forget that. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Neither have I. And it is dark: it must be all hours. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, Guinness will produce some sort of dinner for them. + The servants always take jolly good care that there is food in the + house. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [raising a strange wail in the darkness]. What a house! + What a daughter! + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [raving]. What a father! + </p> + <p> + HECTOR [following suit]. What a husband! + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Is there no thunder in heaven? + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Is there no beauty, no bravery, on earth? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. What do men want? They have their food, their firesides, + their clothes mended, and our love at the end of the day. Why are they + not satisfied? Why do they envy us the pain with which we bring them + into the world, and make strange dangers and torments for themselves to + be even with us? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [weirdly chanting]. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + I builded a house for my daughters, and opened the doors + thereof, + That men might come for their choosing, and their betters + spring from their love; + But one of them married a numskull; +</pre> + <p> + HECTOR [taking up the rhythm]. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + The other a liar wed; +</pre> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [completing the stanza]. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + And now must she lie beside him, even as she made her bed. +</pre> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD [calling from the garden]. Hesione! Hesione! Where are + you? + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. The cat is on the tiles. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Coming, darling, coming [she goes quickly into the + garden]. + </p> + <p> + The captain goes back to his place at the table. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR [going out into the hall]. Shall I turn up the lights for you? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No. Give me deeper darkness. Money is not made in the + light. + </p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + ACT II + </h2> + <p> + The same room, with the lights turned up and the curtains drawn. Ellie + comes in, followed by Mangan. Both are dressed for dinner. She strolls + to the drawing-table. He comes between the table and the wicker chair. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. What a dinner! I don't call it a dinner: I call it a meal. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. I am accustomed to meals, Mr Mangan, and very lucky to get them. + Besides, the captain cooked some maccaroni for me. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [shuddering liverishly]. Too rich: I can't eat such things. I + suppose it's because I have to work so much with my brain. That's the + worst of being a man of business: you are always thinking, thinking, + thinking. By the way, now that we are alone, may I take the opportunity + to come to a little understanding with you? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [settling into the draughtsman's seat]. Certainly. I should like + to. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [taken aback]. Should you? That surprises me; for I thought I + noticed this afternoon that you avoided me all you could. Not for the + first time either. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. I was very tired and upset. I wasn't used to the ways of this + extraordinary house. Please forgive me. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Oh, that's all right: I don't mind. But Captain Shotover has + been talking to me about you. You and me, you know. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [interested]. The captain! What did he say? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Well, he noticed the difference between our ages. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. He notices everything. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. You don't mind, then? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Of course I know quite well that our engagement— + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Oh! you call it an engagement. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Well, isn't it? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Oh, yes, yes: no doubt it is if you hold to it. This is the + first time you've used the word; and I didn't quite know where we stood: + that's all. [He sits down in the wicker chair; and resigns himself to + allow her to lead the conversation]. You were saying—? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Was I? I forget. Tell me. Do you like this part of the country? I + heard you ask Mr Hushabye at dinner whether there are any nice houses to + let down here. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. I like the place. The air suits me. I shouldn't be surprised if + I settled down here. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Nothing would please me better. The air suits me too. And I want + to be near Hesione. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [with growing uneasiness]. The air may suit us; but the question + is, should we suit one another? Have you thought about that? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Mr Mangan, we must be sensible, mustn't we? It's no use + pretending that we are Romeo and Juliet. But we can get on very well + together if we choose to make the best of it. Your kindness of heart + will make it easy for me. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [leaning forward, with the beginning of something like deliberate + unpleasantness in his voice]. Kindness of heart, eh? I ruined your + father, didn't I? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Oh, not intentionally. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Yes I did. Ruined him on purpose. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. On purpose! + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Not out of ill-nature, you know. And you'll admit that I kept a + job for him when I had finished with him. But business is business; and + I ruined him as a matter of business. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. I don't understand how that can be. Are you trying to make me + feel that I need not be grateful to you, so that I may choose freely? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [rising aggressively]. No. I mean what I say. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. But how could it possibly do you any good to ruin my father? The + money he lost was yours. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [with a sour laugh]. Was mine! It is mine, Miss Ellie, and all + the money the other fellows lost too. [He shoves his hands into his + pockets and shows his teeth]. I just smoked them out like a hive of + bees. What do you say to that? A bit of shock, eh? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. It would have been, this morning. Now! you can't think how little + it matters. But it's quite interesting. Only, you must explain it to me. + I don't understand it. [Propping her elbows on the drawingboard and her + chin on her hands, she composes herself to listen with a combination of + conscious curiosity with unconscious contempt which provokes him to more + and more unpleasantness, and an attempt at patronage of her ignorance]. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Of course you don't understand: what do you know about business? + You just listen and learn. Your father's business was a new business; + and I don't start new businesses: I let other fellows start them. They + put all their money and their friends' money into starting them. They + wear out their souls and bodies trying to make a success of them. + They're what you call enthusiasts. But the first dead lift of the thing + is too much for them; and they haven't enough financial experience. In a + year or so they have either to let the whole show go bust, or sell out + to a new lot of fellows for a few deferred ordinary shares: that is, if + they're lucky enough to get anything at all. As likely as not the very + same thing happens to the new lot. They put in more money and a couple + of years' more work; and then perhaps they have to sell out to a third + lot. If it's really a big thing the third lot will have to sell out too, + and leave their work and their money behind them. And that's where the + real business man comes in: where I come in. But I'm cleverer than some: + I don't mind dropping a little money to start the process. I took your + father's measure. I saw that he had a sound idea, and that he would work + himself silly for it if he got the chance. I saw that he was a child in + business, and was dead certain to outrun his expenses and be in too + great a hurry to wait for his market. I knew that the surest way to ruin + a man who doesn't know how to handle money is to give him some. I + explained my idea to some friends in the city, and they found the money; + for I take no risks in ideas, even when they're my own. Your father and + the friends that ventured their money with him were no more to me than a + heap of squeezed lemons. You've been wasting your gratitude: my kind + heart is all rot. I'm sick of it. When I see your father beaming at me + with his moist, grateful eyes, regularly wallowing in gratitude, I + sometimes feel I must tell him the truth or burst. What stops me is that + I know he wouldn't believe me. He'd think it was my modesty, as you did + just now. He'd think anything rather than the truth, which is that he's + a blamed fool, and I am a man that knows how to take care of himself. + [He throws himself back into the big chair with large self approval]. + Now what do you think of me, Miss Ellie? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [dropping her hands]. How strange! that my mother, who knew + nothing at all about business, should have been quite right about you! + She always said not before papa, of course, but to us children—that + you were just that sort of man. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [sitting up, much hurt]. Oh! did she? And yet she'd have let you + marry me. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Well, you see, Mr Mangan, my mother married a very good man—for + whatever you may think of my father as a man of business, he is the soul + of goodness—and she is not at all keen on my doing the same. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Anyhow, you don't want to marry me now, do you? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. [very calmly]. Oh, I think so. Why not? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. [rising aghast]. Why not! + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. I don't see why we shouldn't get on very well together. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Well, but look here, you know—[he stops, quite at a loss]. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. [patiently]. Well? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Well, I thought you were rather particular about people's + characters. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. If we women were particular about men's characters, we should + never get married at all, Mr Mangan. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. A child like you talking of "we women"! What next! You're not in + earnest? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Yes, I am. Aren't you? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. You mean to hold me to it? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Do you wish to back out of it? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Oh, no. Not exactly back out of it. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Well? + </p> + <p> + He has nothing to say. With a long whispered whistle, he drops into the + wicker chair and stares before him like a beggared gambler. But a + cunning look soon comes into his face. He leans over towards her on his + right elbow, and speaks in a low steady voice. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Suppose I told you I was in love with another woman! + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [echoing him]. Suppose I told you I was in love with another man! + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [bouncing angrily out of his chair]. I'm not joking. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Who told you I was? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. I tell you I'm serious. You're too young to be serious; but + you'll have to believe me. I want to be near your friend Mrs Hushabye. + I'm in love with her. Now the murder's out. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. I want to be near your friend Mr Hushabye. I'm in love with him. + [She rises and adds with a frank air] Now we are in one another's + confidence, we shall be real friends. Thank you for telling me. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [almost beside himself]. Do you think I'll be made a convenience + of like this? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Come, Mr Mangan! you made a business convenience of my father. + Well, a woman's business is marriage. Why shouldn't I make a domestic + convenience of you? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Because I don't choose, see? Because I'm not a silly gull like + your father. That's why. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [with serene contempt]. You are not good enough to clean my + father's boots, Mr Mangan; and I am paying you a great compliment in + condescending to make a convenience of you, as you call it. Of course + you are free to throw over our engagement if you like; but, if you do, + you'll never enter Hesione's house again: I will take care of that. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [gasping]. You little devil, you've done me. [On the point of + collapsing into the big chair again he recovers himself]. Wait a bit, + though: you're not so cute as you think. You can't beat Boss Mangan as + easy as that. Suppose I go straight to Mrs Hushabye and tell her that + you're in love with her husband. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. She knows it. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. You told her!!! + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. She told me. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [clutching at his bursting temples]. Oh, this is a crazy house. + Or else I'm going clean off my chump. Is she making a swop with you—she + to have your husband and you to have hers? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Well, you don't want us both, do you? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [throwing himself into the chair distractedly]. My brain won't + stand it. My head's going to split. Help! Help me to hold it. Quick: + hold it: squeeze it. Save me. [Ellie comes behind his chair; clasps his + head hard for a moment; then begins to draw her hands from his forehead + back to his ears]. Thank you. [Drowsily]. That's very refreshing. + [Waking a little]. Don't you hypnotize me, though. I've seen men made + fools of by hypnotism. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [steadily]. Be quiet. I've seen men made fools of without + hypnotism. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [humbly]. You don't dislike touching me, I hope. You never + touched me before, I noticed. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Not since you fell in love naturally with a grown-up nice woman, + who will never expect you to make love to her. And I will never expect + him to make love to me. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. He may, though. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [making her passes rhythmically]. Hush. Go to sleep. Do you hear? + You are to go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep; be quiet, deeply + deeply quiet; sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep. + </p> + <p> + He falls asleep. Ellie steals away; turns the light out; and goes into + the garden. + </p> + <p> + Nurse Guinness opens the door and is seen in the light which comes in + from the hall. + </p> + <p> + GUINNESS [speaking to someone outside]. Mr Mangan's not here, duckie: + there's no one here. It's all dark. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [without]. Try the garden. Mr Dunn and I will be in my + boudoir. Show him the way. + </p> + <p> + GUINNESS. Yes, ducky. [She makes for the garden door in the dark; + stumbles over the sleeping Mangan and screams]. Ahoo! O Lord, Sir! I beg + your pardon, I'm sure: I didn't see you in the dark. Who is it? [She + goes back to the door and turns on the light]. Oh, Mr Mangan, sir, I + hope I haven't hurt you plumping into your lap like that. [Coming to + him]. I was looking for you, sir. Mrs Hushabye says will you please + [noticing that he remains quite insensible]. Oh, my good Lord, I hope I + haven't killed him. Sir! Mr Mangan! Sir! [She shakes him; and he is + rolling inertly off the chair on the floor when she holds him up and + props him against the cushion]. Miss Hessy! Miss Hessy! quick, doty + darling. Miss Hessy! [Mrs Hushabye comes in from the hall, followed by + Mazzini Dunn]. Oh, Miss Hessy, I've been and killed him. + </p> + <p> + Mazzini runs round the back of the chair to Mangan's right hand, and + sees that the nurse's words are apparently only too true. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. What tempted you to commit such a crime, woman? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [trying not to laugh]. Do you mean, you did it on purpose? + </p> + <p> + GUINNESS. Now is it likely I'd kill any man on purpose? I fell over him + in the dark; and I'm a pretty tidy weight. He never spoke nor moved + until I shook him; and then he would have dropped dead on the floor. + Isn't it tiresome? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [going past the nurse to Mangan's side, and inspecting him + less credulously than Mazzini]. Nonsense! he is not dead: he is only + asleep. I can see him breathing. + </p> + <p> + GUINNESS. But why won't he wake? + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI [speaking very politely into Mangan's ear]. Mangan! My dear + Mangan! [he blows into Mangan's ear]. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. That's no good [she shakes him vigorously]. Mr Mangan, + wake up. Do you hear? [He begins to roll over]. Oh! Nurse, nurse: he's + falling: help me. + </p> + <p> + Nurse Guinness rushes to the rescue. With Mazzini's assistance, Mangan + is propped safely up again. + </p> + <p> + GUINNESS [behind the chair; bending over to test the case with her + nose]. Would he be drunk, do you think, pet? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Had he any of papa's rum? + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. It can't be that: he is most abstemious. I am afraid he drank + too much formerly, and has to drink too little now. You know, Mrs + Hushabye, I really think he has been hypnotized. + </p> + <p> + GUINNESS. Hip no what, sir? + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. One evening at home, after we had seen a hypnotizing + performance, the children began playing at it; and Ellie stroked my + head. I assure you I went off dead asleep; and they had to send for a + professional to wake me up after I had slept eighteen hours. They had to + carry me upstairs; and as the poor children were not very strong, they + let me slip; and I rolled right down the whole flight and never woke up. + [Mrs Hushabye splutters]. Oh, you may laugh, Mrs Hushabye; but I might + have been killed. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. I couldn't have helped laughing even if you had been, Mr + Dunn. So Ellie has hypnotized him. What fun! + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. Oh no, no, no. It was such a terrible lesson to her: nothing + would induce her to try such a thing again. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Then who did it? I didn't. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. I thought perhaps the captain might have done it + unintentionally. He is so fearfully magnetic: I feel vibrations whenever + he comes close to me. + </p> + <p> + GUINNESS. The captain will get him out of it anyhow, sir: I'll back him + for that. I'll go fetch him [she makes for the pantry]. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Wait a bit. [To Mazzini]. You say he is all right for + eighteen hours? + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. Well, I was asleep for eighteen hours. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Were you any the worse for it? + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. I don't quite remember. They had poured brandy down my throat, + you see; and— + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Quite. Anyhow, you survived. Nurse, darling: go and ask + Miss Dunn to come to us here. Say I want to speak to her particularly. + You will find her with Mr Hushabye probably. + </p> + <p> + GUINNESS. I think not, ducky: Miss Addy is with him. But I'll find her + and send her to you. [She goes out into the garden]. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [calling Mazzini's attention to the figure on the chair]. + Now, Mr Dunn, look. Just look. Look hard. Do you still intend to + sacrifice your daughter to that thing? + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI [troubled]. You have completely upset me, Mrs Hushabye, by all + you have said to me. That anyone could imagine that I—I, a + consecrated soldier of freedom, if I may say so—could sacrifice + Ellie to anybody or anyone, or that I should ever have dreamed of + forcing her inclinations in any way, is a most painful blow to my—well, + I suppose you would say to my good opinion of myself. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [rather stolidly]. Sorry. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI [looking forlornly at the body]. What is your objection to poor + Mangan, Mrs Hushabye? He looks all right to me. But then I am so + accustomed to him. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Have you no heart? Have you no sense? Look at the brute! + Think of poor weak innocent Ellie in the clutches of this slavedriver, + who spends his life making thousands of rough violent workmen bend to + his will and sweat for him: a man accustomed to have great masses of + iron beaten into shape for him by steam-hammers! to fight with women and + girls over a halfpenny an hour ruthlessly! a captain of industry, I + think you call him, don't you? Are you going to fling your delicate, + sweet, helpless child into such a beast's claws just because he will + keep her in an expensive house and make her wear diamonds to show how + rich he is? + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI [staring at her in wide-eyed amazement]. Bless you, dear Mrs + Hushabye, what romantic ideas of business you have! Poor dear Mangan + isn't a bit like that. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [scornfully]. Poor dear Mangan indeed! + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. But he doesn't know anything about machinery. He never goes + near the men: he couldn't manage them: he is afraid of them. I never can + get him to take the least interest in the works: he hardly knows more + about them than you do. People are cruelly unjust to Mangan: they think + he is all rugged strength just because his manners are bad. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Do you mean to tell me he isn't strong enough to crush + poor little Ellie? + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. Of course it's very hard to say how any marriage will turn out; + but speaking for myself, I should say that he won't have a dog's chance + against Ellie. You know, Ellie has remarkable strength of character. I + think it is because I taught her to like Shakespeare when she was very + young. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [contemptuously]. Shakespeare! The next thing you will tell + me is that you could have made a great deal more money than Mangan. [She + retires to the sofa, and sits down at the port end of it in the worst of + humors]. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI [following her and taking the other end]. No: I'm no good at + making money. I don't care enough for it, somehow. I'm not ambitious! + that must be it. Mangan is wonderful about money: he thinks of nothing + else. He is so dreadfully afraid of being poor. I am always thinking of + other things: even at the works I think of the things we are doing and + not of what they cost. And the worst of it is, poor Mangan doesn't know + what to do with his money when he gets it. He is such a baby that he + doesn't know even what to eat and drink: he has ruined his liver eating + and drinking the wrong things; and now he can hardly eat at all. Ellie + will diet him splendidly. You will be surprised when you come to know + him better: he is really the most helpless of mortals. You get quite a + protective feeling towards him. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Then who manages his business, pray? + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. I do. And of course other people like me. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Footling people, you mean. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. I suppose you'd think us so. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. And pray why don't you do without him if you're all so + much cleverer? + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. Oh, we couldn't: we should ruin the business in a year. I've + tried; and I know. We should spend too much on everything. We should + improve the quality of the goods and make them too dear. We should be + sentimental about the hard cases among the work people. But Mangan keeps + us in order. He is down on us about every extra halfpenny. We could + never do without him. You see, he will sit up all night thinking of how + to save sixpence. Won't Ellie make him jump, though, when she takes his + house in hand! + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Then the creature is a fraud even as a captain of + industry! + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. I am afraid all the captains of industry are what you call + frauds, Mrs Hushabye. Of course there are some manufacturers who really + do understand their own works; but they don't make as high a rate of + profit as Mangan does. I assure you Mangan is quite a good fellow in his + way. He means well. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. He doesn't look well. He is not in his first youth, is he? + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. After all, no husband is in his first youth for very long, Mrs + Hushabye. And men can't afford to marry in their first youth nowadays. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Now if I said that, it would sound witty. Why can't you + say it wittily? What on earth is the matter with you? Why don't you + inspire everybody with confidence? with respect? + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI [humbly]. I think that what is the matter with me is that I am + poor. You don't know what that means at home. Mind: I don't say they + have ever complained. They've all been wonderful: they've been proud of + my poverty. They've even joked about it quite often. But my wife has had + a very poor time of it. She has been quite resigned— + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [shuddering involuntarily!] + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. There! You see, Mrs Hushabye. I don't want Ellie to live on + resignation. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Do you want her to have to resign herself to living with a + man she doesn't love? + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI [wistfully]. Are you sure that would be worse than living with a + man she did love, if he was a footling person? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [relaxing her contemptuous attitude, quite interested in + Mazzini now]. You know, I really think you must love Ellie very much; + for you become quite clever when you talk about her. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. I didn't know I was so very stupid on other subjects. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. You are, sometimes. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI [turning his head away; for his eyes are wet]. I have learnt a + good deal about myself from you, Mrs Hushabye; and I'm afraid I shall + not be the happier for your plain speaking. But if you thought I needed + it to make me think of Ellie's happiness you were very much mistaken. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [leaning towards him kindly]. Have I been a beast? + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI [pulling himself together]. It doesn't matter about me, Mrs + Hushabye. I think you like Ellie; and that is enough for me. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. I'm beginning to like you a little. I perfectly loathed + you at first. I thought you the most odious, self-satisfied, boresome + elderly prig I ever met. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI [resigned, and now quite cheerful]. I daresay I am all that. I + never have been a favorite with gorgeous women like you. They always + frighten me. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [pleased]. Am I a gorgeous woman, Mazzini? I shall fall in + love with you presently. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI [with placid gallantry]. No, you won't, Hesione. But you would + be quite safe. Would you believe it that quite a lot of women have + flirted with me because I am quite safe? But they get tired of me for + the same reason. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [mischievously]. Take care. You may not be so safe as you + think. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. Oh yes, quite safe. You see, I have been in love really: the + sort of love that only happens once. [Softly]. That's why Ellie is such + a lovely girl. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Well, really, you are coming out. Are you quite sure you + won't let me tempt you into a second grand passion? + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. Quite. It wouldn't be natural. The fact is, you don't strike on + my box, Mrs Hushabye; and I certainly don't strike on yours. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. I see. Your marriage was a safety match. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. What a very witty application of the expression I used! I + should never have thought of it. + </p> + <p> + Ellie comes in from the garden, looking anything but happy. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [rising]. Oh! here is Ellie at last. [She goes behind the + sofa]. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [on the threshold of the starboard door]. Guinness said you wanted + me: you and papa. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. You have kept us waiting so long that it almost came to—well, + never mind. Your father is a very wonderful man [she ruffles his hair + affectionately]: the only one I ever met who could resist me when I made + myself really agreeable. [She comes to the big chair, on Mangan's left]. + Come here. I have something to show you. [Ellie strolls listlessly to + the other side of the chair]. Look. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [contemplating Mangan without interest]. I know. He is only + asleep. We had a talk after dinner; and he fell asleep in the middle of + it. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. You did it, Ellie. You put him asleep. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI [rising quickly and coming to the back of the chair]. Oh, I hope + not. Did you, Ellie? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [wearily]. He asked me to. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. But it's dangerous. You know what happened to me. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [utterly indifferent]. Oh, I daresay I can wake him. If not, + somebody else can. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. It doesn't matter, anyhow, because I have at last + persuaded your father that you don't want to marry him. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [suddenly coming out of her listlessness, much vexed]. But why did + you do that, Hesione? I do want to marry him. I fully intend to marry + him. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. Are you quite sure, Ellie? Mrs Hushabye has made me feel that I + may have been thoughtless and selfish about it. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [very clearly and steadily]. Papa. When Mrs. Hushabye takes it on + herself to explain to you what I think or don't think, shut your ears + tight; and shut your eyes too. Hesione knows nothing about me: she + hasn't the least notion of the sort of person I am, and never will. I + promise you I won't do anything I don't want to do and mean to do for my + own sake. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. You are quite, quite sure? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Quite, quite sure. Now you must go away and leave me to talk to + Mrs Hushabye. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. But I should like to hear. Shall I be in the way? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [inexorable]. I had rather talk to her alone. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI [affectionately]. Oh, well, I know what a nuisance parents are, + dear. I will be good and go. [He goes to the garden door]. By the way, + do you remember the address of that professional who woke me up? Don't + you think I had better telegraph to him? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [moving towards the sofa]. It's too late to telegraph + tonight. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. I suppose so. I do hope he'll wake up in the course of the + night. [He goes out into the garden]. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [turning vigorously on Hesione the moment her father is out of the + room]. Hesione, what the devil do you mean by making mischief with my + father about Mangan? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [promptly losing her temper]. Don't you dare speak to me + like that, you little minx. Remember that you are in my house. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Stuff! Why don't you mind your own business? What is it to you + whether I choose to marry Mangan or not? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Do you suppose you can bully me, you miserable little + matrimonial adventurer? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Every woman who hasn't any money is a matrimonial adventurer. + It's easy for you to talk: you have never known what it is to want + money; and you can pick up men as if they were daisies. I am poor and + respectable— + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [interrupting]. Ho! respectable! How did you pick up + Mangan? How did you pick up my husband? You have the audacity to tell me + that I am a—a—a— + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. A siren. So you are. You were born to lead men by the nose: if + you weren't, Marcus would have waited for me, perhaps. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [suddenly melting and half laughing]. Oh, my poor Ellie, my + pettikins, my unhappy darling! I am so sorry about Hector. But what can + I do? It's not my fault: I'd give him to you if I could. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. I don't blame you for that. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. What a brute I was to quarrel with you and call you names! + Do kiss me and say you're not angry with me. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [fiercely]. Oh, don't slop and gush and be sentimental. Don't you + see that unless I can be hard—as hard as nails—I shall go + mad? I don't care a damn about your calling me names: do you think a + woman in my situation can feel a few hard words? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Poor little woman! Poor little situation! + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. I suppose you think you're being sympathetic. You are just + foolish and stupid and selfish. You see me getting a smasher right in + the face that kills a whole part of my life: the best part that can + never come again; and you think you can help me over it by a little + coaxing and kissing. When I want all the strength I can get to lean on: + something iron, something stony, I don't care how cruel it is, you go + all mushy and want to slobber over me. I'm not angry; I'm not + unfriendly; but for God's sake do pull yourself together; and don't + think that because you're on velvet and always have been, women who are + in hell can take it as easily as you. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [shrugging her shoulders]. Very well. [She sits down on the + sofa in her old place.] But I warn you that when I am neither coaxing + and kissing nor laughing, I am just wondering how much longer I can + stand living in this cruel, damnable world. You object to the siren: + well, I drop the siren. You want to rest your wounded bosom against a + grindstone. Well [folding her arms] here is the grindstone. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [sitting down beside her, appeased]. That's better: you really + have the trick of falling in with everyone's mood; but you don't + understand, because you are not the sort of woman for whom there is only + one man and only one chance. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. I certainly don't understand how your marrying that object + [indicating Mangan] will console you for not being able to marry Hector. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Perhaps you don't understand why I was quite a nice girl this + morning, and am now neither a girl nor particularly nice. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, yes, I do. It's because you have made up your mind to + do something despicable and wicked. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. I don't think so, Hesione. I must make the best of my ruined + house. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Pooh! You'll get over it. Your house isn't ruined. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Of course I shall get over it. You don't suppose I'm going to sit + down and die of a broken heart, I hope, or be an old maid living on a + pittance from the Sick and Indigent Roomkeepers' Association. But my + heart is broken, all the same. What I mean by that is that I know that + what has happened to me with Marcus will not happen to me ever again. In + the world for me there is Marcus and a lot of other men of whom one is + just the same as another. Well, if I can't have love, that's no reason + why I should have poverty. If Mangan has nothing else, he has money. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. And are there no YOUNG men with money? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Not within my reach. Besides, a young man would have the right to + expect love from me, and would perhaps leave me when he found I could + not give it to him. Rich young men can get rid of their wives, you know, + pretty cheaply. But this object, as you call him, can expect nothing + more from me than I am prepared to give him. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. He will be your owner, remember. If he buys you, he will + make the bargain pay him and not you. Ask your father. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [rising and strolling to the chair to contemplate their subject]. + You need not trouble on that score, Hesione. I have more to give Boss + Mangan than he has to give me: it is I who am buying him, and at a + pretty good price too, I think. Women are better at that sort of bargain + than men. I have taken the Boss's measure; and ten Boss Mangans shall + not prevent me doing far more as I please as his wife than I have ever + been able to do as a poor girl. [Stooping to the recumbent figure]. + Shall they, Boss? I think not. [She passes on to the drawing-table, and + leans against the end of it, facing the windows]. I shall not have to + spend most of my time wondering how long my gloves will last, anyhow. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [rising superbly]. Ellie, you are a wicked, sordid little + beast. And to think that I actually condescended to fascinate that + creature there to save you from him! Well, let me tell you this: if you + make this disgusting match, you will never see Hector again if I can + help it. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [unmoved]. I nailed Mangan by telling him that if he did not marry + me he should never see you again [she lifts herself on her wrists and + seats herself on the end of the table]. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [recoiling]. Oh! + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. So you see I am not unprepared for your playing that trump + against me. Well, you just try it: that's all. I should have made a man + of Marcus, not a household pet. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [flaming]. You dare! + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [looking almost dangerous]. Set him thinking about me if you dare. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Well, of all the impudent little fiends I ever met! Hector + says there is a certain point at which the only answer you can give to a + man who breaks all the rules is to knock him down. What would you say if + I were to box your ears? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [calmly]. I should pull your hair. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [mischievously]. That wouldn't hurt me. Perhaps it comes + off at night. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [so taken aback that she drops off the table and runs to her]. Oh, + you don't mean to say, Hesione, that your beautiful black hair is false? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [patting it]. Don't tell Hector. He believes in it. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [groaning]. Oh! Even the hair that ensnared him false! Everything + false! + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Pull it and try. Other women can snare men in their hair; + but I can swing a baby on mine. Aha! you can't do that, Goldylocks. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [heartbroken]. No. You have stolen my babies. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Pettikins, don't make me cry. You know what you said about + my making a household pet of him is a little true. Perhaps he ought to + have waited for you. Would any other woman on earth forgive you? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Oh, what right had you to take him all for yourself! [Pulling + herself together]. There! You couldn't help it: neither of us could help + it. He couldn't help it. No, don't say anything more: I can't bear it. + Let us wake the object. [She begins stroking Mangan's head, reversing + the movement with which she put him to sleep]. Wake up, do you hear? You + are to wake up at once. Wake up, wake up, wake— + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [bouncing out of the chair in a fury and turning on them]. Wake + up! So you think I've been asleep, do you? [He kicks the chair violently + back out of his way, and gets between them]. You throw me into a trance + so that I can't move hand or foot—I might have been buried alive! + it's a mercy I wasn't—and then you think I was only asleep. If + you'd let me drop the two times you rolled me about, my nose would have + been flattened for life against the floor. But I've found you all out, + anyhow. I know the sort of people I'm among now. I've heard every word + you've said, you and your precious father, and [to Mrs Hushabye] you + too. So I'm an object, am I? I'm a thing, am I? I'm a fool that hasn't + sense enough to feed myself properly, am I? I'm afraid of the men that + would starve if it weren't for the wages I give them, am I? I'm nothing + but a disgusting old skinflint to be made a convenience of by designing + women and fool managers of my works, am I? I'm— + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [with the most elegant aplomb]. Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh! Mr Mangan, + you are bound in honor to obliterate from your mind all you heard while + you were pretending to be asleep. It was not meant for you to hear. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Pretending to be asleep! Do you think if I was only pretending + that I'd have sprawled there helpless, and listened to such unfairness, + such lies, such injustice and plotting and backbiting and slandering of + me, if I could have up and told you what I thought of you! I wonder I + didn't burst. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [sweetly]. You dreamt it all, Mr Mangan. We were only + saying how beautifully peaceful you looked in your sleep. That was all, + wasn't it, Ellie? Believe me, Mr Mangan, all those unpleasant things + came into your mind in the last half second before you woke. Ellie + rubbed your hair the wrong way; and the disagreeable sensation suggested + a disagreeable dream. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [doggedly]. I believe in dreams. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. So do I. But they go by contraries, don't they? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [depths of emotion suddenly welling up in him]. I shan't forget, + to my dying day, that when you gave me the glad eye that time in the + garden, you were making a fool of me. That was a dirty low mean thing to + do. You had no right to let me come near you if I disgusted you. It + isn't my fault if I'm old and haven't a moustache like a bronze + candlestick as your husband has. There are things no decent woman would + do to a man—like a man hitting a woman in the breast. + </p> + <p> + Hesione, utterly shamed, sits down on the sofa and covers her face with + her hands. Mangan sits down also on his chair and begins to cry like a + child. Ellie stares at them. Mrs Hushabye, at the distressing sound he + makes, takes down her hands and looks at him. She rises and runs to him. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Don't cry: I can't bear it. Have I broken your heart? I + didn't know you had one. How could I? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. I'm a man, ain't I? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [half coaxing, half rallying, altogether tenderly]. Oh no: + not what I call a man. Only a Boss: just that and nothing else. What + business has a Boss with a heart? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Then you're not a bit sorry for what you did, nor ashamed? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. I was ashamed for the first time in my life when you said + that about hitting a woman in the breast, and I found out what I'd done. + My very bones blushed red. You've had your revenge, Boss. Aren't you + satisfied? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Serve you right! Do you hear? Serve you right! You're just + cruel. Cruel. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Yes: cruelty would be delicious if one could only find + some sort of cruelty that didn't really hurt. By the way [sitting down + beside him on the arm of the chair], what's your name? It's not really + Boss, is it? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [shortly]. If you want to know, my name's Alfred. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [springs up]. Alfred!! Ellie, he was christened after + Tennyson!!! + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [rising]. I was christened after my uncle, and never had a penny + from him, damn him! What of it? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. It comes to me suddenly that you are a real person: that + you had a mother, like anyone else. [Putting her hands on his shoulders + and surveying him]. Little Alf! + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Well, you have a nerve. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. And you have a heart, Alfy, a whimpering little heart, but + a real one. [Releasing him suddenly]. Now run and make it up with Ellie. + She has had time to think what to say to you, which is more than I had + [she goes out quickly into the garden by the port door]. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. That woman has a pair of hands that go right through you. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Still in love with her, in spite of all we said about you? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Are all women like you two? Do they never think of anything + about a man except what they can get out of him? You weren't even + thinking that about me. You were only thinking whether your gloves would + last. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. I shall not have to think about that when we are married. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. And you think I am going to marry you after what I heard there! + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. You heard nothing from me that I did not tell you before. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Perhaps you think I can't do without you. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. I think you would feel lonely without us all, now, after coming + to know us so well. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [with something like a yell of despair]. Am I never to have the + last word? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [appearing at the starboard garden door]. There is a + soul in torment here. What is the matter? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. This girl doesn't want to spend her life wondering how long her + gloves will last. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [passing through]. Don't wear any. I never do [he goes + into the pantry]. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD [appearing at the port garden door, in a handsome dinner + dress]. Is anything the matter? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. This gentleman wants to know is he never to have the last word? + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD [coming forward to the sofa]. I should let him have it, + my dear. The important thing is not to have the last word, but to have + your own way. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. She wants both. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. She won't get them, Mr Mangan. Providence always has the + last word. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [desperately]. Now you are going to come religion over me. In + this house a man's mind might as well be a football. I'm going. [He + makes for the hall, but is stopped by a hail from the Captain, who has + just emerged from his pantry]. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Whither away, Boss Mangan? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. To hell out of this house: let that be enough for you and all + here. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You were welcome to come: you are free to go. The wide + earth, the high seas, the spacious skies are waiting for you outside. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. But your things, Mr Mangan. Your bag, your comb and + brushes, your pyjamas— + </p> + <p> + HECTOR [who has just appeared in the port doorway in a handsome Arab + costume]. Why should the escaping slave take his chains with him? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. That's right, Hushabye. Keep the pyjamas, my lady, and much good + may they do you. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR [advancing to Lady Utterword's left hand]. Let us all go out into + the night and leave everything behind us. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. You stay where you are, the lot of you. I want no company, + especially female company. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Let him go. He is unhappy here. He is angry with us. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Go, Boss Mangan; and when you have found the land + where there is happiness and where there are no women, send me its + latitude and longitude; and I will join you there. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. You will certainly not be comfortable without your + luggage, Mr Mangan. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [impatient]. Go, go: why don't you go? It is a heavenly night: you + can sleep on the heath. Take my waterproof to lie on: it is hanging up + in the hall. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Breakfast at nine, unless you prefer to breakfast with the + captain at six. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Good night, Alfred. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Alfred! [He runs back to the door and calls into the garden]. + Randall, Mangan's Christian name is Alfred. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL [appearing in the starboard doorway in evening dress]. Then + Hesione wins her bet. + </p> + <p> + Mrs Hushabye appears in the port doorway. She throws her left arm round + Hector's neck: draws him with her to the back of the sofa: and throws + her right arm round Lady Utterword's neck. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. They wouldn't believe me, Alf. + </p> + <p> + They contemplate him. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Is there any more of you coming in to look at me, as if I was + the latest thing in a menagerie? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. You are the latest thing in this menagerie. + </p> + <p> + Before Mangan can retort, a fall of furniture is heard from upstairs: + then a pistol shot, and a yell of pain. The staring group breaks up in + consternation. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI'S VOICE [from above]. Help! A burglar! Help! + </p> + <p> + HECTOR [his eyes blazing]. A burglar!!! + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. No, Hector: you'll be shot [but it is too late; he has + dashed out past Mangan, who hastily moves towards the bookshelves out of + his way]. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [blowing his whistle]. All hands aloft! [He strides out + after Hector]. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. My diamonds! [She follows the captain]. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL [rushing after her]. No. Ariadne. Let me. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Oh, is papa shot? [She runs out]. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Are you frightened, Alf? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. No. It ain't my house, thank God. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. If they catch a burglar, shall we have to go into court as + witnesses, and be asked all sorts of questions about our private lives? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. You won't be believed if you tell the truth. + </p> + <p> + Mazzini, terribly upset, with a duelling pistol in his hand, comes from + the hall, and makes his way to the drawing-table. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. Oh, my dear Mrs Hushabye, I might have killed him. [He throws + the pistol on the table and staggers round to the chair]. I hope you + won't believe I really intended to. + </p> + <p> + Hector comes in, marching an old and villainous looking man before him + by the collar. He plants him in the middle of the room and releases him. + </p> + <p> + Ellie follows, and immediately runs across to the back of her father's + chair and pats his shoulders. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL [entering with a poker]. Keep your eye on this door, Mangan. + I'll look after the other [he goes to the starboard door and stands on + guard there]. + </p> + <p> + Lady Utterword comes in after Randall, and goes between Mrs Hushabye and + Mangan. + </p> + <p> + Nurse Guinness brings up the rear, and waits near the door, on Mangan's + left. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. What has happened? + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. Your housekeeper told me there was somebody upstairs, and gave + me a pistol that Mr Hushabye had been practising with. I thought it + would frighten him; but it went off at a touch. + </p> + <p> + THE BURGLAR. Yes, and took the skin off my ear. Precious near took the + top off my head. Why don't you have a proper revolver instead of a thing + like that, that goes off if you as much as blow on it? + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. One of my duelling pistols. Sorry. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. He put his hands up and said it was a fair cop. + </p> + <p> + THE BURGLAR. So it was. Send for the police. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. No, by thunder! It was not a fair cop. We were four to one. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. What will they do to him? + </p> + <p> + THE BURGLAR. Ten years. Beginning with solitary. Ten years off my life. + I shan't serve it all: I'm too old. It will see me out. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. You should have thought of that before you stole my + diamonds. + </p> + <p> + THE BURGLAR. Well, you've got them back, lady, haven't you? Can you give + me back the years of my life you are going to take from me? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, we can't bury a man alive for ten years for a few + diamonds. + </p> + <p> + THE BURGLAR. Ten little shining diamonds! Ten long black years! + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Think of what it is for us to be dragged through the + horrors of a criminal court, and have all our family affairs in the + papers! If you were a native, and Hastings could order you a good + beating and send you away, I shouldn't mind; but here in England there + is no real protection for any respectable person. + </p> + <p> + THE BURGLAR. I'm too old to be giv a hiding, lady. Send for the police + and have done with it. It's only just and right you should. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL [who has relaxed his vigilance on seeing the burglar so + pacifically disposed, and comes forward swinging the poker between his + fingers like a well folded umbrella]. It is neither just nor right that + we should be put to a lot of inconvenience to gratify your moral + enthusiasm, my friend. You had better get out, while you have the + chance. + </p> + <p> + THE BURGLAR [inexorably]. No. I must work my sin off my conscience. This + has come as a sort of call to me. Let me spend the rest of my life + repenting in a cell. I shall have my reward above. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [exasperated]. The very burglars can't behave naturally in this + house. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. My good sir, you must work out your salvation at somebody else's + expense. Nobody here is going to charge you. + </p> + <p> + THE BURGLAR. Oh, you won't charge me, won't you? + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. No. I'm sorry to be inhospitable; but will you kindly leave the + house? + </p> + <p> + THE BURGLAR. Right. I'll go to the police station and give myself up. + [He turns resolutely to the door: but Hector stops him]. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. + + { Oh, no. You mustn't do that. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL. [speaking together] { No no. Clear out man, can't you; and + don't be a fool. + </p> + <p> + MRS. HUSHABYE + { Don't be so silly. Can't you repent at home? + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. You will have to do as you are told. + </p> + <p> + THE BURGLAR. It's compounding a felony, you know. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. This is utterly ridiculous. Are we to be forced to + prosecute this man when we don't want to? + </p> + <p> + THE BURGLAR. Am I to be robbed of my salvation to save you the trouble + of spending a day at the sessions? Is that justice? Is it right? Is it + fair to me? + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI [rising and leaning across the table persuasively as if it were + a pulpit desk or a shop counter]. Come, come! let me show you how you + can turn your very crimes to account. Why not set up as a locksmith? You + must know more about locks than most honest men? + </p> + <p> + THE BURGLAR. That's true, sir. But I couldn't set up as a locksmith + under twenty pounds. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL. Well, you can easily steal twenty pounds. You will find it in + the nearest bank. + </p> + <p> + THE BURGLAR [horrified]. Oh, what a thing for a gentleman to put into + the head of a poor criminal scrambling out of the bottomless pit as it + were! Oh, shame on you, sir! Oh, God forgive you! [He throws himself + into the big chair and covers his face as if in prayer]. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Really, Randall! + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. It seems to me that we shall have to take up a collection for + this inopportunely contrite sinner. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. But twenty pounds is ridiculous. + </p> + <p> + THE BURGLAR [looking up quickly]. I shall have to buy a lot of tools, + lady. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Nonsense: you have your burgling kit. + </p> + <p> + THE BURGLAR. What's a jimmy and a centrebit and an acetylene welding + plant and a bunch of skeleton keys? I shall want a forge, and a smithy, + and a shop, and fittings. I can't hardly do it for twenty. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. My worthy friend, we haven't got twenty pounds. + </p> + <p> + THE BURGLAR [now master of the situation]. You can raise it among you, + can't you? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Give him a sovereign, Hector, and get rid of him. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR [giving him a pound]. There! Off with you. + </p> + <p> + THE BURGLAR [rising and taking the money very ungratefully]. I won't + promise nothing. You have more on you than a quid: all the lot of you, I + mean. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD [vigorously]. Oh, let us prosecute him and have done with + it. I have a conscience too, I hope; and I do not feel at all sure that + we have any right to let him go, especially if he is going to be greedy + and impertinent. + </p> + <p> + THE BURGLAR [quickly]. All right, lady, all right. I've no wish to be + anything but agreeable. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen; and thank + you kindly. + </p> + <p> + He is hurrying out when he is confronted in the doorway by Captain + Shotover. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [fixing the burglar with a piercing regard]. What's + this? Are there two of you? + </p> + <p> + THE BURGLAR [falling on his knees before the captain in abject terror]. + Oh, my good Lord, what have I done? Don't tell me it's your house I've + broken into, Captain Shotover. + </p> + <p> + The captain seizes him by the collar: drags him to his feet: and leads + him to the middle of the group, Hector falling back beside his wife to + make way for them. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [turning him towards Ellie]. Is that your daughter? [He + releases him]. + </p> + <p> + THE BURGLAR. Well, how do I know, Captain? You know the sort of life you + and me has led. Any young lady of that age might be my daughter anywhere + in the wide world, as you might say. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [to Mazzini]. You are not Billy Dunn. This is Billy + Dunn. Why have you imposed on me? + </p> + <p> + THE BURGLAR [indignantly to Mazzini]. Have you been giving yourself out + to be me? You, that nigh blew my head off! Shooting yourself, in a + manner of speaking! + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. My dear Captain Shotover, ever since I came into this house I + have done hardly anything else but assure you that I am not Mr William + Dunn, but Mazzini Dunn, a very different person. + </p> + <p> + THE BURGLAR. He don't belong to my branch, Captain. There's two sets in + the family: the thinking Dunns and the drinking Dunns, each going their + own ways. I'm a drinking Dunn: he's a thinking Dunn. But that didn't + give him any right to shoot me. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. So you've turned burglar, have you? + </p> + <p> + THE BURGLAR. No, Captain: I wouldn't disgrace our old sea calling by + such a thing. I am no burglar. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. What were you doing with my diamonds? + </p> + <p> + GUINNESS. What did you break into the house for if you're no burglar? + </p> + <p> + RANDALL. Mistook the house for your own and came in by the wrong window, + eh? + </p> + <p> + THE BURGLAR. Well, it's no use my telling you a lie: I can take in most + captains, but not Captain Shotover, because he sold himself to the devil + in Zanzibar, and can divine water, spot gold, explode a cartridge in + your pocket with a glance of his eye, and see the truth hidden in the + heart of man. But I'm no burglar. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Are you an honest man? + </p> + <p> + THE BURGLAR. I don't set up to be better than my fellow-creatures, and + never did, as you well know, Captain. But what I do is innocent and + pious. I enquire about for houses where the right sort of people live. I + work it on them same as I worked it here. I break into the house; put a + few spoons or diamonds in my pocket; make a noise; get caught; and take + up a collection. And you wouldn't believe how hard it is to get caught + when you're actually trying to. I have knocked over all the chairs in a + room without a soul paying any attention to me. In the end I have had to + walk out and leave the job. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL. When that happens, do you put back the spoons and diamonds? + </p> + <p> + THE BURGLAR. Well, I don't fly in the face of Providence, if that's what + you want to know. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Guinness, you remember this man? + </p> + <p> + GUINNESS. I should think I do, seeing I was married to him, the + blackguard! + </p> + <p> + HESIONE [exclaiming together] { Married to him! + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD + {Guinness!! + </p> + <p> + THE BURGLAR. It wasn't legal. I've been married to no end of women. No + use coming that over me. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Take him to the forecastle [he flings him to the door + with a strength beyond his years]. + </p> + <p> + GUINNESS. I suppose you mean the kitchen. They won't have him there. Do + you expect servants to keep company with thieves and all sorts? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Land-thieves and water-thieves are the same flesh and + blood. I'll have no boatswain on my quarter-deck. Off with you both. + </p> + <p> + THE BURGLAR. Yes, Captain. [He goes out humbly]. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. Will it be safe to have him in the house like that? + </p> + <p> + GUINNESS. Why didn't you shoot him, sir? If I'd known who he was, I'd + have shot him myself. [She goes out]. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Do sit down, everybody. [She sits down on the sofa]. + </p> + <p> + They all move except Ellie. Mazzini resumes his seat. Randall sits down + in the window-seat near the starboard door, again making a pendulum of + his poker, and studying it as Galileo might have done. Hector sits on + his left, in the middle. Mangan, forgotten, sits in the port corner. + Lady Utterword takes the big chair. Captain Shotover goes into the + pantry in deep abstraction. They all look after him: and Lady Utterword + coughs consciously. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. So Billy Dunn was poor nurse's little romance. I knew + there had been somebody. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL. They will fight their battles over again and enjoy themselves + immensely. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD [irritably]. You are not married; and you know nothing + about it, Randall. Hold your tongue. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL. Tyrant! + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Well, we have had a very exciting evening. Everything will + be an anticlimax after it. We'd better all go to bed. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL. Another burglar may turn up. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. Oh, impossible! I hope not. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL. Why not? There is more than one burglar in England. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. What do you say, Alf? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [huffily]. Oh, I don't matter. I'm forgotten. The burglar has put + my nose out of joint. Shove me into a corner and have done with me. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [jumping up mischievously, and going to him]. Would you + like a walk on the heath, Alfred? With me? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Go, Mr Mangan. It will do you good. Hesione will soothe you. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [slipping her arm under his and pulling him upright]. Come, + Alfred. There is a moon: it's like the night in Tristan and Isolde. [She + caresses his arm and draws him to the port garden door]. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [writhing but yielding]. How you can have the face-the heart-[he + breaks down and is heard sobbing as she takes him out]. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. What an extraordinary way to behave! What is the matter + with the man? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [in a strangely calm voice, staring into an imaginary distance]. + His heart is breaking: that is all. [The captain appears at the pantry + door, listening]. It is a curious sensation: the sort of pain that goes + mercifully beyond our powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your + boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness + and the beginning of peace. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD [suddenly rising in a rage, to the astonishment of the + rest]. How dare you? + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Good heavens! What's the matter? + </p> + <p> + RANDALL [in a warning whisper]. Tch—tch-tch! Steady. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [surprised and haughty]. I was not addressing you particularly, + Lady Utterword. And I am not accustomed to being asked how dare I. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Of course not. Anyone can see how badly you have been + brought up. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. Oh, I hope not, Lady Utterword. Really! + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. I know very well what you meant. The impudence! + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. What on earth do you mean? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [advancing to the table]. She means that her heart will + not break. She has been longing all her life for someone to break it. At + last she has become afraid she has none to break. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD [flinging herself on her knees and throwing her arms + round him]. Papa, don't say you think I've no heart. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [raising her with grim tenderness]. If you had no heart + how could you want to have it broken, child? + </p> + <p> + HECTOR [rising with a bound]. Lady Utterword, you are not to be trusted. + You have made a scene [he runs out into the garden through the starboard + door]. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Oh! Hector, Hector! [she runs out after him]. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL. Only nerves, I assure you. [He rises and follows her, waving + the poker in his agitation]. Ariadne! Ariadne! For God's sake, be + careful. You will—[he is gone]. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI [rising]. How distressing! Can I do anything, I wonder? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [promptly taking his chair and setting to work at the + drawing-board]. No. Go to bed. Good-night. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI [bewildered]. Oh! Perhaps you are right. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Good-night, dearest. [She kisses him]. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. Good-night, love. [He makes for the door, but turns aside to + the bookshelves]. I'll just take a book [he takes one]. Good-night. [He + goes out, leaving Ellie alone with the captain]. + </p> + <p> + The captain is intent on his drawing. Ellie, standing sentry over his + chair, contemplates him for a moment. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Does nothing ever disturb you, Captain Shotover? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I've stood on the bridge for eighteen hours in a + typhoon. Life here is stormier; but I can stand it. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Do you think I ought to marry Mr Mangan? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [never looking up]. One rock is as good as another to + be wrecked on. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. I am not in love with him. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Who said you were? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. You are not surprised? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Surprised! At my age! + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. It seems to me quite fair. He wants me for one thing: I want him + for another. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Money? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Yes. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Well, one turns the cheek: the other kisses it. One + provides the cash: the other spends it. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Who will have the best of the bargain, I wonder? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You. These fellows live in an office all day. You will + have to put up with him from dinner to breakfast; but you will both be + asleep most of that time. All day you will be quit of him; and you will + be shopping with his money. If that is too much for you, marry a + seafaring man: you will be bothered with him only three weeks in the + year, perhaps. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. That would be best of all, I suppose. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It's a dangerous thing to be married right up to the + hilt, like my daughter's husband. The man is at home all day, like a + damned soul in hell. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. I never thought of that before. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. If you're marrying for business, you can't be too + businesslike. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Why do women always want other women's husbands? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Why do horse-thieves prefer a horse that is broken-in + to one that is wild? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [with a short laugh]. I suppose so. What a vile world it is! + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It doesn't concern me. I'm nearly out of it. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. And I'm only just beginning. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Yes; so look ahead. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Well, I think I am being very prudent. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I didn't say prudent. I said look ahead. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. What's the difference? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It's prudent to gain the whole world and lose your own + soul. But don't forget that your soul sticks to you if you stick to it; + but the world has a way of slipping through your fingers. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [wearily, leaving him and beginning to wander restlessly about the + room]. I'm sorry, Captain Shotover; but it's no use talking like that to + me. Old-fashioned people are no use to me. Old-fashioned people think + you can have a soul without money. They think the less money you have, + the more soul you have. Young people nowadays know better. A soul is a + very expensive thing to keep: much more so than a motor car. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Is it? How much does your soul eat? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Oh, a lot. It eats music and pictures and books and mountains and + lakes and beautiful things to wear and nice people to be with. In this + country you can't have them without lots of money: that is why our souls + are so horribly starved. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Mangan's soul lives on pig's food. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Yes: money is thrown away on him. I suppose his soul was starved + when he was young. But it will not be thrown away on me. It is just + because I want to save my soul that I am marrying for money. All the + women who are not fools do. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. There are other ways of getting money. Why don't you + steal it? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Because I don't want to go to prison. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Is that the only reason? Are you quite sure honesty + has nothing to do with it? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Oh, you are very very old-fashioned, Captain. Does any modern + girl believe that the legal and illegal ways of getting money are the + honest and dishonest ways? Mangan robbed my father and my father's + friends. I should rob all the money back from Mangan if the police would + let me. As they won't, I must get it back by marrying him. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I can't argue: I'm too old: my mind is made up and + finished. All I can tell you is that, old-fashioned or new-fashioned, if + you sell yourself, you deal your soul a blow that all the books and + pictures and concerts and scenery in the world won't heal [he gets up + suddenly and makes for the pantry]. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [running after him and seizing him by the sleeve]. Then why did + you sell yourself to the devil in Zanzibar? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [stopping, startled]. What? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. You shall not run away before you answer. I have found out that + trick of yours. If you sold yourself, why shouldn't I? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I had to deal with men so degraded that they wouldn't + obey me unless I swore at them and kicked them and beat them with my + fists. Foolish people took young thieves off the streets; flung them + into a training ship where they were taught to fear the cane instead of + fearing God; and thought they'd made men and sailors of them by private + subscription. I tricked these thieves into believing I'd sold myself to + the devil. It saved my soul from the kicking and swearing that was + damning me by inches. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [releasing him]. I shall pretend to sell myself to Boss Mangan to + save my soul from the poverty that is damning me by inches. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Riches will damn you ten times deeper. Riches won't + save even your body. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Old-fashioned again. We know now that the soul is the body, and + the body the soul. They tell us they are different because they want to + persuade us that we can keep our souls if we let them make slaves of our + bodies. I am afraid you are no use to me, Captain. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What did you expect? A Savior, eh? Are you + old-fashioned enough to believe in that? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. No. But I thought you were very wise, and might help me. Now I + have found you out. You pretend to be busy, and think of fine things to + say, and run in and out to surprise people by saying them, and get away + before they can answer you. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It confuses me to be answered. It discourages me. I + cannot bear men and women. I have to run away. I must run away now [he + tries to]. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [again seizing his arm]. You shall not run away from me. I can + hypnotize you. You are the only person in the house I can say what I + like to. I know you are fond of me. Sit down. [She draws him to the + sofa]. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [yielding]. Take care: I am in my dotage. Old men are + dangerous: it doesn't matter to them what is going to happen to the + world. + </p> + <p> + They sit side by side on the sofa. She leans affectionately against him + with her head on his shoulder and her eyes half closed. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [dreamily]. I should have thought nothing else mattered to old + men. They can't be very interested in what is going to happen to + themselves. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. A man's interest in the world is only the overflow + from his interest in himself. When you are a child your vessel is not + yet full; so you care for nothing but your own affairs. When you grow + up, your vessel overflows; and you are a politician, a philosopher, or + an explorer and adventurer. In old age the vessel dries up: there is no + overflow: you are a child again. I can give you the memories of my + ancient wisdom: mere scraps and leavings; but I no longer really care + for anything but my own little wants and hobbies. I sit here working out + my old ideas as a means of destroying my fellow-creatures. I see my + daughters and their men living foolish lives of romance and sentiment + and snobbery. I see you, the younger generation, turning from their + romance and sentiment and snobbery to money and comfort and hard common + sense. I was ten times happier on the bridge in the typhoon, or frozen + into Arctic ice for months in darkness, than you or they have ever been. + You are looking for a rich husband. At your age I looked for hardship, + danger, horror, and death, that I might feel the life in me more + intensely. I did not let the fear of death govern my life; and my reward + was, I had my life. You are going to let the fear of poverty govern your + life; and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [sitting up impatiently]. But what can I do? I am not a sea + captain: I can't stand on bridges in typhoons, or go slaughtering seals + and whales in Greenland's icy mountains. They won't let women be + captains. Do you want me to be a stewardess? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. There are worse lives. The stewardesses could come + ashore if they liked; but they sail and sail and sail. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. What could they do ashore but marry for money? I don't want to be + a stewardess: I am too bad a sailor. Think of something else for me. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I can't think so long and continuously. I am too old. + I must go in and out. [He tries to rise]. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [pulling him back]. You shall not. You are happy here, aren't you? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I tell you it's dangerous to keep me. I can't keep + awake and alert. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. What do you run away for? To sleep? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No. To get a glass of rum. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [frightfully disillusioned]. Is that it? How disgusting! Do you + like being drunk? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No: I dread being drunk more than anything in the + world. To be drunk means to have dreams; to go soft; to be easily + pleased and deceived; to fall into the clutches of women. Drink does + that for you when you are young. But when you are old: very very old, + like me, the dreams come by themselves. You don't know how terrible that + is: you are young: you sleep at night only, and sleep soundly. But later + on you will sleep in the afternoon. Later still you will sleep even in + the morning; and you will awake tired, tired of life. You will never be + free from dozing and dreams; the dreams will steal upon your work every + ten minutes unless you can awaken yourself with rum. I drink now to keep + sober; but the dreams are conquering: rum is not what it was: I have had + ten glasses since you came; and it might be so much water. Go get me + another: Guinness knows where it is. You had better see for yourself the + horror of an old man drinking. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. You shall not drink. Dream. I like you to dream. You must never + be in the real world when we talk together. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I am too weary to resist, or too weak. I am in my + second childhood. I do not see you as you really are. I can't remember + what I really am. I feel nothing but the accursed happiness I have + dreaded all my life long: the happiness that comes as life goes, the + happiness of yielding and dreaming instead of resisting and doing, the + sweetness of the fruit that is going rotten. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. You dread it almost as much as I used to dread losing my dreams + and having to fight and do things. But that is all over for me: my + dreams are dashed to pieces. I should like to marry a very old, very + rich man. I should like to marry you. I had much rather marry you than + marry Mangan. Are you very rich? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No. Living from hand to mouth. And I have a wife + somewhere in Jamaica: a black one. My first wife. Unless she's dead. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. What a pity! I feel so happy with you. [She takes his hand, + almost unconsciously, and pats it]. I thought I should never feel happy + again. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Why? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Don't you know? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Heartbreak. I fell in love with Hector, and didn't know he was + married. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Heartbreak? Are you one of those who are so sufficient + to themselves that they are only happy when they are stripped of + everything, even of hope? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [gripping the hand]. It seems so; for I feel now as if there was + nothing I could not do, because I want nothing. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. That's the only real strength. That's genius. That's + better than rum. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [throwing away his hand]. Rum! Why did you spoil it? + </p> + <p> + Hector and Randall come in from the garden through the starboard door. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. I beg your pardon. We did not know there was anyone here. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [rising]. That means that you want to tell Mr Randall the story + about the tiger. Come, Captain: I want to talk to my father; and you had + better come with me. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [rising]. Nonsense! the man is in bed. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Aha! I've caught you. My real father has gone to bed; but the + father you gave me is in the kitchen. You knew quite well all along. + Come. [She draws him out into the garden with her through the port + door]. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. That's an extraordinary girl. She has the Ancient Mariner on a + string like a Pekinese dog. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL. Now that they have gone, shall we have a friendly chat? + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. You are in what is supposed to be my house. I am at your + disposal. + </p> + <p> + Hector sits down in the draughtsman's chair, turning it to face Randall, + who remains standing, leaning at his ease against the carpenter's bench. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL. I take it that we may be quite frank. I mean about Lady + Utterword. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. You may. I have nothing to be frank about. I never met her until + this afternoon. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL [straightening up]. What! But you are her sister's husband. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Well, if you come to that, you are her husband's brother. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL. But you seem to be on intimate terms with her. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. So do you. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL. Yes: but I AM on intimate terms with her. I have known her for + years. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. It took her years to get to the same point with you that she got + to with me in five minutes, it seems. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL [vexed]. Really, Ariadne is the limit [he moves away huffishly + towards the windows]. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR [coolly]. She is, as I remarked to Hesione, a very enterprising + woman. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL [returning, much troubled]. You see, Hushabye, you are what + women consider a good-looking man. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. I cultivated that appearance in the days of my vanity; and + Hesione insists on my keeping it up. She makes me wear these ridiculous + things [indicating his Arab costume] because she thinks me absurd in + evening dress. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL. Still, you do keep it up, old chap. Now, I assure you I have + not an atom of jealousy in my disposition. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. The question would seem to be rather whether your brother has + any touch of that sort. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL. What! Hastings! Oh, don't trouble about Hastings. He has the + gift of being able to work sixteen hours a day at the dullest detail, + and actually likes it. That gets him to the top wherever he goes. As + long as Ariadne takes care that he is fed regularly, he is only too + thankful to anyone who will keep her in good humor for him. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. And as she has all the Shotover fascination, there is plenty of + competition for the job, eh? + </p> + <p> + RANDALL [angrily]. She encourages them. Her conduct is perfectly + scandalous. I assure you, my dear fellow, I haven't an atom of jealousy + in my composition; but she makes herself the talk of every place she + goes to by her thoughtlessness. It's nothing more: she doesn't really + care for the men she keeps hanging about her; but how is the world to + know that? It's not fair to Hastings. It's not fair to me. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Her theory is that her conduct is so correct + </p> + <p> + RANDALL. Correct! She does nothing but make scenes from morning till + night. You be careful, old chap. She will get you into trouble: that is, + she would if she really cared for you. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Doesn't she? + </p> + <p> + RANDALL. Not a scrap. She may want your scalp to add to her collection; + but her true affection has been engaged years ago. You had really better + be careful. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Do you suffer much from this jealousy? + </p> + <p> + RANDALL. Jealousy! I jealous! My dear fellow, haven't I told you that + there is not an atom of— + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Yes. And Lady Utterword told me she never made scenes. Well, + don't waste your jealousy on my moustache. Never waste jealousy on a + real man: it is the imaginary hero that supplants us all in the long + run. Besides, jealousy does not belong to your easy man-of-the-world + pose, which you carry so well in other respects. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL. Really, Hushabye, I think a man may be allowed to be a + gentleman without being accused of posing. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. It is a pose like any other. In this house we know all the + poses: our game is to find out the man under the pose. The man under + your pose is apparently Ellie's favorite, Othello. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL. Some of your games in this house are damned annoying, let me + tell you. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Yes: I have been their victim for many years. I used to writhe + under them at first; but I became accustomed to them. At last I learned + to play them. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL. If it's all the same to you I had rather you didn't play them + on me. You evidently don't quite understand my character, or my notions + of good form. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Is it your notion of good form to give away Lady Utterword? + </p> + <p> + RANDALL [a childishly plaintive note breaking into his huff]. I have not + said a word against Lady Utterword. This is just the conspiracy over + again. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. What conspiracy? + </p> + <p> + RANDALL. You know very well, sir. A conspiracy to make me out to be + pettish and jealous and childish and everything I am not. Everyone knows + I am just the opposite. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR [rising]. Something in the air of the house has upset you. It + often does have that effect. [He goes to the garden door and calls Lady + Utterword with commanding emphasis]. Ariadne! + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD [at some distance]. Yes. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL. What are you calling her for? I want to speak— + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD [arriving breathless]. Yes. You really are a terribly + commanding person. What's the matter? + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. I do not know how to manage your friend Randall. No doubt you + do. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Randall: have you been making yourself ridiculous, as + usual? I can see it in your face. Really, you are the most pettish + creature. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL. You know quite well, Ariadne, that I have not an ounce of + pettishness in my disposition. I have made myself perfectly pleasant + here. I have remained absolutely cool and imperturbable in the face of a + burglar. Imperturbability is almost too strong a point of mine. But + [putting his foot down with a stamp, and walking angrily up and down the + room] I insist on being treated with a certain consideration. I will not + allow Hushabye to take liberties with me. I will not stand your + encouraging people as you do. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. The man has a rooted delusion that he is your husband. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. I know. He is jealous. As if he had any right to be! He + compromises me everywhere. He makes scenes all over the place. Randall: + I will not allow it. I simply will not allow it. You had no right to + discuss me with Hector. I will not be discussed by men. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Be reasonable, Ariadne. Your fatal gift of beauty forces men to + discuss you. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Oh indeed! what about YOUR fatal gift of beauty? + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. How can I help it? + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. You could cut off your moustache: I can't cut off my + nose. I get my whole life messed up with people falling in love with me. + And then Randall says I run after men. + </p> + RANDALL. I— + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Yes you do: you said it just now. Why can't you think of + something else than women? Napoleon was quite right when he said that + women are the occupation of the idle man. Well, if ever there was an + idle man on earth, his name is Randall Utterword. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL. Ariad— + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD [overwhelming him with a torrent of words]. Oh yes you + are: it's no use denying it. What have you ever done? What good are you? + You are as much trouble in the house as a child of three. You couldn't + live without your valet. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL. This is— + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Laziness! You are laziness incarnate. You are + selfishness itself. You are the most uninteresting man on earth. You + can't even gossip about anything but yourself and your grievances and + your ailments and the people who have offended you. [Turning to Hector]. + Do you know what they call him, Hector? + </p> + <p> + HECTOR [speaking together] { Please don't tell me. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL { I'll not stand it— + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Randall the Rotter: that is his name in good society. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL [shouting]. I'll not bear it, I tell you. Will you listen to me, + you infernal—[he chokes]. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Well: go on. What were you going to call me? An infernal + what? Which unpleasant animal is it to be this time? + </p> + <p> + RANDALL [foaming]. There is no animal in the world so hateful as a woman + can be. You are a maddening devil. Hushabye, you will not believe me + when I tell you that I have loved this demon all my life; but God knows + I have paid for it [he sits down in the draughtsman's chair, weeping]. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD [standing over him with triumphant contempt]. Cry-baby! + </p> + <p> + HECTOR [gravely, coming to him]. My friend, the Shotover sisters have + two strange powers over men. They can make them love; and they can make + them cry. Thank your stars that you are not married to one of them. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD [haughtily]. And pray, Hector— + </p> + <p> + HECTOR [suddenly catching her round the shoulders: swinging her right + round him and away from Randall: and gripping her throat with the other + hand]. Ariadne, if you attempt to start on me, I'll choke you: do you + hear? The cat-and-mouse game with the other sex is a good game; but I + can play your head off at it. [He throws her, not at all gently, into + the big chair, and proceeds, less fiercely but firmly]. It is true that + Napoleon said that woman is the occupation of the idle man. But he added + that she is the relaxation of the warrior. Well, I am the warrior. So + take care. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD [not in the least put out, and rather pleased by his + violence]. My dear Hector, I have only done what you asked me to do. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. How do you make that out, pray? + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. You called me in to manage Randall, didn't you? You said + you couldn't manage him yourself. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Well, what if I did? I did not ask you to drive the man mad. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. He isn't mad. That's the way to manage him. If you were + a mother, you'd understand. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Mother! What are you up to now? + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. It's quite simple. When the children got nerves and were + naughty, I smacked them just enough to give them a good cry and a + healthy nervous shock. They went to sleep and were quite good + afterwards. Well, I can't smack Randall: he is too big; so when he gets + nerves and is naughty, I just rag him till he cries. He will be all + right now. Look: he is half asleep already [which is quite true]. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL [waking up indignantly]. I'm not. You are most cruel, Ariadne. + [Sentimentally]. But I suppose I must forgive you, as usual [he checks + himself in the act of yawning]. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD [to Hector]. Is the explanation satisfactory, dread + warrior? + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Some day I shall kill you, if you go too far. I thought you were + a fool. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD [laughing]. Everybody does, at first. But I am not such a + fool as I look. [She rises complacently]. Now, Randall, go to bed. You + will be a good boy in the morning. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL [only very faintly rebellious]. I'll go to bed when I like. It + isn't ten yet. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. It is long past ten. See that he goes to bed at once, + Hector. [She goes into the garden]. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Is there any slavery on earth viler than this slavery of men to + women? + </p> + <p> + RANDALL [rising resolutely]. I'll not speak to her tomorrow. I'll not + speak to her for another week. I'll give her such a lesson. I'll go + straight to bed without bidding her good-night. [He makes for the door + leading to the hall]. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. You are under a spell, man. Old Shotover sold himself to the + devil in Zanzibar. The devil gave him a black witch for a wife; and + these two demon daughters are their mystical progeny. I am tied to + Hesione's apron-string; but I'm her husband; and if I did go stark + staring mad about her, at least we became man and wife. But why should + you let yourself be dragged about and beaten by Ariadne as a toy donkey + is dragged about and beaten by a child? What do you get by it? Are you + her lover? + </p> + <p> + RANDALL. You must not misunderstand me. In a higher sense—in a + Platonic sense— + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Psha! Platonic sense! She makes you her servant; and when + pay-day comes round, she bilks you: that is what you mean. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL [feebly]. Well, if I don't mind, I don't see what business it is + of yours. Besides, I tell you I am going to punish her. You shall see: I + know how to deal with women. I'm really very sleepy. Say good-night to + Mrs Hushabye for me, will you, like a good chap. Good-night. [He hurries + out]. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Poor wretch! Oh women! women! women! [He lifts his fists in + invocation to heaven]. Fall. Fall and crush. [He goes out into the + garden]. + </p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + ACT III + </h2> + <p> + In the garden, Hector, as he comes out through the glass door of the + poop, finds Lady Utterword lying voluptuously in the hammock on the east + side of the flagstaff, in the circle of light cast by the electric arc, + which is like a moon in its opal globe. Beneath the head of the hammock, + a campstool. On the other side of the flagstaff, on the long garden + seat, Captain Shotover is asleep, with Ellie beside him, leaning + affectionately against him on his right hand. On his left is a deck + chair. Behind them in the gloom, Hesione is strolling about with Mangan. + It is a fine still night, moonless. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. What a lovely night! It seems made for us. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. The night takes no interest in us. What are we to the night? [He + sits down moodily in the deck chair]. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [dreamily, nestling against the captain]. Its beauty soaks into my + nerves. In the night there is peace for the old and hope for the young. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Is that remark your own? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. No. Only the last thing the captain said before he went to sleep. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I'm not asleep. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Randall is. Also Mr Mazzini Dunn. Mangan, too, probably. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. No. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Oh, you are there. I thought Hesione would have sent you to bed + by this time. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [coming to the back of the garden seat, into the light, + with Mangan]. I think I shall. He keeps telling me he has a presentiment + that he is going to die. I never met a man so greedy for sympathy. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [plaintively]. But I have a presentiment. I really have. And you + wouldn't listen. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. I was listening for something else. There was a sort of + splendid drumming in the sky. Did none of you hear it? It came from a + distance and then died away. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. I tell you it was a train. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. And I tell you, Alf, there is no train at this hour. The + last is nine forty-five. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. But a goods train. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Not on our little line. They tack a truck on to the + passenger train. What can it have been, Hector? + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Heaven's threatening growl of disgust at us useless futile + creatures. [Fiercely]. I tell you, one of two things must happen. Either + out of that darkness some new creation will come to supplant us as we + have supplanted the animals, or the heavens will fall in thunder and + destroy us. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD [in a cool instructive manner, wallowing comfortably in + her hammock]. We have not supplanted the animals, Hector. Why do you ask + heaven to destroy this house, which could be made quite comfortable if + Hesione had any notion of how to live? Don't you know what is wrong with + it? + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. We are wrong with it. There is no sense in us. We are useless, + dangerous, and ought to be abolished. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Nonsense! Hastings told me the very first day he came + here, nearly twenty-four years ago, what is wrong with the house. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What! The numskull said there was something wrong with + my house! + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. I said Hastings said it; and he is not in the least a + numskull. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What's wrong with my house? + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Just what is wrong with a ship, papa. Wasn't it clever + of Hastings to see that? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The man's a fool. There's nothing wrong with a ship. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Yes, there is. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. But what is it? Don't be aggravating, Addy. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Guess. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Demons. Daughters of the witch of Zanzibar. Demons. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Not a bit. I assure you, all this house needs to make it + a sensible, healthy, pleasant house, with good appetites and sound sleep + in it, is horses. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Horses! What rubbish! + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Yes: horses. Why have we never been able to let this + house? Because there are no proper stables. Go anywhere in England where + there are natural, wholesome, contented, and really nice English people; + and what do you always find? That the stables are the real centre of the + household; and that if any visitor wants to play the piano the whole + room has to be upset before it can be opened, there are so many things + piled on it. I never lived until I learned to ride; and I shall never + ride really well because I didn't begin as a child. There are only two + classes in good society in England: the equestrian classes and the + neurotic classes. It isn't mere convention: everybody can see that the + people who hunt are the right people and the people who don't are the + wrong ones. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. There is some truth in this. My ship made a man of me; + and a ship is the horse of the sea. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Exactly how Hastings explained your being a gentleman. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Not bad for a numskull. Bring the man here with you + next time: I must talk to him. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Why is Randall such an obvious rotter? He is well bred; + he has been at a public school and a university; he has been in the + Foreign Office; he knows the best people and has lived all his life + among them. Why is he so unsatisfactory, so contemptible? Why can't he + get a valet to stay with him longer than a few months? Just because he + is too lazy and pleasure-loving to hunt and shoot. He strums the piano, + and sketches, and runs after married women, and reads literary books and + poems. He actually plays the flute; but I never let him bring it into my + house. If he would only—[she is interrupted by the melancholy + strains of a flute coming from an open window above. She raises herself + indignantly in the hammock]. Randall, you have not gone to bed. Have you + been listening? [The flute replies pertly]. How vulgar! Go to bed + instantly, Randall: how dare you? [The window is slammed down. She + subsides]. How can anyone care for such a creature! + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Addy: do you think Ellie ought to marry poor Alfred merely + for his money? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [much alarmed]. What's that? Mrs Hushabye, are my affairs to be + discussed like this before everybody? + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. I don't think Randall is listening now. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Everybody is listening. It isn't right. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. But in the dark, what does it matter? Ellie doesn't mind. + Do you, Ellie? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Not in the least. What is your opinion, Lady Utterword? You have + so much good sense. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. But it isn't right. It—[Mrs Hushabye puts her hand on his + mouth]. Oh, very well. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. How much money have you, Mr. Mangan? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Really—No: I can't stand this. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Nonsense, Mr Mangan! It all turns on your income, + doesn't it? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Well, if you come to that, how much money has she? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. None. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. You are answered, Mr Mangan. And now, as you have made + Miss Dunn throw her cards on the table, you cannot refuse to show your + own. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Come, Alf! out with it! How much? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [baited out of all prudence]. Well, if you want to know, I have + no money and never had any. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Alfred, you mustn't tell naughty stories. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. I'm not telling you stories. I'm telling you the raw truth. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Then what do you live on, Mr Mangan? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Travelling expenses. And a trifle of commission. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What more have any of us but travelling expenses for + our life's journey? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. But you have factories and capital and things? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. People think I have. People think I'm an industrial Napoleon. + That's why Miss Ellie wants to marry me. But I tell you I have nothing. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Do you mean that the factories are like Marcus's tigers? That + they don't exist? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. They exist all right enough. But they're not mine. They belong + to syndicates and shareholders and all sorts of lazy good-for-nothing + capitalists. I get money from such people to start the factories. I find + people like Miss Dunn's father to work them, and keep a tight hand so as + to make them pay. Of course I make them keep me going pretty well; but + it's a dog's life; and I don't own anything. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Alfred, Alfred, you are making a poor mouth of it to get + out of marrying Ellie. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. I'm telling the truth about my money for the first time in my + life; and it's the first time my word has ever been doubted. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. How sad! Why don't you go in for politics, Mr Mangan? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Go in for politics! Where have you been living? I am in + politics. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. I'm sure I beg your pardon. I never heard of you. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Let me tell you, Lady Utterword, that the Prime Minister of this + country asked me to join the Government without even going through the + nonsense of an election, as the dictator of a great public department. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. As a Conservative or a Liberal? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. No such nonsense. As a practical business man. [They all burst + out laughing]. What are you all laughing at? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHARYE. Oh, Alfred, Alfred! + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. You! who have to get my father to do everything for you! + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. You! who are afraid of your own workmen! + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. You! with whom three women have been playing cat and mouse all + the evening! + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. You must have given an immense sum to the party funds, + Mr Mangan. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Not a penny out of my own pocket. The syndicate found the money: + they knew how useful I should be to them in the Government. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. This is most interesting and unexpected, Mr Mangan. And + what have your administrative achievements been, so far? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Achievements? Well, I don't know what you call achievements; but + I've jolly well put a stop to the games of the other fellows in the + other departments. Every man of them thought he was going to save the + country all by himself, and do me out of the credit and out of my chance + of a title. I took good care that if they wouldn't let me do it they + shouldn't do it themselves either. I may not know anything about my own + machinery; but I know how to stick a ramrod into the other fellow's. And + now they all look the biggest fools going. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. And in heaven's name, what do you look like? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. I look like the fellow that was too clever for all the others, + don't I? If that isn't a triumph of practical business, what is? + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Is this England, or is it a madhouse? + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Do you expect to save the country, Mr Mangan? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Well, who else will? Will your Mr Randall save it? + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Randall the rotter! Certainly not. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Will your brother-in-law save it with his moustache and his fine + talk? + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Yes, if they will let me. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [sneering]. Ah! Will they let you? + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. No. They prefer you. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Very well then, as you're in a world where I'm appreciated and + you're not, you'd best be civil to me, hadn't you? Who else is there but + me? + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. There is Hastings. Get rid of your ridiculous sham + democracy; and give Hastings the necessary powers, and a good supply of + bamboo to bring the British native to his senses: he will save the + country with the greatest ease. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It had better be lost. Any fool can govern with a + stick in his hand. I could govern that way. It is not God's way. The man + is a numskull. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. The man is worth all of you rolled into one. What do you + say, Miss Dunn? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. I think my father would do very well if people did not put upon + him and cheat him and despise him because he is so good. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [contemptuously]. I think I see Mazzini Dunn getting into + parliament or pushing his way into the Government. We've not come to + that yet, thank God! What do you say, Mrs Hushabye? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, I say it matters very little which of you governs the + country so long as we govern you. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. We? Who is we, pray? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. The devil's granddaughters, dear. The lovely women. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR [raising his hands as before]. Fall, I say, and deliver us from + the lures of Satan! + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. There seems to be nothing real in the world except my father and + Shakespeare. Marcus's tigers are false; Mr Mangan's millions are false; + there is nothing really strong and true about Hesione but her beautiful + black hair; and Lady Utterword's is too pretty to be real. The one thing + that was left to me was the Captain's seventh degree of concentration; + and that turns out to be— + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Rum. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD [placidly]. A good deal of my hair is quite genuine. The + Duchess of Dithering offered me fifty guineas for this [touching her + forehead] under the impression that it was a transformation; but it is + all natural except the color. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [wildly]. Look here: I'm going to take off all my clothes [he + begins tearing off his coat]. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. [in consternation] { Mr. Mangan! + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER { What's that? + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. { Ha! Ha! Do. Do. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE { Please don't. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [catching his arm and stopping him]. Alfred, for shame! Are + you mad? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Shame! What shame is there in this house? Let's all strip stark + naked. We may as well do the thing thoroughly when we're about it. We've + stripped ourselves morally naked: well, let us strip ourselves + physically naked as well, and see how we like it. I tell you I can't + bear this. I was brought up to be respectable. I don't mind the women + dyeing their hair and the men drinking: it's human nature. But it's not + human nature to tell everybody about it. Every time one of you opens + your mouth I go like this [he cowers as if to avoid a missile], afraid + of what will come next. How are we to have any self-respect if we don't + keep it up that we're better than we really are? + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. I quite sympathize with you, Mr Mangan. I have been + through it all; and I know by experience that men and women are delicate + plants and must be cultivated under glass. Our family habit of throwing + stones in all directions and letting the air in is not only unbearably + rude, but positively dangerous. Still, there is no use catching physical + colds as well as moral ones; so please keep your clothes on. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. I'll do as I like: not what you tell me. Am I a child or a grown + man? I won't stand this mothering tyranny. I'll go back to the city, + where I'm respected and made much of. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Goodbye, Alf. Think of us sometimes in the city. Think of + Ellie's youth! + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Think of Hesione's eyes and hair! + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Think of this garden in which you are not a dog + barking to keep the truth out! + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Think of Lady Utterword's beauty! her good sense! her style! + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Flatterer. Think, Mr. Mangan, whether you can really do + any better for yourself elsewhere: that is the essential point, isn't + it? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [surrendering]. All right: all right. I'm done. Have it your own + way. Only let me alone. I don't know whether I'm on my head or my heels + when you all start on me like this. I'll stay. I'll marry her. I'll do + anything for a quiet life. Are you satisfied now? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. No. I never really intended to make you marry me, Mr Mangan. + Never in the depths of my soul. I only wanted to feel my strength: to + know that you could not escape if I chose to take you. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [indignantly]. What! Do you mean to say you are going to throw me + over after my acting so handsome? + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. I should not be too hasty, Miss Dunn. You can throw Mr + Mangan over at any time up to the last moment. Very few men in his + position go bankrupt. You can live very comfortably on his reputation + for immense wealth. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. I cannot commit bigamy, Lady Utterword. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. { Bigamy! Whatever on earth are you talking about, Ellie? + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD [exclaiming altogether] { Bigamy! What do you mean, Miss + Dunn? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN { Bigamy! Do you mean to say you're married already? + </p> + <p> + HECTOR { Bigamy! This is some enigma. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Only half an hour ago I became Captain Shotover's white wife. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Ellie! What nonsense! Where? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. In heaven, where all true marriages are made. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Really, Miss Dunn! Really, papa! + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. He told me I was too old! And him a mummy! + </p> + <p> + HECTOR [quoting Shelley]. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Their altar the grassy earth outspreads + And their priest the muttering wind." +</pre> + <p> + ELLIE. Yes: I, Ellie Dunn, give my broken heart and my strong sound soul + to its natural captain, my spiritual husband and second father. + </p> + <p> + She draws the captain's arm through hers, and pats his hand. The captain + remains fast asleep. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, that's very clever of you, pettikins. Very clever. + Alfred, you could never have lived up to Ellie. You must be content with + a little share of me. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [snifflng and wiping his eyes]. It isn't kind—[his emotion + chokes him]. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. You are well out of it, Mr Mangan. Miss Dunn is the most + conceited young woman I have met since I came back to England. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, Ellie isn't conceited. Are you, pettikins? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. I know my strength now, Hesione. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Brazen, I call you. Brazen. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Tut, tut, Alfred: don't be rude. Don't you feel how lovely + this marriage night is, made in heaven? Aren't you happy, you and + Hector? Open your eyes: Addy and Ellie look beautiful enough to please + the most fastidious man: we live and love and have not a care in the + world. We women have managed all that for you. Why in the name of common + sense do you go on as if you were two miserable wretches? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I tell you happiness is no good. You can be happy when + you are only half alive. I am happier now I am half dead than ever I was + in my prime. But there is no blessing on my happiness. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [her face lighting up]. Life with a blessing! that is what I want. + Now I know the real reason why I couldn't marry Mr Mangan: there would + be no blessing on our marriage. There is a blessing on my broken heart. + There is a blessing on your beauty, Hesione. There is a blessing on your + father's spirit. Even on the lies of Marcus there is a blessing; but on + Mr Mangan's money there is none. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. I don't understand a word of that. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Neither do I. But I know it means something. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Don't say there was any difficulty about the blessing. I was + ready to get a bishop to marry us. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Isn't he a fool, pettikins? + </p> + <p> + HECTOR [fiercely]. Do not scorn the man. We are all fools. + </p> + <p> + Mazzini, in pyjamas and a richly colored silk dressing gown, comes from + the house, on Lady Utterword's side. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Oh! here comes the only man who ever resisted me. What's + the matter, Mr Dunn? Is the house on fire? + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. Oh, no: nothing's the matter: but really it's impossible to go + to sleep with such an interesting conversation going on under one's + window, and on such a beautiful night too. I just had to come down and + join you all. What has it all been about? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, wonderful things, soldier of freedom. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. For example, Mangan, as a practical business man, has tried to + undress himself and has failed ignominiously; whilst you, as an + idealist, have succeeded brilliantly. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. I hope you don't mind my being like this, Mrs Hushabye. [He + sits down on the campstool]. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. On the contrary, I could wish you always like that. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Your daughter's match is off, Mr Dunn. It seems that Mr + Mangan, whom we all supposed to be a man of property, owns absolutely + nothing. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. Well, of course I knew that, Lady Utterword. But if people + believe in him and are always giving him money, whereas they don't + believe in me and never give me any, how can I ask poor Ellie to depend + on what I can do for her? + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Don't you run away with this idea that I have nothing. I— + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Oh, don't explain. We understand. You have a couple of thousand + pounds in exchequer bills, 50,000 shares worth tenpence a dozen, and + half a dozen tabloids of cyanide of potassium to poison yourself with + when you are found out. That's the reality of your millions. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. Oh no, no, no. He is quite honest: the businesses are genuine + and perfectly legal. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR [disgusted]. Yah! Not even a great swindler! + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. So you think. But I've been too many for some honest men, for + all that. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. There is no pleasing you, Mr Mangan. You are determined + to be neither rich nor poor, honest nor dishonest. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. There you go again. Ever since I came into this silly house I + have been made to look like a fool, though I'm as good a man in this + house as in the city. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [musically]. Yes: this silly house, this strangely happy house, + this agonizing house, this house without foundations. I shall call it + Heartbreak House. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Stop, Ellie; or I shall howl like an animal. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [breaks into a low snivelling]!!! + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSAHBYE. There! you have set Alfred off. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. I like him best when he is howling. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Silence! [Mangan subsides into silence]. I say, let + the heart break in silence. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Do you accept that name for your house? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It is not my house: it is only my kennel. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. We have been too long here. We do not live in this house: we + haunt it. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD [heart torn]. It is dreadful to think how you have been + here all these years while I have gone round the world. I escaped young; + but it has drawn me back. It wants to break my heart too. But it shan't. + I have left you and it behind. It was silly of me to come back. I felt + sentimental about papa and Hesione and the old place. I felt them + calling to me. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. But what a very natural and kindly and charming human feeling, + Lady Utterword! + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. So I thought, Mr Dunn. But I know now that it was only + the last of my influenza. I found that I was not remembered and not + wanted. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You left because you did not want us. Was there no + heartbreak in that for your father? You tore yourself up by the roots; + and the ground healed up and brought forth fresh plants and forgot you. + What right had you to come back and probe old wounds? + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. You were a complete stranger to me at first, Addy; but now + I feel as if you had never been away. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Thank you, Hesione; but the influenza is quite cured. + The place may be Heartbreak House to you, Miss Dunn, and to this + gentleman from the city who seems to have so little self-control; but to + me it is only a very ill-regulated and rather untidy villa without any + stables. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Inhabited by—? + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. A crazy old sea captain and a young singer who adores him. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. A sluttish female, trying to stave off a double chin and + an elderly spread, vainly wooing a born soldier of freedom. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. Oh, really, Mrs Hushabye— + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. A member of His Majesty's Government that everybody sets down as + a nincompoop: don't forget him, Lady Utterword. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. And a very fascinating gentleman whose chief occupation + is to be married to my sister. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. All heartbroken imbeciles. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. Oh no. Surely, if I may say so, rather a favorable specimen of + what is best in our English culture. You are very charming people, most + advanced, unprejudiced, frank, humane, unconventional, democratic, + free-thinking, and everything that is delightful to thoughtful people. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. You do us proud, Mazzini. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. I am not flattering, really. Where else could I feel perfectly + at ease in my pyjamas? I sometimes dream that I am in very distinguished + society, and suddenly I have nothing on but my pyjamas! Sometimes I + haven't even pyjamas. And I always feel overwhelmed with confusion. But + here, I don't mind in the least: it seems quite natural. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. An infallible sign that you are now not in really + distinguished society, Mr Dunn. If you were in my house, you would feel + embarrassed. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. I shall take particular care to keep out of your house, Lady + Utterword. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. You will be quite wrong, Mr Dunn. I should make you very + comfortable; and you would not have the trouble and anxiety of wondering + whether you should wear your purple and gold or your green and crimson + dressing-gown at dinner. You complicate life instead of simplifying it + by doing these ridiculous things. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Your house is not Heartbreak House: is it, Lady Utterword? + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Yet she breaks hearts, easy as her house is. That poor devil + upstairs with his flute howls when she twists his heart, just as Mangan + howls when my wife twists his. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. That is because Randall has nothing to do but have his + heart broken. It is a change from having his head shampooed. Catch + anyone breaking Hastings' heart! + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The numskull wins, after all. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. I shall go back to my numskull with the greatest + satisfaction when I am tired of you all, clever as you are. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [huffily]. I never set up to be clever. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. I forgot you, Mr Mangan. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. Well, I don't see that quite, either. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. You may not be clever, Mr Mangan; but you are + successful. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN. But I don't want to be regarded merely as a successful man. I + have an imagination like anyone else. I have a presentiment. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, you are impossible, Alfred. Here I am devoting myself + to you; and you think of nothing but your ridiculous presentiment. You + bore me. Come and talk poetry to me under the stars. [She drags him away + into the darkness]. + </p> + <p> + MANGAN [tearfully, as he disappears]. Yes: it's all very well to make + fun of me; but if you only knew— + </p> + <p> + HECTOR [impatiently]. How is all this going to end? + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. It won't end, Mr Hushabye. Life doesn't end: it goes on. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Oh, it can't go on forever. I'm always expecting something. I + don't know what it is; but life must come to a point sometime. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. The point for a young woman of your age is a baby. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Yes, but, damn it, I have the same feeling; and I can't have a + baby. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. By deputy, Hector. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. But I have children. All that is over and done with for me: and + yet I too feel that this can't last. We sit here talking, and leave + everything to Mangan and to chance and to the devil. Think of the powers + of destruction that Mangan and his mutual admiration gang wield! It's + madness: it's like giving a torpedo to a badly brought up child to play + at earthquakes with. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. I know. I used often to think about that when I was young. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Think! What's the good of thinking about it? Why didn't you do + something? + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. But I did. I joined societies and made speeches and wrote + pamphlets. That was all I could do. But, you know, though the people in + the societies thought they knew more than Mangan, most of them wouldn't + have joined if they had known as much. You see they had never had any + money to handle or any men to manage. Every year I expected a + revolution, or some frightful smash-up: it seemed impossible that we + could blunder and muddle on any longer. But nothing happened, except, of + course, the usual poverty and crime and drink that we are used to. + Nothing ever does happen. It's amazing how well we get along, all things + considered. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Perhaps somebody cleverer than you and Mr Mangan was at + work all the time. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. Perhaps so. Though I was brought up not to believe in anything, + I often feel that there is a great deal to be said for the theory of an + over-ruling Providence, after all. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. Providence! I meant Hastings. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. Oh, I beg your pardon, Lady Utterword. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Every drunken skipper trusts to Providence. But one of + the ways of Providence with drunken skippers is to run them on the + rocks. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. Very true, no doubt, at sea. But in politics, I assure you, + they only run into jellyfish. Nothing happens. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. At sea nothing happens to the sea. Nothing happens to + the sky. The sun comes up from the east and goes down to the west. The + moon grows from a sickle to an arc lamp, and comes later and later until + she is lost in the light as other things are lost in the darkness. After + the typhoon, the flying-fish glitter in the sunshine like birds. It's + amazing how they get along, all things considered. Nothing happens, + except something not worth mentioning. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. What is that, O Captain, O my captain? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [savagely]. Nothing but the smash of the drunken + skipper's ship on the rocks, the splintering of her rotten timbers, the + tearing of her rusty plates, the drowning of the crew like rats in a + trap. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Moral: don't take rum. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [vehemently]. That is a lie, child. Let a man drink ten + barrels of rum a day, he is not a drunken skipper until he is a drifting + skipper. Whilst he can lay his course and stand on his bridge and steer + it, he is no drunkard. It is the man who lies drinking in his bunk and + trusts to Providence that I call the drunken skipper, though he drank + nothing but the waters of the River Jordan. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Splendid! And you haven't had a drop for an hour. You see you + don't need it: your own spirit is not dead. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Echoes: nothing but echoes. The last shot was fired + years ago. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. And this ship that we are all in? This soul's prison we call + England? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The captain is in his bunk, drinking bottled + ditch-water; and the crew is gambling in the forecastle. She will strike + and sink and split. Do you think the laws of God will be suspended in + favor of England because you were born in it? + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Well, I don't mean to be drowned like a rat in a trap. I still + have the will to live. What am I to do? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Do? Nothing simpler. Learn your business as an + Englishman. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. And what may my business as an Englishman be, pray? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Navigation. Learn it and live; or leave it and be + damned. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Quiet, quiet: you'll tire yourself. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. I thought all that once, Captain; but I assure you nothing will + happen. + </p> + <p> + A dull distant explosion is heard. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR [starting up]. What was that? + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Something happening [he blows his whistle]. Breakers + ahead! + </p> + <p> + The light goes out. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR [furiously]. Who put that light out? Who dared put that light + out? + </p> + <p> + NURSE GUINNESS [running in from the house to the middle of the + esplanade]. I did, sir. The police have telephoned to say we'll be + summoned if we don't put that light out: it can be seen for miles. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. It shall be seen for a hundred miles [he dashes into the house]. + </p> + <p> + NURSE GUINNESS. The Rectory is nothing but a heap of bricks, they say. + Unless we can give the Rector a bed he has nowhere to lay his head this + night. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The Church is on the rocks, breaking up. I told him it + would unless it headed for God's open sea. + </p> + <p> + NURSE GUINNESS. And you are all to go down to the cellars. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Go there yourself, you and all the crew. Batten down + the hatches. + </p> + <p> + NURSE GUINNESS. And hide beside the coward I married! I'll go on the + roof first. [The lamp lights up again]. There! Mr Hushabye's turned it + on again. + </p> + <p> + THE BURGLAR [hurrying in and appealing to Nurse Guinness]. Here: where's + the way to that gravel pit? The boot-boy says there's a cave in the + gravel pit. Them cellars is no use. Where's the gravel pit, Captain? + </p> + <p> + NURSE GUINNESS. Go straight on past the flagstaff until you fall into it + and break your dirty neck. [She pushes him contemptuously towards the + flagstaff, and herself goes to the foot of the hammock and waits there, + as it were by Ariadne's cradle]. + </p> + <p> + Another and louder explosion is heard. The burglar stops and stands + trembling. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [rising]. That was nearer. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The next one will get us. [He rises]. Stand by, all + hands, for judgment. + </p> + <p> + THE BURGLAR. Oh my Lordy God! [He rushes away frantically past the + flagstaff into the gloom]. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [emerging panting from the darkness]. Who was that running + away? [She comes to Ellie]. Did you hear the explosions? And the sound + in the sky: it's splendid: it's like an orchestra: it's like Beethoven. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. By thunder, Hesione: it is Beethoven. + </p> + <p> + She and Hesione throw themselves into one another's arms in wild + excitement. The light increases. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI [anxiously]. The light is getting brighter. + </p> + <p> + NURSE GUINNESS [looking up at the house]. It's Mr Hushabye turning on + all the lights in the house and tearing down the curtains. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL [rushing in in his pyjamas, distractedly waving a flute]. + Ariadne, my soul, my precious, go down to the cellars: I beg and implore + you, go down to the cellars! + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD [quite composed in her hammock]. The governor's wife in + the cellars with the servants! Really, Randall! + </p> + <p> + RANDALL. But what shall I do if you are killed? + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. You will probably be killed, too, Randall. Now play your + flute to show that you are not afraid; and be good. Play us "Keep the + home fires burning." + </p> + <p> + NURSE GUINNESS [grimly]. THEY'LL keep the home fires burning for us: + them up there. + </p> + <p> + RANDALL [having tried to play]. My lips are trembling. I can't get a + sound. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. I hope poor Mangan is safe. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. He is hiding in the cave in the gravel pit. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. My dynamite drew him there. It is the hand of God. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR [returning from the house and striding across to his former + place]. There is not half light enough. We should be blazing to the + skies. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [tense with excitement]. Set fire to the house, Marcus. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. My house! No. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. I thought of that; but it would not be ready in time. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The judgment has come. Courage will not save you; but + it will show that your souls are still live. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. Sh-sh! Listen: do you hear it now? It's magnificent. + </p> + <p> + They all turn away from the house and look up, listening. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR [gravely]. Miss Dunn, you can do no good here. We of this house + are only moths flying into the candle. You had better go down to the + cellar. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [scornfully]. I don't think. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. Ellie, dear, there is no disgrace in going to the cellar. An + officer would order his soldiers to take cover. Mr Hushabye is behaving + like an amateur. Mangan and the burglar are acting very sensibly; and it + is they who will survive. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE. Let them. I shall behave like an amateur. But why should you run + any risk? + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. Think of the risk those poor fellows up there are running! + </p> + <p> + NURSE GUINNESS. Think of them, indeed, the murdering blackguards! What + next? + </p> + <p> + A terrific explosion shakes the earth. They reel back into their seats, + or clutch the nearest support. They hear the falling of the shattered + glass from the windows. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. Is anyone hurt? + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Where did it fall? + </p> + <p> + NURSE GUINNESS [in hideous triumph]. Right in the gravel pit: I seen it. + Serve un right! I seen it [she runs away towards the gravel pit, + laughing harshly]. + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. One husband gone. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Thirty pounds of good dynamite wasted. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. Oh, poor Mangan! + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. Are you immortal that you need pity him? Our turn next. + </p> + <p> + They wait in silence and intense expectation. Hesione and Ellie hold + each other's hand tight. + </p> + <p> + A distant explosion is heard. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE [relaxing her grip]. Oh! they have passed us. + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. The danger is over, Randall. Go to bed. + </p> + <p> + CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Turn in, all hands. The ship is safe. [He sits down + and goes asleep]. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [disappointedly]. Safe! + </p> + <p> + HECTOR [disgustedly]. Yes, safe. And how damnably dull the world has + become again suddenly! [he sits down]. + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI [sitting down]. I was quite wrong, after all. It is we who have + survived; and Mangan and the burglar— + </p> + <p> + HECTOR. —the two burglars— + </p> + <p> + LADY UTTERWORD. —the two practical men of business— + </p> + <p> + MAZZINI. —both gone. And the poor clergyman will have to get a new + house. + </p> + <p> + MRS HUSHABYE. But what a glorious experience! I hope they'll come again + tomorrow night. + </p> + <p> + ELLIE [radiant at the prospect]. Oh, I hope so. + </p> + <p> + Randall at last succeeds in keeping the home fires burning on his flute. + </p> + <br /> + </div> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Heartbreak House, by George Bernard Shaw + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HEARTBREAK HOUSE *** + +***** This file should be named 3543-h.htm or 3543-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/4/3543/ + +Produced by Eve Sobol, and David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Heartbreak House + +Author: George Bernard Shaw + +Posting Date: January 13, 2009 [EBook #3543] +Release Date: November, 2002 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HEARTBREAK HOUSE *** + + + + +Produced by Eve Sobol + + + + + +HEARTBREAK HOUSE + +A FANTASIA IN THE RUSSIAN MANNER ON ENGLISH THEMES + + +By Bernard Shaw + + +1913-1916 + + + + +HEARTBREAK HOUSE AND HORSEBACK HALL + + +Where Heartbreak House Stands + +Heartbreak House is not merely the name of the play which follows this +preface. It is cultured, leisured Europe before the war. When the +play was begun not a shot had been fired; and only the professional +diplomatists and the very few amateurs whose hobby is foreign policy +even knew that the guns were loaded. A Russian playwright, Tchekov, had +produced four fascinating dramatic studies of Heartbreak House, of +which three, The Cherry Orchard, Uncle Vanya, and The Seagull, had been +performed in England. Tolstoy, in his Fruits of Enlightenment, had shown +us through it in his most ferociously contemptuous manner. Tolstoy did +not waste any sympathy on it: it was to him the house in which Europe +was stifling its soul; and he knew that our utter enervation and +futilization in that overheated drawingroom atmosphere was delivering +the world over to the control of ignorant and soulless cunning and +energy, with the frightful consequences which have now overtaken +it. Tolstoy was no pessimist: he was not disposed to leave the house +standing if he could bring it down about the ears of its pretty and +amiable voluptuaries; and he wielded the pickaxe with a will. He treated +the case of the inmates as one of opium poisoning, to be dealt with by +seizing the patients roughly and exercising them violently until they +were broad awake. Tchekov, more of a fatalist, had no faith in these +charming people extricating themselves. They would, he thought, be sold +up and sent adrift by the bailiffs; and he therefore had no scruple in +exploiting and even flattering their charm. + + + +The Inhabitants + +Tchekov's plays, being less lucrative than swings and roundabouts, +got no further in England, where theatres are only ordinary commercial +affairs, than a couple of performances by the Stage Society. We stared +and said, "How Russian!" They did not strike me in that way. Just +as Ibsen's intensely Norwegian plays exactly fitted every middle and +professional class suburb in Europe, these intensely Russian plays +fitted all the country houses in Europe in which the pleasures of music, +art, literature, and the theatre had supplanted hunting, shooting, +fishing, flirting, eating, and drinking. The same nice people, the same +utter futility. The nice people could read; some of them could +write; and they were the sole repositories of culture who had social +opportunities of contact with our politicians, administrators, and +newspaper proprietors, or any chance of sharing or influencing their +activities. But they shrank from that contact. They hated politics. They +did not wish to realize Utopia for the common people: they wished to +realize their favorite fictions and poems in their own lives; and, when +they could, they lived without scruple on incomes which they did nothing +to earn. The women in their girlhood made themselves look like variety +theatre stars, and settled down later into the types of beauty imagined +by the previous generation of painters. They took the only part of our +society in which there was leisure for high culture, and made it an +economic, political and; as far as practicable, a moral vacuum; and as +Nature, abhorring the vacuum, immediately filled it up with sex and with +all sorts of refined pleasures, it was a very delightful place at its +best for moments of relaxation. In other moments it was disastrous. For +prime ministers and their like, it was a veritable Capua. + + + +Horseback Hall + +But where were our front benchers to nest if not here? The alternative +to Heartbreak House was Horseback Hall, consisting of a prison for +horses with an annex for the ladies and gentlemen who rode them, hunted +them, talked about them, bought them and sold them, and gave nine-tenths +of their lives to them, dividing the other tenth between charity, +churchgoing (as a substitute for religion), and conservative +electioneering (as a substitute for politics). It is true that the two +establishments got mixed at the edges. Exiles from the library, the +music room, and the picture gallery would be found languishing among the +stables, miserably discontented; and hardy horsewomen who slept at the +first chord of Schumann were born, horribly misplaced, into the garden +of Klingsor; but sometimes one came upon horsebreakers and heartbreakers +who could make the best of both worlds. As a rule, however, the two were +apart and knew little of one another; so the prime minister folk had +to choose between barbarism and Capua. And of the two atmospheres it is +hard to say which was the more fatal to statesmanship. + + +Revolution on the Shelf + +Heartbreak House was quite familiar with revolutionary ideas on paper. +It aimed at being advanced and freethinking, and hardly ever went to +church or kept the Sabbath except by a little extra fun at weekends. +When you spent a Friday to Tuesday in it you found on the shelf in your +bedroom not only the books of poets and novelists, but of revolutionary +biologists and even economists. Without at least a few plays by myself +and Mr Granville Barker, and a few stories by Mr H. G. Wells, Mr Arnold +Bennett, and Mr John Galsworthy, the house would have been out of the +movement. You would find Blake among the poets, and beside him Bergson, +Butler, Scott Haldane, the poems of Meredith and Thomas Hardy, and, +generally speaking, all the literary implements for forming the mind of +the perfect modern Socialist and Creative Evolutionist. It was a curious +experience to spend Sunday in dipping into these books, and the Monday +morning to read in the daily paper that the country had just been +brought to the verge of anarchy because a new Home Secretary or chief of +police without an idea in his head that his great-grandmother might +not have had to apologize for, had refused to "recognize" some powerful +Trade Union, just as a gondola might refuse to recognize a 20,000-ton +liner. + +In short, power and culture were in separate compartments. The +barbarians were not only literally in the saddle, but on the front +bench in the House of commons, with nobody to correct their incredible +ignorance of modern thought and political science but upstarts from +the counting-house, who had spent their lives furnishing their pockets +instead of their minds. Both, however, were practised in dealing with +money and with men, as far as acquiring the one and exploiting the other +went; and although this is as undesirable an expertness as that of the +medieval robber baron, it qualifies men to keep an estate or a business +going in its old routine without necessarily understanding it, just as +Bond Street tradesmen and domestic servants keep fashionable society +going without any instruction in sociology. + + + +The Cherry Orchard + +The Heartbreak people neither could nor would do anything of the sort. +With their heads as full of the Anticipations of Mr H. G. Wells as +the heads of our actual rulers were empty even of the anticipations of +Erasmus or Sir Thomas More, they refused the drudgery of politics, and +would have made a very poor job of it if they had changed their minds. +Not that they would have been allowed to meddle anyhow, as only through +the accident of being a hereditary peer can anyone in these days of +Votes for Everybody get into parliament if handicapped by a serious +modern cultural equipment; but if they had, their habit of living in a +vacuum would have left them helpless end ineffective in public +affairs. Even in private life they were often helpless wasters of their +inheritance, like the people in Tchekov's Cherry Orchard. Even those who +lived within their incomes were really kept going by their solicitors +and agents, being unable to manage an estate or run a business without +continual prompting from those who have to learn how to do such things +or starve. + +From what is called Democracy no corrective to this state of things +could be hoped. It is said that every people has the Government +it deserves. It is more to the point that every Government has the +electorate it deserves; for the orators of the front bench can edify or +debauch an ignorant electorate at will. Thus our democracy moves in a +vicious circle of reciprocal worthiness and unworthiness. + + + +Nature's Long Credits + +Nature's way of dealing with unhealthy conditions is unfortunately not +one that compels us to conduct a solvent hygiene on a cash basis. She +demoralizes us with long credits and reckless overdrafts, and then pulls +us up cruelly with catastrophic bankruptcies. Take, for example, common +domestic sanitation. A whole city generation may neglect it utterly +and scandalously, if not with absolute impunity, yet without any evil +consequences that anyone thinks of tracing to it. In a hospital two +generations of medical students way tolerate dirt and carelessness, and +then go out into general practice to spread the doctrine that fresh +air is a fad, and sanitation an imposture set up to make profits for +plumbers. Then suddenly Nature takes her revenge. She strikes at the +city with a pestilence and at the hospital with an epidemic of hospital +gangrene, slaughtering right and left until the innocent young have paid +for the guilty old, and the account is balanced. And then she goes to +sleep again and gives another period of credit, with the same result. + +This is what has just happened in our political hygiene. Political +science has been as recklessly neglected by Governments and electorates +during my lifetime as sanitary science was in the days of Charles the +Second. In international relations diplomacy has been a boyishly lawless +affair of family intrigues, commercial and territorial brigandage, +torpors of pseudo-goodnature produced by laziness and spasms of +ferocious activity produced by terror. But in these islands we muddled +through. Nature gave us a longer credit than she gave to France or +Germany or Russia. To British centenarians who died in their beds in +1914, any dread of having to hide underground in London from the +shells of an enemy seemed more remote and fantastic than a dread of the +appearance of a colony of cobras and rattlesnakes in Kensington Gardens. +In the prophetic works of Charles Dickens we were warned against +many evils which have since come to pass; but of the evil of being +slaughtered by a foreign foe on our own doorsteps there was no shadow. +Nature gave us a very long credit; and we abused it to the utmost. But +when she struck at last she struck with a vengeance. For four years +she smote our firstborn and heaped on us plagues of which Egypt never +dreamed. They were all as preventable as the great Plague of London, and +came solely because they had not been prevented. They were not undone by +winning the war. The earth is still bursting with the dead bodies of the +victors. + + + +The Wicked Half Century + +It is difficult to say whether indifference and neglect are worse than +false doctrine; but Heartbreak House and Horseback Hall unfortunately +suffered from both. For half a century before the war civilization had +been going to the devil very precipitately under the influence of a +pseudo-science as disastrous as the blackest Calvinism. Calvinism taught +that as we are predestinately saved or damned, nothing that we can do +can alter our destiny. Still, as Calvinism gave the individual no clue +as to whether he had drawn a lucky number or an unlucky one, it left +him a fairly strong interest in encouraging his hopes of salvation and +allaying his fear of damnation by behaving as one of the elect might +be expected to behave rather than as one of the reprobate. But in the +middle of the nineteenth century naturalists and physicists assured +the world, in the name of Science, that salvation and damnation are +all nonsense, and that predestination is the central truth of religion, +inasmuch as human beings are produced by their environment, their sins +and good deeds being only a series of chemical and mechanical reactions +over which they have no control. Such figments as mind, choice, purpose, +conscience, will, and so forth, are, they taught, mere illusions, +produced because they are useful in the continual struggle of the human +machine to maintain its environment in a favorable condition, a process +incidentally involving the ruthless destruction or subjection of its +competitors for the supply (assumed to be limited) of subsistence +available. We taught Prussia this religion; and Prussia bettered our +instruction so effectively that we presently found ourselves confronted +with the necessity of destroying Prussia to prevent Prussia destroying +us. And that has just ended in each destroying the other to an extent +doubtfully reparable in our time. + +It may be asked how so imbecile and dangerous a creed ever came to be +accepted by intelligent beings. I will answer that question more fully +in my next volume of plays, which will be entirely devoted to the +subject. For the present I will only say that there were better reasons +than the obvious one that such sham science as this opened a scientific +career to very stupid men, and all the other careers to shameless +rascals, provided they were industrious enough. It is true that +this motive operated very powerfully; but when the new departure in +scientific doctrine which is associated with the name of the great +naturalist Charles Darwin began, it was not only a reaction against a +barbarous pseudo-evangelical teleology intolerably obstructive to all +scientific progress, but was accompanied, as it happened, by discoveries +of extraordinary interest in physics, chemistry, and that lifeless +method of evolution which its investigators called Natural Selection. +Howbeit, there was only one result possible in the ethical sphere, and +that was the banishment of conscience from human affairs, or, as Samuel +Butler vehemently put it, "of mind from the universe." + + + +Hypochondria + +Now Heartbreak House, with Butler and Bergson and Scott Haldane +alongside Blake and the other major poets on its shelves (to say nothing +of Wagner and the tone poets), was not so completely blinded by the +doltish materialism of the laboratories as the uncultured world outside. +But being an idle house it was a hypochondriacal house, always running +after cures. It would stop eating meat, not on valid Shelleyan grounds, +but in order to get rid of a bogey called Uric Acid; and it would +actually let you pull all its teeth out to exorcise another demon +named Pyorrhea. It was superstitious, and addicted to table-rapping, +materialization seances, clairvoyance, palmistry, crystal-gazing and the +like to such an extent that it may be doubted whether ever before in +the history of the world did soothsayers, astrologers, and unregistered +therapeutic specialists of all sorts flourish as they did during this +half century of the drift to the abyss. The registered doctors and +surgeons were hard put to it to compete with the unregistered. They were +not clever enough to appeal to the imagination and sociability of +the Heartbreakers by the arts of the actor, the orator, the poet, the +winning conversationalist. They had to fall back coarsely on the terror +of infection and death. They prescribed inoculations and operations. +Whatever part of a human being could be cut out without necessarily +killing him they cut out; and he often died (unnecessarily of course) +in consequence. From such trifles as uvulas and tonsils they went on +to ovaries and appendices until at last no one's inside was safe. They +explained that the human intestine was too long, and that nothing could +make a child of Adam healthy except short circuiting the pylorus by +cutting a length out of the lower intestine and fastening it directly to +the stomach. As their mechanist theory taught them that medicine was +the business of the chemist's laboratory, and surgery of the carpenter's +shop, and also that Science (by which they meant their practices) was +so important that no consideration for the interests of any individual +creature, whether frog or philosopher, much less the vulgar commonplaces +of sentimental ethics, could weigh for a moment against the remotest +off-chance of an addition to the body of scientific knowledge, they +operated and vivisected and inoculated and lied on a stupendous scale, +clamoring for and actually acquiring such legal powers over the bodies +of their fellow-citizens as neither king, pope, nor parliament dare ever +have claimed. The Inquisition itself was a Liberal institution compared +to the General Medical Council. + + + +Those who do not know how to live must make a Merit of Dying + +Heartbreak House was far too lazy and shallow to extricate itself from +this palace of evil enchantment. It rhapsodized about love; but it +believed in cruelty. It was afraid of the cruel people; and it saw that +cruelty was at least effective. Cruelty did things that made money, +whereas Love did nothing but prove the soundness of Larochefoucauld's +saying that very few people would fall in love if they had never read +about it. Heartbreak House, in short, did not know how to live, at which +point all that was left to it was the boast that at least it knew how +to die: a melancholy accomplishment which the outbreak of war presently +gave it practically unlimited opportunities of displaying. Thus were the +firstborn of Heartbreak House smitten; and the young, the innocent, the +hopeful, expiated the folly and worthlessness of their elders. + + +War Delirium + +Only those who have lived through a first-rate war, not in the +field, but at home, and kept their heads, can possibly understand +the bitterness of Shakespeare and Swift, who both went through this +experience. The horror of Peer Gynt in the madhouse, when the lunatics, +exalted by illusions of splendid talent and visions of a dawning +millennium, crowned him as their emperor, was tame in comparison. I do +not know whether anyone really kept his head completely except those +who had to keep it because they had to conduct the war at first hand. +I should not have kept my own (as far as I did keep it) if I had not at +once understood that as a scribe and speaker I too was under the most +serious public obligation to keep my grip on realities; but this did +not save me from a considerable degree of hyperaesthesia. There were of +course some happy people to whom the war meant nothing: all political +and general matters lying outside their little circle of interest. But +the ordinary war-conscious civilian went mad, the main symptom being a +conviction that the whole order of nature had been reversed. All +foods, he felt, must now be adulterated. All schools must be closed. +No advertisements must be sent to the newspapers, of which new editions +must appear and be bought up every ten minutes. Travelling must be +stopped, or, that being impossible, greatly hindered. All pretences +about fine art and culture and the like must be flung off as an +intolerable affectation; and the picture galleries and museums and +schools at once occupied by war workers. The British Museum itself was +saved only by a hair's breadth. The sincerity of all this, and of much +more which would not be believed if I chronicled it, may be established +by one conclusive instance of the general craziness. Men were seized +with the illusion that they could win the war by giving away money. +And they not only subscribed millions to Funds of all sorts with no +discoverable object, and to ridiculous voluntary organizations for doing +what was plainly the business of the civil and military authorities, +but actually handed out money to any thief in the street who had the +presence of mind to pretend that he (or she) was "collecting" it for the +annihilation of the enemy. Swindlers were emboldened to take offices; +label themselves Anti-Enemy Leagues; and simply pocket the money that +was heaped on them. Attractively dressed young women found that they had +nothing to do but parade the streets, collecting-box in hand, and live +gloriously on the profits. Many months elapsed before, as a first sign +of returning sanity, the police swept an Anti-Enemy secretary into +prison pour encourages les autres, and the passionate penny collecting +of the Flag Days was brought under some sort of regulation. + + + +Madness in Court + +The demoralization did not spare the Law Courts. Soldiers were +acquitted, even on fully proved indictments for wilful murder, until at +last the judges and magistrates had to announce that what was called the +Unwritten Law, which meant simply that a soldier could do what he liked +with impunity in civil life, was not the law of the land, and that a +Victoria Cross did not carry with it a perpetual plenary indulgence. +Unfortunately the insanity of the juries and magistrates did not always +manifest itself in indulgence. No person unlucky enough to be charged +with any sort of conduct, however reasonable and salutary, that did not +smack of war delirium, had the slightest chance of acquittal. There were +in the country, too, a certain number of people who had conscientious +objections to war as criminal or unchristian. The Act of Parliament +introducing Compulsory Military Service thoughtlessly exempted these +persons, merely requiring them to prove the genuineness of their +convictions. Those who did so were very ill-advised from the point +of view of their own personal interest; for they were persecuted with +savage logicality in spite of the law; whilst those who made no pretence +of having any objection to war at all, and had not only had military +training in Officers' Training Corps, but had proclaimed on public +occasions that they were perfectly ready to engage in civil war on +behalf of their political opinions, were allowed the benefit of the Act +on the ground that they did not approve of this particular war. For the +Christians there was no mercy. In cases where the evidence as to their +being killed by ill treatment was so unequivocal that the verdict +would certainly have been one of wilful murder had the prejudice of +the coroner's jury been on the other side, their tormentors were +gratuitously declared to be blameless. There was only one virtue, +pugnacity: only one vice, pacifism. That is an essential condition of +war; but the Government had not the courage to legislate accordingly; +and its law was set aside for Lynch law. + +The climax of legal lawlessness was reached in France. The greatest +Socialist statesman in Europe, Jaures, was shot and killed by a +gentleman who resented his efforts to avert the war. M. Clemenceau was +shot by another gentleman of less popular opinions, and happily came off +no worse than having to spend a precautionary couple of days in bed. +The slayer of Jaures was recklessly acquitted: the would-be slayer of M. +Clemenceau was carefully found guilty. There is no reason to doubt that +the same thing would have happened in England if the war had begun +with a successful attempt to assassinate Keir Hardie, and ended with an +unsuccessful one to assassinate Mr Lloyd George. + + + +The Long Arm of War + +The pestilence which is the usual accompaniment of war was called +influenza. Whether it was really a war pestilence or not was made +doubtful by the fact that it did its worst in places remote from the +battlefields, notably on the west coast of North America and in India. +But the moral pestilence, which was unquestionably a war pestilence, +reproduced this phenomenon. One would have supposed that the war fever +would have raged most furiously in the countries actually under fire, +and that the others would be more reasonable. Belgium and Flanders, +where over large districts literally not one stone was left upon another +as the opposed armies drove each other back and forward over it +after terrific preliminary bombardments, might have been pardoned for +relieving their feelings more emphatically than by shrugging their +shoulders and saying, "C'est la guerre." England, inviolate for so many +centuries that the swoop of war on her homesteads had long ceased to be +more credible than a return of the Flood, could hardly be expected +to keep her temper sweet when she knew at last what it was to hide in +cellars and underground railway stations, or lie quaking in bed, whilst +bombs crashed, houses crumbled, and aircraft guns distributed shrapnel +on friend and foe alike until certain shop windows in London, formerly +full of fashionable hats, were filled with steel helmets. Slain and +mutilated women and children, and burnt and wrecked dwellings, excuse a +good deal of violent language, and produce a wrath on which many suns go +down before it is appeased. Yet it was in the United States of America +where nobody slept the worse for the war, that the war fever went +beyond all sense and reason. In European Courts there was vindictive +illegality: in American Courts there was raving lunacy. It is not for me +to chronicle the extravagances of an Ally: let some candid American do +that. I can only say that to us sitting in our gardens in England, +with the guns in France making themselves felt by a throb in the air as +unmistakeable as an audible sound, or with tightening hearts studying +the phases of the moon in London in their bearing on the chances whether +our houses would be standing or ourselves alive next morning, the +newspaper accounts of the sentences American Courts were passing on +young girls and old men alike for the expression of opinions which were +being uttered amid thundering applause before huge audiences in England, +and the more private records of the methods by which the American +War Loans were raised, were so amazing that they put the guns and the +possibilities of a raid clean out of our heads for the moment. + + + +The Rabid Watchdogs of Liberty + +Not content with these rancorous abuses of the existing law, the war +maniacs made a frantic rush to abolish all constitutional guarantees of +liberty and well-being. The ordinary law was superseded by Acts under +which newspapers were seized and their printing machinery destroyed by +simple police raids a la Russe, and persons arrested and shot without +any pretence of trial by jury or publicity of procedure or evidence. +Though it was urgently necessary that production should be increased +by the most scientific organization and economy of labor, and though no +fact was better established than that excessive duration and intensity +of toil reduces production heavily instead of increasing it, the factory +laws were suspended, and men and women recklessly over-worked until the +loss of their efficiency became too glaring to be ignored. Remonstrances +and warnings were met either with an accusation of pro-Germanism or the +formula, "Remember that we are at war now." I have said that men assumed +that war had reversed the order of nature, and that all was lost unless +we did the exact opposite of everything we had found necessary and +beneficial in peace. But the truth was worse than that. The war did not +change men's minds in any such impossible way. What really happened was +that the impact of physical death and destruction, the one reality that +every fool can understand, tore off the masks of education, art, science +and religion from our ignorance and barbarism, and left us glorying +grotesquely in the licence suddenly accorded to our vilest passions and +most abject terrors. Ever since Thucydides wrote his history, it has +been on record that when the angel of death sounds his trumpet the +pretences of civilization are blown from men's heads into the mud like +hats in a gust of wind. But when this scripture was fulfilled among us, +the shock was not the less appalling because a few students of Greek +history were not surprised by it. Indeed these students threw themselves +into the orgy as shamelessly as the illiterate. The Christian priest, +joining in the war dance without even throwing off his cassock first, +and the respectable school governor expelling the German professor with +insult and bodily violence, and declaring that no English child should +ever again be taught the language of Luther and Goethe, were kept +in countenance by the most impudent repudiations of every decency of +civilization and every lesson of political experience on the part of the +very persons who, as university professors, historians, philosophers, +and men of science, were the accredited custodians of culture. It was +crudely natural, and perhaps necessary for recruiting purposes, that +German militarism and German dynastic ambition should be painted by +journalists and recruiters in black and red as European dangers (as in +fact they are), leaving it to be inferred that our own militarism and +our own political constitution are millennially democratic (which they +certainly are not); but when it came to frantic denunciations of +German chemistry, German biology, German poetry, German music, German +literature, German philosophy, and even German engineering, as malignant +abominations standing towards British and French chemistry and so forth +in the relation of heaven to hell, it was clear that the utterers of +such barbarous ravings had never really understood or cared for the +arts and sciences they professed and were profaning, and were only the +appallingly degenerate descendants of the men of the seventeenth and +eighteenth centuries who, recognizing no national frontiers in the great +realm of the human mind, kept the European comity of that realm loftily +and even ostentatiously above the rancors of the battle-field. Tearing +the Garter from the Kaiser's leg, striking the German dukes from the +roll of our peerage, changing the King's illustrious and historically +appropriate surname (for the war was the old war of Guelph against +Ghibelline, with the Kaiser as Arch-Ghibelline) to that of a +traditionless locality. One felt that the figure of St. George and the +Dragon on our coinage should be replaced by that of the soldier driving +his spear through Archimedes. But by that time there was no coinage: +only paper money in which ten shillings called itself a pound as +confidently as the people who were disgracing their country called +themselves patriots. + + + +The Sufferings of the Sane + +The mental distress of living amid the obscene din of all these +carmagnoles and corobberies was not the only burden that lay on sane +people during the war. There was also the emotional strain, complicated +by the offended economic sense, produced by the casualty lists. The +stupid, the selfish, the narrow-minded, the callous and unimaginative +were spared a great deal. "Blood and destruction shall be so in use that +mothers shall but smile when they behold their infantes quartered by the +hands of war," was a Shakespearean prophecy that very nearly came true; +for when nearly every house had a slaughtered son to mourn, we should +all have gone quite out of our senses if we had taken our own and our +friend's bereavements at their peace value. It became necessary to give +them a false value; to proclaim the young life worthily and gloriously +sacrificed to redeem the liberty of mankind, instead of to expiate the +heedlessness and folly of their fathers, and expiate it in vain. We +had even to assume that the parents and not the children had made the +sacrifice, until at last the comic papers were driven to satirize fat +old men, sitting comfortably in club chairs, and boasting of the sons +they had "given" to their country. + +No one grudged these anodynes to acute personal grief; but they only +embittered those who knew that the young men were having their teeth +set on edge because their parents had eaten sour political grapes. Then +think of the young men themselves! Many of them had no illusions about +the policy that led to the war: they went clear-sighted to a horribly +repugnant duty. Men essentially gentle and essentially wise, with really +valuable work in hand, laid it down voluntarily and spent months forming +fours in the barrack yard, and stabbing sacks of straw in the public +eye, so that they might go out to kill and maim men as gentle as +themselves. These men, who were perhaps, as a class, our most efficient +soldiers (Frederick Keeling, for example), were not duped for a moment +by the hypocritical melodrama that consoled and stimulated the others. +They left their creative work to drudge at destruction, exactly as they +would have left it to take their turn at the pumps in a sinking ship. +They did not, like some of the conscientious objectors, hold back +because the ship had been neglected by its officers and scuttled by +its wreckers. The ship had to be saved, even if Newton had to leave his +fluxions and Michael Angelo his marbles to save it; so they threw away +the tools of their beneficent and ennobling trades, and took up the +blood-stained bayonet and the murderous bomb, forcing themselves to +pervert their divine instinct for perfect artistic execution to the +effective handling of these diabolical things, and their economic +faculty for organization to the contriving of ruin and slaughter. For +it gave an ironic edge to their tragedy that the very talents they were +forced to prostitute made the prostitution not only effective, but +even interesting; so that some of them were rapidly promoted, and found +themselves actually becoming artists in wax, with a growing relish for +it, like Napoleon and all the other scourges of mankind, in spite of +themselves. For many of them there was not even this consolation. They +"stuck it," and hated it, to the end. + + + +Evil in the Throne of Good + +This distress of the gentle was so acute that those who shared it +in civil life, without having to shed blood with their own hands, or +witness destruction with their own eyes, hardly care to obtrude their +own woes. Nevertheless, even when sitting at home in safety, it was not +easy for those who had to write and speak about the war to throw +away their highest conscience, and deliberately work to a standard of +inevitable evil instead of to the ideal of life more abundant. I can +answer for at least one person who found the change from the wisdom of +Jesus and St. Francis to the morals of Richard III and the madness of +Don Quixote extremely irksome. But that change had to be made; and we +are all the worse for it, except those for whom it was not really a +change at all, but only a relief from hypocrisy. + +Think, too, of those who, though they had neither to write nor to fight, +and had no children of their own to lose, yet knew the inestimable +loss to the world of four years of the life of a generation wasted on +destruction. Hardly one of the epoch-making works of the human mind +might not have been aborted or destroyed by taking their authors +away from their natural work for four critical years. Not only were +Shakespeares and Platos being killed outright; but many of the best +harvests of the survivors had to be sown in the barren soil of the +trenches. And this was no mere British consideration. To the truly +civilized man, to the good European, the slaughter of the German youth +was as disastrous as the slaughter of the English. Fools exulted in +"German losses." They were our losses as well. Imagine exulting in the +death of Beethoven because Bill Sykes dealt him his death blow! + + + +Straining at the Gnat and swallowing the Camel + +But most people could not comprehend these sorrows. There was a +frivolous exultation in death for its own sake, which was at bottom +an inability to realize that the deaths were real deaths and not stage +ones. Again and again, when an air raider dropped a bomb which tore a +child and its mother limb from limb, the people who saw it, though they +had been reading with great cheerfulness of thousands of such happenings +day after day in their newspapers, suddenly burst into furious +imprecations on "the Huns" as murderers, and shrieked for savage and +satisfying vengeance. At such moments it became clear that the deaths +they had not seen meant no more to them than the mimic death of the +cinema screen. Sometimes it was not necessary that death should be +actually witnessed: it had only to take place under circumstances +of sufficient novelty and proximity to bring it home almost as +sensationally and effectively as if it had been actually visible. + +For example, in the spring of 1915 there was an appalling slaughter of +our young soldiers at Neuve Chapelle and at the Gallipoli landing. I +will not go so far as to say that our civilians were delighted to have +such exciting news to read at breakfast. But I cannot pretend that I +noticed either in the papers, or in general intercourse, any feeling +beyond the usual one that the cinema show at the front was going +splendidly, and that our boys were the bravest of the brave. Suddenly +there came the news that an Atlantic liner, the Lusitania, had been +torpedoed, and that several well-known first-class passengers, including +a famous theatrical manager and the author of a popular farce, had been +drowned, among others. The others included Sir Hugh Lane; but as he had +only laid the country under great obligations in the sphere of the fine +arts, no great stress was laid on that loss. Immediately an amazing +frenzy swept through the country. Men who up to that time had kept their +heads now lost them utterly. "Killing saloon passengers! What next?" was +the essence of the whole agitation; but it is far too trivial a phrase +to convey the faintest notion of the rage which possessed us. To me, +with my mind full of the hideous cost of Neuve Chapelle, Ypres, and +the Gallipoli landing, the fuss about the Lusitania seemed almost a +heartless impertinence, though I was well acquainted personally with +the three best-known victims, and understood, better perhaps than +most people, the misfortune of the death of Lane. I even found a grim +satisfaction, very intelligible to all soldiers, in the fact that the +civilians who found the war such splendid British sport should get a +sharp taste of what it was to the actual combatants. I expressed my +impatience very freely, and found that my very straightforward and +natural feeling in the matter was received as a monstrous and heartless +paradox. When I asked those who gaped at me whether they had anything +to say about the holocaust of Festubert, they gaped wider than before, +having totally forgotten it, or rather, having never realized it. They +were not heartless anymore than I was; but the big catastrophe was too +big for them to grasp, and the little one had been just the right size +for them. I was not surprised. Have I not seen a public body for just +the same reason pass a vote for L30,000 without a word, and then spend +three special meetings, prolonged into the night, over an item of seven +shillings for refreshments? + + + +Little Minds and Big Battles + +Nobody will be able to understand the vagaries of public feeling during +the war unless they bear constantly in mind that the war in its entire +magnitude did not exist for the average civilian. He could not conceive +even a battle, much less a campaign. To the suburbs the war was nothing +but a suburban squabble. To the miner and navvy it was only a series of +bayonet fights between German champions and English ones. The enormity +of it was quite beyond most of us. Its episodes had to be reduced to the +dimensions of a railway accident or a shipwreck before it could produce +any effect on our minds at all. To us the ridiculous bombardments of +Scarborough and Ramsgate were colossal tragedies, and the battle of +Jutland a mere ballad. The words "after thorough artillery preparation" +in the news from the front meant nothing to us; but when our seaside +trippers learned that an elderly gentleman at breakfast in a week-end +marine hotel had been interrupted by a bomb dropping into his egg-cup, +their wrath and horror knew no bounds. They declared that this would put +a new spirit into the army; and had no suspicion that the soldiers in +the trenches roared with laughter over it for days, and told each other +that it would do the blighters at home good to have a taste of what the +army was up against. Sometimes the smallness of view was pathetic. A man +would work at home regardless of the call "to make the world safe for +democracy." His brother would be killed at the front. Immediately he +would throw up his work and take up the war as a family blood feud +against the Germans. Sometimes it was comic. A wounded man, entitled to +his discharge, would return to the trenches with a grim determination to +find the Hun who had wounded him and pay him out for it. + +It is impossible to estimate what proportion of us, in khaki or out +of it, grasped the war and its political antecedents as a whole in the +light of any philosophy of history or knowledge of what war is. I doubt +whether it was as high as our proportion of higher mathematicians. +But there can be no doubt that it was prodigiously outnumbered by the +comparatively ignorant and childish. Remember that these people had to +be stimulated to make the sacrifices demanded by the war, and that this +could not be done by appeals to a knowledge which they did not possess, +and a comprehension of which they were incapable. When the armistice +at last set me free to tell the truth about the war at the following +general election, a soldier said to a candidate whom I was supporting, +"If I had known all that in 1914, they would never have got me into +khaki." And that, of course, was precisely why it had been necessary +to stuff him with a romance that any diplomatist would have laughed at. +Thus the natural confusion of ignorance was increased by a deliberately +propagated confusion of nursery bogey stories and melodramatic nonsense, +which at last overreached itself and made it impossible to stop the war +before we had not only achieved the triumph of vanquishing the German +army and thereby overthrowing its militarist monarchy, but made the very +serious mistake of ruining the centre of Europe, a thing that no sane +European State could afford to do. + + + +The Dumb Capables and the Noisy Incapables + +Confronted with this picture of insensate delusion and folly, the +critical reader will immediately counterplead that England all this time +was conducting a war which involved the organization of several +millions of fighting men and of the workers who were supplying them with +provisions, munitions, and transport, and that this could not have been +done by a mob of hysterical ranters. This is fortunately true. To pass +from the newspaper offices and political platforms and club fenders and +suburban drawing-rooms to the Army and the munition factories was to +pass from Bedlam to the busiest and sanest of workaday worlds. It was +to rediscover England, and find solid ground for the faith of those who +still believed in her. But a necessary condition of this efficiency +was that those who were efficient should give all their time to their +business and leave the rabble raving to its heart's content. Indeed the +raving was useful to the efficient, because, as it was always wide +of the mark, it often distracted attention very conveniently from +operations that would have been defeated or hindered by publicity. A +precept which I endeavored vainly to popularize early in the war, "If +you have anything to do go and do it: if not, for heaven's sake get out +of the way," was only half carried out. Certainly the capable people +went and did it; but the incapables would by no means get out of the +way: they fussed and bawled and were only prevented from getting very +seriously into the way by the blessed fact that they never knew where +the way was. Thus whilst all the efficiency of England was silent and +invisible, all its imbecility was deafening the heavens with its clamor +and blotting out the sun with its dust. It was also unfortunately +intimidating the Government by its blusterings into using the +irresistible powers of the State to intimidate the sensible people, thus +enabling a despicable minority of would-be lynchers to set up a reign of +terror which could at any time have been broken by a single stern word +from a responsible minister. But our ministers had not that sort of +courage: neither Heartbreak House nor Horseback Hall had bred it, much +less the suburbs. When matters at last came to the looting of shops by +criminals under patriotic pretexts, it was the police force and not the +Government that put its foot down. There was even one deplorable +moment, during the submarine scare, in which the Government yielded to a +childish cry for the maltreatment of naval prisoners of war, and, to our +great disgrace, was forced by the enemy to behave itself. And yet behind +all this public blundering and misconduct and futile mischief, the +effective England was carrying on with the most formidable capacity and +activity. The ostensible England was making the empire sick with its +incontinences, its ignorances, its ferocities, its panics, and its +endless and intolerable blarings of Allied national anthems in season +and out. The esoteric England was proceeding irresistibly to the +conquest of Europe. + + + +The Practical Business Men + +From the beginning the useless people set up a shriek for "practical +business men." By this they meant men who had become rich by placing +their personal interests before those of the country, and measuring the +success of every activity by the pecuniary profit it brought to them +and to those on whom they depended for their supplies of capital. The +pitiable failure of some conspicuous samples from the first batch we +tried of these poor devils helped to give the whole public side of the +war an air of monstrous and hopeless farce. They proved not only that +they were useless for public work, but that in a well-ordered nation +they would never have been allowed to control private enterprise. + + + +How the Fools shouted the Wise Men down + +Thus, like a fertile country flooded with mud, England showed no sign of +her greatness in the days when she was putting forth all her strength to +save herself from the worst consequences of her littleness. Most of +the men of action, occupied to the last hour of their time with urgent +practical work, had to leave to idler people, or to professional +rhetoricians, the presentation of the war to the reason and imagination +of the country and the world in speeches, poems, manifestoes, picture +posters, and newspaper articles. I have had the privilege of hearing +some of our ablest commanders talking about their work; and I have +shared the common lot of reading the accounts of that work given to the +world by the newspapers. No two experiences could be more different. But +in the end the talkers obtained a dangerous ascendancy over the rank and +file of the men of action; for though the great men of action are always +inveterate talkers and often very clever writers, and therefore cannot +have their minds formed for them by others, the average man of action, +like the average fighter with the bayonet, can give no account of +himself in words even to himself, and is apt to pick up and accept what +he reads about himself and other people in the papers, except when the +writer is rash enough to commit himself on technical points. It was not +uncommon during the war to hear a soldier, or a civilian engaged on war +work, describing events within his own experience that reduced to utter +absurdity the ravings and maunderings of his daily paper, and yet echo +the opinions of that paper like a parrot. Thus, to escape from the +prevailing confusion and folly, it was not enough to seek the company of +the ordinary man of action: one had to get into contact with the master +spirits. This was a privilege which only a handful of people could +enjoy. For the unprivileged citizen there was no escape. To him the +whole country seemed mad, futile, silly, incompetent, with no hope of +victory except the hope that the enemy might be just as mad. Only by +very resolute reflection and reasoning could he reassure himself that if +there was nothing more solid beneath their appalling appearances the +war could not possibly have gone on for a single day without a total +breakdown of its organization. + + + +The Mad Election + +Happy were the fools and the thoughtless men of action in those days. +The worst of it was that the fools were very strongly represented in +parliament, as fools not only elect fools, but can persuade men of +action to elect them too. The election that immediately followed the +armistice was perhaps the maddest that has ever taken place. Soldiers +who had done voluntary and heroic service in the field were defeated +by persons who had apparently never run a risk or spent a farthing that +they could avoid, and who even had in the course of the election to +apologize publicly for bawling Pacifist or Pro-German at their opponent. +Party leaders seek such followers, who can always be depended on to walk +tamely into the lobby at the party whip's orders, provided the leader +will make their seats safe for them by the process which was called, +in derisive reference to the war rationing system, "giving them the +coupon." Other incidents were so grotesque that I cannot mention them +without enabling the reader to identify the parties, which would not be +fair, as they were no more to blame than thousands of others who must +necessarily be nameless. The general result was patently absurd; and +the electorate, disgusted at its own work, instantly recoiled to the +opposite extreme, and cast out all the coupon candidates at the earliest +bye-elections by equally silly majorities. But the mischief of the +general election could not be undone; and the Government had not only to +pretend to abuse its European victory as it had promised, but actually +to do it by starving the enemies who had thrown down their arms. It had, +in short, won the election by pledging itself to be thriftlessly wicked, +cruel, and vindictive; and it did not find it as easy to escape from +this pledge as it had from nobler ones. The end, as I write, is not yet; +but it is clear that this thoughtless savagery will recoil on the +heads of the Allies so severely that we shall be forced by the sternest +necessity to take up our share of healing the Europe we have wounded +almost to death instead of attempting to complete her destruction. + + + +The Yahoo and the Angry Ape + +Contemplating this picture of a state of mankind so recent that no +denial of its truth is possible, one understands Shakespeare comparing +Man to an angry ape, Swift describing him as a Yahoo rebuked by the +superior virtue of the horse, and Wellington declaring that the British +can behave themselves neither in victory nor defeat. Yet none of the +three had seen war as we have seen it. Shakespeare blamed great men, +saying that "Could great men thunder as Jove himself does, Jove would +ne'er be quiet; for every pelting petty officer would use his heaven for +thunder: nothing but thunder." What would Shakespeare have said if he +had seen something far more destructive than thunder in the hand of +every village laborer, and found on the Messines Ridge the craters +of the nineteen volcanoes that were let loose there at the touch of a +finger that might have been a child's finger without the result being a +whit less ruinous? Shakespeare may have seen a Stratford cottage struck +by one of Jove's thunderbolts, and have helped to extinguish the lighted +thatch and clear away the bits of the broken chimney. What would he have +said if he had seen Ypres as it is now, or returned to Stratford, as +French peasants are returning to their homes to-day, to find the old +familiar signpost inscribed "To Stratford, 1 mile," and at the end of +the mile nothing but some holes in the ground and a fragment of a broken +churn here and there? Would not the spectacle of the angry ape endowed +with powers of destruction that Jove never pretended to, have beggared +even his command of words? + +And yet, what is there to say except that war puts a strain on human +nature that breaks down the better half of it, and makes the worse half +a diabolical virtue? Better, for us if it broke it down altogether, for +then the warlike way out of our difficulties would be barred to us, and +we should take greater care not to get into them. In truth, it is, as +Byron said, "not difficult to die," and enormously difficult to live: +that explains why, at bottom, peace is not only better than war, but +infinitely more arduous. Did any hero of the war face the glorious +risk of death more bravely than the traitor Bolo faced the ignominious +certainty of it? Bolo taught us all how to die: can we say that he +taught us all how to live? Hardly a week passes now without some soldier +who braved death in the field so recklessly that he was decorated or +specially commended for it, being haled before our magistrates for +having failed to resist the paltriest temptations of peace, with no +better excuse than the old one that "a man must live." Strange that one +who, sooner than do honest work, will sell his honor for a bottle of +wine, a visit to the theatre, and an hour with a strange woman, all +obtained by passing a worthless cheque, could yet stake his life on +the most desperate chances of the battle-field! Does it not seem as if, +after all, the glory of death were cheaper than the glory of life? If +it is not easier to attain, why do so many more men attain it? At all +events it is clear that the kingdom of the Prince of Peace has not yet +become the kingdom of this world. His attempts at invasion have been +resisted far more fiercely than the Kaiser's. Successful as that +resistance has been, it has piled up a sort of National Debt that is not +the less oppressive because we have no figures for it and do not intend +to pay it. A blockade that cuts off "the grace of our Lord" is in the +long run less bearable than the blockades which merely cut off raw +materials; and against that blockade our Armada is impotent. In the +blockader's house, he has assured us, there are many mansions; but I am +afraid they do not include either Heartbreak House or Horseback Hall. + + + +Plague on Both your Houses! + +Meanwhile the Bolshevist picks and petards are at work on the +foundations of both buildings; and though the Bolshevists may be buried +in the ruins, their deaths will not save the edifices. Unfortunately +they can be built again. Like Doubting Castle, they have been demolished +many times by successive Greathearts, and rebuilt by Simple, Sloth, and +Presumption, by Feeble Mind and Much Afraid, and by all the jurymen of +Vanity Fair. Another generation of "secondary education" at our ancient +public schools and the cheaper institutions that ape them will be quite +sufficient to keep the two going until the next war. For the instruction +of that generation I leave these pages as a record of what civilian +life was during the war: a matter on which history is usually silent. +Fortunately it was a very short war. It is true that the people who +thought it could not last more than six months were very signally +refuted by the event. As Sir Douglas Haig has pointed out, its Waterloos +lasted months instead of hours. But there would have been nothing +surprising in its lasting thirty years. If it had not been for the fact +that the blockade achieved the amazing feat of starving out Europe, +which it could not possibly have done had Europe been properly organized +for war, or even for peace, the war would have lasted until the +belligerents were so tired of it that they could no longer be compelled +to compel themselves to go on with it. Considering its magnitude, the +war of 1914-18 will certainly be classed as the shortest in history. The +end came so suddenly that the combatant literally stumbled over it; +and yet it came a full year later than it should have come if the +belligerents had not been far too afraid of one another to face the +situation sensibly. Germany, having failed to provide for the war she +began, failed again to surrender before she was dangerously exhausted. +Her opponents, equally improvident, went as much too close to bankruptcy +as Germany to starvation. It was a bluff at which both were bluffed. +And, with the usual irony of war, it remains doubtful whether Germany +and Russia, the defeated, will not be the gainers; for the victors are +already busy fastening on themselves the chains they have struck from +the limbs of the vanquished. + + + +How the Theatre fared + +Let us now contract our view rather violently from the European theatre +of war to the theatre in which the fights are sham fights, and the +slain, rising the moment the curtain has fallen, go comfortably home +to supper after washing off their rose-pink wounds. It is nearly twenty +years since I was last obliged to introduce a play in the form of a +book for lack of an opportunity of presenting it in its proper mode by a +performance in a theatre. The war has thrown me back on this expedient. +Heartbreak House has not yet reached the stage. I have withheld it +because the war has completely upset the economic conditions which +formerly enabled serious drama to pay its way in London. The change is +not in the theatres nor in the management of them, nor in the authors +and actors, but in the audiences. For four years the London theatres +were crowded every night with thousands of soldiers on leave from the +front. These soldiers were not seasoned London playgoers. A childish +experience of my own gave me a clue to their condition. When I was a +small boy I was taken to the opera. I did not then know what an opera +was, though I could whistle a good deal of opera music. I had seen in +my mother's album photographs of all the great opera singers, mostly +in evening dress. In the theatre I found myself before a gilded balcony +filled with persons in evening dress whom I took to be the opera +singers. I picked out one massive dark lady as Alboni, and wondered how +soon she would stand up and sing. I was puzzled by the fact that I was +made to sit with my back to the singers instead of facing them. When the +curtain went up, my astonishment and delight were unbounded. + + + +The Soldier at the Theatre Front + +In 1915, I saw in the theatres men in khaki in just the same +predicament. To everyone who had my clue to their state of mind it was +evident that they had never been in a theatre before and did not know +what it was. At one of our great variety theatres I sat beside a young +officer, not at all a rough specimen, who, even when the curtain +rose and enlightened him as to the place where he had to look for his +entertainment, found the dramatic part of it utterly incomprehensible. +He did not know how to play his part of the game. He could understand +the people on the stage singing and dancing and performing gymnastic +feats. He not only understood but intensely enjoyed an artist who +imitated cocks crowing and pigs squeaking. But the people who pretended +that they were somebody else, and that the painted picture behind +them was real, bewildered him. In his presence I realized how very +sophisticated the natural man has to become before the conventions +of the theatre can be easily acceptable, or the purpose of the drama +obvious to him. + +Well, from the moment when the routine of leave for our soldiers was +established, such novices, accompanied by damsels (called flappers) +often as innocent as themselves, crowded the theatres to the doors. It +was hardly possible at first to find stuff crude enough to nurse them +on. The best music-hall comedians ransacked their memories for the +oldest quips and the most childish antics to avoid carrying the military +spectators out of their depth. I believe that this was a mistake as far +as the novices were concerned. Shakespeare, or the dramatized histories +of George Barnwell, Maria Martin, or the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, +would probably have been quite popular with them. But the novices were +only a minority after all. The cultivated soldier, who in time of peace +would look at nothing theatrical except the most advanced postIbsen +plays in the most artistic settings, found himself, to his own +astonishment, thirsting for silly jokes, dances, and brainlessly +sensuous exhibitions of pretty girls. The author of some of the most +grimly serious plays of our time told me that after enduring the +trenches for months without a glimpse of the female of his species, it +gave him an entirely innocent but delightful pleasure merely to see +a flapper. The reaction from the battle-field produced a condition of +hyperaesthesia in which all the theatrical values were altered. Trivial +things gained intensity and stale things novelty. The actor, instead of +having to coax his audiences out of the boredom which had driven them to +the theatre in an ill humor to seek some sort of distraction, had only +to exploit the bliss of smiling men who were no longer under fire and +under military discipline, but actually clean and comfortable and in a +mood to be pleased with anything and everything that a bevy of pretty +girls and a funny man, or even a bevy of girls pretending to be pretty +and a man pretending to be funny, could do for them. + +Then could be seen every night in the theatres oldfashioned farcical +comedies, in which a bedroom, with four doors on each side and a +practicable window in the middle, was understood to resemble exactly the +bedroom in the flats beneath and above, all three inhabited by couples +consumed with jealousy. When these people came home drunk at night; +mistook their neighbor's flats for their own; and in due course got +into the wrong beds, it was not only the novices who found the resulting +complications and scandals exquisitely ingenious and amusing, nor their +equally verdant flappers who could not help squealing in a manner that +astonished the oldest performers when the gentleman who had just come in +drunk through the window pretended to undress, and allowed glimpses of +his naked person to be descried from time to time. + + + +Heartbreak House + +Men who had just read the news that Charles Wyndham was dying, and +were thereby sadly reminded of Pink Dominos and the torrent of farcical +comedies that followed it in his heyday until every trick of that trade +had become so stale that the laughter they provoked turned to loathing: +these veterans also, when they returned from the field, were as much +pleased by what they knew to be stale and foolish as the novices by what +they thought fresh and clever. + + + +Commerce in the Theatre + +Wellington said that an army moves on its belly. So does a London +theatre. Before a man acts he must eat. Before he performs plays he must +pay rent. In London we have no theatres for the welfare of the people: +they are all for the sole purpose of producing the utmost obtainable +rent for the proprietor. If the twin flats and twin beds produce a +guinea more than Shakespeare, out goes Shakespeare and in come the twin +flats and the twin beds. If the brainless bevy of pretty girls and the +funny man outbid Mozart, out goes Mozart. + + + +Unser Shakespeare + +Before the war an effort was made to remedy this by establishing a +national theatre in celebration of the tercentenary of the death of +Shakespeare. A committee was formed; and all sorts of illustrious and +influential persons lent their names to a grand appeal to our national +culture. My play, The Dark Lady of The Sonnets, was one of the incidents +of that appeal. After some years of effort the result was a single +handsome subscription from a German gentleman. Like the celebrated +swearer in the anecdote when the cart containing all his household goods +lost its tailboard at the top of the hill and let its contents roll +in ruin to the bottom, I can only say, "I cannot do justice to this +situation," and let it pass without another word. + + + +The Higher Drama put out of Action + +The effect of the war on the London theatres may now be imagined. The +beds and the bevies drove every higher form of art out of it. Rents +went up to an unprecedented figure. At the same time prices doubled +everywhere except at the theatre pay-boxes, and raised the expenses of +management to such a degree that unless the houses were quite full every +night, profit was impossible. Even bare solvency could not be attained +without a very wide popularity. Now what had made serious drama possible +to a limited extent before the war was that a play could pay its +way even if the theatre were only half full until Saturday and +three-quarters full then. A manager who was an enthusiast and a +desperately hard worker, with an occasional grant-in-aid from an +artistically disposed millionaire, and a due proportion of those rare +and happy accidents by which plays of the higher sort turn out to be +potboilers as well, could hold out for some years, by which time a relay +might arrive in the person of another enthusiast. Thus and not otherwise +occurred that remarkable revival of the British drama at the beginning +of the century which made my own career as a playwright possible in +England. In America I had already established myself, not as part of the +ordinary theatre system, but in association with the exceptional genius +of Richard Mansfield. In Germany and Austria I had no difficulty: the +system of publicly aided theatres there, Court and Municipal, kept drama +of the kind I dealt in alive; so that I was indebted to the Emperor of +Austria for magnificent productions of my works at a time when the sole +official attention paid me by the British Courts was the announcement +to the English-speaking world that certain plays of mine were unfit for +public performance, a substantial set-off against this being that the +British Court, in the course of its private playgoing, paid no regard to +the bad character given me by the chief officer of its household. + +Howbeit, the fact that my plays effected a lodgment on the London stage, +and were presently followed by the plays of Granville Barker, Gilbert +Murray, John Masefield, St. John Hankin, Lawrence Housman, Arnold +Bennett, John Galsworthy, John Drinkwater, and others which would in +the nineteenth century have stood rather less chance of production at a +London theatre than the Dialogues of Plato, not to mention revivals +of the ancient Athenian drama and a restoration to the stage of +Shakespeare's plays as he wrote them, was made economically possible +solely by a supply of theatres which could hold nearly twice as much +money as it cost to rent and maintain them. In such theatres work +appealing to a relatively small class of cultivated persons, and +therefore attracting only from half to three-quarters as many spectators +as the more popular pastimes, could nevertheless keep going in the hands +of young adventurers who were doing it for its own sake, and had not +yet been forced by advancing age and responsibilities to consider the +commercial value of their time and energy too closely. The war struck +this foundation away in the manner I have just described. The expenses +of running the cheapest west-end theatres rose to a sum which exceeded +by twenty-five per cent the utmost that the higher drama can, as an +ascertained matter of fact, be depended on to draw. Thus the higher +drama, which has never really been a commercially sound speculation, +now became an impossible one. Accordingly, attempts are being made to +provide a refuge for it in suburban theatres in London and repertory +theatres in the provinces. But at the moment when the army has at last +disgorged the survivors of the gallant band of dramatic pioneers whom +it swallowed, they find that the economic conditions which formerly +made their work no worse than precarious now put it out of the question +altogether, as far as the west end of London is concerned. + + + +Church and Theatre + +I do not suppose many people care particularly. We are not brought up to +care; and a sense of the national importance of the theatre is not +born in mankind: the natural man, like so many of the soldiers at the +beginning of the war, does not know what a theatre is. But please note +that all these soldiers who did not know what a theatre was, knew what +a church was. And they had been taught to respect churches. Nobody +had ever warned them against a church as a place where frivolous women +paraded in their best clothes; where stories of improper females like +Potiphar's wife, and erotic poetry like the Song of Songs, were +read aloud; where the sensuous and sentimental music of Schubert, +Mendelssohn, Gounod, and Brahms was more popular than severe music by +greater composers; where the prettiest sort of pretty pictures of +pretty saints assailed the imagination and senses through stained-glass +windows; and where sculpture and architecture came to the help of +painting. Nobody ever reminded them that these things had sometimes +produced such developments of erotic idolatry that men who were not only +enthusiastic amateurs of literature, painting, and music, but famous +practitioners of them, had actually exulted when mobs and even regular +troops under express command had mutilated church statues, smashed +church windows, wrecked church organs, and torn up the sheets from which +the church music was read and sung. When they saw broken statues in +churches, they were told that this was the work of wicked, godless +rioters, instead of, as it was, the work partly of zealots bent on +driving the world, the flesh, and the devil out of the temple, and +partly of insurgent men who had become intolerably poor because the +temple had become a den of thieves. But all the sins and perversions +that were so carefully hidden from them in the history of the Church +were laid on the shoulders of the Theatre: that stuffy, uncomfortable +place of penance in which we suffer so much inconvenience on the +slenderest chance of gaining a scrap of food for our starving souls. +When the Germans bombed the Cathedral of Rheims the world rang with +the horror of the sacrilege. When they bombed the Little Theatre in +the Adelphi, and narrowly missed bombing two writers of plays who lived +within a few yards of it, the fact was not even mentioned in the papers. +In point of appeal to the senses no theatre ever built could touch the +fane at Rheims: no actress could rival its Virgin in beauty, nor any +operatic tenor look otherwise than a fool beside its David. Its picture +glass was glorious even to those who had seen the glass of Chartres. +It was wonderful in its very grotesques: who would look at the Blondin +Donkey after seeing its leviathans? In spite of the Adam-Adelphian +decoration on which Miss Kingston had lavished so much taste and care, +the Little Theatre was in comparison with Rheims the gloomiest of little +conventicles: indeed the cathedral must, from the Puritan point of view, +have debauched a million voluptuaries for every one whom the Little +Theatre had sent home thoughtful to a chaste bed after Mr Chesterton's +Magic or Brieux's Les Avaries. Perhaps that is the real reason why +the Church is lauded and the Theatre reviled. Whether or no, the fact +remains that the lady to whose public spirit and sense of the national +value of the theatre I owed the first regular public performance of +a play of mine had to conceal her action as if it had been a crime, +whereas if she had given the money to the Church she would have worn +a halo for it. And I admit, as I have always done, that this state of +things may have been a very sensible one. I have asked Londoners again +and again why they pay half a guinea to go to a theatre when they can +go to St. Paul's or Westminster Abbey for nothing. Their only possible +reply is that they want to see something new and possibly something +wicked; but the theatres mostly disappoint both hopes. If ever a +revolution makes me Dictator, I shall establish a heavy charge for +admission to our churches. But everyone who pays at the church door +shall receive a ticket entitling him or her to free admission to one +performance at any theatre he or she prefers. Thus shall the sensuous +charms of the church service be made to subsidize the sterner virtue of +the drama. + + + +The Next Phase + +The present situation will not last. Although the newspaper I read at +breakfast this morning before writing these words contains a calculation +that no less than twenty-three wars are at present being waged to +confirm the peace, England is no longer in khaki; and a violent reaction +is setting in against the crude theatrical fare of the four terrible +years. Soon the rents of theatres will once more be fixed on the +assumption that they cannot always be full, nor even on the average half +full week in and week out. Prices will change. The higher drama will +be at no greater disadvantage than it was before the war; and it may +benefit, first, by the fact that many of us have been torn from the +fools' paradise in which the theatre formerly traded, and thrust upon +the sternest realities and necessities until we have lost both faith in +and patience with the theatrical pretences that had no root either in +reality or necessity; second, by the startling change made by the war +in the distribution of income. It seems only the other day that a +millionaire was a man with L50,000 a year. To-day, when he has paid his +income tax and super tax, and insured his life for the amount of his +death duties, he is lucky if his net income is 10,000 pounds though his +nominal property remains the same. And this is the result of a Budget +which is called "a respite for the rich." At the other end of the scale +millions of persons have had regular incomes for the first time in +their lives; and their men have been regularly clothed, fed, lodged, and +taught to make up their minds that certain things have to be done, also +for the first time in their lives. Hundreds of thousands of women have +been taken out of their domestic cages and tasted both discipline and +independence. The thoughtless and snobbish middle classes have been +pulled up short by the very unpleasant experience of being ruined to an +unprecedented extent. We have all had a tremendous jolt; and although +the widespread notion that the shock of the war would automatically make +a new heaven and a new earth, and that the dog would never go back to +his vomit nor the sow to her wallowing in the mire, is already seen to +be a delusion, yet we are far more conscious of our condition than we +were, and far less disposed to submit to it. Revolution, lately only +a sensational chapter in history or a demagogic claptrap, is now a +possibility so imminent that hardly by trying to suppress it in +other countries by arms and defamation, and calling the process +anti-Bolshevism, can our Government stave it off at home. + +Perhaps the most tragic figure of the day is the American President who +was once a historian. In those days it became his task to tell us how, +after that great war in America which was more clearly than any other +war of our time a war for an idea, the conquerors, confronted with a +heroic task of reconstruction, turned recreant, and spent fifteen years +in abusing their victory under cover of pretending to accomplish the +task they were doing what they could to make impossible. Alas! Hegel +was right when he said that we learn from history that men never learn +anything from history. With what anguish of mind the President sees that +we, the new conquerors, forgetting everything we professed to fight for, +are sitting down with watering mouths to a good square meal of ten years +revenge upon and humiliation of our prostrate foe, can only be guessed +by those who know, as he does, how hopeless is remonstrance, and how +happy Lincoln was in perishing from the earth before his inspired +messages became scraps of paper. He knows well that from the Peace +Conference will come, in spite of his utmost, no edict on which he will +be able, like Lincoln, to invoke "the considerate judgment of mankind: +and the gracious favor of Almighty God." He led his people to destroy +the militarism of Zabern; and the army they rescued is busy in Cologne +imprisoning every German who does not salute a British officer; whilst +the government at home, asked whether it approves, replies that it +does not propose even to discontinue this Zabernism when the Peace is +concluded, but in effect looks forward to making Germans salute British +officers until the end of the world. That is what war makes of men and +women. It will wear off; and the worst it threatens is already proving +impracticable; but before the humble and contrite heart ceases to be +despised, the President and I, being of the same age, will be dotards. +In the meantime there is, for him, another history to write; for me, +another comedy to stage. Perhaps, after all, that is what wars are for, +and what historians and playwrights are for. If men will not learn until +their lessons are written in blood, why, blood they must have, their own +for preference. + + + +The Ephemeral Thrones and the Eternal Theatre + +To the theatre it will not matter. Whatever Bastilles fall, the theatre +will stand. Apostolic Hapsburg has collapsed; All Highest Hohenzollern +languishes in Holland, threatened with trial on a capital charge of +fighting for his country against England; Imperial Romanoff, said to +have perished miserably by a more summary method of murder, is perhaps +alive or perhaps dead: nobody cares more than if he had been a peasant; +the lord of Hellas is level with his lackeys in republican Switzerland; +Prime Ministers and Commanders-in-Chief have passed from a brief glory +as Solons and Caesars into failure and obscurity as closely on one +another's heels as the descendants of Banquo; but Euripides and +Aristophanes, Shakespeare and Moliere, Goethe and Ibsen remain fixed in +their everlasting seats. + + + +How War muzzles the Dramatic Poet + +As for myself, why, it may be asked, did I not write two plays about +the war instead of two pamphlets on it? The answer is significant. You +cannot make war on war and on your neighbor at the same time. War cannot +bear the terrible castigation of comedy, the ruthless light of laughter +that glares on the stage. When men are heroically dying for their +country, it is not the time to show their lovers and wives and fathers +and mothers how they are being sacrificed to the blunders of +boobies, the cupidity of capitalists, the ambition of conquerors, the +electioneering of demagogues, the Pharisaism of patriots, the lusts and +lies and rancors and bloodthirsts that love war because it opens their +prison doors, and sets them in the thrones of power and popularity. For +unless these things are mercilessly exposed they will hide under the +mantle of the ideals on the stage just as they do in real life. + +And though there may be better things to reveal, it may not, and indeed +cannot, be militarily expedient to reveal them whilst the issue is still +in the balance. Truth telling is not compatible with the defence of +the realm. We are just now reading the revelations of our generals and +admirals, unmuzzled at last by the armistice. During the war, General A, +in his moving despatches from the field, told how General B had covered +himself with deathless glory in such and such a battle. He now tells us +that General B came within an ace of losing us the war by disobeying +his orders on that occasion, and fighting instead of running away as he +ought to have done. An excellent subject for comedy now that the war +is over, no doubt; but if General A had let this out at the time, what +would have been the effect on General B's soldiers? And had the stage +made known what the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for War +who overruled General A thought of him, and what he thought of them, as +now revealed in raging controversy, what would have been the effect on +the nation? That is why comedy, though sorely tempted, had to be loyally +silent; for the art of the dramatic poet knows no patriotism; recognizes +no obligation but truth to natural history; cares not whether Germany +or England perish; is ready to cry with Brynhild, "Lass'uns verderben, +lachend zu grunde geh'n" sooner than deceive or be deceived; and thus +becomes in time of war a greater military danger than poison, steel, or +trinitrotoluene. That is why I had to withhold Heartbreak House from +the footlights during the war; for the Germans might on any night have +turned the last act from play into earnest, and even then might not have +waited for their cues. + +June, 1919. + + + + +HEARTBREAK HOUSE + + + + +ACT I + +The hilly country in the middle of the north edge of Sussex, looking +very pleasant on a fine evening at the end of September, is seen through +the windows of a room which has been built so as to resemble the after +part of an old-fashioned high-pooped ship, with a stern gallery; for the +windows are ship built with heavy timbering, and run right across the +room as continuously as the stability of the wall allows. A row +of lockers under the windows provides an unupholstered windowseat +interrupted by twin glass doors, respectively halfway between the stern +post and the sides. Another door strains the illusion a little by being +apparently in the ship's port side, and yet leading, not to the open +sea, but to the entrance hall of the house. Between this door and the +stern gallery are bookshelves. There are electric light switches beside +the door leading to the hall and the glass doors in the stern gallery. +Against the starboard wall is a carpenter's bench. The vice has a board +in its jaws; and the floor is littered with shavings, overflowing from a +waste-paper basket. A couple of planes and a centrebit are on the bench. +In the same wall, between the bench and the windows, is a narrow doorway +with a half door, above which a glimpse of the room beyond shows that it +is a shelved pantry with bottles and kitchen crockery. + +On the starboard side, but close to the middle, is a plain oak +drawing-table with drawing-board, T-square, straightedges, set +squares, mathematical instruments, saucers of water color, a tumbler +of discolored water, Indian ink, pencils, and brushes on it. The +drawing-board is set so that the draughtsman's chair has the window on +its left hand. On the floor at the end of the table, on its right, is a +ship's fire bucket. On the port side of the room, near the bookshelves, +is a sofa with its back to the windows. It is a sturdy mahogany article, +oddly upholstered in sailcloth, including the bolster, with a couple of +blankets hanging over the back. Between the sofa and the drawing-table +is a big wicker chair, with broad arms and a low sloping back, with its +back to the light. A small but stout table of teak, with a round top +and gate legs, stands against the port wall between the door and the +bookcase. It is the only article in the room that suggests (not at all +convincingly) a woman's hand in the furnishing. The uncarpeted floor of +narrow boards is caulked and holystoned like a deck. + +The garden to which the glass doors lead dips to the south before the +landscape rises again to the hills. Emerging from the hollow is the +cupola of an observatory. Between the observatory and the house is a +flagstaff on a little esplanade, with a hammock on the east side and a +long garden seat on the west. + +A young lady, gloved and hatted, with a dust coat on, is sitting in the +window-seat with her body twisted to enable her to look out at the +view. One hand props her chin: the other hangs down with a volume of the +Temple Shakespeare in it, and her finger stuck in the page she has been +reading. + +A clock strikes six. + +The young lady turns and looks at her watch. She rises with an air of +one who waits, and is almost at the end of her patience. She is a pretty +girl, slender, fair, and intelligent looking, nicely but not expensively +dressed, evidently not a smart idler. + +With a sigh of weary resignation she comes to the draughtsman's chair; +sits down; and begins to read Shakespeare. Presently the book sinks to +her lap; her eyes close; and she dozes into a slumber. + +An elderly womanservant comes in from the hall with three unopened +bottles of rum on a tray. She passes through and disappears in the +pantry without noticing the young lady. She places the bottles on the +shelf and fills her tray with empty bottles. As she returns with these, +the young lady lets her book drop, awakening herself, and startling the +womanservant so that she all but lets the tray fall. + +THE WOMANSERVANT. God bless us! [The young lady picks up the book and +places it on the table]. Sorry to wake you, miss, I'm sure; but you are +a stranger to me. What might you be waiting here for now? + +THE YOUNG LADY. Waiting for somebody to show some signs of knowing that +I have been invited here. + +THE WOMANSERVANT. Oh, you're invited, are you? And has nobody come? +Dear! dear! + +THE YOUNG LADY. A wild-looking old gentleman came and looked in at +the window; and I heard him calling out, "Nurse, there is a young and +attractive female waiting in the poop. Go and see what she wants." Are +you the nurse? + +THE WOMANSERVANT. Yes, miss: I'm Nurse Guinness. That was old Captain +Shotover, Mrs Hushabye's father. I heard him roaring; but I thought it +was for something else. I suppose it was Mrs Hushabye that invited you, +ducky? + +THE YOUNG LADY. I understood her to do so. But really I think I'd better +go. + +NURSE GUINNESS. Oh, don't think of such a thing, miss. If Mrs Hushabye +has forgotten all about it, it will be a pleasant surprise for her to +see you, won't it? + +THE YOUNG LADY. It has been a very unpleasant surprise to me to find +that nobody expects me. + +NURSE GUINNESS. You'll get used to it, miss: this house is full of +surprises for them that don't know our ways. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [looking in from the hall suddenly: an ancient but +still hardy man with an immense white beard, in a reefer jacket with a +whistle hanging from his neck]. Nurse, there is a hold-all and a handbag +on the front steps for everybody to fall over. Also a tennis racquet. +Who the devil left them there? + +THE YOUNG LADY. They are mine, I'm afraid. + +THE CAPTAIN [advancing to the drawing-table]. Nurse, who is this +misguided and unfortunate young lady? + +NURSE GUINNESS. She says Miss Hessy invited her, sir. + +THE CAPTAIN. And had she no friend, no parents, to warn her against my +daughter's invitations? This is a pretty sort of house, by heavens! A +young and attractive lady is invited here. Her luggage is left on the +steps for hours; and she herself is deposited in the poop and abandoned, +tired and starving. This is our hospitality. These are our manners. No +room ready. No hot water. No welcoming hostess. Our visitor is to sleep +in the toolshed, and to wash in the duckpond. + +NURSE GUINNESS. Now it's all right, Captain: I'll get the lady some tea; +and her room shall be ready before she has finished it. [To the young +lady]. Take off your hat, ducky; and make yourself at home [she goes to +the door leading to the hall]. + +THE CAPTAIN [as she passes him]. Ducky! Do you suppose, woman, that +because this young lady has been insulted and neglected, you have the +right to address her as you address my wretched children, whom you +have brought up in ignorance of the commonest decencies of social +intercourse? + +NURSE GUINNESS. Never mind him, doty. [Quite unconcerned, she goes out +into the hall on her way to the kitchen]. + +THE CAPTAIN. Madam, will you favor me with your name? [He sits down in +the big wicker chair]. + +THE YOUNG LADY. My name is Ellie Dunn. + +THE CAPTAIN. Dunn! I had a boatswain whose name was Dunn. He was +originally a pirate in China. He set up as a ship's chandler with stores +which I have every reason to believe he stole from me. No doubt he +became rich. Are you his daughter? + +ELLIE [indignant]. No, certainly not. I am proud to be able to say that +though my father has not been a successful man, nobody has ever had one +word to say against him. I think my father is the best man I have ever +known. + +THE CAPTAIN. He must be greatly changed. Has he attained the seventh +degree of concentration? + +ELLIE. I don't understand. + +THE CAPTAIN. But how could he, with a daughter? I, madam, have two +daughters. One of them is Hesione Hushabye, who invited you here. I +keep this house: she upsets it. I desire to attain the seventh degree +of concentration: she invites visitors and leaves me to entertain them. +[Nurse Guinness returns with the tea-tray, which she places on the teak +table]. I have a second daughter who is, thank God, in a remote part of +the Empire with her numskull of a husband. As a child she thought the +figure-head of my ship, the Dauntless, the most beautiful thing +on earth. He resembled it. He had the same expression: wooden yet +enterprising. She married him, and will never set foot in this house +again. + +NURSE GUINNESS [carrying the table, with the tea-things on it, to +Ellie's side]. Indeed you never were more mistaken. She is in England +this very moment. You have been told three times this week that she is +coming home for a year for her health. And very glad you should be to +see your own daughter again after all these years. + +THE CAPTAIN. I am not glad. The natural term of the affection of the +human animal for its offspring is six years. My daughter Ariadne was +born when I was forty-six. I am now eighty-eight. If she comes, I am not +at home. If she wants anything, let her take it. If she asks for me, let +her be informed that I am extremely old, and have totally forgotten her. + +NURSE GUINNESS. That's no talk to offer to a young lady. Here, ducky, +have some tea; and don't listen to him [she pours out a cup of tea]. + +THE CAPTAIN [rising wrathfully]. Now before high heaven they have given +this innocent child Indian tea: the stuff they tan their own leather +insides with. [He seizes the cup and the tea-pot and empties both into +the leathern bucket]. + +ELLIE [almost in tears]. Oh, please! I am so tired. I should have been +glad of anything. + +NURSE GUINNESS. Oh, what a thing to do! The poor lamb is ready to drop. + +THE CAPTAIN. You shall have some of my tea. Do not touch that fly-blown +cake: nobody eats it here except the dogs. [He disappears into the +pantry]. + +NURSE GUINNESS. There's a man for you! They say he sold himself to the +devil in Zanzibar before he was a captain; and the older he grows the +more I believe them. + +A WOMAN'S VOICE [in the hall]. Is anyone at home? Hesione! Nurse! Papa! +Do come, somebody; and take in my luggage. + +Thumping heard, as of an umbrella, on the wainscot. + +NURSE GUINNESS. My gracious! It's Miss Addy, Lady Utterword, Mrs +Hushabye's sister: the one I told the captain about. [Calling]. Coming, +Miss, coming. + +She carries the table back to its place by the door and is harrying out +when she is intercepted by Lady Utterword, who bursts in much flustered. +Lady Utterword, a blonde, is very handsome, very well dressed, and so +precipitate in speech and action that the first impression (erroneous) +is one of comic silliness. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Oh, is that you, Nurse? How are you? You don't look a +day older. Is nobody at home? Where is Hesione? Doesn't she expect me? +Where are the servants? Whose luggage is that on the steps? Where's +papa? Is everybody asleep? [Seeing Ellie]. Oh! I beg your pardon. I +suppose you are one of my nieces. [Approaching her with outstretched +arms]. Come and kiss your aunt, darling. + +ELLIE. I'm only a visitor. It is my luggage on the steps. + +NURSE GUINNESS. I'll go get you some fresh tea, ducky. [She takes up the +tray]. + +ELLIE. But the old gentleman said he would make some himself. + +NURSE GUINNESS. Bless you! he's forgotten what he went for already. His +mind wanders from one thing to another. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Papa, I suppose? + +NURSE GUINNESS. Yes, Miss. + +LADY UTTERWORD [vehemently]. Don't be silly, Nurse. Don't call me Miss. + +NURSE GUINNESS [placidly]. No, lovey [she goes out with the tea-tray]. + +LADY UTTERWORD [sitting down with a flounce on the sofa]. I know what +you must feel. Oh, this house, this house! I come back to it after +twenty-three years; and it is just the same: the luggage lying on the +steps, the servants spoilt and impossible, nobody at home to receive +anybody, no regular meals, nobody ever hungry because they are always +gnawing bread and butter or munching apples, and, what is worse, the +same disorder in ideas, in talk, in feeling. When I was a child I was +used to it: I had never known anything better, though I was unhappy, and +longed all the time--oh, how I longed!--to be respectable, to be a lady, +to live as others did, not to have to think of everything for myself. +I married at nineteen to escape from it. My husband is Sir Hastings +Utterword, who has been governor of all the crown colonies in +succession. I have always been the mistress of Government House. I +have been so happy: I had forgotten that people could live like this. I +wanted to see my father, my sister, my nephews and nieces (one ought +to, you know), and I was looking forward to it. And now the state of +the house! the way I'm received! the casual impudence of that woman +Guinness, our old nurse! really Hesione might at least have been here: +some preparation might have been made for me. You must excuse my +going on in this way; but I am really very much hurt and annoyed and +disillusioned: and if I had realized it was to be like this, I wouldn't +have come. I have a great mind to go away without another word [she is +on the point of weeping]. + +ELLIE [also very miserable]. Nobody has been here to receive me either. +I thought I ought to go away too. But how can I, Lady Utterword? My +luggage is on the steps; and the station fly has gone. + +The captain emerges from the pantry with a tray of Chinese lacquer and +a very fine tea-set on it. He rests it provisionally on the end of the +table; snatches away the drawing-board, which he stands on the floor +against table legs; and puts the tray in the space thus cleared. Ellie +pours out a cup greedily. + +THE CAPTAIN. Your tea, young lady. What! another lady! I must fetch +another cup [he makes for the pantry]. + +LADY UTTERWORD [rising from the sofa, suffused with emotion]. Papa! +Don't you know me? I'm your daughter. + +THE CAPTAIN. Nonsense! my daughter's upstairs asleep. [He vanishes +through the half door]. + +Lady Utterword retires to the window to conceal her tears. + +ELLIE [going to her with the cup]. Don't be so distressed. Have this cup +of tea. He is very old and very strange: he has been just like that to +me. I know how dreadful it must be: my own father is all the world to +me. Oh, I'm sure he didn't mean it. + +The captain returns with another cup. + +THE CAPTAIN. Now we are complete. [He places it on the tray]. + +LADY UTTERWORD [hysterically]. Papa, you can't have forgotten me. I am +Ariadne. I'm little Paddy Patkins. Won't you kiss me? [She goes to him +and throws her arms round his neck]. + +THE CAPTAIN [woodenly enduring her embrace]. How can you be Ariadne? You +are a middle-aged woman: well preserved, madam, but no longer young. + +LADY UTTERWORD. But think of all the years and years I have been away, +Papa. I have had to grow old, like other people. + +THE CAPTAIN [disengaging himself]. You should grow out of kissing +strange men: they may be striving to attain the seventh degree of +concentration. + +LADY UTTERWORD. But I'm your daughter. You haven't seen me for years. + +THE CAPTAIN. So much the worse! When our relatives are at home, we have +to think of all their good points or it would be impossible to endure +them. But when they are away, we console ourselves for their absence +by dwelling on their vices. That is how I have come to think my absent +daughter Ariadne a perfect fiend; so do not try to ingratiate yourself +here by impersonating her [he walks firmly away to the other side of the +room]. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Ingratiating myself indeed! [With dignity]. Very +well, papa. [She sits down at the drawing-table and pours out tea for +herself]. + +THE CAPTAIN. I am neglecting my social duties. You remember Dunn? Billy +Dunn? + +LADY UTTERWORD. DO you mean that villainous sailor who robbed you? + +THE CAPTAIN [introducing Ellie]. His daughter. [He sits down on the +sofa]. + +ELLIE [protesting]. No-- + +Nurse Guinness returns with fresh tea. + +THE CAPTAIN. Take that hogwash away. Do you hear? + +NURSE. You've actually remembered about the tea! [To Ellie]. Oh, miss, +he didn't forget you after all! You HAVE made an impression. + +THE CAPTAIN [gloomily]. Youth! beauty! novelty! They are badly wanted in +this house. I am excessively old. Hesione is only moderately young. Her +children are not youthful. + +LADY UTTERWORD. How can children be expected to be youthful in this +house? Almost before we could speak we were filled with notions that +might have been all very well for pagan philosophers of fifty, but were +certainly quite unfit for respectable people of any age. + +NURSE. You were always for respectability, Miss Addy. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Nurse, will you please remember that I am Lady +Utterword, and not Miss Addy, nor lovey, nor darling, nor doty? Do you +hear? + +NURSE. Yes, ducky: all right. I'll tell them all they must call you My +Lady. [She takes her tray out with undisturbed placidity]. + +LADY UTTERWORD. What comfort? what sense is there in having servants +with no manners? + +ELLIE [rising and coming to the table to put down her empty cup]. Lady +Utterword, do you think Mrs Hushabye really expects me? + +LADY UTTERWORD. Oh, don't ask me. You can see for yourself that I've +just arrived; her only sister, after twenty-three years' absence! and it +seems that I am not expected. + +THE CAPTAIN. What does it matter whether the young lady is expected or +not? She is welcome. There are beds: there is food. I'll find a room for +her myself [he makes for the door]. + +ELLIE [following him to stop him]. Oh, please--[He goes out]. Lady +Utterword, I don't know what to do. Your father persists in believing +that my father is some sailor who robbed him. + +LADY UTTERWORD. You had better pretend not to notice it. My father is a +very clever man; but he always forgot things; and now that he is old, of +course he is worse. And I must warn you that it is sometimes very hard +to feel quite sure that he really forgets. + +Mrs Hushabye bursts into the room tempestuously and embraces Ellie. She +is a couple of years older than Lady Utterword, and even better looking. +She has magnificent black hair, eyes like the fishpools of Heshbon, and +a nobly modelled neck, short at the back and low between her shoulders +in front. Unlike her sister she is uncorseted and dressed anyhow in a +rich robe of black pile that shows off her white skin and statuesque +contour. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Ellie, my darling, my pettikins [kissing her], how long +have you been here? I've been at home all the time: I was putting +flowers and things in your room; and when I just sat down for a moment +to try how comfortable the armchair was I went off to sleep. Papa woke +me and told me you were here. Fancy your finding no one, and being +neglected and abandoned. [Kissing her again]. My poor love! [She +deposits Ellie on the sofa. Meanwhile Ariadne has left the table and +come over to claim her share of attention]. Oh! you've brought someone +with you. Introduce me. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Hesione, is it possible that you don't know me? + +MRS HUSHABYE [conventionally]. Of course I remember your face quite +well. Where have we met? + +LADY UTTERWORD. Didn't Papa tell you I was here? Oh! this is really too +much. [She throws herself sulkily into the big chair]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Papa! + +LADY UTTERWORD. Yes, Papa. Our papa, you unfeeling wretch! [Rising +angrily]. I'll go straight to a hotel. + +MRS HUSHABYE [seizing her by the shoulders]. My goodness gracious +goodness, you don't mean to say that you're Addy! + +LADY UTTERWORD. I certainly am Addy; and I don't think I can be so +changed that you would not have recognized me if you had any real +affection for me. And Papa didn't think me even worth mentioning! + +MRS HUSHABYE. What a lark! Sit down [she pushes her back into the chair +instead of kissing her, and posts herself behind it]. You DO look +a swell. You're much handsomer than you used to be. You've made the +acquaintance of Ellie, of course. She is going to marry a perfect hog +of a millionaire for the sake of her father, who is as poor as a church +mouse; and you must help me to stop her. + +ELLIE. Oh, please, Hesione! + +MRS HUSHABYE. My pettikins, the man's coming here today with your father +to begin persecuting you; and everybody will see the state of the case +in ten minutes; so what's the use of making a secret of it? + +ELLIE. He is not a hog, Hesione. You don't know how wonderfully good he +was to my father, and how deeply grateful I am to him. + +MRS HUSHABYE [to Lady Utterword]. Her father is a very remarkable man, +Addy. His name is Mazzini Dunn. Mazzini was a celebrity of some kind who +knew Ellie's grandparents. They were both poets, like the Brownings; and +when her father came into the world Mazzini said, "Another soldier born +for freedom!" So they christened him Mazzini; and he has been fighting +for freedom in his quiet way ever since. That's why he is so poor. + +ELLIE. I am proud of his poverty. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Of course you are, pettikins. Why not leave him in it, and +marry someone you love? + +LADY UTTERWORD [rising suddenly and explosively]. Hesione, are you going +to kiss me or are you not? + +MRS HUSHABYE. What do you want to be kissed for? + +LADY UTTERWORD. I DON'T want to be kissed; but I do want you to behave +properly and decently. We are sisters. We have been separated for +twenty-three years. You OUGHT to kiss me. + +MRS HUSHABYE. To-morrow morning, dear, before you make up. I hate the +smell of powder. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Oh! you unfeeling--[she is interrupted by the return of +the captain]. + +THE CAPTAIN [to Ellie]. Your room is ready. [Ellie rises]. The sheets +were damp; but I have changed them [he makes for the garden door on the +port side]. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Oh! What about my sheets? + +THE CAPTAIN [halting at the door]. Take my advice: air them: or take +them off and sleep in blankets. You shall sleep in Ariadne's old room. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Indeed I shall do nothing of the sort. That little hole! +I am entitled to the best spare room. + +THE CAPTAIN [continuing unmoved]. She married a numskull. She told me +she would marry anyone to get away from home. + +LADT UTTERWORD. You are pretending not to know me on purpose. I will +leave the house. + +Mazzini Dunn enters from the hall. He is a little elderly man with +bulging credulous eyes and earnest manners. He is dressed in a blue +serge jacket suit with an unbuttoned mackintosh over it, and carries a +soft black hat of clerical cut. + +ELLIE. At last! Captain Shotover, here is my father. + +THE CAPTAIN. This! Nonsense! not a bit like him [he goes away through +the garden, shutting the door sharply behind him]. + +LADY UTTERWORD. I will not be ignored and pretended to be somebody else. +I will have it out with Papa now, this instant. [To Mazzini]. Excuse me. +[She follows the captain out, making a hasty bow to Mazzini, who returns +it]. + +MRS HUSHABYE [hospitably shaking hands]. How good of you to come, Mr +Dunn! You don't mind Papa, do you? He is as mad as a hatter, you know, +but quite harmless and extremely clever. You will have some delightful +talks with him. + +MAZZINI. I hope so. [To Ellie]. So here you are, Ellie, dear. [He draws +her arm affectionately through his]. I must thank you, Mrs Hushabye, for +your kindness to my daughter. I'm afraid she would have had no holiday +if you had not invited her. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Not at all. Very nice of her to come and attract young +people to the house for us. + +MAZZINI [smiling]. I'm afraid Ellie is not interested in young men, Mrs +Hushabye. Her taste is on the graver, solider side. + +MRS HUSHABYE [with a sudden rather hard brightness in her manner]. Won't +you take off your overcoat, Mr Dunn? You will find a cupboard for coats +and hats and things in the corner of the hall. + +MAZZINI [hastily releasing Ellie]. Yes--thank you--I had better-- [he +goes out]. + +MRS HUSHABYE [emphatically]. The old brute! + +ELLIE. Who? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Who! Him. He. It [pointing after Mazzini]. "Graver, +solider tastes," indeed! + +ELLIE [aghast]. You don't mean that you were speaking like that of my +father! + +MRS HUSHABYE. I was. You know I was. + +ELLIE [with dignity]. I will leave your house at once. [She turns to the +door]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. If you attempt it, I'll tell your father why. + +ELLIE [turning again]. Oh! How can you treat a visitor like this, Mrs +Hushabye? + +MRS HUSHABYE. I thought you were going to call me Hesione. + +ELLIE. Certainly not now? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Very well: I'll tell your father. + +ELLIE [distressed]. Oh! + +MRS HUSHABYE. If you turn a hair--if you take his part against me and +against your own heart for a moment, I'll give that born soldier of +freedom a piece of my mind that will stand him on his selfish old head +for a week. + +ELLIE. Hesione! My father selfish! How little you know-- + +She is interrupted by Mazzini, who returns, excited and perspiring. + +MAZZINI. Ellie, Mangan has come: I thought you'd like to know. Excuse +me, Mrs Hushabye, the strange old gentleman-- + +MRS HUSHABYE. Papa. Quite so. + +MAZZINI. Oh, I beg your pardon, of course: I was a little confused by +his manner. He is making Mangan help him with something in the garden; +and he wants me too-- + +A powerful whistle is heard. + +THE CAPTAIN'S VOICE. Bosun ahoy! [the whistle is repeated]. + +MAZZINI [flustered]. Oh dear! I believe he is whistling for me. [He +hurries out]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Now MY father is a wonderful man if you like. + +ELLIE. Hesione, listen to me. You don't understand. My father and Mr +Mangan were boys together. Mr Ma-- + +MRS HUSHABYE. I don't care what they were: we must sit down if you are +going to begin as far back as that. [She snatches at Ellie's waist, and +makes her sit down on the sofa beside her]. Now, pettikins, tell me all +about Mr Mangan. They call him Boss Mangan, don't they? He is a Napoleon +of industry and disgustingly rich, isn't he? Why isn't your father rich? + +ELLIE. My poor father should never have been in business. His parents +were poets; and they gave him the noblest ideas; but they could not +afford to give him a profession. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Fancy your grandparents, with their eyes in fine frenzy +rolling! And so your poor father had to go into business. Hasn't he +succeeded in it? + +ELLIE. He always used to say he could succeed if he only had some +capital. He fought his way along, to keep a roof over our heads +and bring us up well; but it was always a struggle: always the same +difficulty of not having capital enough. I don't know how to describe it +to you. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Poor Ellie! I know. Pulling the devil by the tail. + +ELLIE [hurt]. Oh, no. Not like that. It was at least dignified. + +MRS HUSHABYE. That made it all the harder, didn't it? I shouldn't +have pulled the devil by the tail with dignity. I should have pulled +hard--[between her teeth] hard. Well? Go on. + +ELLIE. At last it seemed that all our troubles were at an end. Mr Mangan +did an extraordinarily noble thing out of pure friendship for my father +and respect for his character. He asked him how much capital he wanted, +and gave it to him. I don't mean that he lent it to him, or that he +invested it in his business. He just simply made him a present of it. +Wasn't that splendid of him? + +MRS HUSHABYE. On condition that you married him? + +ELLIE. Oh, no, no, no! This was when I was a child. He had never even +seen me: he never came to our house. It was absolutely disinterested. +Pure generosity. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Oh! I beg the gentleman's pardon. Well, what became of the +money? + +ELLIE. We all got new clothes and moved into another house. And I went +to another school for two years. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Only two years? + +ELLIE. That was all: for at the end of two years my father was utterly +ruined. + +MRS HUSHABYE. How? + +ELLIE. I don't know. I never could understand. But it was dreadful. When +we were poor my father had never been in debt. But when he launched out +into business on a large scale, he had to incur liabilities. When the +business went into liquidation he owed more money than Mr Mangan had +given him. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Bit off more than he could chew, I suppose. + +ELLIE. I think you are a little unfeeling about it. + +MRS HUSHABYE. My pettikins, you mustn't mind my way of talking. I was +quite as sensitive and particular as you once; but I have picked up +so much slang from the children that I am really hardly presentable. I +suppose your father had no head for business, and made a mess of it. + +ELLIE. Oh, that just shows how entirely you are mistaken about him. The +business turned out a great success. It now pays forty-four per cent +after deducting the excess profits tax. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Then why aren't you rolling in money? + +ELLIE. I don't know. It seems very unfair to me. You see, my father +was made bankrupt. It nearly broke his heart, because he had persuaded +several of his friends to put money into the business. He was sure it +would succeed; and events proved that he was quite right. But they all +lost their money. It was dreadful. I don't know what we should have done +but for Mr Mangan. + +MRS HUSHABYE. What! Did the Boss come to the rescue again, after all his +money being thrown away? + +ELLIE. He did indeed, and never uttered a reproach to my father. He +bought what was left of the business--the buildings and the machinery +and things--from the official trustee for enough money to enable my +father to pay six-and-eight-pence in the pound and get his discharge. +Everyone pitied Papa so much, and saw so plainly that he was an +honorable man, that they let him off at six-and-eight-pence instead +of ten shillings. Then Mr. Mangan started a company to take up the +business, and made my father a manager in it to save us from starvation; +for I wasn't earning anything then. + +MRS. HUSHABYE. Quite a romance. And when did the Boss develop the tender +passion? + +ELLIE. Oh, that was years after, quite lately. He took the chair one +night at a sort of people's concert. I was singing there. As an amateur, +you know: half a guinea for expenses and three songs with three encores. +He was so pleased with my singing that he asked might he walk home with +me. I never saw anyone so taken aback as he was when I took him home and +introduced him to my father, his own manager. It was then that my father +told me how nobly he had behaved. Of course it was considered a great +chance for me, as he is so rich. And--and--we drifted into a sort +of understanding--I suppose I should call it an engagement--[she is +distressed and cannot go on]. + +MRS HUSHABYE [rising and marching about]. You may have drifted into it; +but you will bounce out of it, my pettikins, if I am to have anything to +do with it. + +ELLIE [hopelessly]. No: it's no use. I am bound in honor and gratitude. +I will go through with it. + +MRS HUSHABYE [behind the sofa, scolding down at her]. You know, of +course, that it's not honorable or grateful to marry a man you don't +love. Do you love this Mangan man? + +ELLIE. Yes. At least-- + +MRS HUSHABYE. I don't want to know about "at least": I want to know +the worst. Girls of your age fall in love with all sorts of impossible +people, especially old people. + +ELLIE. I like Mr Mangan very much; and I shall always be-- + +MRS HUSHABYE [impatiently completing the sentence and prancing away +intolerantly to starboard]. --grateful to him for his kindness to dear +father. I know. Anybody else? + +ELLIE. What do you mean? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Anybody else? Are you in love with anybody else? + +ELLIE. Of course not. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Humph! [The book on the drawing-table catches her eye. She +picks it up, and evidently finds the title very unexpected. She looks at +Ellie, and asks, quaintly] Quite sure you're not in love with an actor? + +ELLIE. No, no. Why? What put such a thing into your head? + +MRS HUSHABYE. This is yours, isn't it? Why else should you be reading +Othello? + +ELLIE. My father taught me to love Shakespeare. + +MRS HUSHAYE [flinging the book down on the table]. Really! your father +does seem to be about the limit. + +ELLIE [naively]. Do you never read Shakespeare, Hesione? That seems to +me so extraordinary. I like Othello. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Do you, indeed? He was jealous, wasn't he? + +ELLIE. Oh, not that. I think all the part about jealousy is horrible. +But don't you think it must have been a wonderful experience for +Desdemona, brought up so quietly at home, to meet a man who had been +out in the world doing all sorts of brave things and having terrible +adventures, and yet finding something in her that made him love to sit +and talk with her and tell her about them? + +MRS HUSHABYE. That's your idea of romance, is it? + +ELLIE. Not romance, exactly. It might really happen. + +Ellie's eyes show that she is not arguing, but in a daydream. Mrs +Hushabye, watching her inquisitively, goes deliberately back to the sofa +and resumes her seat beside her. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Ellie darling, have you noticed that some of those stories +that Othello told Desdemona couldn't have happened--? + +ELLIE. Oh, no. Shakespeare thought they could have happened. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Hm! Desdemona thought they could have happened. But they +didn't. + +ELLIE. Why do you look so enigmatic about it? You are such a sphinx: I +never know what you mean. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Desdemona would have found him out if she had lived, you +know. I wonder was that why he strangled her! + +ELLIE. Othello was not telling lies. + +MRS HUSHABYE. How do you know? + +ELLIE. Shakespeare would have said if he was. Hesione, there are men who +have done wonderful things: men like Othello, only, of course, white, +and very handsome, and-- + +MRS HUSHABYE. Ah! Now we're coming to it. Tell me all about him. I knew +there must be somebody, or you'd never have been so miserable about +Mangan: you'd have thought it quite a lark to marry him. + +ELLIE [blushing vividly]. Hesione, you are dreadful. But I don't want to +make a secret of it, though of course I don't tell everybody. Besides, I +don't know him. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Don't know him! What does that mean? + +ELLIE. Well, of course I know him to speak to. + +MRS HUSHABYE. But you want to know him ever so much more intimately, eh? + +ELLIE. No, no: I know him quite--almost intimately. + +MRS HUSHABYE. You don't know him; and you know him almost intimately. +How lucid! + +ELLIE. I mean that he does not call on us. I--I got into conversation +with him by chance at a concert. + +MRS HUSHABYE. You seem to have rather a gay time at your concerts, +Ellie. + +ELLIE. Not at all: we talk to everyone in the greenroom waiting for our +turns. I thought he was one of the artists: he looked so splendid. But +he was only one of the committee. I happened to tell him that I was +copying a picture at the National Gallery. I make a little money that +way. I can't paint much; but as it's always the same picture I can do it +pretty quickly and get two or three pounds for it. It happened that he +came to the National Gallery one day. + +MRS HUSHABYE. One students' day. Paid sixpence to stumble about through +a crowd of easels, when he might have come in next day for nothing and +found the floor clear! Quite by accident? + +ELLIE [triumphantly]. No. On purpose. He liked talking to me. He knows +lots of the most splendid people. Fashionable women who are all in love +with him. But he ran away from them to see me at the National Gallery +and persuade me to come with him for a drive round Richmond Park in a +taxi. + +MRS HUSHABYE. My pettikins, you have been going it. It's wonderful what +you good girls can do without anyone saying a word. + +ELLIE. I am not in society, Hesione. If I didn't make acquaintances in +that way I shouldn't have any at all. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Well, no harm if you know how to take care of yourself. +May I ask his name? + +ELLIE [slowly and musically]. Marcus Darnley. + +MRS HUSHABYE [echoing the music]. Marcus Darnley! What a splendid name! + +ELLIE. Oh, I'm so glad you think so. I think so too; but I was afraid it +was only a silly fancy of my own. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Hm! Is he one of the Aberdeen Darnleys? + +ELLIE. Nobody knows. Just fancy! He was found in an antique chest-- + +MRS HUSHABYE. A what? + +ELLIE. An antique chest, one summer morning in a rose garden, after a +night of the most terrible thunderstorm. + +MRS HUSHABYE. What on earth was he doing in the chest? Did he get into +it because he was afraid of the lightning? + +ELLIE. Oh, no, no: he was a baby. The name Marcus Darnley was +embroidered on his baby clothes. And five hundred pounds in gold. + +MRS HUSHABYE [Looking hard at her]. Ellie! + +ELLIE. The garden of the Viscount-- + +MRS HUSHABYE. --de Rougemont? + +ELLIE [innocently]. No: de Larochejaquelin. A French family. A vicomte. +His life has been one long romance. A tiger-- + +MRS HUSHABYE. Slain by his own hand? + +ELLIE. Oh, no: nothing vulgar like that. He saved the life of the tiger +from a hunting party: one of King Edward's hunting parties in India. +The King was furious: that was why he never had his military services +properly recognized. But he doesn't care. He is a Socialist and despises +rank, and has been in three revolutions fighting on the barricades. + +MRS HUSHABYE. How can you sit there telling me such lies? You, Ellie, of +all people! And I thought you were a perfectly simple, straightforward, +good girl. + +ELLIE [rising, dignified but very angry]. Do you mean you don't believe +me? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Of course I don't believe you. You're inventing every word +of it. Do you take me for a fool? + +Ellie stares at her. Her candor is so obvious that Mrs Hushabye is +puzzled. + +ELLIE. Goodbye, Hesione. I'm very sorry. I see now that it sounds very +improbable as I tell it. But I can't stay if you think that way about +me. + +MRS HUSHABYE [catching her dress]. You shan't go. I couldn't be so +mistaken: I know too well what liars are like. Somebody has really told +you all this. + +ELLIE [flushing]. Hesione, don't say that you don't believe him. I +couldn't bear that. + +MRS HUSHABYE [soothing her]. Of course I believe him, dearest. But you +should have broken it to me by degrees. [Drawing her back to her seat]. +Now tell me all about him. Are you in love with him? + +ELLIE. Oh, no. I'm not so foolish. I don't fall in love with people. I'm +not so silly as you think. + +MRS HUSHABYE. I see. Only something to think about--to give some +interest and pleasure to life. + +ELLIE. Just so. That's all, really. + +MRS HUSHABYE. It makes the hours go fast, doesn't it? No tedious waiting +to go to sleep at nights and wondering whether you will have a bad +night. How delightful it makes waking up in the morning! How much better +than the happiest dream! All life transfigured! No more wishing one had +an interesting book to read, because life is so much happier than any +book! No desire but to be alone and not to have to talk to anyone: to be +alone and just think about it. + +ELLIE [embracing her]. Hesione, you are a witch. How do you know? Oh, +you are the most sympathetic woman in the world! + +MRS HUSHABYE [caressing her]. Pettikins, my pettikins, how I envy you! +and how I pity you! + +ELLIE. Pity me! Oh, why? + +A very handsome man of fifty, with mousquetaire moustaches, wearing +a rather dandified curly brimmed hat, and carrying an elaborate +walking-stick, comes into the room from the hall, and stops short at +sight of the women on the sofa. + +ELLIE [seeing him and rising in glad surprise]. Oh! Hesione: this is Mr +Marcus Darnley. + +MRS HUSHABYE [rising]. What a lark! He is my husband. + +ELLIE. But now--[she stops suddenly: then turns pale and sways]. + +MRS HUSHABYE [catching her and sitting down with her on the sofa]. +Steady, my pettikins. + +THE MAN [with a mixture of confusion and effrontery, depositing his +hat and stick on the teak table]. My real name, Miss Dunn, is Hector +Hushabye. I leave you to judge whether that is a name any sensitive man +would care to confess to. I never use it when I can possibly help it. I +have been away for nearly a month; and I had no idea you knew my wife, +or that you were coming here. I am none the less delighted to find you +in our little house. + +ELLIE [in great distress]. I don't know what to do. Please, may I speak +to papa? Do leave me. I can't bear it. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Be off, Hector. + +HECTOR. I-- + +MRS HUSHABYE. Quick, quick. Get out. + +HECTOR. If you think it better--[he goes out, taking his hat with him +but leaving the stick on the table]. + +MRS HUSHABYE [laying Ellie down at the end of the sofa]. Now, pettikins, +he is gone. There's nobody but me. You can let yourself go. Don't try to +control yourself. Have a good cry. + +ELLIE [raising her head]. Damn! + +MRS HUSHABYE. Splendid! Oh, what a relief! I thought you were going to +be broken-hearted. Never mind me. Damn him again. + +ELLIE. I am not damning him. I am damning myself for being such a fool. +[Rising]. How could I let myself be taken in so? [She begins prowling to +and fro, her bloom gone, looking curiously older and harder]. + +MRS HUSHABYE [cheerfully]. Why not, pettikins? Very few young women +can resist Hector. I couldn't when I was your age. He is really rather +splendid, you know. + +ELLIE [turning on her]. Splendid! Yes, splendid looking, of course. But +how can you love a liar? + +MRS HUSHABYE. I don't know. But you can, fortunately. Otherwise there +wouldn't be much love in the world. + +ELLIE. But to lie like that! To be a boaster! a coward! + +MRS HUSHABYE [rising in alarm]. Pettikins, none of that, if you please. +If you hint the slightest doubt of Hector's courage, he will go straight +off and do the most horribly dangerous things to convince himself +that he isn't a coward. He has a dreadful trick of getting out of one +third-floor window and coming in at another, just to test his nerve. He +has a whole drawerful of Albert Medals for saving people's lives. + +ELLIE. He never told me that. + +MRS HUSHABYE. He never boasts of anything he really did: he can't +bear it; and it makes him shy if anyone else does. All his stories are +made-up stories. + +ELLIE [coming to her]. Do you mean that he is really brave, and really +has adventures, and yet tells lies about things that he never did and +that never happened? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Yes, pettikins, I do. People don't have their virtues and +vices in sets: they have them anyhow: all mixed. + +ELLIE [staring at her thoughtfully]. There's something odd about this +house, Hesione, and even about you. I don't know why I'm talking to +you so calmly. I have a horrible fear that my heart is broken, but that +heartbreak is not like what I thought it must be. + +MRS HUSHABYE [fondling her]. It's only life educating you, pettikins. +How do you feel about Boss Mangan now? + +ELLIE [disengaging herself with an expression of distaste]. Oh, how can +you remind me of him, Hesione? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Sorry, dear. I think I hear Hector coming back. You don't +mind now, do you, dear? + +ELLIE. Not in the least. I am quite cured. + +Mazzini Dunn and Hector come in from the hall. + +HECTOR [as he opens the door and allows Mazzini to pass in]. One second +more, and she would have been a dead woman! + +MAZZINI. Dear! dear! what an escape! Ellie, my love, Mr Hushabye has +just been telling me the most extraordinary-- + +ELLIE. Yes, I've heard it [she crosses to the other side of the room]. + +HECTOR [following her]. Not this one: I'll tell it to you after dinner. +I think you'll like it. The truth is I made it up for you, and was +looking forward to the pleasure of telling it to you. But in a moment +of impatience at being turned out of the room, I threw it away on your +father. + +ELLIE [turning at bay with her back to the carpenter's bench, scornfully +self-possessed]. It was not thrown away. He believes it. I should not +have believed it. + +MAZZINI [benevolently]. Ellie is very naughty, Mr Hushabye. Of course +she does not really think that. [He goes to the bookshelves, and +inspects the titles of the volumes]. + +Boss Mangan comes in from the hall, followed by the captain. Mangan, +carefully frock-coated as for church or for a diHECTORs' meeting, is +about fifty-five, with a careworn, mistrustful expression, standing +a little on an entirely imaginary dignity, with a dull complexion, +straight, lustreless hair, and features so entirely commonplace that it +is impossible to describe them. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [to Mrs Hushabye, introducing the newcomer]. Says his +name is Mangan. Not able-bodied. + +MRS HUSHABYE [graciously]. How do you do, Mr Mangan? + +MANGAN [shaking hands]. Very pleased. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Dunn's lost his muscle, but recovered his nerve. Men +seldom do after three attacks of delirium tremens [he goes into the +pantry]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. I congratulate you, Mr Dunn. + +MAZZINI [dazed]. I am a lifelong teetotaler. + +MRS HUSHABYE. You will find it far less trouble to let papa have his own +way than try to explain. + +MAZZINI. But three attacks of delirium tremens, really! + +MRS HUSHABYE [to Mangan]. Do you know my husband, Mr Mangan [she +indicates Hector]. + +MANGAN [going to Hector, who meets him with outstretched hand]. Very +pleased. [Turning to Ellie]. I hope, Miss Ellie, you have not found the +journey down too fatiguing. [They shake hands]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Hector, show Mr Dunn his room. + +HECTOR. Certainly. Come along, Mr Dunn. [He takes Mazzini out]. + +ELLIE. You haven't shown me my room yet, Hesione. + +MRS HUSHABYE. How stupid of me! Come along. Make yourself quite at home, +Mr Mangan. Papa will entertain you. [She calls to the captain in the +pantry]. Papa, come and explain the house to Mr Mangan. + +She goes out with Ellie. The captain comes from the pantry. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You're going to marry Dunn's daughter. Don't. You're +too old. + +MANGAN [staggered]. Well! That's fairly blunt, Captain. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It's true. + +MANGAN. She doesn't think so. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. She does. + +MANGAN. Older men than I have-- + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [finishing the sentence for him].--made fools of +themselves. That, also, is true. + +MANGAN [asserting himself]. I don't see that this is any business of +yours. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It is everybody's business. The stars in their courses +are shaken when such things happen. + +MANGAN. I'm going to marry her all the same. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. How do you know? + +MANGAN [playing the strong man]. I intend to. I mean to. See? I never +made up my mind to do a thing yet that I didn't bring it off. That's the +sort of man I am; and there will be a better understanding between us +when you make up your mind to that, Captain. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You frequent picture palaces. + +MANGAN. Perhaps I do. Who told you? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Talk like a man, not like a movie. You mean that you +make a hundred thousand a year. + +MANGAN. I don't boast. But when I meet a man that makes a hundred +thousand a year, I take off my hat to that man, and stretch out my hand +to him and call him brother. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Then you also make a hundred thousand a year, hey? + +MANGAN. No. I can't say that. Fifty thousand, perhaps. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. His half brother only [he turns away from Mangan with +his usual abruptness, and collects the empty tea-cups on the Chinese +tray]. + +MANGAN [irritated]. See here, Captain Shotover. I don't quite understand +my position here. I came here on your daughter's invitation. Am I in her +house or in yours? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You are beneath the dome of heaven, in the house of +God. What is true within these walls is true outside them. Go out on the +seas; climb the mountains; wander through the valleys. She is still too +young. + +MANGAN [weakening]. But I'm very little over fifty. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You are still less under sixty. Boss Mangan, you will +not marry the pirate's child [he carries the tray away into the pantry]. + +MANGAN [following him to the half door]. What pirate's child? What are +you talking about? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [in the pantry]. Ellie Dunn. You will not marry her. + +MANGAN. Who will stop me? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [emerging]. My daughter [he makes for the door leading +to the hall]. + +MANGAN [following him]. Mrs Hushabye! Do you mean to say she brought me +down here to break it off? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [stopping and turning on him]. I know nothing more than +I have seen in her eye. She will break it off. Take my advice: marry +a West Indian negress: they make excellent wives. I was married to one +myself for two years. + +MANGAN. Well, I am damned! + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I thought so. I was, too, for many years. The negress +redeemed me. + +MANGAN [feebly]. This is queer. I ought to walk out of this house. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Why? + +MANGAN. Well, many men would be offended by your style of talking. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Nonsense! It's the other sort of talking that makes +quarrels. Nobody ever quarrels with me. + +A gentleman, whose first-rate tailoring and frictionless manners +proclaim the wellbred West Ender, comes in from the hall. He has an +engaging air of being young and unmarried, but on close inspection is +found to be at least over forty. + +THE GENTLEMAN. Excuse my intruding in this fashion, but there is no +knocker on the door and the bell does not seem to ring. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Why should there be a knocker? Why should the bell +ring? The door is open. + +THE GENTLEMAN. Precisely. So I ventured to come in. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Quite right. I will see about a room for you [he makes +for the door]. + +THE GENTLEMAN [stopping him]. But I'm afraid you don't know who I am. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. DO you suppose that at my age I make distinctions +between one fellow creature and another? [He goes out. Mangan and the +newcomer stare at one another]. + +MANGAN. Strange character, Captain Shotover, sir. + +THE GENTLEMAN. Very. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [shouting outside]. Hesione, another person has arrived +and wants a room. Man about town, well dressed, fifty. + +THE GENTLEMAN. Fancy Hesione's feelings! May I ask are you a member of +the family? + +MANGAN. No. + +THE GENTLEMAN. I am. At least a connection. + +Mrs Hushabye comes back. + +MRS HUSHABYE. How do you do? How good of you to come! + +THE GENTLEMAN. I am very glad indeed to make your acquaintance, Hesione. +[Instead of taking her hand he kisses her. At the same moment the +captain appears in the doorway]. You will excuse my kissing your +daughter, Captain, when I tell you that-- + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Stuff! Everyone kisses my daughter. Kiss her as much +as you like [he makes for the pantry]. + +THE GENTLEMAN. Thank you. One moment, Captain. [The captain halts and +turns. The gentleman goes to him affably]. Do you happen to remember but +probably you don't, as it occurred many years ago-- that your younger +daughter married a numskull? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Yes. She said she'd marry anybody to get away from +this house. I should not have recognized you: your head is no longer +like a walnut. Your aspect is softened. You have been boiled in bread +and milk for years and years, like other married men. Poor devil! [He +disappears into the pantry]. + +MRS HUSHABYE [going past Mangan to the gentleman and scrutinizing him]. +I don't believe you are Hastings Utterword. + +THE GENTLEMAN. I am not. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Then what business had you to kiss me? + +THE GENTLEMAN. I thought I would like to. The fact is, I am Randall +Utterword, the unworthy younger brother of Hastings. I was abroad +diplomatizing when he was married. + +LADY UTTERWORD [dashing in]. Hesione, where is the key of the wardrobe +in my room? My diamonds are in my dressing-bag: I must lock it +up--[recognizing the stranger with a shock] Randall, how dare you? [She +marches at him past Mrs Hushabye, who retreats and joins Mangan near the +sofa]. + +RANDALL. How dare I what? I am not doing anything. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Who told you I was here? + +RANDALL. Hastings. You had just left when I called on you at Claridge's; +so I followed you down here. You are looking extremely well. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Don't presume to tell me so. + +MRS HUSHABYE. What is wrong with Mr Randall, Addy? + +LADY UTTERWORD [recollecting herself]. Oh, nothing. But he has no right +to come bothering you and papa without being invited [she goes to the +window-seat and sits down, turning away from them ill-humoredly and +looking into the garden, where Hector and Ellie are now seen strolling +together]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. I think you have not met Mr Mangan, Addy. + +LADY UTTERWORD [turning her head and nodding coldly to Mangan]. I beg +your pardon. Randall, you have flustered me so: I make a perfect fool of +myself. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Lady Utterword. My sister. My younger sister. + +MANGAN [bowing]. Pleased to meet you, Lady Utterword. + +LADY UTTERWORD [with marked interest]. Who is that gentleman walking in +the garden with Miss Dunn? + +MRS HUSHABYE. I don't know. She quarrelled mortally with my husband only +ten minutes ago; and I didn't know anyone else had come. It must be a +visitor. [She goes to the window to look]. Oh, it is Hector. They've +made it up. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Your husband! That handsome man? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Well, why shouldn't my husband be a handsome man? + +RANDALL [joining them at the window]. One's husband never is, Ariadne +[he sits by Lady Utterword, on her right]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. One's sister's husband always is, Mr Randall. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Don't be vulgar, Randall. And you, Hesione, are just as +bad. + +Ellie and Hector come in from the garden by the starboard door. Randall +rises. Ellie retires into the corner near the pantry. Hector comes +forward; and Lady Utterword rises looking her very best. + +MRS. HUSHABYE. Hector, this is Addy. + +HECTOR [apparently surprised]. Not this lady. + +LADY UTTERWORD [smiling]. Why not? + +HECTOR [looking at her with a piercing glance of deep but respectful +admiration, his moustache bristling]. I thought-- [pulling himself +together]. I beg your pardon, Lady Utterword. I am extremely glad +to welcome you at last under our roof [he offers his hand with grave +courtesy]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. She wants to be kissed, Hector. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Hesione! [But she still smiles]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Call her Addy; and kiss her like a good brother-in-law; +and have done with it. [She leaves them to themselves]. + +HECTOR. Behave yourself, Hesione. Lady Utterword is entitled not only to +hospitality but to civilization. + +LADY UTTERWORD [gratefully]. Thank you, Hector. [They shake hands +cordially]. + +Mazzini Dunn is seen crossing the garden from starboard to port. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [coming from the pantry and addressing Ellie]. Your +father has washed himself. + +ELLIE [quite self-possessed]. He often does, Captain Shotover. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. A strange conversion! I saw him through the pantry +window. + +Mazzini Dunn enters through the port window door, newly washed and +brushed, and stops, smiling benevolently, between Mangan and Mrs +Hushabye. + +MRS HUSHABYE [introducing]. Mr Mazzini Dunn, Lady Ut--oh, I forgot: +you've met. [Indicating Ellie] Miss Dunn. + +MAZZINI [walking across the room to take Ellie's hand, and beaming at +his own naughty irony]. I have met Miss Dunn also. She is my daughter. +[He draws her arm through his caressingly]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Of course: how stupid! Mr Utterword, my sister's--er-- + +RANDALL [shaking hands agreeably]. Her brother-in-law, Mr Dunn. How do +you do? + +MRS HUSHABYE. This is my husband. + +HECTOR. We have met, dear. Don't introduce us any more. [He moves away +to the big chair, and adds] Won't you sit down, Lady Utterword? [She +does so very graciously]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Sorry. I hate it: it's like making people show their +tickets. + +MAZZINI [sententiously]. How little it tells us, after all! The great +question is, not who we are, but what we are. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Ha! What are you? + +MAZZINI [taken aback]. What am I? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. A thief, a pirate, and a murderer. + +MAZZINI. I assure you you are mistaken. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. An adventurous life; but what does it end in? +Respectability. A ladylike daughter. The language and appearance of a +city missionary. Let it be a warning to all of you [he goes out through +the garden]. + +DUNN. I hope nobody here believes that I am a thief, a pirate, or a +murderer. Mrs Hushabye, will you excuse me a moment? I must really go +and explain. [He follows the captain]. + +MRS HUSHABYE [as he goes]. It's no use. You'd really better-- [but Dunn +has vanished]. We had better all go out and look for some tea. We +never have regular tea; but you can always get some when you want: the +servants keep it stewing all day. The kitchen veranda is the best place +to ask. May I show you? [She goes to the starboard door]. + +RANDALL [going with her]. Thank you, I don't think I'll take any tea +this afternoon. But if you will show me the garden-- + +MRS HUSHABYE. There's nothing to see in the garden except papa's +observatory, and a gravel pit with a cave where he keeps dynamite and +things of that sort. However, it's pleasanter out of doors; so come +along. + +RANDALL. Dynamite! Isn't that rather risky? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Well, we don't sit in the gravel pit when there's a +thunderstorm. + +LADY UTTERORRD. That's something new. What is the dynamite for? + +HECTOR. To blow up the human race if it goes too far. He is trying to +discover a psychic ray that will explode all the explosive at the well +of a Mahatma. + +ELLIE. The captain's tea is delicious, Mr Utterword. + +MRS HUSHABYE [stopping in the doorway]. Do you mean to say that you've +had some of my father's tea? that you got round him before you were ten +minutes in the house? + +ELLIE. I did. + +MRS HUSHABYE. You little devil! [She goes out with Randall]. + +MANGAN. Won't you come, Miss Ellie? + +ELLIE. I'm too tired. I'll take a book up to my room and rest a little. +[She goes to the bookshelf]. + +MANGAN. Right. You can't do better. But I'm disappointed. [He follows +Randall and Mrs Hushabye]. + +Ellie, Hector, and Lady Utterword are left. Hector is close to Lady +Utterword. They look at Ellie, waiting for her to go. + +ELLIE [looking at the title of a book]. Do you like stories of +adventure, Lady Utterword? + +LADY UTTERWORD [patronizingly]. Of course, dear. + +ELLIE. Then I'll leave you to Mr Hushabye. [She goes out through the +hall]. + +HECTOR. That girl is mad about tales of adventure. The lies I have to +tell her! + +LADY UTTERWORD [not interested in Ellie]. When you saw me what did you +mean by saying that you thought, and then stopping short? What did you +think? + +HECTOR [folding his arms and looking down at her magnetically]. May I +tell you? + +LADY UTTERWORD. Of course. + +HECTOR. It will not sound very civil. I was on the point of saying, "I +thought you were a plain woman." + +LADY UTTERWORD. Oh, for shame, Hector! What right had you to notice +whether I am plain or not? + +HECTOR. Listen to me, Ariadne. Until today I have seen only photographs +of you; and no photograph can give the strange fascination of the +daughters of that supernatural old man. There is some damnable quality +in them that destroys men's moral sense, and carries them beyond honor +and dishonor. You know that, don't you? + +LADY UTTERWORD. Perhaps I do, Hector. But let me warn you once for all +that I am a rigidly conventional woman. You may think because I'm a +Shotover that I'm a Bohemian, because we are all so horribly Bohemian. +But I'm not. I hate and loathe Bohemianism. No child brought up in a +strict Puritan household ever suffered from Puritanism as I suffered +from our Bohemianism. + +HECTOR. Our children are like that. They spend their holidays in the +houses of their respectable schoolfellows. + +LADY UTTERWORD. I shall invite them for Christmas. + +HECTOR. Their absence leaves us both without our natural chaperones. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Children are certainly very inconvenient sometimes. But +intelligent people can always manage, unless they are Bohemians. + +HECTOR. You are no Bohemian; but you are no Puritan either: your +attraction is alive and powerful. What sort of woman do you count +yourself? + +LADY UTTERWORD. I am a woman of the world, Hector; and I can assure +you that if you will only take the trouble always to do the perfectly +correct thing, and to say the perfectly correct thing, you can do just +what you like. An ill-conducted, careless woman gets simply no chance. +An ill-conducted, careless man is never allowed within arm's length of +any woman worth knowing. + +HECTOR. I see. You are neither a Bohemian woman nor a Puritan woman. You +are a dangerous woman. + +LADY UTTERWORD. On the contrary, I am a safe woman. + +HECTOR. You are a most accursedly attractive woman. Mind, I am not +making love to you. I do not like being attracted. But you had better +know how I feel if you are going to stay here. + +LADY UTTERWORD. You are an exceedingly clever lady-killer, Hector. And +terribly handsome. I am quite a good player, myself, at that game. Is it +quite understood that we are only playing? + +HECTOR. Quite. I am deliberately playing the fool, out of sheer +worthlessness. + +LADY UTTERWORD [rising brightly]. Well, you are my brother-in-law, +Hesione asked you to kiss me. [He seizes her in his arms and kisses her +strenuously]. Oh! that was a little more than play, brother-in-law. [She +pushes him suddenly away]. You shall not do that again. + +HECTOR. In effect, you got your claws deeper into me than I intended. + +MRS HUBHABYE [coming in from the garden]. Don't let me disturb you; I +only want a cap to put on daddiest. The sun is setting; and he'll catch +cold [she makes for the door leading to the hall]. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Your husband is quite charming, darling. He has actually +condescended to kiss me at last. I shall go into the garden: it's cooler +now [she goes out by the port door]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Take care, dear child. I don't believe any man can kiss +Addy without falling in love with her. [She goes into the hall]. + +HECTOR [striking himself on the chest]. Fool! Goat! + +Mrs Hushabye comes back with the captain's cap. + +HECTOR. Your sister is an extremely enterprising old girl. Where's Miss +Dunn! + +MRS HUSHABYE. Mangan says she has gone up to her room for a nap. Addy +won't let you talk to Ellie: she has marked you for her own. + +HECTOR. She has the diabolical family fascination. I began making love +to her automatically. What am I to do? I can't fall in love; and I can't +hurt a woman's feelings by telling her so when she falls in love with +me. And as women are always falling in love with my moustache I get +landed in all sorts of tedious and terrifying flirtations in which I'm +not a bit in earnest. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, neither is Addy. She has never been in love in her +life, though she has always been trying to fall in head over ears. She +is worse than you, because you had one real go at least, with me. + +HECTOR. That was a confounded madness. I can't believe that such an +amazing experience is common. It has left its mark on me. I believe that +is why I have never been able to repeat it. + +MRS HUSHABYE [laughing and caressing his arm]. We were frightfully in +love with one another, Hector. It was such an enchanting dream that I +have never been able to grudge it to you or anyone else since. I have +invited all sorts of pretty women to the house on the chance of giving +you another turn. But it has never come off. + +HECTOR. I don't know that I want it to come off. It was damned +dangerous. You fascinated me; but I loved you; so it was heaven. This +sister of yours fascinates me; but I hate her; so it is hell. I shall +kill her if she persists. + +MRS. HUSHABYE. Nothing will kill Addy; she is as strong as a horse. +[Releasing him]. Now I am going off to fascinate somebody. + +HECTOR. The Foreign Office toff? Randall? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Goodness gracious, no! Why should I fascinate him? + +HECTOR. I presume you don't mean the bloated capitalist, Mangan? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Hm! I think he had better be fascinated by me than by +Ellie. [She is going into the garden when the captain comes in from it +with some sticks in his hand]. What have you got there, daddiest? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Dynamite. + +MRS HUSHABYE. You've been to the gravel pit. Don't drop it about the +house, there's a dear. [She goes into the garden, where the evening +light is now very red]. + +HECTOR. Listen, O sage. How long dare you concentrate on a feeling +without risking having it fixed in your consciousness all the rest of +your life? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Ninety minutes. An hour and a half. [He goes into the +pantry]. + +Hector, left alone, contracts his brows, and falls into a day-dream. He +does not move for some time. Then he folds his arms. Then, throwing his +hands behind him, and gripping one with the other, he strides tragically +once to and fro. Suddenly he snatches his walking stick from the teak +table, and draws it; for it is a swordstick. He fights a desperate +duel with an imaginary antagonist, and after many vicissitudes runs him +through the body up to the hilt. He sheathes his sword and throws it on +the sofa, falling into another reverie as he does so. He looks straight +into the eyes of an imaginary woman; seizes her by the arms; and says +in a deep and thrilling tone, "Do you love me!" The captain comes out +of the pantry at this moment; and Hector, caught with his arms stretched +out and his fists clenched, has to account for his attitude by going +through a series of gymnastic exercises. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. That sort of strength is no good. You will never be as +strong as a gorilla. + +HECTOR. What is the dynamite for? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. To kill fellows like Mangan. + +HECTOR. No use. They will always be able to buy more dynamite than you. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I will make a dynamite that he cannot explode. + +HECTOR. And that you can, eh? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Yes: when I have attained the seventh degree of +concentration. + +HECTOR. What's the use of that? You never do attain it. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What then is to be done? Are we to be kept forever in +the mud by these hogs to whom the universe is nothing but a machine for +greasing their bristles and filling their snouts? + +HECTOR. Are Mangan's bristles worse than Randall's lovelocks? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER,. We must win powers of life and death over them both. +I refuse to die until I have invented the means. + +HECTOR. Who are we that we should judge them? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What are they that they should judge us? Yet they do, +unhesitatingly. There is enmity between our seed and their seed. They +know it and act on it, strangling our souls. They believe in themselves. +When we believe in ourselves, we shall kill them. + +HECTOR. It is the same seed. You forget that your pirate has a very nice +daughter. Mangan's son may be a Plato: Randall's a Shelley. What was my +father? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The damnedst scoundrel I ever met. [He replaces the +drawing-board; sits down at the table; and begins to mix a wash of +color]. + +HECTOR. Precisely. Well, dare you kill his innocent grandchildren? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. They are mine also. + +HECTOR. Just so--we are members one of another. [He throws himself +carelessly on the sofa]. I tell you I have often thought of this killing +of human vermin. Many men have thought of it. Decent men are like Daniel +in the lion's den: their survival is a miracle; and they do not always +survive. We live among the Mangans and Randalls and Billie Dunns as +they, poor devils, live among the disease germs and the doctors and the +lawyers and the parsons and the restaurant chefs and the tradesmen and +the servants and all the rest of the parasites and blackmailers. What +are our terrors to theirs? Give me the power to kill them; and I'll +spare them in sheer-- + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [cutting in sharply]. Fellow feeling? + +HECTOR. No. I should kill myself if I believed that. I must believe that +my spark, small as it is, is divine, and that the red light over their +door is hell fire. I should spare them in simple magnanimous pity. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You can't spare them until you have the power to kill +them. At present they have the power to kill you. There are millions +of blacks over the water for them to train and let loose on us. They're +going to do it. They're doing it already. + +HECTOR. They are too stupid to use their power. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [throwing down his brush and coming to the end of the +sofa]. Do not deceive yourself: they do use it. We kill the better half +of ourselves every day to propitiate them. The knowledge that these +people are there to render all our aspirations barren prevents us having +the aspirations. And when we are tempted to seek their destruction they +bring forth demons to delude us, disguised as pretty daughters, and +singers and poets and the like, for whose sake we spare them. + +HECTOR [sitting up and leaning towards him]. May not Hesione be such a +demon, brought forth by you lest I should slay you? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. That is possible. She has used you up, and left you +nothing but dreams, as some women do. + +HECTOR. Vampire women, demon women. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Men think the world well lost for them, and lose it +accordingly. Who are the men that do things? The husbands of the shrew +and of the drunkard, the men with the thorn in the flesh. [Walking +distractedly away towards the pantry]. I must think these things out. +[Turning suddenly]. But I go on with the dynamite none the less. I will +discover a ray mightier than any X-ray: a mind ray that will explode the +ammunition in the belt of my adversary before he can point his gun at +me. And I must hurry. I am old: I have no time to waste in talk [he is +about to go into the pantry, and Hector is making for the hall, when +Hesione comes back]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Daddiest, you and Hector must come and help me to +entertain all these people. What on earth were you shouting about? + +HECTOR [stopping in the act of turning the door handle]. He is madder +than usual. + +MRS HUSHABYE. We all are. + +HECTOR. I must change [he resumes his door opening]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Stop, stop. Come back, both of you. Come back. [They +return, reluctantly]. Money is running short. + +HECTOR. Money! Where are my April dividends? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Where is the snow that fell last year? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Where is all the money you had for that patent +lifeboat I invented? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Five hundred pounds; and I have made it last since Easter! + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Since Easter! Barely four months! Monstrous +extravagance! I could live for seven years on 500 pounds. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Not keeping open house as we do here, daddiest. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Only 500 pounds for that lifeboat! I got twelve +thousand for the invention before that. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Yes, dear; but that was for the ship with the magnetic +keel that sucked up submarines. Living at the rate we do, you cannot +afford life-saving inventions. Can't you think of something that will +murder half Europe at one bang? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No. I am ageing fast. My mind does not dwell on +slaughter as it did when I was a boy. Why doesn't your husband invent +something? He does nothing but tell lies to women. + +HECTOR. Well, that is a form of invention, is it not? However, you are +right: I ought to support my wife. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Indeed you shall do nothing of the sort: I should never +see you from breakfast to dinner. I want my husband. + +HECTOR [bitterly]. I might as well be your lapdog. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Do you want to be my breadwinner, like the other poor +husbands? + +HECTOR. No, by thunder! What a damned creature a husband is anyhow! + +MRS HUSHABYE [to the captain]. What about that harpoon cannon? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No use. It kills whales, not men. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Why not? You fire the harpoon out of a cannon. It sticks +in the enemy's general; you wind him in; and there you are. + +HECTOR. You are your father's daughter, Hesione. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. There is something in it. Not to wind in generals: +they are not dangerous. But one could fire a grapnel and wind in a +machine gun or even a tank. I will think it out. + +MRS HUSHABYE [squeezing the captain's arm affectionately]. Saved! You +are a darling, daddiest. Now we must go back to these dreadful people +and entertain them. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. They have had no dinner. Don't forget that. + +HECTOR. Neither have I. And it is dark: it must be all hours. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, Guinness will produce some sort of dinner for them. +The servants always take jolly good care that there is food in the +house. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [raising a strange wail in the darkness]. What a house! +What a daughter! + +MRS HUSHABYE [raving]. What a father! + +HECTOR [following suit]. What a husband! + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Is there no thunder in heaven? + +HECTOR. Is there no beauty, no bravery, on earth? + +MRS HUSHABYE. What do men want? They have their food, their firesides, +their clothes mended, and our love at the end of the day. Why are they +not satisfied? Why do they envy us the pain with which we bring them +into the world, and make strange dangers and torments for themselves to +be even with us? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [weirdly chanting]. + + I builded a house for my daughters, and opened the doors + thereof, + That men might come for their choosing, and their betters + spring from their love; + But one of them married a numskull; + +HECTOR [taking up the rhythm]. + + The other a liar wed; + +MRS HUSHABYE [completing the stanza]. + + And now must she lie beside him, even as she made her bed. + +LADY UTTERWORD [calling from the garden]. Hesione! Hesione! Where are +you? + +HECTOR. The cat is on the tiles. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Coming, darling, coming [she goes quickly into the +garden]. + +The captain goes back to his place at the table. + +HECTOR [going out into the hall]. Shall I turn up the lights for you? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No. Give me deeper darkness. Money is not made in the +light. + + + + +ACT II + +The same room, with the lights turned up and the curtains drawn. Ellie +comes in, followed by Mangan. Both are dressed for dinner. She strolls +to the drawing-table. He comes between the table and the wicker chair. + +MANGAN. What a dinner! I don't call it a dinner: I call it a meal. + +ELLIE. I am accustomed to meals, Mr Mangan, and very lucky to get them. +Besides, the captain cooked some maccaroni for me. + +MANGAN [shuddering liverishly]. Too rich: I can't eat such things. I +suppose it's because I have to work so much with my brain. That's the +worst of being a man of business: you are always thinking, thinking, +thinking. By the way, now that we are alone, may I take the opportunity +to come to a little understanding with you? + +ELLIE [settling into the draughtsman's seat]. Certainly. I should like +to. + +MANGAN [taken aback]. Should you? That surprises me; for I thought I +noticed this afternoon that you avoided me all you could. Not for the +first time either. + +ELLIE. I was very tired and upset. I wasn't used to the ways of this +extraordinary house. Please forgive me. + +MANGAN. Oh, that's all right: I don't mind. But Captain Shotover has +been talking to me about you. You and me, you know. + +ELLIE [interested]. The captain! What did he say? + +MANGAN. Well, he noticed the difference between our ages. + +ELLIE. He notices everything. + +MANGAN. You don't mind, then? + +ELLIE. Of course I know quite well that our engagement-- + +MANGAN. Oh! you call it an engagement. + +ELLIE. Well, isn't it? + +MANGAN. Oh, yes, yes: no doubt it is if you hold to it. This is the +first time you've used the word; and I didn't quite know where we stood: +that's all. [He sits down in the wicker chair; and resigns himself to +allow her to lead the conversation]. You were saying--? + +ELLIE. Was I? I forget. Tell me. Do you like this part of the country? I +heard you ask Mr Hushabye at dinner whether there are any nice houses to +let down here. + +MANGAN. I like the place. The air suits me. I shouldn't be surprised if +I settled down here. + +ELLIE. Nothing would please me better. The air suits me too. And I want +to be near Hesione. + +MANGAN [with growing uneasiness]. The air may suit us; but the question +is, should we suit one another? Have you thought about that? + +ELLIE. Mr Mangan, we must be sensible, mustn't we? It's no use +pretending that we are Romeo and Juliet. But we can get on very well +together if we choose to make the best of it. Your kindness of heart +will make it easy for me. + +MANGAN [leaning forward, with the beginning of something like deliberate +unpleasantness in his voice]. Kindness of heart, eh? I ruined your +father, didn't I? + +ELLIE. Oh, not intentionally. + +MANGAN. Yes I did. Ruined him on purpose. + +ELLIE. On purpose! + +MANGAN. Not out of ill-nature, you know. And you'll admit that I kept a +job for him when I had finished with him. But business is business; and +I ruined him as a matter of business. + +ELLIE. I don't understand how that can be. Are you trying to make me +feel that I need not be grateful to you, so that I may choose freely? + +MANGAN [rising aggressively]. No. I mean what I say. + +ELLIE. But how could it possibly do you any good to ruin my father? The +money he lost was yours. + +MANGAN [with a sour laugh]. Was mine! It is mine, Miss Ellie, and all +the money the other fellows lost too. [He shoves his hands into his +pockets and shows his teeth]. I just smoked them out like a hive of +bees. What do you say to that? A bit of shock, eh? + +ELLIE. It would have been, this morning. Now! you can't think how little +it matters. But it's quite interesting. Only, you must explain it to me. +I don't understand it. [Propping her elbows on the drawingboard and her +chin on her hands, she composes herself to listen with a combination of +conscious curiosity with unconscious contempt which provokes him to more +and more unpleasantness, and an attempt at patronage of her ignorance]. + +MANGAN. Of course you don't understand: what do you know about business? +You just listen and learn. Your father's business was a new business; +and I don't start new businesses: I let other fellows start them. They +put all their money and their friends' money into starting them. They +wear out their souls and bodies trying to make a success of them. +They're what you call enthusiasts. But the first dead lift of the thing +is too much for them; and they haven't enough financial experience. In +a year or so they have either to let the whole show go bust, or sell out +to a new lot of fellows for a few deferred ordinary shares: that is, if +they're lucky enough to get anything at all. As likely as not the very +same thing happens to the new lot. They put in more money and a couple +of years' more work; and then perhaps they have to sell out to a third +lot. If it's really a big thing the third lot will have to sell out too, +and leave their work and their money behind them. And that's where the +real business man comes in: where I come in. But I'm cleverer than some: +I don't mind dropping a little money to start the process. I took your +father's measure. I saw that he had a sound idea, and that he would work +himself silly for it if he got the chance. I saw that he was a child +in business, and was dead certain to outrun his expenses and be in too +great a hurry to wait for his market. I knew that the surest way to +ruin a man who doesn't know how to handle money is to give him some. I +explained my idea to some friends in the city, and they found the money; +for I take no risks in ideas, even when they're my own. Your father and +the friends that ventured their money with him were no more to me than +a heap of squeezed lemons. You've been wasting your gratitude: my kind +heart is all rot. I'm sick of it. When I see your father beaming at +me with his moist, grateful eyes, regularly wallowing in gratitude, I +sometimes feel I must tell him the truth or burst. What stops me is that +I know he wouldn't believe me. He'd think it was my modesty, as you did +just now. He'd think anything rather than the truth, which is that he's +a blamed fool, and I am a man that knows how to take care of himself. +[He throws himself back into the big chair with large self approval]. +Now what do you think of me, Miss Ellie? + +ELLIE [dropping her hands]. How strange! that my mother, who knew +nothing at all about business, should have been quite right about you! +She always said not before papa, of course, but to us children--that you +were just that sort of man. + +MANGAN [sitting up, much hurt]. Oh! did she? And yet she'd have let you +marry me. + +ELLIE. Well, you see, Mr Mangan, my mother married a very good man--for +whatever you may think of my father as a man of business, he is the soul +of goodness--and she is not at all keen on my doing the same. + +MANGAN. Anyhow, you don't want to marry me now, do you? + +ELLIE. [very calmly]. Oh, I think so. Why not? + +MANGAN. [rising aghast]. Why not! + +ELLIE. I don't see why we shouldn't get on very well together. + +MANGAN. Well, but look here, you know--[he stops, quite at a loss]. + +ELLIE. [patiently]. Well? + +MANGAN. Well, I thought you were rather particular about people's +characters. + +ELLIE. If we women were particular about men's characters, we should +never get married at all, Mr Mangan. + +MANGAN. A child like you talking of "we women"! What next! You're not in +earnest? + +ELLIE. Yes, I am. Aren't you? + +MANGAN. You mean to hold me to it? + +ELLIE. Do you wish to back out of it? + +MANGAN. Oh, no. Not exactly back out of it. + +ELLIE. Well? + +He has nothing to say. With a long whispered whistle, he drops into +the wicker chair and stares before him like a beggared gambler. But a +cunning look soon comes into his face. He leans over towards her on his +right elbow, and speaks in a low steady voice. + +MANGAN. Suppose I told you I was in love with another woman! + +ELLIE [echoing him]. Suppose I told you I was in love with another man! + +MANGAN [bouncing angrily out of his chair]. I'm not joking. + +ELLIE. Who told you I was? + +MANGAN. I tell you I'm serious. You're too young to be serious; but +you'll have to believe me. I want to be near your friend Mrs Hushabye. +I'm in love with her. Now the murder's out. + +ELLIE. I want to be near your friend Mr Hushabye. I'm in love with +him. [She rises and adds with a frank air] Now we are in one another's +confidence, we shall be real friends. Thank you for telling me. + +MANGAN [almost beside himself]. Do you think I'll be made a convenience +of like this? + +ELLIE. Come, Mr Mangan! you made a business convenience of my father. +Well, a woman's business is marriage. Why shouldn't I make a domestic +convenience of you? + +MANGAN. Because I don't choose, see? Because I'm not a silly gull like +your father. That's why. + +ELLIE [with serene contempt]. You are not good enough to clean my +father's boots, Mr Mangan; and I am paying you a great compliment in +condescending to make a convenience of you, as you call it. Of course +you are free to throw over our engagement if you like; but, if you do, +you'll never enter Hesione's house again: I will take care of that. + +MANGAN [gasping]. You little devil, you've done me. [On the point of +collapsing into the big chair again he recovers himself]. Wait a bit, +though: you're not so cute as you think. You can't beat Boss Mangan as +easy as that. Suppose I go straight to Mrs Hushabye and tell her that +you're in love with her husband. + +ELLIE. She knows it. + +MANGAN. You told her!!! + +ELLIE. She told me. + +MANGAN [clutching at his bursting temples]. Oh, this is a crazy house. +Or else I'm going clean off my chump. Is she making a swop with you--she +to have your husband and you to have hers? + +ELLIE. Well, you don't want us both, do you? + +MANGAN [throwing himself into the chair distractedly]. My brain won't +stand it. My head's going to split. Help! Help me to hold it. Quick: +hold it: squeeze it. Save me. [Ellie comes behind his chair; clasps his +head hard for a moment; then begins to draw her hands from his forehead +back to his ears]. Thank you. [Drowsily]. That's very refreshing. +[Waking a little]. Don't you hypnotize me, though. I've seen men made +fools of by hypnotism. + +ELLIE [steadily]. Be quiet. I've seen men made fools of without +hypnotism. + +MANGAN [humbly]. You don't dislike touching me, I hope. You never +touched me before, I noticed. + +ELLIE. Not since you fell in love naturally with a grown-up nice woman, +who will never expect you to make love to her. And I will never expect +him to make love to me. + +MANGAN. He may, though. + +ELLIE [making her passes rhythmically]. Hush. Go to sleep. Do you hear? +You are to go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep; be quiet, deeply +deeply quiet; sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep. + +He falls asleep. Ellie steals away; turns the light out; and goes into +the garden. + +Nurse Guinness opens the door and is seen in the light which comes in +from the hall. + +GUINNESS [speaking to someone outside]. Mr Mangan's not here, duckie: +there's no one here. It's all dark. + +MRS HUSHABYE [without]. Try the garden. Mr Dunn and I will be in my +boudoir. Show him the way. + +GUINNESS. Yes, ducky. [She makes for the garden door in the dark; +stumbles over the sleeping Mangan and screams]. Ahoo! O Lord, Sir! I +beg your pardon, I'm sure: I didn't see you in the dark. Who is it? [She +goes back to the door and turns on the light]. Oh, Mr Mangan, sir, I +hope I haven't hurt you plumping into your lap like that. [Coming to +him]. I was looking for you, sir. Mrs Hushabye says will you please +[noticing that he remains quite insensible]. Oh, my good Lord, I hope +I haven't killed him. Sir! Mr Mangan! Sir! [She shakes him; and he is +rolling inertly off the chair on the floor when she holds him up and +props him against the cushion]. Miss Hessy! Miss Hessy! quick, doty +darling. Miss Hessy! [Mrs Hushabye comes in from the hall, followed by +Mazzini Dunn]. Oh, Miss Hessy, I've been and killed him. + +Mazzini runs round the back of the chair to Mangan's right hand, and +sees that the nurse's words are apparently only too true. + +MAZZINI. What tempted you to commit such a crime, woman? + +MRS HUSHABYE [trying not to laugh]. Do you mean, you did it on purpose? + +GUINNESS. Now is it likely I'd kill any man on purpose? I fell over +him in the dark; and I'm a pretty tidy weight. He never spoke nor moved +until I shook him; and then he would have dropped dead on the floor. +Isn't it tiresome? + +MRS HUSHABYE [going past the nurse to Mangan's side, and inspecting him +less credulously than Mazzini]. Nonsense! he is not dead: he is only +asleep. I can see him breathing. + +GUINNESS. But why won't he wake? + +MAZZINI [speaking very politely into Mangan's ear]. Mangan! My dear +Mangan! [he blows into Mangan's ear]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. That's no good [she shakes him vigorously]. Mr Mangan, +wake up. Do you hear? [He begins to roll over]. Oh! Nurse, nurse: he's +falling: help me. + +Nurse Guinness rushes to the rescue. With Mazzini's assistance, Mangan +is propped safely up again. + +GUINNESS [behind the chair; bending over to test the case with her +nose]. Would he be drunk, do you think, pet? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Had he any of papa's rum? + +MAZZINI. It can't be that: he is most abstemious. I am afraid he drank +too much formerly, and has to drink too little now. You know, Mrs +Hushabye, I really think he has been hypnotized. + +GUINNESS. Hip no what, sir? + +MAZZINI. One evening at home, after we had seen a hypnotizing +performance, the children began playing at it; and Ellie stroked my +head. I assure you I went off dead asleep; and they had to send for a +professional to wake me up after I had slept eighteen hours. They had to +carry me upstairs; and as the poor children were not very strong, they +let me slip; and I rolled right down the whole flight and never woke up. +[Mrs Hushabye splutters]. Oh, you may laugh, Mrs Hushabye; but I might +have been killed. + +MRS HUSHABYE. I couldn't have helped laughing even if you had been, Mr +Dunn. So Ellie has hypnotized him. What fun! + +MAZZINI. Oh no, no, no. It was such a terrible lesson to her: nothing +would induce her to try such a thing again. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Then who did it? I didn't. + +MAZZINI. I thought perhaps the captain might have done it +unintentionally. He is so fearfully magnetic: I feel vibrations whenever +he comes close to me. + +GUINNESS. The captain will get him out of it anyhow, sir: I'll back him +for that. I'll go fetch him [she makes for the pantry]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Wait a bit. [To Mazzini]. You say he is all right for +eighteen hours? + +MAZZINI. Well, I was asleep for eighteen hours. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Were you any the worse for it? + +MAZZINI. I don't quite remember. They had poured brandy down my throat, +you see; and-- + +MRS HUSHABYE. Quite. Anyhow, you survived. Nurse, darling: go and ask +Miss Dunn to come to us here. Say I want to speak to her particularly. +You will find her with Mr Hushabye probably. + +GUINNESS. I think not, ducky: Miss Addy is with him. But I'll find her +and send her to you. [She goes out into the garden]. + +MRS HUSHABYE [calling Mazzini's attention to the figure on the chair]. +Now, Mr Dunn, look. Just look. Look hard. Do you still intend to +sacrifice your daughter to that thing? + +MAZZINI [troubled]. You have completely upset me, Mrs Hushabye, by all +you have said to me. That anyone could imagine that I--I, a consecrated +soldier of freedom, if I may say so--could sacrifice Ellie to anybody or +anyone, or that I should ever have dreamed of forcing her inclinations +in any way, is a most painful blow to my--well, I suppose you would say +to my good opinion of myself. + +MRS HUSHABYE [rather stolidly]. Sorry. + +MAZZINI [looking forlornly at the body]. What is your objection to +poor Mangan, Mrs Hushabye? He looks all right to me. But then I am so +accustomed to him. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Have you no heart? Have you no sense? Look at the brute! +Think of poor weak innocent Ellie in the clutches of this slavedriver, +who spends his life making thousands of rough violent workmen bend to +his will and sweat for him: a man accustomed to have great masses of +iron beaten into shape for him by steam-hammers! to fight with women +and girls over a halfpenny an hour ruthlessly! a captain of industry, +I think you call him, don't you? Are you going to fling your delicate, +sweet, helpless child into such a beast's claws just because he will +keep her in an expensive house and make her wear diamonds to show how +rich he is? + +MAZZINI [staring at her in wide-eyed amazement]. Bless you, dear Mrs +Hushabye, what romantic ideas of business you have! Poor dear Mangan +isn't a bit like that. + +MRS HUSHABYE [scornfully]. Poor dear Mangan indeed! + +MAZZINI. But he doesn't know anything about machinery. He never goes +near the men: he couldn't manage them: he is afraid of them. I never can +get him to take the least interest in the works: he hardly knows more +about them than you do. People are cruelly unjust to Mangan: they think +he is all rugged strength just because his manners are bad. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Do you mean to tell me he isn't strong enough to crush +poor little Ellie? + +MAZZINI. Of course it's very hard to say how any marriage will turn out; +but speaking for myself, I should say that he won't have a dog's chance +against Ellie. You know, Ellie has remarkable strength of character. I +think it is because I taught her to like Shakespeare when she was very +young. + +MRS HUSHABYE [contemptuously]. Shakespeare! The next thing you will tell +me is that you could have made a great deal more money than Mangan. [She +retires to the sofa, and sits down at the port end of it in the worst of +humors]. + +MAZZINI [following her and taking the other end]. No: I'm no good at +making money. I don't care enough for it, somehow. I'm not ambitious! +that must be it. Mangan is wonderful about money: he thinks of nothing +else. He is so dreadfully afraid of being poor. I am always thinking of +other things: even at the works I think of the things we are doing and +not of what they cost. And the worst of it is, poor Mangan doesn't know +what to do with his money when he gets it. He is such a baby that he +doesn't know even what to eat and drink: he has ruined his liver eating +and drinking the wrong things; and now he can hardly eat at all. Ellie +will diet him splendidly. You will be surprised when you come to know +him better: he is really the most helpless of mortals. You get quite a +protective feeling towards him. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Then who manages his business, pray? + +MAZZINI. I do. And of course other people like me. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Footling people, you mean. + +MAZZINI. I suppose you'd think us so. + +MRS HUSHABYE. And pray why don't you do without him if you're all so +much cleverer? + +MAZZINI. Oh, we couldn't: we should ruin the business in a year. I've +tried; and I know. We should spend too much on everything. We should +improve the quality of the goods and make them too dear. We should be +sentimental about the hard cases among the work people. But Mangan keeps +us in order. He is down on us about every extra halfpenny. We could +never do without him. You see, he will sit up all night thinking of how +to save sixpence. Won't Ellie make him jump, though, when she takes his +house in hand! + +MRS HUSHABYE. Then the creature is a fraud even as a captain of +industry! + +MAZZINI. I am afraid all the captains of industry are what you call +frauds, Mrs Hushabye. Of course there are some manufacturers who really +do understand their own works; but they don't make as high a rate of +profit as Mangan does. I assure you Mangan is quite a good fellow in his +way. He means well. + +MRS HUSHABYE. He doesn't look well. He is not in his first youth, is he? + +MAZZINI. After all, no husband is in his first youth for very long, Mrs +Hushabye. And men can't afford to marry in their first youth nowadays. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Now if I said that, it would sound witty. Why can't you +say it wittily? What on earth is the matter with you? Why don't you +inspire everybody with confidence? with respect? + +MAZZINI [humbly]. I think that what is the matter with me is that I am +poor. You don't know what that means at home. Mind: I don't say they +have ever complained. They've all been wonderful: they've been proud of +my poverty. They've even joked about it quite often. But my wife has had +a very poor time of it. She has been quite resigned-- + +MRS HUSHABYE [shuddering involuntarily!] + +MAZZINI. There! You see, Mrs Hushabye. I don't want Ellie to live on +resignation. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Do you want her to have to resign herself to living with a +man she doesn't love? + +MAZZINI [wistfully]. Are you sure that would be worse than living with a +man she did love, if he was a footling person? + +MRS HUSHABYE [relaxing her contemptuous attitude, quite interested in +Mazzini now]. You know, I really think you must love Ellie very much; +for you become quite clever when you talk about her. + +MAZZINI. I didn't know I was so very stupid on other subjects. + +MRS HUSHABYE. You are, sometimes. + +MAZZINI [turning his head away; for his eyes are wet]. I have learnt a +good deal about myself from you, Mrs Hushabye; and I'm afraid I shall +not be the happier for your plain speaking. But if you thought I needed +it to make me think of Ellie's happiness you were very much mistaken. + +MRS HUSHABYE [leaning towards him kindly]. Have I been a beast? + +MAZZINI [pulling himself together]. It doesn't matter about me, Mrs +Hushabye. I think you like Ellie; and that is enough for me. + +MRS HUSHABYE. I'm beginning to like you a little. I perfectly loathed +you at first. I thought you the most odious, self-satisfied, boresome +elderly prig I ever met. + +MAZZINI [resigned, and now quite cheerful]. I daresay I am all that. +I never have been a favorite with gorgeous women like you. They always +frighten me. + +MRS HUSHABYE [pleased]. Am I a gorgeous woman, Mazzini? I shall fall in +love with you presently. + +MAZZINI [with placid gallantry]. No, you won't, Hesione. But you would +be quite safe. Would you believe it that quite a lot of women have +flirted with me because I am quite safe? But they get tired of me for +the same reason. + +MRS HUSHABYE [mischievously]. Take care. You may not be so safe as you +think. + +MAZZINI. Oh yes, quite safe. You see, I have been in love really: the +sort of love that only happens once. [Softly]. That's why Ellie is such +a lovely girl. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Well, really, you are coming out. Are you quite sure you +won't let me tempt you into a second grand passion? + +MAZZINI. Quite. It wouldn't be natural. The fact is, you don't strike on +my box, Mrs Hushabye; and I certainly don't strike on yours. + +MRS HUSHABYE. I see. Your marriage was a safety match. + +MAZZINI. What a very witty application of the expression I used! I +should never have thought of it. + +Ellie comes in from the garden, looking anything but happy. + +MRS HUSHABYE [rising]. Oh! here is Ellie at last. [She goes behind the +sofa]. + +ELLIE [on the threshold of the starboard door]. Guinness said you wanted +me: you and papa. + +MRS HUSHABYE. You have kept us waiting so long that it almost came +to--well, never mind. Your father is a very wonderful man [she ruffles +his hair affectionately]: the only one I ever met who could resist me +when I made myself really agreeable. [She comes to the big chair, on +Mangan's left]. Come here. I have something to show you. [Ellie strolls +listlessly to the other side of the chair]. Look. + +ELLIE [contemplating Mangan without interest]. I know. He is only +asleep. We had a talk after dinner; and he fell asleep in the middle of +it. + +MRS HUSHABYE. You did it, Ellie. You put him asleep. + +MAZZINI [rising quickly and coming to the back of the chair]. Oh, I hope +not. Did you, Ellie? + +ELLIE [wearily]. He asked me to. + +MAZZINI. But it's dangerous. You know what happened to me. + +ELLIE [utterly indifferent]. Oh, I daresay I can wake him. If not, +somebody else can. + +MRS HUSHABYE. It doesn't matter, anyhow, because I have at last +persuaded your father that you don't want to marry him. + +ELLIE [suddenly coming out of her listlessness, much vexed]. But why did +you do that, Hesione? I do want to marry him. I fully intend to marry +him. + +MAZZINI. Are you quite sure, Ellie? Mrs Hushabye has made me feel that I +may have been thoughtless and selfish about it. + +ELLIE [very clearly and steadily]. Papa. When Mrs. Hushabye takes it on +herself to explain to you what I think or don't think, shut your ears +tight; and shut your eyes too. Hesione knows nothing about me: she +hasn't the least notion of the sort of person I am, and never will. I +promise you I won't do anything I don't want to do and mean to do for my +own sake. + +MAZZINI. You are quite, quite sure? + +ELLIE. Quite, quite sure. Now you must go away and leave me to talk to +Mrs Hushabye. + +MAZZINI. But I should like to hear. Shall I be in the way? + +ELLIE [inexorable]. I had rather talk to her alone. + +MAZZINI [affectionately]. Oh, well, I know what a nuisance parents are, +dear. I will be good and go. [He goes to the garden door]. By the way, +do you remember the address of that professional who woke me up? Don't +you think I had better telegraph to him? + +MRS HUSHABYE [moving towards the sofa]. It's too late to telegraph +tonight. + +MAZZINI. I suppose so. I do hope he'll wake up in the course of the +night. [He goes out into the garden]. + +ELLIE [turning vigorously on Hesione the moment her father is out of the +room]. Hesione, what the devil do you mean by making mischief with my +father about Mangan? + +MRS HUSHABYE [promptly losing her temper]. Don't you dare speak to me +like that, you little minx. Remember that you are in my house. + +ELLIE. Stuff! Why don't you mind your own business? What is it to you +whether I choose to marry Mangan or not? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Do you suppose you can bully me, you miserable little +matrimonial adventurer? + +ELLIE. Every woman who hasn't any money is a matrimonial adventurer. +It's easy for you to talk: you have never known what it is to want +money; and you can pick up men as if they were daisies. I am poor and +respectable-- + +MRS HUSHABYE [interrupting]. Ho! respectable! How did you pick up +Mangan? How did you pick up my husband? You have the audacity to tell me +that I am a--a--a-- + +ELLIE. A siren. So you are. You were born to lead men by the nose: if +you weren't, Marcus would have waited for me, perhaps. + +MRS HUSHABYE [suddenly melting and half laughing]. Oh, my poor Ellie, my +pettikins, my unhappy darling! I am so sorry about Hector. But what can +I do? It's not my fault: I'd give him to you if I could. + +ELLIE. I don't blame you for that. + +MRS HUSHABYE. What a brute I was to quarrel with you and call you names! +Do kiss me and say you're not angry with me. + +ELLIE [fiercely]. Oh, don't slop and gush and be sentimental. Don't you +see that unless I can be hard--as hard as nails--I shall go mad? I don't +care a damn about your calling me names: do you think a woman in my +situation can feel a few hard words? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Poor little woman! Poor little situation! + +ELLIE. I suppose you think you're being sympathetic. You are just +foolish and stupid and selfish. You see me getting a smasher right in +the face that kills a whole part of my life: the best part that can +never come again; and you think you can help me over it by a little +coaxing and kissing. When I want all the strength I can get to lean on: +something iron, something stony, I don't care how cruel it is, you +go all mushy and want to slobber over me. I'm not angry; I'm not +unfriendly; but for God's sake do pull yourself together; and don't +think that because you're on velvet and always have been, women who are +in hell can take it as easily as you. + +MRS HUSHABYE [shrugging her shoulders]. Very well. [She sits down on the +sofa in her old place.] But I warn you that when I am neither coaxing and +kissing nor laughing, I am just wondering how much longer I can stand +living in this cruel, damnable world. You object to the siren: well, +I drop the siren. You want to rest your wounded bosom against a +grindstone. Well [folding her arms] here is the grindstone. + +ELLIE [sitting down beside her, appeased]. That's better: you really +have the trick of falling in with everyone's mood; but you don't +understand, because you are not the sort of woman for whom there is only +one man and only one chance. + +MRS HUSHABYE. I certainly don't understand how your marrying that object +[indicating Mangan] will console you for not being able to marry Hector. + +ELLIE. Perhaps you don't understand why I was quite a nice girl this +morning, and am now neither a girl nor particularly nice. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, yes, I do. It's because you have made up your mind to +do something despicable and wicked. + +ELLIE. I don't think so, Hesione. I must make the best of my ruined +house. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Pooh! You'll get over it. Your house isn't ruined. + +ELLIE. Of course I shall get over it. You don't suppose I'm going to sit +down and die of a broken heart, I hope, or be an old maid living on a +pittance from the Sick and Indigent Roomkeepers' Association. But my +heart is broken, all the same. What I mean by that is that I know that +what has happened to me with Marcus will not happen to me ever again. In +the world for me there is Marcus and a lot of other men of whom one is +just the same as another. Well, if I can't have love, that's no reason +why I should have poverty. If Mangan has nothing else, he has money. + +MRS HUSHABYE. And are there no YOUNG men with money? + +ELLIE. Not within my reach. Besides, a young man would have the right +to expect love from me, and would perhaps leave me when he found I could +not give it to him. Rich young men can get rid of their wives, you know, +pretty cheaply. But this object, as you call him, can expect nothing +more from me than I am prepared to give him. + +MRS HUSHABYE. He will be your owner, remember. If he buys you, he will +make the bargain pay him and not you. Ask your father. + +ELLIE [rising and strolling to the chair to contemplate their subject]. +You need not trouble on that score, Hesione. I have more to give Boss +Mangan than he has to give me: it is I who am buying him, and at a +pretty good price too, I think. Women are better at that sort of bargain +than men. I have taken the Boss's measure; and ten Boss Mangans shall +not prevent me doing far more as I please as his wife than I have ever +been able to do as a poor girl. [Stooping to the recumbent figure]. +Shall they, Boss? I think not. [She passes on to the drawing-table, and +leans against the end of it, facing the windows]. I shall not have to +spend most of my time wondering how long my gloves will last, anyhow. + +MRS HUSHABYE [rising superbly]. Ellie, you are a wicked, sordid little +beast. And to think that I actually condescended to fascinate that +creature there to save you from him! Well, let me tell you this: if you +make this disgusting match, you will never see Hector again if I can +help it. + +ELLIE [unmoved]. I nailed Mangan by telling him that if he did not marry +me he should never see you again [she lifts herself on her wrists and +seats herself on the end of the table]. + +MRS HUSHABYE [recoiling]. Oh! + +ELLIE. So you see I am not unprepared for your playing that trump +against me. Well, you just try it: that's all. I should have made a man +of Marcus, not a household pet. + +MRS HUSHABYE [flaming]. You dare! + +ELLIE [looking almost dangerous]. Set him thinking about me if you dare. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Well, of all the impudent little fiends I ever met! Hector +says there is a certain point at which the only answer you can give to a +man who breaks all the rules is to knock him down. What would you say if +I were to box your ears? + +ELLIE [calmly]. I should pull your hair. + +MRS HUSHABYE [mischievously]. That wouldn't hurt me. Perhaps it comes +off at night. + +ELLIE [so taken aback that she drops off the table and runs to her]. Oh, +you don't mean to say, Hesione, that your beautiful black hair is false? + +MRS HUSHABYE [patting it]. Don't tell Hector. He believes in it. + +ELLIE [groaning]. Oh! Even the hair that ensnared him false! Everything +false! + +MRS HUSHABYE. Pull it and try. Other women can snare men in their hair; +but I can swing a baby on mine. Aha! you can't do that, Goldylocks. + +ELLIE [heartbroken]. No. You have stolen my babies. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Pettikins, don't make me cry. You know what you said about +my making a household pet of him is a little true. Perhaps he ought to +have waited for you. Would any other woman on earth forgive you? + +ELLIE. Oh, what right had you to take him all for yourself! [Pulling +herself together]. There! You couldn't help it: neither of us could help +it. He couldn't help it. No, don't say anything more: I can't bear it. +Let us wake the object. [She begins stroking Mangan's head, reversing +the movement with which she put him to sleep]. Wake up, do you hear? You +are to wake up at once. Wake up, wake up, wake-- + +MANGAN [bouncing out of the chair in a fury and turning on them]. Wake +up! So you think I've been asleep, do you? [He kicks the chair violently +back out of his way, and gets between them]. You throw me into a trance +so that I can't move hand or foot--I might have been buried alive! it's +a mercy I wasn't--and then you think I was only asleep. If you'd let +me drop the two times you rolled me about, my nose would have been +flattened for life against the floor. But I've found you all out, +anyhow. I know the sort of people I'm among now. I've heard every word +you've said, you and your precious father, and [to Mrs Hushabye] you +too. So I'm an object, am I? I'm a thing, am I? I'm a fool that hasn't +sense enough to feed myself properly, am I? I'm afraid of the men that +would starve if it weren't for the wages I give them, am I? I'm nothing +but a disgusting old skinflint to be made a convenience of by designing +women and fool managers of my works, am I? I'm-- + +MRS HUSHABYE [with the most elegant aplomb]. Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh! Mr Mangan, +you are bound in honor to obliterate from your mind all you heard while +you were pretending to be asleep. It was not meant for you to hear. + +MANGAN. Pretending to be asleep! Do you think if I was only pretending +that I'd have sprawled there helpless, and listened to such unfairness, +such lies, such injustice and plotting and backbiting and slandering of +me, if I could have up and told you what I thought of you! I wonder I +didn't burst. + +MRS HUSHABYE [sweetly]. You dreamt it all, Mr Mangan. We were only +saying how beautifully peaceful you looked in your sleep. That was all, +wasn't it, Ellie? Believe me, Mr Mangan, all those unpleasant things +came into your mind in the last half second before you woke. Ellie +rubbed your hair the wrong way; and the disagreeable sensation suggested +a disagreeable dream. + +MANGAN [doggedly]. I believe in dreams. + +MRS HUSHABYE. So do I. But they go by contraries, don't they? + +MANGAN [depths of emotion suddenly welling up in him]. I shan't forget, +to my dying day, that when you gave me the glad eye that time in the +garden, you were making a fool of me. That was a dirty low mean thing +to do. You had no right to let me come near you if I disgusted you. +It isn't my fault if I'm old and haven't a moustache like a bronze +candlestick as your husband has. There are things no decent woman would +do to a man--like a man hitting a woman in the breast. + +Hesione, utterly shamed, sits down on the sofa and covers her face with +her hands. Mangan sits down also on his chair and begins to cry like a +child. Ellie stares at them. Mrs Hushabye, at the distressing sound he +makes, takes down her hands and looks at him. She rises and runs to him. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Don't cry: I can't bear it. Have I broken your heart? I +didn't know you had one. How could I? + +MANGAN. I'm a man, ain't I? + +MRS HUSHABYE [half coaxing, half rallying, altogether tenderly]. Oh no: +not what I call a man. Only a Boss: just that and nothing else. What +business has a Boss with a heart? + +MANGAN. Then you're not a bit sorry for what you did, nor ashamed? + +MRS HUSHABYE. I was ashamed for the first time in my life when you said +that about hitting a woman in the breast, and I found out what I'd done. +My very bones blushed red. You've had your revenge, Boss. Aren't you +satisfied? + +MANGAN. Serve you right! Do you hear? Serve you right! You're just +cruel. Cruel. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Yes: cruelty would be delicious if one could only find +some sort of cruelty that didn't really hurt. By the way [sitting down +beside him on the arm of the chair], what's your name? It's not really +Boss, is it? + +MANGAN [shortly]. If you want to know, my name's Alfred. + +MRS HUSHABYE [springs up]. Alfred!! Ellie, he was christened after +Tennyson!!! + +MANGAN [rising]. I was christened after my uncle, and never had a penny +from him, damn him! What of it? + +MRS HUSHABYE. It comes to me suddenly that you are a real person: that +you had a mother, like anyone else. [Putting her hands on his shoulders +and surveying him]. Little Alf! + +MANGAN. Well, you have a nerve. + +MRS HUSHABYE. And you have a heart, Alfy, a whimpering little heart, but +a real one. [Releasing him suddenly]. Now run and make it up with Ellie. +She has had time to think what to say to you, which is more than I had +[she goes out quickly into the garden by the port door]. + +MANGAN. That woman has a pair of hands that go right through you. + +ELLIE. Still in love with her, in spite of all we said about you? + +MANGAN. Are all women like you two? Do they never think of anything +about a man except what they can get out of him? You weren't even +thinking that about me. You were only thinking whether your gloves would +last. + +ELLIE. I shall not have to think about that when we are married. + +MANGAN. And you think I am going to marry you after what I heard there! + +ELLIE. You heard nothing from me that I did not tell you before. + +MANGAN. Perhaps you think I can't do without you. + +ELLIE. I think you would feel lonely without us all, now, after coming +to know us so well. + +MANGAN [with something like a yell of despair]. Am I never to have the +last word? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [appearing at the starboard garden door]. There is a +soul in torment here. What is the matter? + +MANGAN. This girl doesn't want to spend her life wondering how long her +gloves will last. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [passing through]. Don't wear any. I never do [he goes +into the pantry]. + +LADY UTTERWORD [appearing at the port garden door, in a handsome dinner +dress]. Is anything the matter? + +ELLIE. This gentleman wants to know is he never to have the last word? + +LADY UTTERWORD [coming forward to the sofa]. I should let him have it, +my dear. The important thing is not to have the last word, but to have +your own way. + +MANGAN. She wants both. + +LADY UTTERWORD. She won't get them, Mr Mangan. Providence always has the +last word. + +MANGAN [desperately]. Now you are going to come religion over me. In +this house a man's mind might as well be a football. I'm going. [He +makes for the hall, but is stopped by a hail from the Captain, who has +just emerged from his pantry]. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Whither away, Boss Mangan? + +MANGAN. To hell out of this house: let that be enough for you and all +here. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You were welcome to come: you are free to go. The wide +earth, the high seas, the spacious skies are waiting for you outside. + +LADY UTTERWORD. But your things, Mr Mangan. Your bag, your comb and +brushes, your pyjamas-- + +HECTOR [who has just appeared in the port doorway in a handsome Arab +costume]. Why should the escaping slave take his chains with him? + +MANGAN. That's right, Hushabye. Keep the pyjamas, my lady, and much good +may they do you. + +HECTOR [advancing to Lady Utterword's left hand]. Let us all go out into +the night and leave everything behind us. + +MANGAN. You stay where you are, the lot of you. I want no company, +especially female company. + +ELLIE. Let him go. He is unhappy here. He is angry with us. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Go, Boss Mangan; and when you have found the land +where there is happiness and where there are no women, send me its +latitude and longitude; and I will join you there. + +LADY UTTERWORD. You will certainly not be comfortable without your +luggage, Mr Mangan. + +ELLIE [impatient]. Go, go: why don't you go? It is a heavenly night: you +can sleep on the heath. Take my waterproof to lie on: it is hanging up +in the hall. + +HECTOR. Breakfast at nine, unless you prefer to breakfast with the +captain at six. + +ELLIE. Good night, Alfred. + +HECTOR. Alfred! [He runs back to the door and calls into the garden]. +Randall, Mangan's Christian name is Alfred. + +RANDALL [appearing in the starboard doorway in evening dress]. Then +Hesione wins her bet. + +Mrs Hushabye appears in the port doorway. She throws her left arm round +Hector's neck: draws him with her to the back of the sofa: and throws +her right arm round Lady Utterword's neck. + +MRS HUSHABYE. They wouldn't believe me, Alf. + +They contemplate him. + +MANGAN. Is there any more of you coming in to look at me, as if I was +the latest thing in a menagerie? + +MRS HUSHABYE. You are the latest thing in this menagerie. + +Before Mangan can retort, a fall of furniture is heard from upstairs: +then a pistol shot, and a yell of pain. The staring group breaks up in +consternation. + +MAZZINI'S VOICE [from above]. Help! A burglar! Help! + +HECTOR [his eyes blazing]. A burglar!!! + +MRS HUSHABYE. No, Hector: you'll be shot [but it is too late; he has +dashed out past Mangan, who hastily moves towards the bookshelves out of +his way]. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [blowing his whistle]. All hands aloft! [He strides out +after Hector]. + +LADY UTTERWORD. My diamonds! [She follows the captain]. + +RANDALL [rushing after her]. No. Ariadne. Let me. + +ELLIE. Oh, is papa shot? [She runs out]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Are you frightened, Alf? + +MANGAN. No. It ain't my house, thank God. + +MRS HUSHABYE. If they catch a burglar, shall we have to go into court as +witnesses, and be asked all sorts of questions about our private lives? + +MANGAN. You won't be believed if you tell the truth. + +Mazzini, terribly upset, with a duelling pistol in his hand, comes from +the hall, and makes his way to the drawing-table. + +MAZZINI. Oh, my dear Mrs Hushabye, I might have killed him. [He throws +the pistol on the table and staggers round to the chair]. I hope you +won't believe I really intended to. + +Hector comes in, marching an old and villainous looking man before him +by the collar. He plants him in the middle of the room and releases him. + +Ellie follows, and immediately runs across to the back of her father's +chair and pats his shoulders. + +RANDALL [entering with a poker]. Keep your eye on this door, Mangan. +I'll look after the other [he goes to the starboard door and stands on +guard there]. + +Lady Utterword comes in after Randall, and goes between Mrs Hushabye and +Mangan. + +Nurse Guinness brings up the rear, and waits near the door, on Mangan's +left. + +MRS HUSHABYE. What has happened? + +MAZZINI. Your housekeeper told me there was somebody upstairs, and gave +me a pistol that Mr Hushabye had been practising with. I thought it +would frighten him; but it went off at a touch. + +THE BURGLAR. Yes, and took the skin off my ear. Precious near took the +top off my head. Why don't you have a proper revolver instead of a thing +like that, that goes off if you as much as blow on it? + +HECTOR. One of my duelling pistols. Sorry. + +MAZZINI. He put his hands up and said it was a fair cop. + +THE BURGLAR. So it was. Send for the police. + +HECTOR. No, by thunder! It was not a fair cop. We were four to one. + +MRS HUSHABYE. What will they do to him? + +THE BURGLAR. Ten years. Beginning with solitary. Ten years off my life. +I shan't serve it all: I'm too old. It will see me out. + +LADY UTTERWORD. You should have thought of that before you stole my +diamonds. + +THE BURGLAR. Well, you've got them back, lady, haven't you? Can you give +me back the years of my life you are going to take from me? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, we can't bury a man alive for ten years for a few +diamonds. + +THE BURGLAR. Ten little shining diamonds! Ten long black years! + +LADY UTTERWORD. Think of what it is for us to be dragged through the +horrors of a criminal court, and have all our family affairs in the +papers! If you were a native, and Hastings could order you a good +beating and send you away, I shouldn't mind; but here in England there +is no real protection for any respectable person. + +THE BURGLAR. I'm too old to be giv a hiding, lady. Send for the police +and have done with it. It's only just and right you should. + +RANDALL [who has relaxed his vigilance on seeing the burglar so +pacifically disposed, and comes forward swinging the poker between his +fingers like a well folded umbrella]. It is neither just nor right +that we should be put to a lot of inconvenience to gratify your moral +enthusiasm, my friend. You had better get out, while you have the +chance. + +THE BURGLAR [inexorably]. No. I must work my sin off my conscience. +This has come as a sort of call to me. Let me spend the rest of my life +repenting in a cell. I shall have my reward above. + +MANGAN [exasperated]. The very burglars can't behave naturally in this +house. + +HECTOR. My good sir, you must work out your salvation at somebody else's +expense. Nobody here is going to charge you. + +THE BURGLAR. Oh, you won't charge me, won't you? + +HECTOR. No. I'm sorry to be inhospitable; but will you kindly leave the +house? + +THE BURGLAR. Right. I'll go to the police station and give myself up. +[He turns resolutely to the door: but Hector stops him]. + +HECTOR. { Oh, no. You mustn't do that. + +RANDALL. [speaking together] { No no. Clear out man, can't you; and + don't be a fool. + +MRS. HUSHABYE { Don't be so silly. Can't you repent at + home? + +LADY UTTERWORD. You will have to do as you are told. + +THE BURGLAR. It's compounding a felony, you know. + +MRS HUSHABYE. This is utterly ridiculous. Are we to be forced to +prosecute this man when we don't want to? + +THE BURGLAR. Am I to be robbed of my salvation to save you the trouble +of spending a day at the sessions? Is that justice? Is it right? Is it +fair to me? + +MAZZINI [rising and leaning across the table persuasively as if it were +a pulpit desk or a shop counter]. Come, come! let me show you how you +can turn your very crimes to account. Why not set up as a locksmith? You +must know more about locks than most honest men? + +THE BURGLAR. That's true, sir. But I couldn't set up as a locksmith +under twenty pounds. + +RANDALL. Well, you can easily steal twenty pounds. You will find it in +the nearest bank. + +THE BURGLAR [horrified]. Oh, what a thing for a gentleman to put into +the head of a poor criminal scrambling out of the bottomless pit as it +were! Oh, shame on you, sir! Oh, God forgive you! [He throws himself +into the big chair and covers his face as if in prayer]. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Really, Randall! + +HECTOR. It seems to me that we shall have to take up a collection for +this inopportunely contrite sinner. + +LADY UTTERWORD. But twenty pounds is ridiculous. + +THE BURGLAR [looking up quickly]. I shall have to buy a lot of tools, +lady. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Nonsense: you have your burgling kit. + +THE BURGLAR. What's a jimmy and a centrebit and an acetylene welding +plant and a bunch of skeleton keys? I shall want a forge, and a smithy, +and a shop, and fittings. I can't hardly do it for twenty. + +HECTOR. My worthy friend, we haven't got twenty pounds. + +THE BURGLAR [now master of the situation]. You can raise it among you, +can't you? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Give him a sovereign, Hector, and get rid of him. + +HECTOR [giving him a pound]. There! Off with you. + +THE BURGLAR [rising and taking the money very ungratefully]. I won't +promise nothing. You have more on you than a quid: all the lot of you, I +mean. + +LADY UTTERWORD [vigorously]. Oh, let us prosecute him and have done with +it. I have a conscience too, I hope; and I do not feel at all sure that +we have any right to let him go, especially if he is going to be greedy +and impertinent. + +THE BURGLAR [quickly]. All right, lady, all right. I've no wish to be +anything but agreeable. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen; and thank +you kindly. + +He is hurrying out when he is confronted in the doorway by Captain +Shotover. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [fixing the burglar with a piercing regard]. What's +this? Are there two of you? + +THE BURGLAR [falling on his knees before the captain in abject terror]. +Oh, my good Lord, what have I done? Don't tell me it's your house I've +broken into, Captain Shotover. + +The captain seizes him by the collar: drags him to his feet: and leads +him to the middle of the group, Hector falling back beside his wife to +make way for them. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [turning him towards Ellie]. Is that your daughter? [He +releases him]. + +THE BURGLAR. Well, how do I know, Captain? You know the sort of life you +and me has led. Any young lady of that age might be my daughter anywhere +in the wide world, as you might say. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [to Mazzini]. You are not Billy Dunn. This is Billy +Dunn. Why have you imposed on me? + +THE BURGLAR [indignantly to Mazzini]. Have you been giving yourself +out to be me? You, that nigh blew my head off! Shooting yourself, in a +manner of speaking! + +MAZZINI. My dear Captain Shotover, ever since I came into this house I +have done hardly anything else but assure you that I am not Mr William +Dunn, but Mazzini Dunn, a very different person. + +THE BURGLAR. He don't belong to my branch, Captain. There's two sets in +the family: the thinking Dunns and the drinking Dunns, each going their +own ways. I'm a drinking Dunn: he's a thinking Dunn. But that didn't +give him any right to shoot me. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. So you've turned burglar, have you? + +THE BURGLAR. No, Captain: I wouldn't disgrace our old sea calling by +such a thing. I am no burglar. + +LADY UTTERWORD. What were you doing with my diamonds? + +GUINNESS. What did you break into the house for if you're no burglar? + +RANDALL. Mistook the house for your own and came in by the wrong window, +eh? + +THE BURGLAR. Well, it's no use my telling you a lie: I can take in most +captains, but not Captain Shotover, because he sold himself to the devil +in Zanzibar, and can divine water, spot gold, explode a cartridge in +your pocket with a glance of his eye, and see the truth hidden in the +heart of man. But I'm no burglar. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Are you an honest man? + +THE BURGLAR. I don't set up to be better than my fellow-creatures, and +never did, as you well know, Captain. But what I do is innocent and +pious. I enquire about for houses where the right sort of people live. I +work it on them same as I worked it here. I break into the house; put a +few spoons or diamonds in my pocket; make a noise; get caught; and take +up a collection. And you wouldn't believe how hard it is to get caught +when you're actually trying to. I have knocked over all the chairs in a +room without a soul paying any attention to me. In the end I have had to +walk out and leave the job. + +RANDALL. When that happens, do you put back the spoons and diamonds? + +THE BURGLAR. Well, I don't fly in the face of Providence, if that's what +you want to know. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Guinness, you remember this man? + +GUINNESS. I should think I do, seeing I was married to him, the +blackguard! + +HESIONE } [exclaiming { Married to him! LADY UTTERWORD } together] { +Guinness!! + +THE BURGLAR. It wasn't legal. I've been married to no end of women. No +use coming that over me. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Take him to the forecastle [he flings him to the door +with a strength beyond his years]. + +GUINNESS. I suppose you mean the kitchen. They won't have him there. Do +you expect servants to keep company with thieves and all sorts? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Land-thieves and water-thieves are the same flesh and +blood. I'll have no boatswain on my quarter-deck. Off with you both. + +THE BURGLAR. Yes, Captain. [He goes out humbly]. + +MAZZINI. Will it be safe to have him in the house like that? + +GUINNESS. Why didn't you shoot him, sir? If I'd known who he was, I'd +have shot him myself. [She goes out]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Do sit down, everybody. [She sits down on the sofa]. + +They all move except Ellie. Mazzini resumes his seat. Randall sits down +in the window-seat near the starboard door, again making a pendulum of +his poker, and studying it as Galileo might have done. Hector sits on +his left, in the middle. Mangan, forgotten, sits in the port corner. +Lady Utterword takes the big chair. Captain Shotover goes into the +pantry in deep abstraction. They all look after him: and Lady Utterword +coughs consciously. + +MRS HUSHABYE. So Billy Dunn was poor nurse's little romance. I knew +there had been somebody. + +RANDALL. They will fight their battles over again and enjoy themselves +immensely. + +LADY UTTERWORD [irritably]. You are not married; and you know nothing +about it, Randall. Hold your tongue. + +RANDALL. Tyrant! + +MRS HUSHABYE. Well, we have had a very exciting evening. Everything will +be an anticlimax after it. We'd better all go to bed. + +RANDALL. Another burglar may turn up. + +MAZZINI. Oh, impossible! I hope not. + +RANDALL. Why not? There is more than one burglar in England. + +MRS HUSHABYE. What do you say, Alf? + +MANGAN [huffily]. Oh, I don't matter. I'm forgotten. The burglar has put +my nose out of joint. Shove me into a corner and have done with me. + +MRS HUSHABYE [jumping up mischievously, and going to him]. Would you +like a walk on the heath, Alfred? With me? + +ELLIE. Go, Mr Mangan. It will do you good. Hesione will soothe you. + +MRS HUSHABYE [slipping her arm under his and pulling him upright]. Come, +Alfred. There is a moon: it's like the night in Tristan and Isolde. [She +caresses his arm and draws him to the port garden door]. + +MANGAN [writhing but yielding]. How you can have the face-the heart-[he +breaks down and is heard sobbing as she takes him out]. + +LADY UTTERWORD. What an extraordinary way to behave! What is the matter +with the man? + +ELLIE [in a strangely calm voice, staring into an imaginary distance]. +His heart is breaking: that is all. [The captain appears at the pantry +door, listening]. It is a curious sensation: the sort of pain that goes +mercifully beyond our powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your +boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness +and the beginning of peace. + +LADY UTTERWORD [suddenly rising in a rage, to the astonishment of the +rest]. How dare you? + +HECTOR. Good heavens! What's the matter? + +RANDALL [in a warning whisper]. Tch--tch-tch! Steady. + +ELLIE [surprised and haughty]. I was not addressing you particularly, +Lady Utterword. And I am not accustomed to being asked how dare I. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Of course not. Anyone can see how badly you have been +brought up. + +MAZZINI. Oh, I hope not, Lady Utterword. Really! + +LADY UTTERWORD. I know very well what you meant. The impudence! + +ELLIE. What on earth do you mean? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [advancing to the table]. She means that her heart will +not break. She has been longing all her life for someone to break it. At +last she has become afraid she has none to break. + +LADY UTTERWORD [flinging herself on her knees and throwing her arms +round him]. Papa, don't say you think I've no heart. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [raising her with grim tenderness]. If you had no heart +how could you want to have it broken, child? + +HECTOR [rising with a bound]. Lady Utterword, you are not to be trusted. +You have made a scene [he runs out into the garden through the starboard +door]. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Oh! Hector, Hector! [she runs out after him]. + +RANDALL. Only nerves, I assure you. [He rises and follows her, waving +the poker in his agitation]. Ariadne! Ariadne! For God's sake, be +careful. You will--[he is gone]. + +MAZZINI [rising]. How distressing! Can I do anything, I wonder? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [promptly taking his chair and setting to work at the +drawing-board]. No. Go to bed. Good-night. + +MAZZINI [bewildered]. Oh! Perhaps you are right. + +ELLIE. Good-night, dearest. [She kisses him]. + +MAZZINI. Good-night, love. [He makes for the door, but turns aside to +the bookshelves]. I'll just take a book [he takes one]. Good-night. [He +goes out, leaving Ellie alone with the captain]. + +The captain is intent on his drawing. Ellie, standing sentry over his +chair, contemplates him for a moment. + +ELLIE. Does nothing ever disturb you, Captain Shotover? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I've stood on the bridge for eighteen hours in a +typhoon. Life here is stormier; but I can stand it. + +ELLIE. Do you think I ought to marry Mr Mangan? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [never looking up]. One rock is as good as another to +be wrecked on. + +ELLIE. I am not in love with him. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Who said you were? + +ELLIE. You are not surprised? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Surprised! At my age! + +ELLIE. It seems to me quite fair. He wants me for one thing: I want him +for another. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Money? + +ELLIE. Yes. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Well, one turns the cheek: the other kisses it. One +provides the cash: the other spends it. + +ELLIE. Who will have the best of the bargain, I wonder? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You. These fellows live in an office all day. You will +have to put up with him from dinner to breakfast; but you will both be +asleep most of that time. All day you will be quit of him; and you +will be shopping with his money. If that is too much for you, marry a +seafaring man: you will be bothered with him only three weeks in the +year, perhaps. + +ELLIE. That would be best of all, I suppose. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It's a dangerous thing to be married right up to the +hilt, like my daughter's husband. The man is at home all day, like a +damned soul in hell. + +ELLIE. I never thought of that before. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. If you're marrying for business, you can't be too +businesslike. + +ELLIE. Why do women always want other women's husbands? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Why do horse-thieves prefer a horse that is broken-in +to one that is wild? + +ELLIE [with a short laugh]. I suppose so. What a vile world it is! + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It doesn't concern me. I'm nearly out of it. + +ELLIE. And I'm only just beginning. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Yes; so look ahead. + +ELLIE. Well, I think I am being very prudent. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I didn't say prudent. I said look ahead. + +ELLIE. What's the difference? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It's prudent to gain the whole world and lose your own +soul. But don't forget that your soul sticks to you if you stick to it; +but the world has a way of slipping through your fingers. + +ELLIE [wearily, leaving him and beginning to wander restlessly about the +room]. I'm sorry, Captain Shotover; but it's no use talking like that +to me. Old-fashioned people are no use to me. Old-fashioned people think +you can have a soul without money. They think the less money you have, +the more soul you have. Young people nowadays know better. A soul is a +very expensive thing to keep: much more so than a motor car. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Is it? How much does your soul eat? + +ELLIE. Oh, a lot. It eats music and pictures and books and mountains and +lakes and beautiful things to wear and nice people to be with. In this +country you can't have them without lots of money: that is why our souls +are so horribly starved. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Mangan's soul lives on pig's food. + +ELLIE. Yes: money is thrown away on him. I suppose his soul was starved +when he was young. But it will not be thrown away on me. It is just +because I want to save my soul that I am marrying for money. All the +women who are not fools do. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. There are other ways of getting money. Why don't you +steal it? + +ELLIE. Because I don't want to go to prison. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Is that the only reason? Are you quite sure honesty +has nothing to do with it? + +ELLIE. Oh, you are very very old-fashioned, Captain. Does any modern +girl believe that the legal and illegal ways of getting money are the +honest and dishonest ways? Mangan robbed my father and my father's +friends. I should rob all the money back from Mangan if the police would +let me. As they won't, I must get it back by marrying him. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I can't argue: I'm too old: my mind is made up and +finished. All I can tell you is that, old-fashioned or new-fashioned, +if you sell yourself, you deal your soul a blow that all the books and +pictures and concerts and scenery in the world won't heal [he gets up +suddenly and makes for the pantry]. + +ELLIE [running after him and seizing him by the sleeve]. Then why did +you sell yourself to the devil in Zanzibar? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [stopping, startled]. What? + +ELLIE. You shall not run away before you answer. I have found out that +trick of yours. If you sold yourself, why shouldn't I? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I had to deal with men so degraded that they wouldn't +obey me unless I swore at them and kicked them and beat them with my +fists. Foolish people took young thieves off the streets; flung them +into a training ship where they were taught to fear the cane instead of +fearing God; and thought they'd made men and sailors of them by private +subscription. I tricked these thieves into believing I'd sold myself +to the devil. It saved my soul from the kicking and swearing that was +damning me by inches. + +ELLIE [releasing him]. I shall pretend to sell myself to Boss Mangan to +save my soul from the poverty that is damning me by inches. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Riches will damn you ten times deeper. Riches won't +save even your body. + +ELLIE. Old-fashioned again. We know now that the soul is the body, and +the body the soul. They tell us they are different because they want to +persuade us that we can keep our souls if we let them make slaves of our +bodies. I am afraid you are no use to me, Captain. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What did you expect? A Savior, eh? Are you +old-fashioned enough to believe in that? + +ELLIE. No. But I thought you were very wise, and might help me. Now I +have found you out. You pretend to be busy, and think of fine things to +say, and run in and out to surprise people by saying them, and get away +before they can answer you. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It confuses me to be answered. It discourages me. I +cannot bear men and women. I have to run away. I must run away now [he +tries to]. + +ELLIE [again seizing his arm]. You shall not run away from me. I can +hypnotize you. You are the only person in the house I can say what I +like to. I know you are fond of me. Sit down. [She draws him to the +sofa]. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [yielding]. Take care: I am in my dotage. Old men are +dangerous: it doesn't matter to them what is going to happen to the +world. + +They sit side by side on the sofa. She leans affectionately against him +with her head on his shoulder and her eyes half closed. + +ELLIE [dreamily]. I should have thought nothing else mattered to +old men. They can't be very interested in what is going to happen to +themselves. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. A man's interest in the world is only the overflow +from his interest in himself. When you are a child your vessel is not +yet full; so you care for nothing but your own affairs. When you grow +up, your vessel overflows; and you are a politician, a philosopher, or +an explorer and adventurer. In old age the vessel dries up: there is +no overflow: you are a child again. I can give you the memories of my +ancient wisdom: mere scraps and leavings; but I no longer really care +for anything but my own little wants and hobbies. I sit here working +out my old ideas as a means of destroying my fellow-creatures. I see my +daughters and their men living foolish lives of romance and sentiment +and snobbery. I see you, the younger generation, turning from their +romance and sentiment and snobbery to money and comfort and hard common +sense. I was ten times happier on the bridge in the typhoon, or frozen +into Arctic ice for months in darkness, than you or they have ever been. +You are looking for a rich husband. At your age I looked for hardship, +danger, horror, and death, that I might feel the life in me more +intensely. I did not let the fear of death govern my life; and my reward +was, I had my life. You are going to let the fear of poverty govern your +life; and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live. + +ELLIE [sitting up impatiently]. But what can I do? I am not a sea +captain: I can't stand on bridges in typhoons, or go slaughtering +seals and whales in Greenland's icy mountains. They won't let women be +captains. Do you want me to be a stewardess? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. There are worse lives. The stewardesses could come +ashore if they liked; but they sail and sail and sail. + +ELLIE. What could they do ashore but marry for money? I don't want to be +a stewardess: I am too bad a sailor. Think of something else for me. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I can't think so long and continuously. I am too old. +I must go in and out. [He tries to rise]. + +ELLIE [pulling him back]. You shall not. You are happy here, aren't you? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I tell you it's dangerous to keep me. I can't keep +awake and alert. + +ELLIE. What do you run away for? To sleep? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No. To get a glass of rum. + +ELLIE [frightfully disillusioned]. Is that it? How disgusting! Do you +like being drunk? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No: I dread being drunk more than anything in the +world. To be drunk means to have dreams; to go soft; to be easily +pleased and deceived; to fall into the clutches of women. Drink does +that for you when you are young. But when you are old: very very old, +like me, the dreams come by themselves. You don't know how terrible that +is: you are young: you sleep at night only, and sleep soundly. But later +on you will sleep in the afternoon. Later still you will sleep even in +the morning; and you will awake tired, tired of life. You will never be +free from dozing and dreams; the dreams will steal upon your work every +ten minutes unless you can awaken yourself with rum. I drink now to keep +sober; but the dreams are conquering: rum is not what it was: I have +had ten glasses since you came; and it might be so much water. Go get me +another: Guinness knows where it is. You had better see for yourself the +horror of an old man drinking. + +ELLIE. You shall not drink. Dream. I like you to dream. You must never +be in the real world when we talk together. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I am too weary to resist, or too weak. I am in my +second childhood. I do not see you as you really are. I can't remember +what I really am. I feel nothing but the accursed happiness I have +dreaded all my life long: the happiness that comes as life goes, the +happiness of yielding and dreaming instead of resisting and doing, the +sweetness of the fruit that is going rotten. + +ELLIE. You dread it almost as much as I used to dread losing my dreams +and having to fight and do things. But that is all over for me: my +dreams are dashed to pieces. I should like to marry a very old, very +rich man. I should like to marry you. I had much rather marry you than +marry Mangan. Are you very rich? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No. Living from hand to mouth. And I have a wife +somewhere in Jamaica: a black one. My first wife. Unless she's dead. + +ELLIE. What a pity! I feel so happy with you. [She takes his hand, +almost unconsciously, and pats it]. I thought I should never feel happy +again. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Why? + +ELLIE. Don't you know? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No. + +ELLIE. Heartbreak. I fell in love with Hector, and didn't know he was +married. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Heartbreak? Are you one of those who are so sufficient +to themselves that they are only happy when they are stripped of +everything, even of hope? + +ELLIE [gripping the hand]. It seems so; for I feel now as if there was +nothing I could not do, because I want nothing. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. That's the only real strength. That's genius. That's +better than rum. + +ELLIE [throwing away his hand]. Rum! Why did you spoil it? + +Hector and Randall come in from the garden through the starboard door. + +HECTOR. I beg your pardon. We did not know there was anyone here. + +ELLIE [rising]. That means that you want to tell Mr Randall the story +about the tiger. Come, Captain: I want to talk to my father; and you had +better come with me. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [rising]. Nonsense! the man is in bed. + +ELLIE. Aha! I've caught you. My real father has gone to bed; but the +father you gave me is in the kitchen. You knew quite well all along. +Come. [She draws him out into the garden with her through the port +door]. + +HECTOR. That's an extraordinary girl. She has the Ancient Mariner on a +string like a Pekinese dog. + +RANDALL. Now that they have gone, shall we have a friendly chat? + +HECTOR. You are in what is supposed to be my house. I am at your +disposal. + +Hector sits down in the draughtsman's chair, turning it to face Randall, +who remains standing, leaning at his ease against the carpenter's bench. + +RANDALL. I take it that we may be quite frank. I mean about Lady +Utterword. + +HECTOR. You may. I have nothing to be frank about. I never met her until +this afternoon. + +RANDALL [straightening up]. What! But you are her sister's husband. + +HECTOR. Well, if you come to that, you are her husband's brother. + +RANDALL. But you seem to be on intimate terms with her. + +HECTOR. So do you. + +RANDALL. Yes: but I AM on intimate terms with her. I have known her for +years. + +HECTOR. It took her years to get to the same point with you that she got +to with me in five minutes, it seems. + +RANDALL [vexed]. Really, Ariadne is the limit [he moves away huffishly +towards the windows]. + +HECTOR [coolly]. She is, as I remarked to Hesione, a very enterprising +woman. + +RANDALL [returning, much troubled]. You see, Hushabye, you are what +women consider a good-looking man. + +HECTOR. I cultivated that appearance in the days of my vanity; and +Hesione insists on my keeping it up. She makes me wear these ridiculous +things [indicating his Arab costume] because she thinks me absurd in +evening dress. + +RANDALL. Still, you do keep it up, old chap. Now, I assure you I have +not an atom of jealousy in my disposition. + +HECTOR. The question would seem to be rather whether your brother has +any touch of that sort. + +RANDALL. What! Hastings! Oh, don't trouble about Hastings. He has the +gift of being able to work sixteen hours a day at the dullest detail, +and actually likes it. That gets him to the top wherever he goes. As +long as Ariadne takes care that he is fed regularly, he is only too +thankful to anyone who will keep her in good humor for him. + +HECTOR. And as she has all the Shotover fascination, there is plenty of +competition for the job, eh? + +RANDALL [angrily]. She encourages them. Her conduct is perfectly +scandalous. I assure you, my dear fellow, I haven't an atom of jealousy +in my composition; but she makes herself the talk of every place she +goes to by her thoughtlessness. It's nothing more: she doesn't really +care for the men she keeps hanging about her; but how is the world to +know that? It's not fair to Hastings. It's not fair to me. + +HECTOR. Her theory is that her conduct is so correct + +RANDALL. Correct! She does nothing but make scenes from morning till +night. You be careful, old chap. She will get you into trouble: that is, +she would if she really cared for you. + +HECTOR. Doesn't she? + +RANDALL. Not a scrap. She may want your scalp to add to her collection; +but her true affection has been engaged years ago. You had really better +be careful. + +HECTOR. Do you suffer much from this jealousy? + +RANDALL. Jealousy! I jealous! My dear fellow, haven't I told you that +there is not an atom of-- + +HECTOR. Yes. And Lady Utterword told me she never made scenes. Well, +don't waste your jealousy on my moustache. Never waste jealousy on a +real man: it is the imaginary hero that supplants us all in the long +run. Besides, jealousy does not belong to your easy man-of-the-world +pose, which you carry so well in other respects. + +RANDALL. Really, Hushabye, I think a man may be allowed to be a +gentleman without being accused of posing. + +HECTOR. It is a pose like any other. In this house we know all the +poses: our game is to find out the man under the pose. The man under +your pose is apparently Ellie's favorite, Othello. + +RANDALL. Some of your games in this house are damned annoying, let me +tell you. + +HECTOR. Yes: I have been their victim for many years. I used to writhe +under them at first; but I became accustomed to them. At last I learned +to play them. + +RANDALL. If it's all the same to you I had rather you didn't play them +on me. You evidently don't quite understand my character, or my notions +of good form. + +HECTOR. Is it your notion of good form to give away Lady Utterword? + +RANDALL [a childishly plaintive note breaking into his huff]. I have +not said a word against Lady Utterword. This is just the conspiracy over +again. + +HECTOR. What conspiracy? + +RANDALL. You know very well, sir. A conspiracy to make me out to be +pettish and jealous and childish and everything I am not. Everyone knows +I am just the opposite. + +HECTOR [rising]. Something in the air of the house has upset you. It +often does have that effect. [He goes to the garden door and calls Lady +Utterword with commanding emphasis]. Ariadne! + +LADY UTTERWORD [at some distance]. Yes. + +RANDALL. What are you calling her for? I want to speak-- + +LADY UTTERWORD [arriving breathless]. Yes. You really are a terribly +commanding person. What's the matter? + +HECTOR. I do not know how to manage your friend Randall. No doubt you +do. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Randall: have you been making yourself ridiculous, +as usual? I can see it in your face. Really, you are the most pettish +creature. + +RANDALL. You know quite well, Ariadne, that I have not an ounce of +pettishness in my disposition. I have made myself perfectly pleasant +here. I have remained absolutely cool and imperturbable in the face of +a burglar. Imperturbability is almost too strong a point of mine. But +[putting his foot down with a stamp, and walking angrily up and down the +room] I insist on being treated with a certain consideration. I will +not allow Hushabye to take liberties with me. I will not stand your +encouraging people as you do. + +HECTOR. The man has a rooted delusion that he is your husband. + +LADY UTTERWORD. I know. He is jealous. As if he had any right to be! He +compromises me everywhere. He makes scenes all over the place. Randall: +I will not allow it. I simply will not allow it. You had no right to +discuss me with Hector. I will not be discussed by men. + +HECTOR. Be reasonable, Ariadne. Your fatal gift of beauty forces men to +discuss you. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Oh indeed! what about YOUR fatal gift of beauty? + +HECTOR. How can I help it? + +LADY UTTERWORD. You could cut off your moustache: I can't cut off my +nose. I get my whole life messed up with people falling in love with me. +And then Randall says I run after men. + +RANDALL. I-- + +LADY UTTERWORD. Yes you do: you said it just now. Why can't you think +of something else than women? Napoleon was quite right when he said that +women are the occupation of the idle man. Well, if ever there was an +idle man on earth, his name is Randall Utterword. + +RANDALL. Ariad-- + +LADY UTTERWORD [overwhelming him with a torrent of words]. Oh yes you +are: it's no use denying it. What have you ever done? What good are you? +You are as much trouble in the house as a child of three. You couldn't +live without your valet. + +RANDALL. This is-- + +LADY UTTERWORD. Laziness! You are laziness incarnate. You are +selfishness itself. You are the most uninteresting man on earth. You +can't even gossip about anything but yourself and your grievances and +your ailments and the people who have offended you. [Turning to Hector]. +Do you know what they call him, Hector? + +HECTOR } [speaking { Please don't tell me. RANDALL } together] { I'll +not stand it-- + +LADY UTTERWORD. Randall the Rotter: that is his name in good society. + +RANDALL [shouting]. I'll not bear it, I tell you. Will you listen to me, +you infernal--[he chokes]. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Well: go on. What were you going to call me? An infernal +what? Which unpleasant animal is it to be this time? + +RANDALL [foaming]. There is no animal in the world so hateful as a woman +can be. You are a maddening devil. Hushabye, you will not believe me +when I tell you that I have loved this demon all my life; but God knows +I have paid for it [he sits down in the draughtsman's chair, weeping]. + +LADY UTTERWORD [standing over him with triumphant contempt]. Cry-baby! + +HECTOR [gravely, coming to him]. My friend, the Shotover sisters have +two strange powers over men. They can make them love; and they can make +them cry. Thank your stars that you are not married to one of them. + +LADY UTTERWORD [haughtily]. And pray, Hector-- + +HECTOR [suddenly catching her round the shoulders: swinging her right +round him and away from Randall: and gripping her throat with the other +hand]. Ariadne, if you attempt to start on me, I'll choke you: do you +hear? The cat-and-mouse game with the other sex is a good game; but I +can play your head off at it. [He throws her, not at all gently, into +the big chair, and proceeds, less fiercely but firmly]. It is true that +Napoleon said that woman is the occupation of the idle man. But he added +that she is the relaxation of the warrior. Well, I am the warrior. So +take care. + +LADY UTTERWORD [not in the least put out, and rather pleased by his +violence]. My dear Hector, I have only done what you asked me to do. + +HECTOR. How do you make that out, pray? + +LADY UTTERWORD. You called me in to manage Randall, didn't you? You said +you couldn't manage him yourself. + +HECTOR. Well, what if I did? I did not ask you to drive the man mad. + +LADY UTTERWORD. He isn't mad. That's the way to manage him. If you were +a mother, you'd understand. + +HECTOR. Mother! What are you up to now? + +LADY UTTERWORD. It's quite simple. When the children got nerves and +were naughty, I smacked them just enough to give them a good cry and +a healthy nervous shock. They went to sleep and were quite good +afterwards. Well, I can't smack Randall: he is too big; so when he gets +nerves and is naughty, I just rag him till he cries. He will be all +right now. Look: he is half asleep already [which is quite true]. + +RANDALL [waking up indignantly]. I'm not. You are most cruel, Ariadne. +[Sentimentally]. But I suppose I must forgive you, as usual [he checks +himself in the act of yawning]. + +LADY UTTERWORD [to Hector]. Is the explanation satisfactory, dread +warrior? + +HECTOR. Some day I shall kill you, if you go too far. I thought you were +a fool. + +LADY UTTERWORD [laughing]. Everybody does, at first. But I am not such +a fool as I look. [She rises complacently]. Now, Randall, go to bed. You +will be a good boy in the morning. + +RANDALL [only very faintly rebellious]. I'll go to bed when I like. It +isn't ten yet. + +LADY UTTERWORD. It is long past ten. See that he goes to bed at once, +Hector. [She goes into the garden]. + +HECTOR. Is there any slavery on earth viler than this slavery of men to +women? + +RANDALL [rising resolutely]. I'll not speak to her tomorrow. I'll not +speak to her for another week. I'll give her such a lesson. I'll go +straight to bed without bidding her good-night. [He makes for the door +leading to the hall]. + +HECTOR. You are under a spell, man. Old Shotover sold himself to the +devil in Zanzibar. The devil gave him a black witch for a wife; and +these two demon daughters are their mystical progeny. I am tied to +Hesione's apron-string; but I'm her husband; and if I did go stark +staring mad about her, at least we became man and wife. But why should +you let yourself be dragged about and beaten by Ariadne as a toy donkey +is dragged about and beaten by a child? What do you get by it? Are you +her lover? + +RANDALL. You must not misunderstand me. In a higher sense--in a Platonic +sense-- + +HECTOR. Psha! Platonic sense! She makes you her servant; and when +pay-day comes round, she bilks you: that is what you mean. + +RANDALL [feebly]. Well, if I don't mind, I don't see what business it is +of yours. Besides, I tell you I am going to punish her. You shall see: +I know how to deal with women. I'm really very sleepy. Say good-night to +Mrs Hushabye for me, will you, like a good chap. Good-night. [He hurries +out]. + +HECTOR. Poor wretch! Oh women! women! women! [He lifts his fists in +invocation to heaven]. Fall. Fall and crush. [He goes out into the +garden]. + + + + +ACT III + +In the garden, Hector, as he comes out through the glass door of the +poop, finds Lady Utterword lying voluptuously in the hammock on the east +side of the flagstaff, in the circle of light cast by the electric arc, +which is like a moon in its opal globe. Beneath the head of the hammock, +a campstool. On the other side of the flagstaff, on the long garden +seat, Captain Shotover is asleep, with Ellie beside him, leaning +affectionately against him on his right hand. On his left is a deck +chair. Behind them in the gloom, Hesione is strolling about with Mangan. +It is a fine still night, moonless. + +LADY UTTERWORD. What a lovely night! It seems made for us. + +HECTOR. The night takes no interest in us. What are we to the night? [He +sits down moodily in the deck chair]. + +ELLIE [dreamily, nestling against the captain]. Its beauty soaks into my +nerves. In the night there is peace for the old and hope for the young. + +HECTOR. Is that remark your own? + +ELLIE. No. Only the last thing the captain said before he went to sleep. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I'm not asleep. + +HECTOR. Randall is. Also Mr Mazzini Dunn. Mangan, too, probably. + +MANGAN. No. + +HECTOR. Oh, you are there. I thought Hesione would have sent you to bed +by this time. + +MRS HUSHABYE [coming to the back of the garden seat, into the light, +with Mangan]. I think I shall. He keeps telling me he has a presentiment +that he is going to die. I never met a man so greedy for sympathy. + +MANGAN [plaintively]. But I have a presentiment. I really have. And you +wouldn't listen. + +MRS HUSHABYE. I was listening for something else. There was a sort of +splendid drumming in the sky. Did none of you hear it? It came from a +distance and then died away. + +MANGAN. I tell you it was a train. + +MRS HUSHABYE. And I tell you, Alf, there is no train at this hour. The +last is nine forty-five. + +MANGAN. But a goods train. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Not on our little line. They tack a truck on to the +passenger train. What can it have been, Hector? + +HECTOR. Heaven's threatening growl of disgust at us useless futile +creatures. [Fiercely]. I tell you, one of two things must happen. Either +out of that darkness some new creation will come to supplant us as we +have supplanted the animals, or the heavens will fall in thunder and +destroy us. + +LADY UTTERWORD [in a cool instructive manner, wallowing comfortably in +her hammock]. We have not supplanted the animals, Hector. Why do you ask +heaven to destroy this house, which could be made quite comfortable if +Hesione had any notion of how to live? Don't you know what is wrong with +it? + +HECTOR. We are wrong with it. There is no sense in us. We are useless, +dangerous, and ought to be abolished. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Nonsense! Hastings told me the very first day he came +here, nearly twenty-four years ago, what is wrong with the house. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What! The numskull said there was something wrong with +my house! + +LADY UTTERWORD. I said Hastings said it; and he is not in the least a +numskull. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What's wrong with my house? + +LADY UTTERWORD. Just what is wrong with a ship, papa. Wasn't it clever +of Hastings to see that? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The man's a fool. There's nothing wrong with a ship. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Yes, there is. + +MRS HUSHABYE. But what is it? Don't be aggravating, Addy. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Guess. + +HECTOR. Demons. Daughters of the witch of Zanzibar. Demons. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Not a bit. I assure you, all this house needs to make it +a sensible, healthy, pleasant house, with good appetites and sound sleep +in it, is horses. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Horses! What rubbish! + +LADY UTTERWORD. Yes: horses. Why have we never been able to let this +house? Because there are no proper stables. Go anywhere in England where +there are natural, wholesome, contented, and really nice English people; +and what do you always find? That the stables are the real centre of +the household; and that if any visitor wants to play the piano the whole +room has to be upset before it can be opened, there are so many things +piled on it. I never lived until I learned to ride; and I shall never +ride really well because I didn't begin as a child. There are only +two classes in good society in England: the equestrian classes and the +neurotic classes. It isn't mere convention: everybody can see that the +people who hunt are the right people and the people who don't are the +wrong ones. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. There is some truth in this. My ship made a man of me; +and a ship is the horse of the sea. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Exactly how Hastings explained your being a gentleman. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Not bad for a numskull. Bring the man here with you +next time: I must talk to him. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Why is Randall such an obvious rotter? He is well bred; +he has been at a public school and a university; he has been in the +Foreign Office; he knows the best people and has lived all his life +among them. Why is he so unsatisfactory, so contemptible? Why can't he +get a valet to stay with him longer than a few months? Just because he +is too lazy and pleasure-loving to hunt and shoot. He strums the piano, +and sketches, and runs after married women, and reads literary books and +poems. He actually plays the flute; but I never let him bring it into my +house. If he would only--[she is interrupted by the melancholy strains +of a flute coming from an open window above. She raises herself +indignantly in the hammock]. Randall, you have not gone to bed. Have +you been listening? [The flute replies pertly]. How vulgar! Go to bed +instantly, Randall: how dare you? [The window is slammed down. She +subsides]. How can anyone care for such a creature! + +MRS HUSHABYE. Addy: do you think Ellie ought to marry poor Alfred merely +for his money? + +MANGAN [much alarmed]. What's that? Mrs Hushabye, are my affairs to be +discussed like this before everybody? + +LADY UTTERWORD. I don't think Randall is listening now. + +MANGAN. Everybody is listening. It isn't right. + +MRS HUSHABYE. But in the dark, what does it matter? Ellie doesn't mind. +Do you, Ellie? + +ELLIE. Not in the least. What is your opinion, Lady Utterword? You have +so much good sense. + +MANGAN. But it isn't right. It--[Mrs Hushabye puts her hand on his +mouth]. Oh, very well. + +LADY UTTERWORD. How much money have you, Mr. Mangan? + +MANGAN. Really--No: I can't stand this. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Nonsense, Mr Mangan! It all turns on your income, +doesn't it? + +MANGAN. Well, if you come to that, how much money has she? + +ELLIE. None. + +LADY UTTERWORD. You are answered, Mr Mangan. And now, as you have made +Miss Dunn throw her cards on the table, you cannot refuse to show your +own. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Come, Alf! out with it! How much? + +MANGAN [baited out of all prudence]. Well, if you want to know, I have +no money and never had any. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Alfred, you mustn't tell naughty stories. + +MANGAN. I'm not telling you stories. I'm telling you the raw truth. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Then what do you live on, Mr Mangan? + +MANGAN. Travelling expenses. And a trifle of commission. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What more have any of us but travelling expenses for +our life's journey? + +MRS HUSHABYE. But you have factories and capital and things? + +MANGAN. People think I have. People think I'm an industrial Napoleon. +That's why Miss Ellie wants to marry me. But I tell you I have nothing. + +ELLIE. Do you mean that the factories are like Marcus's tigers? That +they don't exist? + +MANGAN. They exist all right enough. But they're not mine. They belong +to syndicates and shareholders and all sorts of lazy good-for-nothing +capitalists. I get money from such people to start the factories. I find +people like Miss Dunn's father to work them, and keep a tight hand so as +to make them pay. Of course I make them keep me going pretty well; but +it's a dog's life; and I don't own anything. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Alfred, Alfred, you are making a poor mouth of it to get +out of marrying Ellie. + +MANGAN. I'm telling the truth about my money for the first time in my +life; and it's the first time my word has ever been doubted. + +LADY UTTERWORD. How sad! Why don't you go in for politics, Mr Mangan? + +MANGAN. Go in for politics! Where have you been living? I am in +politics. + +LADY UTTERWORD. I'm sure I beg your pardon. I never heard of you. + +MANGAN. Let me tell you, Lady Utterword, that the Prime Minister of this +country asked me to join the Government without even going through the +nonsense of an election, as the dictator of a great public department. + +LADY UTTERWORD. As a Conservative or a Liberal? + +MANGAN. No such nonsense. As a practical business man. [They all burst +out laughing]. What are you all laughing at? + +MRS HUSHARYE. Oh, Alfred, Alfred! + +ELLIE. You! who have to get my father to do everything for you! + +MRS HUSHABYE. You! who are afraid of your own workmen! + +HECTOR. You! with whom three women have been playing cat and mouse all +the evening! + +LADY UTTERWORD. You must have given an immense sum to the party funds, +Mr Mangan. + +MANGAN. Not a penny out of my own pocket. The syndicate found the money: +they knew how useful I should be to them in the Government. + +LADY UTTERWORD. This is most interesting and unexpected, Mr Mangan. And +what have your administrative achievements been, so far? + +MANGAN. Achievements? Well, I don't know what you call achievements; +but I've jolly well put a stop to the games of the other fellows in the +other departments. Every man of them thought he was going to save the +country all by himself, and do me out of the credit and out of my chance +of a title. I took good care that if they wouldn't let me do it they +shouldn't do it themselves either. I may not know anything about my own +machinery; but I know how to stick a ramrod into the other fellow's. And +now they all look the biggest fools going. + +HECTOR. And in heaven's name, what do you look like? + +MANGAN. I look like the fellow that was too clever for all the others, +don't I? If that isn't a triumph of practical business, what is? + +HECTOR. Is this England, or is it a madhouse? + +LADY UTTERWORD. Do you expect to save the country, Mr Mangan? + +MANGAN. Well, who else will? Will your Mr Randall save it? + +LADY UTTERWORD. Randall the rotter! Certainly not. + +MANGAN. Will your brother-in-law save it with his moustache and his fine +talk? + +HECTOR. Yes, if they will let me. + +MANGAN [sneering]. Ah! Will they let you? + +HECTOR. No. They prefer you. + +MANGAN. Very well then, as you're in a world where I'm appreciated and +you're not, you'd best be civil to me, hadn't you? Who else is there but +me? + +LADY UTTERWORD. There is Hastings. Get rid of your ridiculous sham +democracy; and give Hastings the necessary powers, and a good supply +of bamboo to bring the British native to his senses: he will save the +country with the greatest ease. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It had better be lost. Any fool can govern with a +stick in his hand. I could govern that way. It is not God's way. The man +is a numskull. + +LADY UTTERWORD. The man is worth all of you rolled into one. What do you +say, Miss Dunn? + +ELLIE. I think my father would do very well if people did not put upon +him and cheat him and despise him because he is so good. + +MANGAN [contemptuously]. I think I see Mazzini Dunn getting into +parliament or pushing his way into the Government. We've not come to +that yet, thank God! What do you say, Mrs Hushabye? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, I say it matters very little which of you governs the +country so long as we govern you. + +HECTOR. We? Who is we, pray? + +MRS HUSHABYE. The devil's granddaughters, dear. The lovely women. + +HECTOR [raising his hands as before]. Fall, I say, and deliver us from +the lures of Satan! + +ELLIE. There seems to be nothing real in the world except my father and +Shakespeare. Marcus's tigers are false; Mr Mangan's millions are false; +there is nothing really strong and true about Hesione but her beautiful +black hair; and Lady Utterword's is too pretty to be real. The one thing +that was left to me was the Captain's seventh degree of concentration; +and that turns out to be-- + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Rum. + +LADY UTTERWORD [placidly]. A good deal of my hair is quite genuine. The +Duchess of Dithering offered me fifty guineas for this [touching her +forehead] under the impression that it was a transformation; but it is +all natural except the color. + +MANGAN [wildly]. Look here: I'm going to take off all my clothes [he +begins tearing off his coat]. + +LADY UTTERWORD. [in consternation] { Mr. Mangan! + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER { What's that? + +HECTOR. { Ha! Ha! Do. Do. + +ELLIE { Please don't. + +MRS HUSHABYE [catching his arm and stopping him]. Alfred, for shame! Are +you mad? + +MANGAN. Shame! What shame is there in this house? Let's all strip stark +naked. We may as well do the thing thoroughly when we're about it. +We've stripped ourselves morally naked: well, let us strip ourselves +physically naked as well, and see how we like it. I tell you I can't +bear this. I was brought up to be respectable. I don't mind the women +dyeing their hair and the men drinking: it's human nature. But it's not +human nature to tell everybody about it. Every time one of you opens +your mouth I go like this [he cowers as if to avoid a missile], afraid +of what will come next. How are we to have any self-respect if we don't +keep it up that we're better than we really are? + +LADY UTTERWORD. I quite sympathize with you, Mr Mangan. I have been +through it all; and I know by experience that men and women are delicate +plants and must be cultivated under glass. Our family habit of throwing +stones in all directions and letting the air in is not only unbearably +rude, but positively dangerous. Still, there is no use catching physical +colds as well as moral ones; so please keep your clothes on. + +MANGAN. I'll do as I like: not what you tell me. Am I a child or a grown +man? I won't stand this mothering tyranny. I'll go back to the city, +where I'm respected and made much of. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Goodbye, Alf. Think of us sometimes in the city. Think of +Ellie's youth! + +ELLIE. Think of Hesione's eyes and hair! + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Think of this garden in which you are not a dog +barking to keep the truth out! + +HECTOR. Think of Lady Utterword's beauty! her good sense! her style! + +LADY UTTERWORD. Flatterer. Think, Mr. Mangan, whether you can really do +any better for yourself elsewhere: that is the essential point, isn't +it? + +MANGAN [surrendering]. All right: all right. I'm done. Have it your own +way. Only let me alone. I don't know whether I'm on my head or my heels +when you all start on me like this. I'll stay. I'll marry her. I'll do +anything for a quiet life. Are you satisfied now? + +ELLIE. No. I never really intended to make you marry me, Mr Mangan. +Never in the depths of my soul. I only wanted to feel my strength: to +know that you could not escape if I chose to take you. + +MANGAN [indignantly]. What! Do you mean to say you are going to throw me +over after my acting so handsome? + +LADY UTTERWORD. I should not be too hasty, Miss Dunn. You can throw +Mr Mangan over at any time up to the last moment. Very few men in his +position go bankrupt. You can live very comfortably on his reputation +for immense wealth. + +ELLIE. I cannot commit bigamy, Lady Utterword. + +MRS HUSHABYE. { Bigamy! Whatever on earth are + you talking about, Ellie? + +LADY UTTERWORD [exclaiming altogether { Bigamy! What do you mean, Miss + Dunn? + +MANGAN { Bigamy! Do you mean to say + you're married already? + +HECTOR { Bigamy! This is some enigma. + +ELLIE. Only half an hour ago I became Captain Shotover's white wife. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Ellie! What nonsense! Where? + +ELLIE. In heaven, where all true marriages are made. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Really, Miss Dunn! Really, papa! + +MANGAN. He told me I was too old! And him a mummy! + +HECTOR [quoting Shelley]. + + "Their altar the grassy earth outspreads + And their priest the muttering wind." + +ELLIE. Yes: I, Ellie Dunn, give my broken heart and my strong sound soul +to its natural captain, my spiritual husband and second father. + +She draws the captain's arm through hers, and pats his hand. The captain +remains fast asleep. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, that's very clever of you, pettikins. Very clever. +Alfred, you could never have lived up to Ellie. You must be content with +a little share of me. + +MANGAN [snifflng and wiping his eyes]. It isn't kind--[his emotion +chokes him]. + +LADY UTTERWORD. You are well out of it, Mr Mangan. Miss Dunn is the most +conceited young woman I have met since I came back to England. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, Ellie isn't conceited. Are you, pettikins? + +ELLIE. I know my strength now, Hesione. + +MANGAN. Brazen, I call you. Brazen. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Tut, tut, Alfred: don't be rude. Don't you feel how +lovely this marriage night is, made in heaven? Aren't you happy, you and +Hector? Open your eyes: Addy and Ellie look beautiful enough to please +the most fastidious man: we live and love and have not a care in the +world. We women have managed all that for you. Why in the name of common +sense do you go on as if you were two miserable wretches? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I tell you happiness is no good. You can be happy when +you are only half alive. I am happier now I am half dead than ever I was +in my prime. But there is no blessing on my happiness. + +ELLIE [her face lighting up]. Life with a blessing! that is what I want. +Now I know the real reason why I couldn't marry Mr Mangan: there would +be no blessing on our marriage. There is a blessing on my broken heart. +There is a blessing on your beauty, Hesione. There is a blessing on your +father's spirit. Even on the lies of Marcus there is a blessing; but on +Mr Mangan's money there is none. + +MANGAN. I don't understand a word of that. + +ELLIE. Neither do I. But I know it means something. + +MANGAN. Don't say there was any difficulty about the blessing. I was +ready to get a bishop to marry us. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Isn't he a fool, pettikins? + +HECTOR [fiercely]. Do not scorn the man. We are all fools. + +Mazzini, in pyjamas and a richly colored silk dressing gown, comes from +the house, on Lady Utterword's side. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Oh! here comes the only man who ever resisted me. What's +the matter, Mr Dunn? Is the house on fire? + +MAZZINI. Oh, no: nothing's the matter: but really it's impossible to +go to sleep with such an interesting conversation going on under one's +window, and on such a beautiful night too. I just had to come down and +join you all. What has it all been about? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, wonderful things, soldier of freedom. + +HECTOR. For example, Mangan, as a practical business man, has tried +to undress himself and has failed ignominiously; whilst you, as an +idealist, have succeeded brilliantly. + +MAZZINI. I hope you don't mind my being like this, Mrs Hushabye. [He +sits down on the campstool]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. On the contrary, I could wish you always like that. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Your daughter's match is off, Mr Dunn. It seems that Mr +Mangan, whom we all supposed to be a man of property, owns absolutely +nothing. + +MAZZINI. Well, of course I knew that, Lady Utterword. But if people +believe in him and are always giving him money, whereas they don't +believe in me and never give me any, how can I ask poor Ellie to depend +on what I can do for her? + +MANGAN. Don't you run away with this idea that I have nothing. I-- + +HECTOR. Oh, don't explain. We understand. You have a couple of thousand +pounds in exchequer bills, 50,000 shares worth tenpence a dozen, and +half a dozen tabloids of cyanide of potassium to poison yourself with +when you are found out. That's the reality of your millions. + +MAZZINI. Oh no, no, no. He is quite honest: the businesses are genuine +and perfectly legal. + +HECTOR [disgusted]. Yah! Not even a great swindler! + +MANGAN. So you think. But I've been too many for some honest men, for +all that. + +LADY UTTERWORD. There is no pleasing you, Mr Mangan. You are determined +to be neither rich nor poor, honest nor dishonest. + +MANGAN. There you go again. Ever since I came into this silly house I +have been made to look like a fool, though I'm as good a man in this +house as in the city. + +ELLIE [musically]. Yes: this silly house, this strangely happy house, +this agonizing house, this house without foundations. I shall call it +Heartbreak House. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Stop, Ellie; or I shall howl like an animal. + +MANGAN [breaks into a low snivelling]!!! + +MRS HUSAHBYE. There! you have set Alfred off. + +ELLIE. I like him best when he is howling. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Silence! [Mangan subsides into silence]. I say, let +the heart break in silence. + +HECTOR. Do you accept that name for your house? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It is not my house: it is only my kennel. + +HECTOR. We have been too long here. We do not live in this house: we +haunt it. + +LADY UTTERWORD [heart torn]. It is dreadful to think how you have been +here all these years while I have gone round the world. I escaped young; +but it has drawn me back. It wants to break my heart too. But it shan't. +I have left you and it behind. It was silly of me to come back. I +felt sentimental about papa and Hesione and the old place. I felt them +calling to me. + +MAZZINI. But what a very natural and kindly and charming human feeling, +Lady Utterword! + +LADY UTTERWORD. So I thought, Mr Dunn. But I know now that it was only +the last of my influenza. I found that I was not remembered and not +wanted. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You left because you did not want us. Was there no +heartbreak in that for your father? You tore yourself up by the roots; +and the ground healed up and brought forth fresh plants and forgot you. +What right had you to come back and probe old wounds? + +MRS HUSHABYE. You were a complete stranger to me at first, Addy; but now +I feel as if you had never been away. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Thank you, Hesione; but the influenza is quite cured. +The place may be Heartbreak House to you, Miss Dunn, and to this +gentleman from the city who seems to have so little self-control; but to +me it is only a very ill-regulated and rather untidy villa without any +stables. + +HECTOR. Inhabited by--? + +ELLIE. A crazy old sea captain and a young singer who adores him. + +MRS HUSHABYE. A sluttish female, trying to stave off a double chin and +an elderly spread, vainly wooing a born soldier of freedom. + +MAZZINI. Oh, really, Mrs Hushabye-- + +MANGAN. A member of His Majesty's Government that everybody sets down as +a nincompoop: don't forget him, Lady Utterword. + +LADY UTTERWORD. And a very fascinating gentleman whose chief occupation +is to be married to my sister. + +HECTOR. All heartbroken imbeciles. + +MAZZINI. Oh no. Surely, if I may say so, rather a favorable specimen of +what is best in our English culture. You are very charming people, +most advanced, unprejudiced, frank, humane, unconventional, democratic, +free-thinking, and everything that is delightful to thoughtful people. + +MRS HUSHABYE. You do us proud, Mazzini. + +MAZZINI. I am not flattering, really. Where else could I feel perfectly +at ease in my pyjamas? I sometimes dream that I am in very distinguished +society, and suddenly I have nothing on but my pyjamas! Sometimes I +haven't even pyjamas. And I always feel overwhelmed with confusion. But +here, I don't mind in the least: it seems quite natural. + +LADY UTTERWORD. An infallible sign that you are now not in really +distinguished society, Mr Dunn. If you were in my house, you would feel +embarrassed. + +MAZZINI. I shall take particular care to keep out of your house, Lady +Utterword. + +LADY UTTERWORD. You will be quite wrong, Mr Dunn. I should make you very +comfortable; and you would not have the trouble and anxiety of wondering +whether you should wear your purple and gold or your green and crimson +dressing-gown at dinner. You complicate life instead of simplifying it +by doing these ridiculous things. + +ELLIE. Your house is not Heartbreak House: is it, Lady Utterword? + +HECTOR. Yet she breaks hearts, easy as her house is. That poor devil +upstairs with his flute howls when she twists his heart, just as Mangan +howls when my wife twists his. + +LADY UTTERWORD. That is because Randall has nothing to do but have +his heart broken. It is a change from having his head shampooed. Catch +anyone breaking Hastings' heart! + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The numskull wins, after all. + +LADY UTTERWORD. I shall go back to my numskull with the greatest +satisfaction when I am tired of you all, clever as you are. + +MANGAN [huffily]. I never set up to be clever. + +LADY UTTERWORD. I forgot you, Mr Mangan. + +MANGAN. Well, I don't see that quite, either. + +LADY UTTERWORD. You may not be clever, Mr Mangan; but you are +successful. + +MANGAN. But I don't want to be regarded merely as a successful man. I +have an imagination like anyone else. I have a presentiment. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, you are impossible, Alfred. Here I am devoting myself +to you; and you think of nothing but your ridiculous presentiment. You +bore me. Come and talk poetry to me under the stars. [She drags him away +into the darkness]. + +MANGAN [tearfully, as he disappears]. Yes: it's all very well to make +fun of me; but if you only knew-- + +HECTOR [impatiently]. How is all this going to end? + +MAZZINI. It won't end, Mr Hushabye. Life doesn't end: it goes on. + +ELLIE. Oh, it can't go on forever. I'm always expecting something. I +don't know what it is; but life must come to a point sometime. + +LADY UTTERWORD. The point for a young woman of your age is a baby. + +HECTOR. Yes, but, damn it, I have the same feeling; and I can't have a +baby. + +LADY UTTERWORD. By deputy, Hector. + +HECTOR. But I have children. All that is over and done with for me: +and yet I too feel that this can't last. We sit here talking, and leave +everything to Mangan and to chance and to the devil. Think of the powers +of destruction that Mangan and his mutual admiration gang wield! It's +madness: it's like giving a torpedo to a badly brought up child to play +at earthquakes with. + +MAZZINI. I know. I used often to think about that when I was young. + +HECTOR. Think! What's the good of thinking about it? Why didn't you do +something? + +MAZZINI. But I did. I joined societies and made speeches and wrote +pamphlets. That was all I could do. But, you know, though the people in +the societies thought they knew more than Mangan, most of them wouldn't +have joined if they had known as much. You see they had never had +any money to handle or any men to manage. Every year I expected a +revolution, or some frightful smash-up: it seemed impossible that we +could blunder and muddle on any longer. But nothing happened, except, +of course, the usual poverty and crime and drink that we are used to. +Nothing ever does happen. It's amazing how well we get along, all things +considered. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Perhaps somebody cleverer than you and Mr Mangan was at +work all the time. + +MAZZINI. Perhaps so. Though I was brought up not to believe in anything, +I often feel that there is a great deal to be said for the theory of an +over-ruling Providence, after all. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Providence! I meant Hastings. + +MAZZINI. Oh, I beg your pardon, Lady Utterword. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Every drunken skipper trusts to Providence. But one +of the ways of Providence with drunken skippers is to run them on the +rocks. + +MAZZINI. Very true, no doubt, at sea. But in politics, I assure you, +they only run into jellyfish. Nothing happens. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. At sea nothing happens to the sea. Nothing happens to +the sky. The sun comes up from the east and goes down to the west. The +moon grows from a sickle to an arc lamp, and comes later and later until +she is lost in the light as other things are lost in the darkness. After +the typhoon, the flying-fish glitter in the sunshine like birds. It's +amazing how they get along, all things considered. Nothing happens, +except something not worth mentioning. + +ELLIE. What is that, O Captain, O my captain? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [savagely]. Nothing but the smash of the drunken +skipper's ship on the rocks, the splintering of her rotten timbers, the +tearing of her rusty plates, the drowning of the crew like rats in a +trap. + +ELLIE. Moral: don't take rum. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [vehemently]. That is a lie, child. Let a man drink ten +barrels of rum a day, he is not a drunken skipper until he is a drifting +skipper. Whilst he can lay his course and stand on his bridge and steer +it, he is no drunkard. It is the man who lies drinking in his bunk and +trusts to Providence that I call the drunken skipper, though he drank +nothing but the waters of the River Jordan. + +ELLIE. Splendid! And you haven't had a drop for an hour. You see you +don't need it: your own spirit is not dead. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Echoes: nothing but echoes. The last shot was fired +years ago. + +HECTOR. And this ship that we are all in? This soul's prison we call +England? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The captain is in his bunk, drinking bottled +ditch-water; and the crew is gambling in the forecastle. She will strike +and sink and split. Do you think the laws of God will be suspended in +favor of England because you were born in it? + +HECTOR. Well, I don't mean to be drowned like a rat in a trap. I still +have the will to live. What am I to do? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Do? Nothing simpler. Learn your business as an +Englishman. + +HECTOR. And what may my business as an Englishman be, pray? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Navigation. Learn it and live; or leave it and be +damned. + +ELLIE. Quiet, quiet: you'll tire yourself. + +MAZZINI. I thought all that once, Captain; but I assure you nothing will +happen. + +A dull distant explosion is heard. + +HECTOR [starting up]. What was that? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Something happening [he blows his whistle]. Breakers +ahead! + +The light goes out. + +HECTOR [furiously]. Who put that light out? Who dared put that light +out? + +NURSE GUINNESS [running in from the house to the middle of the +esplanade]. I did, sir. The police have telephoned to say we'll be +summoned if we don't put that light out: it can be seen for miles. + +HECTOR. It shall be seen for a hundred miles [he dashes into the house]. + +NURSE GUINNESS. The Rectory is nothing but a heap of bricks, they say. +Unless we can give the Rector a bed he has nowhere to lay his head this +night. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The Church is on the rocks, breaking up. I told him it +would unless it headed for God's open sea. + +NURSE GUINNESS. And you are all to go down to the cellars. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Go there yourself, you and all the crew. Batten down +the hatches. + +NURSE GUINNESS. And hide beside the coward I married! I'll go on the +roof first. [The lamp lights up again]. There! Mr Hushabye's turned it +on again. + +THE BURGLAR [hurrying in and appealing to Nurse Guinness]. Here: where's +the way to that gravel pit? The boot-boy says there's a cave in the +gravel pit. Them cellars is no use. Where's the gravel pit, Captain? + +NURSE GUINNESS. Go straight on past the flagstaff until you fall into +it and break your dirty neck. [She pushes him contemptuously towards the +flagstaff, and herself goes to the foot of the hammock and waits there, +as it were by Ariadne's cradle]. + +Another and louder explosion is heard. The burglar stops and stands +trembling. + +ELLIE [rising]. That was nearer. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The next one will get us. [He rises]. Stand by, all +hands, for judgment. + +THE BURGLAR. Oh my Lordy God! [He rushes away frantically past the +flagstaff into the gloom]. + +MRS HUSHABYE [emerging panting from the darkness]. Who was that running +away? [She comes to Ellie]. Did you hear the explosions? And the sound +in the sky: it's splendid: it's like an orchestra: it's like Beethoven. + +ELLIE. By thunder, Hesione: it is Beethoven. + +She and Hesione throw themselves into one another's arms in wild +excitement. The light increases. + +MAZZINI [anxiously]. The light is getting brighter. + +NURSE GUINNESS [looking up at the house]. It's Mr Hushabye turning on +all the lights in the house and tearing down the curtains. + +RANDALL [rushing in in his pyjamas, distractedly waving a flute]. +Ariadne, my soul, my precious, go down to the cellars: I beg and implore +you, go down to the cellars! + +LADY UTTERWORD [quite composed in her hammock]. The governor's wife in +the cellars with the servants! Really, Randall! + +RANDALL. But what shall I do if you are killed? + +LADY UTTERWORD. You will probably be killed, too, Randall. Now play your +flute to show that you are not afraid; and be good. Play us "Keep the +home fires burning." + +NURSE GUINNESS [grimly]. THEY'LL keep the home fires burning for us: +them up there. + +RANDALL [having tried to play]. My lips are trembling. I can't get a +sound. + +MAZZINI. I hope poor Mangan is safe. + +MRS HUSHABYE. He is hiding in the cave in the gravel pit. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. My dynamite drew him there. It is the hand of God. + +HECTOR [returning from the house and striding across to his former +place]. There is not half light enough. We should be blazing to the +skies. + +ELLIE [tense with excitement]. Set fire to the house, Marcus. + +MRS HUSHABYE. My house! No. + +HECTOR. I thought of that; but it would not be ready in time. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The judgment has come. Courage will not save you; but +it will show that your souls are still live. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Sh-sh! Listen: do you hear it now? It's magnificent. + +They all turn away from the house and look up, listening. + +HECTOR [gravely]. Miss Dunn, you can do no good here. We of this house +are only moths flying into the candle. You had better go down to the +cellar. + +ELLIE [scornfully]. I don't think. + +MAZZINI. Ellie, dear, there is no disgrace in going to the cellar. An +officer would order his soldiers to take cover. Mr Hushabye is behaving +like an amateur. Mangan and the burglar are acting very sensibly; and it +is they who will survive. + +ELLIE. Let them. I shall behave like an amateur. But why should you run +any risk? + +MAZZINI. Think of the risk those poor fellows up there are running! + +NURSE GUINNESS. Think of them, indeed, the murdering blackguards! What +next? + +A terrific explosion shakes the earth. They reel back into their seats, +or clutch the nearest support. They hear the falling of the shattered +glass from the windows. + +MAZZINI. Is anyone hurt? + +HECTOR. Where did it fall? + +NURSE GUINNESS [in hideous triumph]. Right in the gravel pit: I seen +it. Serve un right! I seen it [she runs away towards the gravel pit, +laughing harshly]. + +HECTOR. One husband gone. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Thirty pounds of good dynamite wasted. + +MAZZINI. Oh, poor Mangan! + +HECTOR. Are you immortal that you need pity him? Our turn next. + +They wait in silence and intense expectation. Hesione and Ellie hold +each other's hand tight. + +A distant explosion is heard. + +MRS HUSHABYE [relaxing her grip]. Oh! they have passed us. + +LADY UTTERWORD. The danger is over, Randall. Go to bed. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Turn in, all hands. The ship is safe. [He sits down +and goes asleep]. + +ELLIE [disappointedly]. Safe! + +HECTOR [disgustedly]. Yes, safe. And how damnably dull the world has +become again suddenly! [he sits down]. + +MAZZINI [sitting down]. I was quite wrong, after all. It is we who have +survived; and Mangan and the burglar-- + +HECTOR. --the two burglars-- + +LADY UTTERWORD. --the two practical men of business-- + +MAZZINI. --both gone. And the poor clergyman will have to get a new +house. + +MRS HUSHABYE. But what a glorious experience! I hope they'll come again +tomorrow night. + +ELLIE [radiant at the prospect]. Oh, I hope so. + +Randall at last succeeds in keeping the home fires burning on his flute. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Heartbreak House, by George Bernard Shaw + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HEARTBREAK HOUSE *** + +***** This file should be named 3543.txt or 3543.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/4/3543/ + +Produced by Eve Sobol + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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Please contact us beforehand to + let us know your plans and to work out the details. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of +public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed +in machine readable form. + +The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, +public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses. +Money should be paid to the: +"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or +software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: +hart@pobox.comc + + + + + +This Etext was produced by Eve Sobol, South Bend, Indiana, USA + + + + + +HEARTBREAK HOUSE: A FANTASIA IN THE RUSSIAN MANNER ON ENGLISH THEMES + +by BERNARD SHAW + +1913-1916 + + + + +HEARTBREAK HOUSE AND HORSEBACK HALL + + +Where Heartbreak House Stands + +Heartbreak House is not merely the name of the play which follows +this preface. It is cultured, leisured Europe before the war. +When the play was begun not a shot had been fired; and only the +professional diplomatists and the very few amateurs whose hobby +is foreign policy even knew that the guns were loaded. A Russian +playwright, Tchekov, had produced four fascinating dramatic +studies of Heartbreak House, of which three, The Cherry Orchard, +Uncle Vanya, and The Seagull, had been performed in England. +Tolstoy, in his Fruits of Enlightenment, had shown us through it +in his most ferociously contemptuous manner. Tolstoy did not +waste any sympathy on it: it was to him the house in which Europe +was stifling its soul; and he knew that our utter enervation and +futilization in that overheated drawingroom atmosphere was +delivering the world over to the control of ignorant and soulless +cunning and energy, with the frightful consequences which have +now overtaken it. Tolstoy was no pessimist: he was not disposed +to leave the house standing if he could bring it down about the +ears of its pretty and amiable voluptuaries; and he wielded the +pickaxe with a will. He treated the case of the inmates as one of +opium poisoning, to be dealt with by seizing the patients roughly +and exercising them violently until they were broad awake. +Tchekov, more of a fatalist, had no faith in these charming +people extricating themselves. They would, he thought, be sold up +and sent adrift by the bailiffs; and he therefore had no scruple +in exploiting and even flattering their charm. + + + +The Inhabitants + +Tchekov's plays, being less lucrative than swings and +roundabouts, got no further in England, where theatres are only +ordinary commercial affairs, than a couple of performances by the +Stage Society. We stared and said, "How Russian!" They did not +strike me in that way. Just as Ibsen's intensely Norwegian plays +exactly fitted every middle and professional class suburb in +Europe, these intensely Russian plays fitted all the country +houses in Europe in which the pleasures of music, art, +literature, and the theatre had supplanted hunting, shooting, +fishing, flirting, eating, and drinking. The same nice people, +the same utter futility. The nice people could read; some of them +could write; and they were the sole repositories of culture who +had social opportunities of contact with our politicians, +administrators, and newspaper proprietors, or any chance of +sharing or influencing their activities. But they shrank from +that contact. They hated politics. They did not wish to realize +Utopia for the common people: they wished to realize their +favorite fictions and poems in their own lives; and, when they +could, they lived without scruple on incomes which they did +nothing to earn. The women in their girlhood made themselves look +like variety theatre stars, and settled down later into the types +of beauty imagined by the previous generation of painters. They +took the only part of our society in which there was leisure for +high culture, and made it an economic, political and; as far as +practicable, a moral vacuum; and as Nature, abhorring the vacuum, +immediately filled it up with sex and with all sorts of refined +pleasures, it was a very delightful place at its best for moments +of relaxation. In other moments it was disastrous. For prime +ministers and their like, it was a veritable Capua. + + + +Horseback Hall + +But where were our front benchers to nest if not here? The +alternative to Heartbreak House was Horseback Hall, consisting of +a prison for horses with an annex for the ladies and gentlemen +who rode them, hunted them, talked about them, bought them and +sold them, and gave nine-tenths of their lives to them, dividing +the other tenth between charity, churchgoing (as a substitute for +religion), and conservative electioneering (as a substitute for +politics). It is true that the two establishments got mixed at +the edges. Exiles from the library, the music room, and the +picture gallery would be found languishing among the stables, +miserably discontented; and hardy horsewomen who slept at the +first chord of Schumann were born, horribly misplaced, into the +garden of Klingsor; but sometimes one came upon horsebreakers and +heartbreakers who could make the best of both worlds. As a rule, +however, the two were apart and knew little of one another; so +the prime minister folk had to choose between barbarism and +Capua. And of the two atmospheres it is hard to say which was the +more fatal to statesmanship. + + +Revolution on the Shelf + +Heartbreak House was quite familiar with revolutionary ideas on +paper. It aimed at being advanced and freethinking, and hardly +ever went to church or kept the Sabbath except by a little extra +fun at weekends. When you spent a Friday to Tuesday in it you +found on the shelf in your bedroom not only the books of poets +and novelists, but of revolutionary biologists and even +economists. Without at least a few plays by myself and Mr +Granville Barker, and a few stories by Mr H. G. Wells, Mr Arnold +Bennett, and Mr John Galsworthy, the house would have been out of +the movement. You would find Blake among the poets, and beside +him Bergson, Butler, Scott Haldane, the poems of Meredith and +Thomas Hardy, and, generally speaking, all the literary +implements for forming the mind of the perfect modern Socialist +and Creative Evolutionist. It was a curious experience to spend +Sunday in dipping into these books, and the Monday morning to +read in the daily paper that the country had just been brought to +the verge of anarchy because a new Home Secretary or chief of +police without an idea in his head that his great-grandmother +might not have had to apologize for, had refused to "recognize" +some powerful Trade Union, just as a gondola might refuse to +recognize a 20,000-ton liner. + +In short, power and culture were in separate compartments. The +barbarians were not only literally in the saddle, but on the +front bench in the House of commons, with nobody to correct their +incredible ignorance of modern thought and political science but +upstarts from the counting-house, who had spent their lives +furnishing their pockets instead of their minds. Both, however, +were practised in dealing with money and with men, as far as +acquiring the one and exploiting the other went; and although +this is as undesirable an expertness as that of the medieval +robber baron, it qualifies men to keep an estate or a business +going in its old routine without necessarily understanding it, +just as Bond Street tradesmen and domestic servants keep +fashionable society going without any instruction in sociology. + + + +The Cherry Orchard + +The Heartbreak people neither could nor would do anything of the +sort. With their heads as full of the Anticipations of Mr H. G. +Wells as the heads of our actual rulers were empty even of the +anticipations of Erasmus or Sir Thomas More, they refused the +drudgery of politics, and would have made a very poor job of it +if they had changed their minds. Not that they would have been +allowed to meddle anyhow, as only through the accident of being a +hereditary peer can anyone in these days of Votes for Everybody +get into parliament if handicapped by a serious modern cultural +equipment; but if they had, their habit of living in a vacuum +would have left them helpless end ineffective in public affairs. +Even in private life they were often helpless wasters of their +inheritance, like the people in Tchekov's Cherry Orchard. Even +those who lived within their incomes were really kept going by +their solicitors and agents, being unable to manage an estate or +run a business without continual prompting from those who have to +learn how to do such things or starve. + +>From what is called Democracy no corrective to this state of +things could be hoped. It is said that every people has the +Government it deserves. It is more to the point that every +Government has the electorate it deserves; for the orators of the +front bench can edify or debauch an ignorant electorate at will. +Thus our democracy moves in a vicious circle of reciprocal +worthiness and unworthiness. + + + +Nature's Long Credits + +Nature's way of dealing with unhealthy conditions is +unfortunately not one that compels us to conduct a solvent +hygiene on a cash basis. She demoralizes us with long credits and +reckless overdrafts, and then pulls us up cruelly with +catastrophic bankruptcies. Take, for example, common domestic +sanitation. A whole city generation may neglect it utterly and +scandalously, if not with absolute impunity, yet without any evil +consequences that anyone thinks of tracing to it. In a hospital +two generations of medical students way tolerate dirt and +carelessness, and then go out into general practice to spread the +doctrine that fresh air is a fad, and sanitation an imposture set +up to make profits for plumbers. Then suddenly Nature takes her +revenge. She strikes at the city with a pestilence and at the +hospital with an epidemic of hospital gangrene, slaughtering +right and left until the innocent young have paid for the guilty +old, and the account is balanced. And then she goes to sleep +again and gives another period of credit, with the same result. + +This is what has just happened in our political hygiene. +Political science has been as recklessly neglected by Governments +and electorates during my lifetime as sanitary science was in the +days of Charles the Second. In international relations diplomacy +has been a boyishly lawless affair of family intrigues, +commercial and territorial brigandage, torpors of +pseudo-goodnature produced by laziness and spasms of ferocious +activity produced by terror. But in these islands we muddled +through. Nature gave us a longer credit than she gave to France +or Germany or Russia. To British centenarians who died in their +beds in 1914, any dread of having to hide underground in London +from the shells of an enemy seemed more remote and fantastic than +a dread of the appearance of a colony of cobras and rattlesnakes +in Kensington Gardens. In the prophetic works of Charles Dickens +we were warned against many evils which have since come to pass; +but of the evil of being slaughtered by a foreign foe on our own +doorsteps there was no shadow. Nature gave us a very long credit; +and we abused it to the utmost. But when she struck at last she +struck with a vengeance. For four years she smote our firstborn +and heaped on us plagues of which Egypt never dreamed. They were +all as preventable as the great Plague of London, and came solely +because they had not been prevented. They were not undone by +winning the war. The earth is still bursting with the dead bodies +of the victors. + + + +The Wicked Half Century + +It is difficult to say whether indifference and neglect are worse +than false doctrine; but Heartbreak House and Horseback Hall +unfortunately suffered from both. For half a century before the +war civilization had been going to the devil very precipitately +under the influence of a pseudo-science as disastrous as the +blackest Calvinism. Calvinism taught that as we are +predestinately saved or damned, nothing that we can do can alter +our destiny. Still, as Calvinism gave the individual no clue as +to whether he had drawn a lucky number or an unlucky one, it left +him a fairly strong interest in encouraging his hopes of +salvation and allaying his fear of damnation by behaving as one +of the elect might be expected to behave rather than as one of +the reprobate. But in the middle of the nineteenth century +naturalists and physicists assured the world, in the name of +Science, that salvation and damnation are all nonsense, and that +predestination is the central truth of religion, inasmuch as +human beings are produced by their environment, their sins and +good deeds being only a series of chemical and mechanical +reactions over which they have no control. Such figments as mind, +choice, purpose, conscience, will, and so forth, are, they +taught, mere illusions, produced because they are useful in the +continual struggle of the human machine to maintain its +environment in a favorable condition, a process incidentally +involving the ruthless destruction or subjection of its +competitors for the supply (assumed to be limited) of subsistence +available. We taught Prussia this religion; and Prussia bettered +our instruction so effectively that we presently found ourselves +confronted with the necessity of destroying Prussia to prevent +Prussia destroying us. And that has just ended in each destroying +the other to an extent doubtfully reparable in our time. + +It may be asked how so imbecile and dangerous a creed ever came +to be accepted by intelligent beings. I will answer that question +more fully in my next volume of plays, which will be entirely +devoted to the subject. For the present I will only say that +there were better reasons than the obvious one that such sham +science as this opened a scientific career to very stupid men, +and all the other careers to shameless rascals, provided they +were industrious enough. It is true that this motive operated +very powerfully; but when the new departure in scientific +doctrine which is associated with the name of the great +naturalist Charles Darwin began, it was not only a reaction +against a barbarous pseudo-evangelical teleology intolerably +obstructive to all scientific progress, but was accompanied, as +it happened, by discoveries of extraordinary interest in physics, +chemistry, and that lifeless method of evolution which its +investigators called Natural Selection. Howbeit, there was only +one result possible in the ethical sphere, and that was the +banishment of conscience from human affairs, or, as Samuel Butler +vehemently put it, "of mind from the universe." + + + +Hypochondria + +Now Heartbreak House, with Butler and Bergson and Scott Haldane +alongside Blake and the other major poets on its shelves (to say +nothing of Wagner and the tone poets), was not so completely +blinded by the doltish materialism of the laboratories as the +uncultured world outside. But being an idle house it was a +hypochondriacal house, always running after cures. It would stop +eating meat, not on valid Shelleyan grounds, but in order to get +rid of a bogey called Uric Acid; and it would actually let you +pull all its teeth out to exorcise another demon named Pyorrhea. +It was superstitious, and addicted to table-rapping, +materialization seances, clairvoyance, palmistry, crystal-gazing +and the like to such an extent that it may be doubted whether +ever before in the history of the world did soothsayers, +astrologers, and unregistered therapeutic specialists of all +sorts flourish as they did during this half century of the drift +to the abyss. The registered doctors and surgeons were hard put +to it to compete with the unregistered. They were not clever +enough to appeal to the imagination and sociability of the +Heartbreakers by the arts of the actor, the orator, the poet, the +winning conversationalist. They had to fall back coarsely on the +terror of infection and death. They prescribed inoculations and +operations. Whatever part of a human being could be cut out +without necessarily killing him they cut out; and he often died +(unnecessarily of course) in consequence. From such trifles as +uvulas and tonsils they went on to ovaries and appendices until +at last no one's inside was safe. They explained that the human +intestine was too long, and that nothing could make a child of +Adam healthy except short circuiting the pylorus by cutting a +length out of the lower intestine and fastening it directly to +the stomach. As their mechanist theory taught them that medicine +was the business of the chemist's laboratory, and surgery of the +carpenter's shop, and also that Science (by which they meant +their practices) was so important that no consideration for the +interests of any individual creature, whether frog or +philosopher, much less the vulgar commonplaces of sentimental +ethics, could weigh for a moment against the remotest off-chance +of an addition to the body of scientific knowledge, they operated +and vivisected and inoculated and lied on a stupendous scale, +clamoring for and actually acquiring such legal powers over the +bodies of their fellow-citizens as neither king, pope, nor +parliament dare ever have claimed. The Inquisition itself was a +Liberal institution compared to the General Medical Council. + + + +Those who do not know how to live must make a Merit of Dying + +Heartbreak House was far too lazy and shallow to extricate itself +from this palace of evil enchantment. It rhapsodized about love; +but it believed in cruelty. It was afraid of the cruel people; +and it saw that cruelty was at least effective. Cruelty did +things that made money, whereas Love did nothing but prove the +soundness of Larochefoucauld's saying that very few people would +fall in love if they had never read about it. Heartbreak House, +in short, did not know how to live, at which point all that was +left to it was the boast that at least it knew how to die: a +melancholy accomplishment which the outbreak of war presently +gave it practically unlimited opportunities of displaying. Thus +were the firstborn of Heartbreak House smitten; and the young, +the innocent, the hopeful, expiated the folly and worthlessness +of their elders. + + +War Delirium + +Only those who have lived through a first-rate war, not in the +field, but at home, and kept their heads, can possibly understand +the bitterness of Shakespeare and Swift, who both went through +this experience. The horror of Peer Gynt in the madhouse, when +the lunatics, exalted by illusions of splendid talent and visions +of a dawning millennium, crowned him as their emperor, was tame +in comparison. I do not know whether anyone really kept his head +completely except those who had to keep it because they had to +conduct the war at first hand. I should not have kept my own (as +far as I did keep it) if I had not at once understood that as a +scribe and speaker I too was under the most serious public +obligation to keep my grip on realities; but this did not save me +from a considerable degree of hyperaesthesia. There were of +course some happy people to whom the war meant nothing: all +political and general matters lying outside their little circle +of interest. But the ordinary war-conscious civilian went mad, +the main symptom being a conviction that the whole order of +nature had been reversed. All foods, he felt, must now be +adulterated. All schools must be closed. No advertisements must +be sent to the newspapers, of which new editions must appear and +be bought up every ten minutes. Travelling must be stopped, or, +that being impossible, greatly hindered. All pretences about fine +art and culture and the like must be flung off as an intolerable +affectation; and the picture galleries and museums and schools at +once occupied by war workers. The British Museum itself was saved +only by a hair's breadth. The sincerity of all this, and of much +more which would not be believed if I chronicled it, may be +established by one conclusive instance of the general craziness. +Men were seized with the illusion that they could win the war by +giving away money. And they not only subscribed millions to Funds +of all sorts with no discoverable object, and to ridiculous +voluntary organizations for doing what was plainly the business +of the civil and military authorities, but actually handed out +money to any thief in the street who had the presence of mind to +pretend that he (or she) was "collecting" it for the annihilation +of the enemy. Swindlers were emboldened to take offices; label +themselves Anti-Enemy Leagues; and simply pocket the money that +was heaped on them. Attractively dressed young women found that +they had nothing to do but parade the streets, collecting-box in +hand, and live gloriously on the profits. Many months elapsed +before, as a first sign of returning sanity, the police swept an +Anti-Enemy secretary into prison pour encourages les autres, and +the passionate penny collecting of the Flag Days was brought +under some sort of regulation. + + + +Madness in Court + +The demoralization did not spare the Law Courts. Soldiers were +acquitted, even on fully proved indictments for wilful murder, +until at last the judges and magistrates had to announce that +what was called the Unwritten Law, which meant simply that a +soldier could do what he liked with impunity in civil life, was +not the law of the land, and that a Victoria Cross did not carry +with it a perpetual plenary indulgence. Unfortunately the +insanity of the juries and magistrates did not always manifest +itself in indulgence. No person unlucky enough to be charged with +any sort of conduct, however reasonable and salutary, that did +not smack of war delirium, had the slightest chance of acquittal. +There were in the country, too, a certain number of people who +had conscientious objections to war as criminal or unchristian. +The Act of Parliament introducing Compulsory Military Service +thoughtlessly exempted these persons, merely requiring them to +prove the genuineness of their convictions. Those who did so were +very ill-advised from the point of view of their own personal +interest; for they were persecuted with savage logicality in +spite of the law; whilst those who made no pretence of having any +objection to war at all, and had not only had military training +in Officers' Training Corps, but had proclaimed on public +occasions that they were perfectly ready to engage in civil war +on behalf of their political opinions, were allowed the benefit +of the Act on the ground that they did not approve of this +particular war. For the Christians there was no mercy. In cases +where the evidence as to their being killed by ill treatment was +so unequivocal that the verdict would certainly have been one of +wilful murder had the prejudice of the coroner's jury been on the +other side, their tormentors were gratuitously declared to be +blameless. There was only one virtue, pugnacity: only one vice, +pacifism. That is an essential condition of war; but the +Government had not the courage to legislate accordingly; and its +law was set aside for Lynch law. + +The climax of legal lawlessness was reached in France. The +greatest Socialist statesman in Europe, Jaures, was shot and +killed by a gentleman who resented his efforts to avert the war. +M. Clemenceau was shot by another gentleman of less popular +opinions, and happily came off no worse than having to spend a +precautionary couple of days in bed. The slayer of Jaures was +recklessly acquitted: the would-be slayer of M. Clemenceau was +carefully found guilty. There is no reason to doubt that the same +thing would have happened in England if the war had begun with a +successful attempt to assassinate Keir Hardie, and ended with an +unsuccessful one to assassinate Mr Lloyd George. + + + +The Long Arm of War + +The pestilence which is the usual accompaniment of war was called +influenza. Whether it was really a war pestilence or not was made +doubtful by the fact that it did its worst in places remote from +the battlefields, notably on the west coast of North America and +in India. But the moral pestilence, which was unquestionably a +war pestilence, reproduced this phenomenon. One would have +supposed that the war fever would have raged most furiously in +the countries actually under fire, and that the others would be +more reasonable. Belgium and Flanders, where over large districts +literally not one stone was left upon another as the opposed +armies drove each other back and forward over it after terrific +preliminary bombardments, might have been pardoned for relieving +their feelings more emphatically than by shrugging their +shoulders and saying, "C'est la guerre." England, inviolate for +so many centuries that the swoop of war on her homesteads had +long ceased to be more credible than a return of the Flood, could +hardly be expected to keep her temper sweet when she knew at last +what it was to hide in cellars and underground railway stations, +or lie quaking in bed, whilst bombs crashed, houses crumbled, and +aircraft guns distributed shrapnel on friend and foe alike until +certain shop windows in London, formerly full of fashionable +hats, were filled with steel helmets. Slain and mutilated women +and children, and burnt and wrecked dwellings, excuse a good deal +of violent language, and produce a wrath on which many suns go +down before it is appeased. Yet it was in the United States of +America where nobody slept the worse for the war, that the war +fever went beyond all sense and reason. In European Courts there +was vindictive illegality: in American Courts there was raving +lunacy. It is not for me to chronicle the extravagances of an +Ally: let some candid American do that. I can only say that to us +sitting in our gardens in England, with the guns in France making +themselves felt by a throb in the air as unmistakeable as an +audible sound, or with tightening hearts studying the phases of +the moon in London in their bearing on the chances whether our +houses would be standing or ourselves alive next morning, the +newspaper accounts of the sentences American Courts were passing +on young girls and old men alike for the expression of opinions +which were being uttered amid thundering applause before huge +audiences in England, and the more private records of the methods +by which the American War Loans were raised, were so amazing that +they put the guns and the possibilities of a raid clean out of +our heads for the moment. + + + +The Rabid Watchdogs of Liberty + +Not content with these rancorous abuses of the existing law, the +war maniacs made a frantic rush to abolish all constitutional +guarantees of liberty and well-being. The ordinary law was +superseded by Acts under which newspapers were seized and their +printing machinery destroyed by simple police raids a la Russe, +and persons arrested and shot without any pretence of trial by +jury or publicity of procedure or evidence. Though it was +urgently necessary that production should be increased by the +most scientific organization and economy of labor, and though no +fact was better established than that excessive duration and +intensity of toil reduces production heavily instead of +increasing it, the factory laws were suspended, and men and women +recklessly over-worked until the loss of their efficiency became +too glaring to be ignored. Remonstrances and warnings were met +either with an accusation of pro-Germanism or the formula, +"Remember that we are at war now." I have said that men assumed +that war had reversed the order of nature, and that all was lost +unless we did the exact opposite of everything we had found +necessary and beneficial in peace. But the truth was worse than +that. The war did not change men's minds in any such impossible +way. What really happened was that the impact of physical death +and destruction, the one reality that every fool can understand, +tore off the masks of education, art, science and religion from +our ignorance and barbarism, and left us glorying grotesquely in +the licence suddenly accorded to our vilest passions and most +abject terrors. Ever since Thucydides wrote his history, it has +been on record that when the angel of death sounds his trumpet +the pretences of civilization are blown from men's heads into the +mud like hats in a gust of wind. But when this scripture was +fulfilled among us, the shock was not the less appalling because +a few students of Greek history were not surprised by it. Indeed +these students threw themselves into the orgy as shamelessly as +the illiterate. The Christian priest, joining in the war dance +without even throwing off his cassock first, and the respectable +school governor expelling the German professor with insult and +bodily violence, and declaring that no English child should +ever again be taught the language of Luther and Goethe, were kept +in countenance by the most impudent repudiations of every decency +of civilization and every lesson of political experience on the +part of the very persons who, as university professors, +historians, philosophers, and men of science, were the accredited +custodians of culture. It was crudely natural, and perhaps +necessary for recruiting purposes, that German militarism and +German dynastic ambition should be painted by journalists and +recruiters in black and red as European dangers (as in fact they +are), leaving it to be inferred that our own militarism and our +own political constitution are millennially democratic (which +they certainly are not); but when it came to frantic +denunciations of German chemistry, German biology, German poetry, +German music, German literature, German philosophy, and even +German engineering, as malignant abominations standing towards +British and French chemistry and so forth in the relation of +heaven to hell, it was clear that the utterers of such barbarous +ravings had never really understood or cared for the arts and +sciences they professed and were profaning, and were only the +appallingly degenerate descendants of the men of the seventeenth +and eighteenth centuries who, recognizing no national frontiers +in the great realm of the human mind, kept the European comity of +that realm loftily and even ostentatiously above the rancors of +the battle-field. Tearing the Garter from the Kaiser's leg, +striking the German dukes from the roll of our peerage, changing +the King's illustrious and historically appropriate surname (for +the war was the old war of Guelph against Ghibelline, with the +Kaiser as Arch-Ghibelline) to that of a traditionless locality. +One felt that the figure of St. George and the Dragon on our +coinage should be replaced by that of the soldier driving his +spear through Archimedes. But by that time there was no coinage: +only paper money in which ten shillings called itself a pound as +confidently as the people who were disgracing their country +called themselves patriots. + + + +The Sufferings of the Sane + +The mental distress of living amid the obscene din of all these +carmagnoles and corobberies was not the only burden that lay on +sane people during the war. There was also the emotional strain, +complicated by the offended economic sense, produced by the +casualty lists. The stupid, the selfish, the narrow-minded, the +callous and unimaginative were spared a great deal. "Blood and +destruction shall be so in use that mothers shall but smile when +they behold their infantes quartered by the hands of war," was a +Shakespearean prophecy that very nearly came true; for when +nearly every house had a slaughtered son to mourn, we should all +have gone quite out of our senses if we had taken our own and our +friend's bereavements at their peace value. It became necessary +to give them a false value; to proclaim the young life worthily +and gloriously sacrificed to redeem the liberty of mankind, +instead of to expiate the heedlessness and folly of their +fathers, and expiate it in vain. We had even to assume that the +parents and not the children had made the sacrifice, until at +last the comic papers were driven to satirize fat old men, +sitting comfortably in club chairs, and boasting of the sons they +had "given" to their country. + +No one grudged these anodynes to acute personal grief; but they +only embittered those who knew that the young men were having +their teeth set on edge because their parents had eaten sour +political grapes. Then think of the young men themselves! Many of +them had no illusions about the policy that led to the war: they +went clear-sighted to a horribly repugnant duty. Men essentially +gentle and essentially wise, with really valuable work in hand, +laid it down voluntarily and spent months forming fours in the +barrack yard, and stabbing sacks of straw in the public eye, so +that they might go out to kill and maim men as gentle as +themselves. These men, who were perhaps, as a class, our most +efficient soldiers (Frederick Keeling, for example), were not +duped for a moment by the hypocritical melodrama that consoled +and stimulated the others. They left their creative work to +drudge at destruction, exactly as they would have left it to take +their turn at the pumps in a sinking ship. They did not, like +some of the conscientious objectors, hold back because the ship +had been neglected by its officers and scuttled by its wreckers. +The ship had to be saved, even if Newton had to leave his +fluxions and Michael Angelo his marbles to save it; so they threw +away the tools of their beneficent and ennobling trades, and took +up the blood-stained bayonet and the murderous bomb, forcing +themselves to pervert their divine instinct for perfect artistic +execution to the effective handling of these diabolical things, +and their economic faculty for organization to the contriving of +ruin and slaughter. For it gave an ironic edge to their tragedy +that the very talents they were forced to prostitute made the +prostitution not only effective, but even interesting; so that +some of them were rapidly promoted, and found themselves actually +becoming artists in wax, with a growing relish for it, like +Napoleon and all the other scourges of mankind, in spite of +themselves. For many of them there was not even this consolation. +They "stuck it," and hated it, to the end. + + + +Evil in the Throne of Good + +This distress of the gentle was so acute that those who shared it +in civil life, without having to shed blood with their own hands, +or witness destruction with their own eyes, hardly care to +obtrude their own woes. Nevertheless, even when sitting at home +in safety, it was not easy for those who had to write and speak +about the war to throw away their highest conscience, and +deliberately work to a standard of inevitable evil instead of to +the ideal of life more abundant. I can answer for at least one +person who found the change from the wisdom of Jesus and St. +Francis to the morals of Richard III and the madness of Don +Quixote extremely irksome. But that change had to be made; and we +are all the worse for it, except those for whom it was not really +a change at all, but only a relief from hypocrisy. + +Think, too, of those who, though they had neither to write nor to +fight, and had no children of their own to lose, yet knew the +inestimable loss to the world of four years of the life of a +generation wasted on destruction. Hardly one of the epoch-making +works of the human mind might not have been aborted or destroyed +by taking their authors away from their natural work for four +critical years. Not only were Shakespeares and Platos being +killed outright; but many of the best harvests of the survivors +had to be sown in the barren soil of the trenches. And this was +no mere British consideration. To the truly civilized man, to the +good European, the slaughter of the German youth was as +disastrous as the slaughter of the English. Fools exulted in +"German losses." They were our losses as well. Imagine exulting +in the death of Beethoven because Bill Sykes dealt him his death +blow! + + + +Straining at the Gnat and swallowing the Camel + +But most people could not comprehend these sorrows. There was a +frivolous exultation in death for its own sake, which was at +bottom an inability to realize that the deaths were real deaths +and not stage ones. Again and again, when an air raider dropped a +bomb which tore a child and its mother limb from limb, the people +who saw it, though they had been reading with great cheerfulness +of thousands of such happenings day after day in their +newspapers, suddenly burst into furious imprecations on "the +Huns" as murderers, and shrieked for savage and satisfying +vengeance. At such moments it became clear that the deaths they +had not seen meant no more to them than the mimic death of the +cinema screen. Sometimes it was not necessary that death should +be actually witnessed: it had only to take place under +circumstances of sufficient novelty and proximity to bring it +home almost as sensationally and effectively as if it had been +actually visible. + +For example, in the spring of 1915 there was an appalling +slaughter of our young soldiers at Neuve Chapelle and at the +Gallipoli landing. I will not go so far as to say that our +civilians were delighted to have such exciting news to read at +breakfast. But I cannot pretend that I noticed either in the +papers, or in general intercourse, any feeling beyond the usual +one that the cinema show at the front was going splendidly, and +that our boys were the bravest of the brave. Suddenly there came +the news that an Atlantic liner, the Lusitania, had been +torpedoed, and that several well-known first-class passengers, +including a famous theatrical manager and the author of a popular +farce, had been drowned, among others. The others included Sir +Hugh Lane; but as he had only laid the country under great +obligations in the sphere of the fine arts, no great stress was +laid on that loss. Immediately an amazing frenzy swept through +the country. Men who up to that time had kept their heads now +lost them utterly. "Killing saloon passengers! What next?" was +the essence of the whole agitation; but it is far too trivial a +phrase to convey the faintest notion of the rage which possessed +us. To me, with my mind full of the hideous cost of Neuve +Chapelle, Ypres, and the Gallipoli landing, the fuss about the +Lusitania seemed almost a heartless impertinence, though I was +well acquainted personally with the three best-known victims, and +understood, better perhaps than most people, the misfortune of +the death of Lane. I even found a grim satisfaction, very +intelligible to all soldiers, in the fact that the civilians who +found the war such splendid British sport should get a sharp +taste of what it was to the actual combatants. I expressed my +impatience very freely, and found that my very straightforward +and natural feeling in the matter was received as a monstrous and +heartless paradox. When I asked those who gaped at me whether +they had anything to say about the holocaust of Festubert, they +gaped wider than before, having totally forgotten it, or rather, +having never realized it. They were not heartless anymore than I +was; but the big catastrophe was too big for them to grasp, and +the little one had been just the right size for them. I was not +surprised. Have I not seen a public body for just the same reason +pass a vote for œ30,000 without a word, and then spend three +special meetings, prolonged into the night, over an item of seven +shillings for refreshments? + + + +Little Minds and Big Battles + +Nobody will be able to understand the vagaries of public feeling +during the war unless they bear constantly in mind that the war +in its entire magnitude did not exist for the average civilian. +He could not conceive even a battle, much less a campaign. To the +suburbs the war was nothing but a suburban squabble. To the miner +and navvy it was only a series of bayonet fights between German +champions and English ones. The enormity of it was quite beyond +most of us. Its episodes had to be reduced to the dimensions of a +railway accident or a shipwreck before it could produce any +effect on our minds at all. To us the ridiculous bombardments of +Scarborough and Ramsgate were colossal tragedies, and the battle +of Jutland a mere ballad. The words "after thorough artillery +preparation" in the news from the front meant nothing to us; but +when our seaside trippers learned that an elderly gentleman at +breakfast in a week-end marine hotel had been interrupted by a +bomb dropping into his egg-cup, their wrath and horror knew no +bounds. They declared that this would put a new spirit into the +army; and had no suspicion that the soldiers in the trenches +roared with laughter over it for days, and told each other that +it would do the blighters at home good to have a taste of what +the army was up against. Sometimes the smallness of view was +pathetic. A man would work at home regardless of the call "to +make the world safe for democracy." His brother would be killed +at the front. Immediately he would throw up his work and take up +the war as a family blood feud against the Germans. Sometimes it +was comic. A wounded man, entitled to his discharge, would return +to the trenches with a grim determination to find the Hun who had +wounded him and pay him out for it. + +It is impossible to estimate what proportion of us, in khaki or +out of it, grasped the war and its political antecedents as a +whole in the light of any philosophy of history or knowledge of +what war is. I doubt whether it was as high as our proportion of +higher mathematicians. But there can be no doubt that it was +prodigiously outnumbered by the comparatively ignorant and +childish. Remember that these people had to be stimulated to make +the sacrifices demanded by the war, and that this could not be +done by appeals to a knowledge which they did not possess, and a +comprehension of which they were incapable. When the armistice at +last set me free to tell the truth about the war at the following +general election, a soldier said to a candidate whom I was +supporting, "If I had known all that in 1914, they would never +have got me into khaki." And that, of course, was precisely why +it had been necessary to stuff him with a romance that any +diplomatist would have laughed at. Thus the natural confusion of +ignorance was increased by a deliberately propagated confusion of +nursery bogey stories and melodramatic nonsense, which at last +overreached itself and made it impossible to stop the war before +we had not only achieved the triumph of vanquishing the German +army and thereby overthrowing its militarist monarchy, but made +the very serious mistake of ruining the centre of Europe, a thing +that no sane European State could afford to do. + + + +The Dumb Capables and the Noisy Incapables + +Confronted with this picture of insensate delusion and folly, the +critical reader will immediately counterplead that England all +this time was conducting a war which involved the organization of +several millions of fighting men and of the workers who were +supplying them with provisions, munitions, and transport, and +that this could not have been done by a mob of hysterical +ranters. This is fortunately true. To pass from the newspaper +offices and political platforms and club fenders and suburban +drawing-rooms to the Army and the munition factories was to pass +from Bedlam to the busiest and sanest of workaday worlds. It was +to rediscover England, and find solid ground for the faith of +those who still believed in her. But a necessary condition of +this efficiency was that those who were efficient should give all +their time to their business and leave the rabble raving to its +heart's content. Indeed the raving was useful to the efficient, +because, as it was always wide of the mark, it often distracted +attention very conveniently from operations that would have been +defeated or hindered by publicity. A precept which I endeavored +vainly to popularize early in the war, "If you have anything to +do go and do it: if not, for heaven's sake get out of the way," +was only half carried out. Certainly the capable people went and +did it; but the incapables would by no means get out of the way: +they fussed and bawled and were only prevented from getting very +seriously into the way by the blessed fact that they never knew +where the way was. Thus whilst all the efficiency of England was +silent and invisible, all its imbecility was deafening the +heavens with its clamor and blotting out the sun with its dust. +It was also unfortunately intimidating the Government by its +blusterings into using the irresistible powers of the State to +intimidate the sensible people, thus enabling a despicable +minority of would-be lynchers to set up a reign of terror which +could at any time have been broken by a single stern word from a +responsible minister. But our ministers had not that sort of +courage: neither Heartbreak House nor Horseback Hall had bred it, +much less the suburbs. When matters at last came to the looting +of shops by criminals under patriotic pretexts, it was the police +force and not the Government that put its foot down. There was +even one deplorable moment, during the submarine scare, in which +the Government yielded to a childish cry for the maltreatment of +naval prisoners of war, and, to our great disgrace, was forced by +the enemy to behave itself. And yet behind all this public +blundering and misconduct and futile mischief, the effective +England was carrying on with the most formidable capacity and +activity. The ostensible England was making the empire sick with +its incontinences, its ignorances, its ferocities, its panics, +and its endless and intolerable blarings of Allied national +anthems in season and out. The esoteric England was proceeding +irresistibly to the conquest of Europe. + + + +The Practical Business Men + +>From the beginning the useless people set up a shriek for +"practical business men." By this they meant men who had become +rich by placing their personal interests before those of the +country, and measuring the success of every activity by the +pecuniary profit it brought to them and to those on whom they +depended for their supplies of capital. The pitiable failure of +some conspicuous samples from the first batch we tried of these +poor devils helped to give the whole public side of the war an +air of monstrous and hopeless farce. They proved not only that +they were useless for public work, but that in a well-ordered +nation they would never have been allowed to control private +enterprise. + + + +How the Fools shouted the Wise Men down + +Thus, like a fertile country flooded with mud, England showed no +sign of her greatness in the days when she was putting forth all +her strength to save herself from the worst consequences of her +littleness. Most of the men of action, occupied to the last hour +of their time with urgent practical work, had to leave to idler +people, or to professional rhetoricians, the presentation of the +war to the reason and imagination of the country and the world in +speeches, poems, manifestoes, picture posters, and newspaper +articles. I have had the privilege of hearing some of our ablest +commanders talking about their work; and I have shared the common +lot of reading the accounts of that work given to the world by +the newspapers. No two experiences could be more different. But +in the end the talkers obtained a dangerous ascendancy over the +rank and file of the men of action; for though the great men of +action are always inveterate talkers and often very clever +writers, and therefore cannot have their minds formed for them by +others, the average man of action, like the average fighter with +the bayonet, can give no account of himself in words even to +himself, and is apt to pick up and accept what he reads about +himself and other people in the papers, except when the writer is +rash enough to commit himself on technical points. It was not +uncommon during the war to hear a soldier, or a civilian engaged +on war work, describing events within his own experience that +reduced to utter absurdity the ravings and maunderings of his +daily paper, and yet echo the opinions of that paper like a +parrot. Thus, to escape from the prevailing confusion and folly, +it was not enough to seek the company of the ordinary man of +action: one had to get into contact with the master spirits. This +was a privilege which only a handful of people could enjoy. For +the unprivileged citizen there was no escape. To him the whole +country seemed mad, futile, silly, incompetent, with no hope of +victory except the hope that the enemy might be just as mad. Only +by very resolute reflection and reasoning could he reassure +himself that if there was nothing more solid beneath their +appalling appearances the war could not possibly have gone on for +a single day without a total breakdown of its organization. + + + +The Mad Election + +Happy were the fools and the thoughtless men of action in those +days. The worst of it was that the fools were very strongly +represented in parliament, as fools not only elect fools, but can +persuade men of action to elect them too. The election that +immediately followed the armistice was perhaps the maddest that +has ever taken place. Soldiers who had done voluntary and heroic +service in the field were defeated by persons who had apparently +never run a risk or spent a farthing that they could avoid, and +who even had in the course of the election to apologize publicly +for bawling Pacifist or Pro-German at their opponent. Party +leaders seek such followers, who can always be depended on to +walk tamely into the lobby at the party whip's orders, provided +the leader will make their seats safe for them by the process +which was called, in derisive reference to the war rationing +system, "giving them the coupon." Other incidents were so +grotesque that I cannot mention them without enabling the reader +to identify the parties, which would not be fair, as they were no +more to blame than thousands of others who must necessarily be +nameless. The general result was patently absurd; and the +electorate, disgusted at its own work, instantly recoiled to the +opposite extreme, and cast out all the coupon candidates at the +earliest bye-elections by equally silly majorities. But the +mischief of the general election could not be undone; and the +Government had not only to pretend to abuse its European victory +as it had promised, but actually to do it by starving the enemies +who had thrown down their arms. It had, in short, won the +election by pledging itself to be thriftlessly wicked, cruel, and +vindictive; and it did not find it as easy to escape from this +pledge as it had from nobler ones. The end, as I write, is not +yet; but it is clear that this thoughtless savagery will recoil +on the heads of the Allies so severely that we shall be forced by +the sternest necessity to take up our share of healing the Europe +we have wounded almost to death instead of attempting to complete +her destruction. + + + +The Yahoo and the Angry Ape + +Contemplating this picture of a state of mankind so recent that +no denial of its truth is possible, one understands Shakespeare +comparing Man to an angry ape, Swift describing him as a Yahoo +rebuked by the superior virtue of the horse, and Wellington +declaring that the British can behave themselves neither in +victory nor defeat. Yet none of the three had seen war as we have +seen it. Shakespeare blamed great men, saying that "Could great +men thunder as Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet; for +every pelting petty officer would use his heaven for thunder: +nothing but thunder." What would Shakespeare have said if he had +seen something far more destructive than thunder in the hand of +every village laborer, and found on the Messines Ridge the +craters of the nineteen volcanoes that were let loose there at +the touch of a finger that might have been a child's finger +without the result being a whit less ruinous? Shakespeare may +have seen a Stratford cottage struck by one of Jove's +thunderbolts, and have helped to extinguish the lighted thatch +and clear away the bits of the broken chimney. What would he have +said if he had seen Ypres as it is now, or returned to Stratford, +as French peasants are returning to their homes to-day, to find +the old familiar signpost inscribed "To Stratford, 1 mile," and +at the end of the mile nothing but some holes in the ground and a +fragment of a broken churn here and there? Would not the +spectacle of the angry ape endowed with powers of destruction +that Jove never pretended to, have beggared even his command of +words? + +And yet, what is there to say except that war puts a strain on +human nature that breaks down the better half of it, and makes +the worse half a diabolical virtue? Better, for us if it broke it +down altogether, for then the warlike way out of our difficulties +would be barred to us, and we should take greater care not to get +into them. In truth, it is, as Byron said, "not difficult to +die," and enormously difficult to live: that explains why, at +bottom, peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more +arduous. Did any hero of the war face the glorious risk of death +more bravely than the traitor Bolo faced the ignominious +certainty of it? Bolo taught us all how to die: can we say that +he taught us all how to live? Hardly a week passes now without +some soldier who braved death in the field so recklessly that he +was decorated or specially commended for it, being haled before +our magistrates for having failed to resist the paltriest +temptations of peace, with no better excuse than the old one that +"a man must live." Strange that one who, sooner than do honest +work, will sell his honor for a bottle of wine, a visit to the +theatre, and an hour with a strange woman, all obtained by +passing a worthless cheque, could yet stake his life on the most +desperate chances of the battle-field! Does it not seem as if, +after all, the glory of death were cheaper than the glory of +life? If it is not easier to attain, why do so many more men +attain it? At all events it is clear that the kingdom of the +Prince of Peace has not yet become the kingdom of this world. His +attempts at invasion have been resisted far more fiercely than +the Kaiser's. Successful as that resistance has been, it has +piled up a sort of National Debt that is not the less oppressive +because we have no figures for it and do not intend to pay it. A +blockade that cuts off "the grace of our Lord" is in the long run +less bearable than the blockades which merely cut off raw +materials; and against that blockade our Armada is impotent. In +the blockader's house, he has assured us, there are many +mansions; but I am afraid they do not include either Heartbreak +House or Horseback Hall. + + + +Plague on Both your Houses! + +Meanwhile the Bolshevist picks and petards are at work on the +foundations of both buildings; and though the Bolshevists may be +buried in the ruins, their deaths will not save the edifices. +Unfortunately they can be built again. Like Doubting Castle, they +have been demolished many times by successive Greathearts, and +rebuilt by Simple, Sloth, and Presumption, by Feeble Mind and +Much Afraid, and by all the jurymen of Vanity Fair. Another +generation of "secondary education" at our ancient public schools +and the cheaper institutions that ape them will be quite +sufficient to keep the two going until the next war. For the +instruction of that generation I leave these pages as a record of +what civilian life was during the war: a matter on which history +is usually silent. Fortunately it was a very short war. It is +true that the people who thought it could not last more than six +months were very signally refuted by the event. As Sir Douglas +Haig has pointed out, its Waterloos lasted months instead of +hours. But there would have been nothing surprising in its +lasting thirty years. If it had not been for the fact that the +blockade achieved the amazing feat of starving out Europe, which +it could not possibly have done had Europe been properly +organized for war, or even for peace, the war would have lasted +until the belligerents were so tired of it that they could no +longer be compelled to compel themselves to go on with it. +Considering its magnitude, the war of 1914-18 will certainly be +classed as the shortest in history. The end came so suddenly that +the combatant literally stumbled over it; and yet it came a full +year later than it should have come if the belligerents had not +been far too afraid of one another to face the situation +sensibly. Germany, having failed to provide for the war she +began, failed again to surrender before she was dangerously +exhausted. Her opponents, equally improvident, went as much too +close to bankruptcy as Germany to starvation. It was a bluff at +which both were bluffed. And, with the usual irony of war, it +remains doubtful whether Germany and Russia, the defeated, will +not be the gainers; for the victors are already busy fastening on +themselves the chains they have struck from the limbs of the +vanquished. + + + +How the Theatre fared + +Let us now contract our view rather violently from the European +theatre of war to the theatre in which the fights are sham +fights, and the slain, rising the moment the curtain has fallen, +go comfortably home to supper after washing off their rose-pink +wounds. It is nearly twenty years since I was last obliged to +introduce a play in the form of a book for lack of an opportunity +of presenting it in its proper mode by a performance in a +theatre. The war has thrown me back on this expedient. Heartbreak +House has not yet reached the stage. I have withheld it because +the war has completely upset the economic conditions which +formerly enabled serious drama to pay its way in London. The +change is not in the theatres nor in the management of them, nor +in the authors and actors, but in the audiences. For four years +the London theatres were crowded every night with thousands of +soldiers on leave from the front. These soldiers were not +seasoned London playgoers. A childish experience of my own gave +me a clue to their condition. When I was a small boy I was taken +to the opera. I did not then know what an opera was, though I +could whistle a good deal of opera music. I had seen in my +mother's album photographs of all the great opera singers, mostly +in evening dress. In the theatre I found myself before a gilded +balcony filled with persons in evening dress whom I took to be +the opera singers. I picked out one massive dark lady as Alboni, +and wondered how soon she would stand up and sing. I was puzzled +by the fact that I was made to sit with my back to the singers +instead of facing them. When the curtain went up, my astonishment +and delight were unbounded. + + + +The Soldier at the Theatre Front + +In 1915, I saw in the theatres men in khaki in just the same +predicament. To everyone who had my clue to their state of mind +it was evident that they had never been in a theatre before and +did not know what it was. At one of our great variety theatres I +sat beside a young officer, not at all a rough specimen, who, +even when the curtain rose and enlightened him as to the place +where he had to look for his entertainment, found the dramatic +part of it utterly incomprehensible. He did not know how to play +his part of the game. He could understand the people on the stage +singing and dancing and performing gymnastic feats. He not only +understood but intensely enjoyed an artist who imitated cocks +crowing and pigs squeaking. But the people who pretended that +they were somebody else, and that the painted picture behind them +was real, bewildered him. In his presence I realized how very +sophisticated the natural man has to become before the +conventions of the theatre can be easily acceptable, or the +purpose of the drama obvious to him. + +Well, from the moment when the routine of leave for our soldiers +was established, such novices, accompanied by damsels (called +flappers) often as innocent as themselves, crowded the theatres +to the doors. It was hardly possible at first to find stuff crude +enough to nurse them on. The best music-hall comedians ransacked +their memories for the oldest quips and the most childish antics +to avoid carrying the military spectators out of their depth. I +believe that this was a mistake as far as the novices were +concerned. Shakespeare, or the dramatized histories of George +Barnwell, Maria Martin, or the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, +would probably have been quite popular with them. But the novices +were only a minority after all. The cultivated soldier, who in +time of peace would look at nothing theatrical except the most +advanced postIbsen plays in the most artistic settings, found +himself, to his own astonishment, thirsting for silly jokes, +dances, and brainlessly sensuous exhibitions of pretty girls. The +author of some of the most grimly serious plays of our time told +me that after enduring the trenches for months without a glimpse +of the female of his species, it gave him an entirely innocent +but delightful pleasure merely to see a flapper. The reaction +from the battle-field produced a condition of hyperaesthesia in +which all the theatrical values were altered. Trivial things +gained intensity and stale things novelty. The actor, instead of +having to coax his audiences out of the boredom which had driven +them to the theatre in an ill humor to seek some sort of +distraction, had only to exploit the bliss of smiling men who +were no longer under fire and under military discipline, but +actually clean and comfortable and in a mood to be pleased with +anything and everything that a bevy of pretty girls and a funny +man, or even a bevy of girls pretending to be pretty and a man +pretending to be funny, could do for them. + +Then could be seen every night in the theatres oldfashioned +farcical comedies, in which a bedroom, with four doors on each +side and a practicable window in the middle, was understood to +resemble exactly the bedroom in the flats beneath and above, all +three inhabited by couples consumed with jealousy. When these +people came home drunk at night; mistook their neighbor's flats +for their own; and in due course got into the wrong beds, it was +not only the novices who found the resulting complications and +scandals exquisitely ingenious and amusing, nor their equally +verdant flappers who could not help squealing in a manner that +astonished the oldest performers when the gentleman who had just +come in drunk through the window pretended to undress, and +allowed glimpses of his naked person to be descried from time to +time. + + + +Heartbreak House + +Men who had just read the news that Charles Wyndham was dying, +and were thereby sadly reminded of Pink Dominos and the torrent +of farcical comedies that followed it in his heyday until every +trick of that trade had become so stale that the laughter they +provoked turned to loathing: these veterans also, when they +returned from the field, were as much pleased by what they knew +to be stale and foolish as the novices by what they thought fresh +and clever. + + + +Commerce in the Theatre + +Wellington said that an army moves on its belly. So does a London +theatre. Before a man acts he must eat. Before he performs plays +he must pay rent. In London we have no theatres for the welfare +of the people: they are all for the sole purpose of producing the +utmost obtainable rent for the proprietor. If the twin flats and +twin beds produce a guinea more than Shakespeare, out goes +Shakespeare and in come the twin flats and the twin beds. If the +brainless bevy of pretty girls and the funny man outbid Mozart, +out goes Mozart. + + + +Unser Shakespeare + +Before the war an effort was made to remedy this by establishing +a national theatre in celebration of the tercentenary of the +death of Shakespeare. A committee was formed; and all sorts of +illustrious and influential persons lent their names to a grand +appeal to our national culture. My play, The Dark Lady of The +Sonnets, was one of the incidents of that appeal. After some +years of effort the result was a single handsome subscription +from a German gentleman. Like the celebrated swearer in the +anecdote when the cart containing all his household goods lost +its tailboard at the top of the hill and let its contents roll in +ruin to the bottom, I can only say, "I cannot do justice to this +situation," and let it pass without another word. + + + +The Higher Drama put out of Action + +The effect of the war on the London theatres may now be imagined. +The beds and the bevies drove every higher form of art out of it. +Rents went up to an unprecedented figure. At the same time prices +doubled everywhere except at the theatre pay-boxes, and raised +the expenses of management to such a degree that unless the +houses were quite full every night, profit was impossible. Even +bare solvency could not be attained without a very wide +popularity. Now what had made serious drama possible to a limited +extent before the war was that a play could pay its way even if +the theatre were only half full until Saturday and three-quarters +full then. A manager who was an enthusiast and a desperately hard +worker, with an occasional grant-in-aid from an artistically +disposed millionaire, and a due proportion of those rare and +happy accidents by which plays of the higher sort turn out to be +potboilers as well, could hold out for some years, by which time +a relay might arrive in the person of another enthusiast. Thus +and not otherwise occurred that remarkable revival of the British +drama at the beginning of the century which made my own career as +a playwright possible in England. In America I had already +established myself, not as part of the ordinary theatre system, +but in association with the exceptional genius of Richard +Mansfield. In Germany and Austria I had no difficulty: the system +of publicly aided theatres there, Court and Municipal, kept drama +of the kind I dealt in alive; so that I was indebted to the +Emperor of Austria for magnificent productions of my works at a +time when the sole official attention paid me by the British +Courts was the announcement to the English-speaking world that +certain plays of mine were unfit for public performance, a +substantial set-off against this being that the British Court, in +the course of its private playgoing, paid no regard to the bad +character given me by the chief officer of its household. + +Howbeit, the fact that my plays effected a lodgment on the London +stage, and were presently followed by the plays of Granville +Barker, Gilbert Murray, John Masefield, St. John Hankin, Lawrence +Housman, Arnold Bennett, John Galsworthy, John Drinkwater, and +others which would in the nineteenth century have stood rather +less chance of production at a London theatre than the Dialogues +of Plato, not to mention revivals of the ancient Athenian drama +and a restoration to the stage of Shakespeare's plays as he wrote +them, was made economically possible solely by a supply of +theatres which could hold nearly twice as much money as it cost +to rent and maintain them. In such theatres work appealing to a +relatively small class of cultivated persons, and therefore +attracting only from half to three-quarters as many spectators as +the more popular pastimes, could nevertheless keep going in the +hands of young adventurers who were doing it for its own sake, +and had not yet been forced by advancing age and responsibilities +to consider the commercial value of their time and energy too +closely. The war struck this foundation away in the manner I have +just described. The expenses of running the cheapest west-end +theatres rose to a sum which exceeded by twenty-five per cent the +utmost that the higher drama can, as an ascertained matter of +fact, be depended on to draw. Thus the higher drama, which has +never really been a commercially sound speculation, now became an +impossible one. Accordingly, attempts are being made to provide a +refuge for it in suburban theatres in London and repertory +theatres in the provinces. But at the moment when the army has at +last disgorged the survivors of the gallant band of dramatic +pioneers whom it swallowed, they find that the economic +conditions which formerly made their work no worse than +precarious now put it out of the question altogether, as far as +the west end of London is concerned. + + + +Church and Theatre + +I do not suppose many people care particularly. We are not +brought up to care; and a sense of the national importance of the +theatre is not born in mankind: the natural man, like so many of +the soldiers at the beginning of the war, does not know what a +theatre is. But please note that all these soldiers who did not +know what a theatre was, knew what a church was. And they had +been taught to respect churches. Nobody had ever warned them +against a church as a place where frivolous women paraded in +their best clothes; where stories of improper females like +Potiphar's wife, and erotic poetry like the Song of Songs, were +read aloud; where the sensuous and sentimental music of Schubert, +Mendelssohn, Gounod, and Brahms was more popular than severe +music by greater composers; where the prettiest sort of pretty +pictures of pretty saints assailed the imagination and senses +through stained-glass windows; and where sculpture and +architecture came to the help of painting. Nobody ever reminded +them that these things had sometimes produced such developments +of erotic idolatry that men who were not only enthusiastic +amateurs of literature, painting, and music, but famous +practitioners of them, had actually exulted when mobs and even +regular troops under express command had mutilated church +statues, smashed church windows, wrecked church organs, and torn +up the sheets from which the church music was read and sung. When +they saw broken statues in churches, they were told that this was +the work of wicked, godless rioters, instead of, as it was, the +work partly of zealots bent on driving the world, the flesh, and +the devil out of the temple, and partly of insurgent men who had +become intolerably poor because the temple had become a den of +thieves. But all the sins and perversions that were so carefully +hidden from them in the history of the Church were laid on the +shoulders of the Theatre: that stuffy, uncomfortable place of +penance in which we suffer so much inconvenience on the +slenderest chance of gaining a scrap of food for our starving +souls. When the Germans bombed the Cathedral of Rheims the world +rang with the horror of the sacrilege. When they bombed the +Little Theatre in the Adelphi, and narrowly missed bombing two +writers of plays who lived within a few yards of it, the fact was +not even mentioned in the papers. In point of appeal to the +senses no theatre ever built could touch the fane at Rheims: no +actress could rival its Virgin in beauty, nor any operatic tenor +look otherwise than a fool beside its David. Its picture glass +was glorious even to those who had seen the glass of Chartres. It +was wonderful in its very grotesques: who would look at the +Blondin Donkey after seeing its leviathans? In spite of the +Adam-Adelphian decoration on which Miss Kingston had lavished so +much taste and care, the Little Theatre was in comparison with +Rheims the gloomiest of little conventicles: indeed the cathedral +must, from the Puritan point of view, have debauched a million +voluptuaries for every one whom the Little Theatre had sent home +thoughtful to a chaste bed after Mr Chesterton's Magic or +Brieux's Les Avaries. Perhaps that is the real reason why the +Church is lauded and the Theatre reviled. Whether or no, the fact +remains that the lady to whose public spirit and sense of the +national value of the theatre I owed the first regular public +performance of a play of mine had to conceal her action as if it +had been a crime, whereas if she had given the money to the +Church she would have worn a halo for it. And I admit, as I have +always done, that this state of things may have been a very +sensible one. I have asked Londoners again and again why they pay +half a guinea to go to a theatre when they can go to St. Paul's +or Westminster Abbey for nothing. Their only possible reply is +that they want to see something new and possibly something +wicked; but the theatres mostly disappoint both hopes. If ever a +revolution makes me Dictator, I shall establish a heavy charge +for admission to our churches. But everyone who pays at the +church door shall receive a ticket entitling him or her to free +admission to one performance at any theatre he or she prefers. +Thus shall the sensuous charms of the church service be made to +subsidize the sterner virtue of the drama. + + + +The Next Phase + +The present situation will not last. Although the newspaper I +read at breakfast this morning before writing these words +contains a calculation that no less than twenty-three wars are at +present being waged to confirm the peace, England is no longer in +khaki; and a violent reaction is setting in against the crude +theatrical fare of the four terrible years. Soon the rents of +theatres will once more be fixed on the assumption that they +cannot always be full, nor even on the average half full week in +and week out. Prices will change. The higher drama will be at no +greater disadvantage than it was before the war; and it may +benefit, first, by the fact that many of us have been torn from +the fools' paradise in which the theatre formerly traded, and +thrust upon the sternest realities and necessities until we have +lost both faith in and patience with the theatrical pretences +that had no root either in reality or necessity; second, by the +startling change made by the war in the distribution of income. +It seems only the other day that a millionaire was a man with +œ50,000 a year. To-day, when he has paid his income tax and super +tax, and insured his life for the amount of his death duties, he +is lucky if his net income is 10,000 pounds though his nominal +property remains the same. And this is the result of a Budget +which is called "a respite for the rich." At the other end of the +scale millions of persons have had regular incomes for the first +time in their lives; and their men have been regularly clothed, +fed, lodged, and taught to make up their minds that certain +things have to be done, also for the first time in their lives. +Hundreds of thousands of women have been taken out of their +domestic cages and tasted both discipline and independence. The +thoughtless and snobbish middle classes have been pulled up short +by the very unpleasant experience of being ruined to an +unprecedented extent. We have all had a tremendous jolt; and +although the widespread notion that the shock of the war would +automatically make a new heaven and a new earth, and that the dog +would never go back to his vomit nor the sow to her wallowing in +the mire, is already seen to be a delusion, yet we are far more +conscious of our condition than we were, and far less disposed to +submit to it. Revolution, lately only a sensational chapter in +history or a demagogic claptrap, is now a possibility so imminent +that hardly by trying to suppress it in other countries by arms +and defamation, and calling the process anti-Bolshevism, can our +Government stave it off at home. + +Perhaps the most tragic figure of the day is the American +President who was once a historian. In those days it became his +task to tell us how, after that great war in America which was +more clearly than any other war of our time a war for an idea, +the conquerors, confronted with a heroic task of reconstruction, +turned recreant, and spent fifteen years in abusing their victory +under cover of pretending to accomplish the task they were doing +what they could to make impossible. Alas! Hegel was right when he +said that we learn from history that men never learn anything +from history. With what anguish of mind the President sees that +we, the new conquerors, forgetting everything we professed to +fight for, are sitting down with watering mouths to a good square +meal of ten years revenge upon and humiliation of our prostrate +foe, can only be guessed by those who know, as he does, how +hopeless is remonstrance, and how happy Lincoln was in perishing +from the earth before his inspired messages became scraps of +paper. He knows well that from the Peace Conference will come, in +spite of his utmost, no edict on which he will be able, like +Lincoln, to invoke "the considerate judgment of mankind: and the +gracious favor of Almighty God." He led his people to destroy the +militarism of Zabern; and the army they rescued is busy in +Cologne imprisoning every German who does not salute a British +officer; whilst the government at home, asked whether it +approves, replies that it does not propose even to discontinue +this Zabernism when the Peace is concluded, but in effect looks +forward to making Germans salute British officers until the end +of the world. That is what war makes of men and women. It will +wear off; and the worst it threatens is already proving +impracticable; but before the humble and contrite heart ceases to +be despised, the President and I, being of the same age, will be +dotards. In the meantime there is, for him, another history to +write; for me, another comedy to stage. Perhaps, after all, that +is what wars are for, and what historians and playwrights are +for. If men will not learn until their lessons are written in +blood, why, blood they must have, their own for preference. + + + +The Ephemeral Thrones and the Eternal Theatre + +To the theatre it will not matter. Whatever Bastilles fall, the +theatre will stand. Apostolic Hapsburg has collapsed; All Highest +Hohenzollern languishes in Holland, threatened with trial on a +capital charge of fighting for his country against England; +Imperial Romanoff, said to have perished miserably by a more +summary method of murder, is perhaps alive or perhaps dead: +nobody cares more than if he had been a peasant; the lord of +Hellas is level with his lackeys in republican Switzerland; Prime +Ministers and Commanders-in-Chief have passed from a brief glory +as Solons and Caesars into failure and obscurity as closely on +one another's heels as the descendants of Banquo; but Euripides +and Aristophanes, Shakespeare and Moliere, Goethe and Ibsen +remain fixed in their everlasting seats. + + + +How War muzzles the Dramatic Poet + +As for myself, why, it may be asked, did I not write two plays +about the war instead of two pamphlets on it? The answer is +significant. You cannot make war on war and on your neighbor at +the same time. War cannot bear the terrible castigation of +comedy, the ruthless light of laughter that glares on the stage. +When men are heroically dying for their country, it is not the +time to show their lovers and wives and fathers and mothers how +they are being sacrificed to the blunders of boobies, the +cupidity of capitalists, the ambition of conquerors, the +electioneering of demagogues, the Pharisaism of patriots, the +lusts and lies and rancors and bloodthirsts that love war because +it opens their prison doors, and sets them in the thrones of +power and popularity. For unless these things are mercilessly +exposed they will hide under the mantle of the ideals on the +stage just as they do in real life. + +And though there may be better things to reveal, it may not, and +indeed cannot, be militarily expedient to reveal them whilst the +issue is still in the balance. Truth telling is not compatible +with the defence of the realm. We are just now reading the +revelations of our generals and admirals, unmuzzled at last by +the armistice. During the war, General A, in his moving +despatches from the field, told how General B had covered himself +with deathless glory in such and such a battle. He now tells us +that General B came within an ace of losing us the war by +disobeying his orders on that occasion, and fighting instead of +running away as he ought to have done. An excellent subject for +comedy now that the war is over, no doubt; but if General A had +let this out at the time, what would have been the effect on +General B's soldiers? And had the stage made known what the Prime +Minister and the Secretary of State for War who overruled General +A thought of him, and what he thought of them, as now revealed in +raging controversy, what would have been the effect on the +nation? That is why comedy, though sorely tempted, had to be +loyally silent; for the art of the dramatic poet knows no +patriotism; recognizes no obligation but truth to natural +history; cares not whether Germany or England perish; is ready to +cry with Brynhild, "Lass'uns verderben, lachend zu grunde geh'n" +sooner than deceive or be deceived; and thus becomes in time of +war a greater military danger than poison, steel, or +trinitrotoluene. That is why I had to withhold Heartbreak House +from the footlights during the war; for the Germans might on any +night have turned the last act from play into earnest, and even +then might not have waited for their cues. + +June, 1919. + + + +HEARTBREAK HOUSE + +ACT I + +The hilly country in the middle of the north edge of Sussex, +looking very pleasant on a fine evening at the end of September, +is seen through the windows of a room which has been built so as +to resemble the after part of an old-fashioned high-pooped ship, +with a stern gallery; for the windows are ship built with heavy +timbering, and run right across the room as continuously as the +stability of the wall allows. A row of lockers under the windows +provides an unupholstered windowseat interrupted by twin glass +doors, respectively halfway between the stern post and the sides. +Another door strains the illusion a little by being apparently in +the ship's port side, and yet leading, not to the open sea, but +to the entrance hall of the house. Between this door and the +stern gallery are bookshelves. There are electric light switches +beside the door leading to the hall and the glass doors in the +stern gallery. Against the starboard wall is a carpenter's bench. +The vice has a board in its jaws; and the floor is littered with +shavings, overflowing from a waste-paper basket. A couple of +planes and a centrebit are on the bench. In the same wall, +between the bench and the windows, is a narrow doorway with a +half door, above which a glimpse of the room beyond shows that it +is a shelved pantry with bottles and kitchen crockery. + +On the starboard side, but close to the middle, is a plain oak +drawing-table with drawing-board, T-square, straightedges, set +squares, mathematical instruments, saucers of water color, a +tumbler of discolored water, Indian ink, pencils, and brushes on +it. The drawing-board is set so that the draughtsman's chair has +the window on its left hand. On the floor at the end of the +table, on its right, is a ship's fire bucket. On the port side of +the room, near the bookshelves, is a sofa with its back to the +windows. It is a sturdy mahogany article, oddly upholstered in +sailcloth, including the bolster, with a couple of blankets +hanging over the back. Between the sofa and the drawing-table is +a big wicker chair, with broad arms and a low sloping back, with +its back to the light. A small but stout table of teak, with a +round top and gate legs, stands against the port wall between the +door and the bookcase. It is the only article in the room that +suggests (not at all convincingly) a woman's hand in the +furnishing. The uncarpeted floor of narrow boards is caulked and +holystoned like a deck. + +The garden to which the glass doors lead dips to the south before +the landscape rises again to the hills. Emerging from the hollow +is the cupola of an observatory. Between the observatory and the +house is a flagstaff on a little esplanade, with a hammock on the +east side and a long garden seat on the west. + +A young lady, gloved and hatted, with a dust coat on, is sitting +in the window-seat with her body twisted to enable her to look +out at the view. One hand props her chin: the other hangs down +with a volume of the Temple Shakespeare in it, and her finger +stuck in the page she has been reading. + +A clock strikes six. + +The young lady turns and looks at her watch. She rises with an +air of one who waits, and is almost at the end of her patience. +She is a pretty girl, slender, fair, and intelligent looking, +nicely but not expensively dressed, evidently not a smart idler. + +With a sigh of weary resignation she comes to the draughtsman's +chair; sits down; and begins to read Shakespeare. Presently the +book sinks to her lap; her eyes close; and she dozes into a +slumber. + +An elderly womanservant comes in from the hall with three +unopened bottles of rum on a tray. She passes through and +disappears in the pantry without noticing the young lady. She +places the bottles on the shelf and fills her tray with empty +bottles. As she returns with these, the young lady lets her book +drop, awakening herself, and startling the womanservant so that +she all but lets the tray fall. + +THE WOMANSERVANT. God bless us! [The young lady picks up the book +and places it on the table]. Sorry to wake you, miss, I'm sure; +but you are a stranger to me. What might you be waiting here for +now? + +THE YOUNG LADY. Waiting for somebody to show some signs of +knowing that I have been invited here. + +THE WOMANSERVANT. Oh, you're invited, are you? And has nobody +come? Dear! dear! + +THE YOUNG LADY. A wild-looking old gentleman came and looked in +at the window; and I heard him calling out, "Nurse, there is a +young and attractive female waiting in the poop. Go and see what +she wants." Are you the nurse? + +THE WOMANSERVANT. Yes, miss: I'm Nurse Guinness. That was old +Captain Shotover, Mrs Hushabye's father. I heard him roaring; but +I thought it was for something else. I suppose it was Mrs +Hushabye that invited you, ducky? + +THE YOUNG LADY. I understood her to do so. But really I think I'd +better go. + +NURSE GUINNESS. Oh, don't think of such a thing, miss. If Mrs +Hushabye has forgotten all about it, it will be a pleasant +surprise for her to see you, won't it? + +THE YOUNG LADY. It has been a very unpleasant surprise to me to +find that nobody expects me. + +NURSE GUINNESS. You'll get used to it, miss: this house is full +of surprises for them that don't know our ways. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [looking in from the hall suddenly: an ancient +but still hardy man with an immense white beard, in a reefer +jacket with a whistle hanging from his neck]. Nurse, there is a +hold-all and a handbag on the front steps for everybody to fall +over. Also a tennis racquet. Who the devil left them there? + +THE YOUNG LADY. They are mine, I'm afraid. + +TAE CAPTAIN [advancing to the drawing-table]. Nurse, who is this +misguided and unfortunate young lady? + +NURSE GUINNESS. She says Miss Hessy invited her, sir. + +THE CAPTAIN. And had she no friend, no parents, to warn her +against my daughter's invitations? This is a pretty sort of +house, by heavens! A young and attractive lady is invited here. +Her luggage is left on the steps for hours; and she herself is +deposited in the poop and abandoned, tired and starving. This is +our hospitality. These are our manners. No room ready. No hot +water. No welcoming hostess. Our visitor is to sleep in the +toolshed, and to wash in the duckpond. + +NURSE GUINNESS. Now it's all right, Captain: I'll get the lady +some tea; and her room shall be ready before she has finished it. +[To the young lady]. Take off your hat, ducky; and make yourself +at home [she goes to the door leading to the hall]. + +THE CAPTAIN [as she passes him]. Ducky! Do you suppose, woman, +that because this young lady has been insulted and neglected, you +have the right to address her as you address my wretched +children, whom you have brought up in ignorance of the commonest +decencies of social intercourse? + +NURSE GUINNESS. Never mind him, doty. [Quite unconcerned, she +goes out into the hall on her way to the kitchen]. + +THE CAPTAIN. Madam, will you favor me with your name? [He sits +down in the big wicker chair]. + +THE YOUNG LADY. My name is Ellie Dunn. + +THE CAPTAIN. Dunn! I had a boatswain whose name was Dunn. He was +originally a pirate in China. He set up as a ship's chandler with +stores which I have every reason to believe he stole from me. No +doubt he became rich. Are you his daughter? + +ELLIE [indignant]. No, certainly not. I am proud to be able to +say that though my father has not been a successful man, nobody +has ever had one word to say against him. I think my father is +the best man I have ever known. + +THE CAPTAIN. He must be greatly changed. Has he attained the +seventh degree of concentration? + +ELLIE. I don't understand. + +THE CAPTAIN. But how could he, with a daughter? I, madam, have +two daughters. One of them is Hesione Hushabye, who invited you +here. I keep this house: she upsets it. I desire to attain the +seventh degree of concentration: she invites visitors and leaves +me to entertain them. [Nurse Guinness returns with the tea-tray, +which she places on the teak table]. I have a second daughter who +is, thank God, in a remote part of the Empire with her numskull +of a husband. As a child she thought the figure-head of my ship, +the Dauntless, the most beautiful thing on earth. He resembled +it. He had the same expression: wooden yet enterprising. She +married him, and will never set foot in this house again. + +NURSE GUINNESS [carrying the table, with the tea-things on it, to +Ellie's side]. Indeed you never were more mistaken. She is in +England this very moment. You have been told three times this +week that she is coming home for a year for her health. And very +glad you should be to see your own daughter again after all these +years. + +THE CAPTAIN. I am not glad. The natural term of the affection of +the human animal for its offspring is six years. My daughter +Ariadne was born when I was forty-six. I am now eighty-eight. If +she comes, I am not at home. If she wants anything, let her take +it. If she asks for me, let her be informed that I am extremely +old, and have totally forgotten her. + +NURSE GUINNESS. That's no talk to offer to a young lady. Here, +ducky, have some tea; and don't listen to him [she pours out a +cup of tea]. + +THE CAPTAIN [rising wrathfully]. Now before high heaven they have +given this innocent child Indian tea: the stuff they tan their +own leather insides with. [He seizes the cup and the tea-pot and +empties both into the leathern bucket]. + +ELLIE [almost in tears]. Oh, please! I am so tired. I should have +been glad of anything. + +NURSE GUINNESS. Oh, what a thing to do! The poor lamb is ready to +drop. + +THE CAPTAIN. You shall have some of my tea. Do not touch that +fly-blown cake: nobody eats it here except the dogs. [He +disappears into the pantry]. + +NURSE GUINNESS. There's a man for you! They say he sold himself +to the devil in Zanzibar before he was a captain; and the older +he grows the more I believe them. + +A WOMAN'S VOICE [in the hall]. Is anyone at home? Hesione! Nurse! +Papa! Do come, somebody; and take in my luggage. + +Thumping heard, as of an umbrella, on the wainscot. + +NURSE GUINNESS. My gracious! It's Miss Addy, Lady Utterword, Mrs +Hushabye's sister: the one I told the captain about. [Calling]. +Coming, Miss, coming. + +She carries the table back to its place by the door and is +harrying out when she is intercepted by Lady Utterword, who +bursts in much flustered. Lady Utterword, a blonde, is very +handsome, very well dressed, and so precipitate in speech and +action that the first impression (erroneous) is one of comic +silliness. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Oh, is that you, Nurse? How are you? You don't +look a day older. Is nobody at home? Where is Hesione? Doesn't +she expect me? Where are the servants? Whose luggage is that on +the steps? Where's papa? Is everybody asleep? [Seeing Ellie]. Oh! +I beg your pardon. I suppose you are one of my nieces. +[Approaching her with outstretched arms]. Come and kiss your +aunt, darling. + +ELLIE. I'm only a visitor. It is my luggage on the steps. + +NURSE GUINNESS. I'll go get you some fresh tea, ducky. [She takes +up the tray]. + +ELLIE. But the old gentleman said he would make some himself. + +NURSE GUINNESS. Bless you! he's forgotten what he went for +already. His mind wanders from one thing to another. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Papa, I suppose? + +NURSE GUINNESS. Yes, Miss. + +LADY UTTERWORD [vehemently]. Don't be silly, Nurse. Don't call me +Miss. + +NURSE GUINNESS [placidly]. No, lovey [she goes out with the +tea-tray]. + +LADY UTTERWORD [sitting down with a flounce on the sofa]. I know +what you must feel. Oh, this house, this house! I come back to it +after twenty-three years; and it is just the same: the luggage +lying on the steps, the servants spoilt and impossible, nobody at +home to receive anybody, no regular meals, nobody ever hungry +because they are always gnawing bread and butter or munching +apples, and, what is worse, the same disorder in ideas, in talk, +in feeling. When I was a child I was used to it: I had never +known anything better, though I was unhappy, and longed all the +time--oh, how I longed!--to be respectable, to be a lady, to live +as others did, not to have to think of everything for myself. I +married at nineteen to escape from it. My husband is Sir Hastings +Utterword, who has been governor of all the crown colonies in +succession. I have always been the mistress of Government House. +I have been so happy: I had forgotten that people could live like +this. I wanted to see my father, my sister, my nephews and nieces +(one ought to, you know), and I was looking forward to it. And +now the state of the house! the way I'm received! the casual +impudence of that woman Guinness, our old nurse! really Hesione +might at least have been here: some preparation might have been +made for me. You must excuse my going on in this way; but I am +really very much hurt and annoyed and disillusioned: and if I had +realized it was to be like this, I wouldn't have come. I have a +great mind to go away without another word [she is on the point +of weeping]. + +ELLIE [also very miserable]. Nobody has been here to receive me +either. I thought I ought to go away too. But how can I, Lady +Utterword? My luggage is on the steps; and the station fly has +gone. + +The captain emerges from the pantry with a tray of Chinese +lacquer and a very fine tea-set on it. He rests it provisionally +on the end of the table; snatches away the drawing-board, which +he stands on the floor against table legs; and puts the tray in +the space thus cleared. Ellie pours out a cup greedily. + +THE CAPTAIN. Your tea, young lady. What! another lady! I must +fetch another cup [he makes for the pantry]. + +LADY UTTERWORD [rising from the sofa, suffused with emotion]. +Papa! Don't you know me? I'm your daughter. + +THE CAPTAIN. Nonsense! my daughter's upstairs asleep. [He +vanishes through the half door]. + +Lady Utterword retires to the window to conceal her tears. + +ELLIE [going to her with the cup]. Don't be so distressed. Have +this cup of tea. He is very old and very strange: he has been +just like that to me. I know how dreadful it must be: my own +father is all the world to me. Oh, I'm sure he didn't mean it. + +The captain returns with another cup. + +THE CAPTAIN. Now we are complete. [He places it on the tray]. + +LADY UTTERWORD [hysterically]. Papa, you can't have forgotten me. +I am Ariadne. I'm little Paddy Patkins. Won't you kiss me? [She +goes to him and throws her arms round his neck]. + +THE CAPTAIN [woodenly enduring her embrace]. How can you be +Ariadne? You are a middle-aged woman: well preserved, madam, but +no longer young. + +LADY UTTERWORD. But think of all the years and years I have been +away, Papa. I have had to grow old, like other people. + +THE CAPTAIN [disengaging himself]. You should grow out of kissing +strange men: they may be striving to attain the seventh degree of +concentration. + +LADY UTTERWORD. But I'm your daughter. You haven't seen me for +years. + +THE CAPTAIN. So much the worse! When our relatives are at home, +we have to think of all their good points or it would be +impossible to endure them. But when they are away, we console +ourselves for their absence by dwelling on their vices. That is +how I have come to think my absent daughter Ariadne a perfect +fiend; so do not try to ingratiate yourself here by impersonating +her [he walks firmly away to the other side of the room]. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Ingratiating myself indeed! [With dignity]. Very +well, papa. [She sits down at the drawing-table and pours out tea +for herself]. + +THE CAPTAIN. I am neglecting my social duties. You remember Dunn? +Billy Dunn? + +LADY UTTERWORD. DO you mean that villainous sailor who robbed +you? + +THE CAPTAIN [introducing Ellie]. His daughter. [He sits down on +the sofa]. + +ELLIE [protesting]. No-- + +Nurse Guinness returns with fresh tea. + +THE CAPTAIN. Take that hogwash away. Do you hear? + +NURSE. You've actually remembered about the tea! [To Ellie]. Oh, +miss, he didn't forget you after all! You HAVE made an +impression. + +THE CAPTAIN [gloomily]. Youth! beauty! novelty! They are badly +wanted in this house. I am excessively old. Hesione is only +moderately young. Her children are not youthful. + +LADY UTTERWORD. How can children be expected to be youthful in +this house? Almost before we could speak we were filled with +notions that might have been all very well for pagan philosophers +of fifty, but were certainly quite unfit for respectable people +of any age. + +NURSE. You were always for respectability, Miss Addy. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Nurse, will you please remember that I am Lady +Utterword, and not Miss Addy, nor lovey, nor darling, nor doty? +Do you hear? + +NURSE. Yes, ducky: all right. I'll tell them all they must call +you My Lady. [She takes her tray out with undisturbed placidity]. + +LADY UTTERWORD. What comfort? what sense is there in having +servants with no manners? + +ELLIE [rising and coming to the table to put down her empty cup]. +Lady Utterword, do you think Mrs Hushabye really expects me? + +LADY UTTERWORD. Oh, don't ask me. You can see for yourself that +I've just arrived; her only sister, after twenty-three years' +absence! and it seems that I am not expected. + +THE CAPTAIN. What does it matter whether the young lady is +expected or not? She is welcome. There are beds: there is food. +I'll find a room for her myself [he makes for the door]. + +ELLIE [following him to stop him]. Oh, please--[He goes out]. +Lady Utterword, I don't know what to do. Your father persists in +believing that my father is some sailor who robbed him. + +LADY UTTERWORD. You had better pretend not to notice it. My +father is a very clever man; but he always forgot things; and now +that he is old, of course he is worse. And I must warn you that +it is sometimes very hard to feel quite sure that he really +forgets. + +Mrs Hushabye bursts into the room tempestuously and embraces +Ellie. She is a couple of years older than Lady Utterword, and +even better looking. She has magnificent black hair, eyes like +the fishpools of Heshbon, and a nobly modelled neck, short at the +back and low between her shoulders in front. Unlike her sister +she is uncorseted and dressed anyhow in a rich robe of black pile +that shows off her white skin and statuesque contour. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Ellie, my darling, my pettikins [kissing her], how +long have you been here? I've been at home all the time: I was +putting flowers and things in your room; and when I just sat down +for a moment to try how comfortable the armchair was I went off +to sleep. Papa woke me and told me you were here. Fancy your +finding no one, and being neglected and abandoned. [Kissing her +again]. My poor love! [She deposits Ellie on the sofa. Meanwhile +Ariadne has left the table and come over to claim her share of +attention]. Oh! you've brought someone with you. Introduce me. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Hesione, is it possible that you don't know me? + +MRS HUSHABYE [conventionally]. Of course I remember your face +quite well. Where have we met? + +LADY UTTERWORD. Didn't Papa tell you I was here? Oh! this is +really too much. [She throws herself sulkily into the big chair]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Papa! + +LADY UTTERWORD. Yes, Papa. Our papa, you unfeeling wretch! +[Rising angrily]. I'll go straight to a hotel. + +MRS HUSHABYE [seizing her by the shoulders]. My goodness gracious +goodness, you don't mean to say that you're Addy! + +LADY UTTERWORD. I certainly am Addy; and I don't think I can be +so changed that you would not have recognized me if you had any +real affection for me. And Papa didn't think me even worth +mentioning! + +MRS HUSHABYE. What a lark! Sit down [she pushes her back into the +chair instead of kissing her, and posts herself behind it]. You +DO look a swell. You're much handsomer than you used to be. +You've made the acquaintance of Ellie, of course. She is going to +marry a perfect hog of a millionaire for the sake of her father, +who is as poor as a church mouse; and you must help me to stop +her. + +ELLIE. Oh, please, Hesione! + +MRS HUSHABYE. My pettikins, the man's coming here today with your +father to begin persecuting you; and everybody will see the state +of the case in ten minutes; so what's the use of making a secret +of it? + +ELLIE. He is not a hog, Hesione. You don't know how wonderfully +good he was to my father, and how deeply grateful I am to him. + +MRS HUSHABYE [to Lady Utterword]. Her father is a very remarkable +man, Addy. His name is Mazzini Dunn. Mazzini was a celebrity of +some kind who knew Ellie's grandparents. They were both poets, +like the Brownings; and when her father came into the world +Mazzini said, "Another soldier born for freedom!" So they +christened him Mazzini; and he has been fighting for freedom in +his quiet way ever since. That's why he is so poor. + +ELLIE. I am proud of his poverty. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Of course you are, pettikins. Why not leave him in +it, and marry someone you love? + +LADY UTTERWORD [rising suddenly and explosively]. Hesione, are +you going to kiss me or are you not? + +MRS HUSHABYE. What do you want to be kissed for? + +LADY UTTERWORD. I DON'T want to be kissed; but I do want you to +behave properly and decently. We are sisters. We have been +separated for twenty-three years. You OUGHT to kiss me. + +MRS HUSHABYE. To-morrow morning, dear, before you make up. I hate +the smell of powder. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Oh! you unfeeling--[she is interrupted by the +return of the captain]. + +THE CAPTAIN [to Ellie]. Your room is ready. [Ellie rises]. The +sheets were damp; but I have changed them [he makes for the +garden door on the port side]. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Oh! What about my sheets? + +THE CAPTAIN [halting at the door]. Take my advice: air them: or +take them off and sleep in blankets. You shall sleep in Ariadne's +old room. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Indeed I shall do nothing of the sort. That +little hole! I am entitled to the best spare room. + +THE CAPTAIN [continuing unmoved]. She married a numskull. She +told me she would marry anyone to get away from home. + +LADT UTTERWORD. You are pretending not to know me on purpose. I +will leave the house. + +Mazzini Dunn enters from the hall. He is a little elderly man +with bulging credulous eyes and earnest manners. He is dressed in +a blue serge jacket suit with an unbuttoned mackintosh over it, +and carries a soft black hat of clerical cut. + +ELLIE. At last! Captain Shotover, here is my father. + +THE CAPTAIN. This! Nonsense! not a bit like him [he goes away +through the garden, shutting the door sharply behind him]. + +LADY UTTERWORD. I will not be ignored and pretended to be +somebody else. I will have it out with Papa now, this instant. +[To Mazzini]. Excuse me. [She follows the captain out, making a +hasty bow to Mazzini, who returns it]. + +MRS HUSHABYE [hospitably shaking hands]. How good of you to come, +Mr Dunn! You don't mind Papa, do you? He is as mad as a hatter, +you know, but quite harmless and extremely clever. You will have +some delightful talks with him. + +MAZZINI. I hope so. [To Ellie]. So here you are, Ellie, dear. [He +draws her arm affectionately through his]. I must thank you, Mrs +Hushabye, for your kindness to my daughter. I'm afraid she would +have had no holiday if you had not invited her. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Not at all. Very nice of her to come and attract +young people to the house for us. + +MAZZINI [smiling]. I'm afraid Ellie is not interested in young +men, Mrs Hushabye. Her taste is on the graver, solider side. + +MRS HUSHABYE [with a sudden rather hard brightness in her +manner]. Won't you take off your overcoat, Mr Dunn? You will find +a cupboard for coats and hats and things in the corner of the +hall. + +MAZZINI [hastily releasing Ellie]. Yes--thank you--I had better-- +[he goes out]. + +MRS HUSHABYE [emphatically]. The old brute! + +ELLIE. Who? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Who! Him. He. It [pointing after Mazzini]. "Graver, +solider tastes," indeed! + +ELLIE [aghast]. You don't mean that you were speaking like that +of my father! + +MRS HUSHABYE. I was. You know I was. + +ELLIE [with dignity]. I will leave your house at once. [She turns +to the door]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. If you attempt it, I'll tell your father why. + +ELLIE [turning again]. Oh! How can you treat a visitor like this, +Mrs Hushabye? + +MRS HUSHABYE. I thought you were going to call me Hesione. + +ELLIE. Certainly not now? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Very well: I'll tell your father. + +ELLIE [distressed]. Oh! + +MRS HUSHABYE. If you turn a hair--if you take his part against me +and against your own heart for a moment, I'll give that born +soldier of freedom a piece of my mind that will stand him on his +selfish old head for a week. + +ELLIE. Hesione! My father selfish! How little you know-- + +She is interrupted by Mazzini, who returns, excited and +perspiring. + +MAZZINI. Ellie, Mangan has come: I thought you'd like to know. +Excuse me, Mrs Hushabye, the strange old gentleman-- + +MRS HUSHABYE. Papa. Quite so. + +MAZZINI. Oh, I beg your pardon, of course: I was a little +confused by his manner. He is making Mangan help him with +something in the garden; and he wants me too-- + +A powerful whistle is heard. + +THE CAPTAIN'S VOICE. Bosun ahoy! [the whistle is repeated]. + +MAZZINI [flustered]. Oh dear! I believe he is whistling for me. +[He hurries out]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Now MY father is a wonderful man if you like. + +ELLIE. Hesione, listen to me. You don't understand. My father and +Mr Mangan were boys together. Mr Ma-- + +MRS HUSHABYE. I don't care what they were: we must sit down if +you are going to begin as far back as that. [She snatches at +Ellie's waist, and makes her sit down on the sofa beside her]. +Now, pettikins, tell me all about Mr Mangan. They call him Boss +Mangan, don't they? He is a Napoleon of industry and disgustingly +rich, isn't he? Why isn't your father rich? + +ELLIE. My poor father should never have been in business. His +parents were poets; and they gave him the noblest ideas; but they +could not afford to give him a profession. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Fancy your grandparents, with their eyes in fine +frenzy rolling! And so your poor father had to go into business. +Hasn't he succeeded in it? + +ELLIE. He always used to say he could succeed if he only had some +capital. He fought his way along, to keep a roof over our heads +and bring us up well; but it was always a struggle: always the +same difficulty of not having capital enough. I don't know how to +describe it to you. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Poor Ellie! I know. Pulling the devil by the tail. + +ELLIE [hurt]. Oh, no. Not like that. It was at least dignified. + +MRS HUSHABYE. That made it all the harder, didn't it? I shouldn't +have pulled the devil by the tail with dignity. I should have +pulled hard--[between her teeth] hard. Well? Go on. + +ELLIE. At last it seemed that all our troubles were at an end. Mr +Mangan did an extraordinarily noble thing out of pure friendship +for my father and respect for his character. He asked him how +much capital he wanted, and gave it to him. I don't mean that he +lent it to him, or that he invested it in his business. He just +simply made him a present of it. Wasn't that splendid of him? + +MRS HUSHABYE. On condition that you married him? + +ELLIE. Oh, no, no, no! This was when I was a child. He had never +even seen me: he never came to our house. It was absolutely +disinterested. Pure generosity. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Oh! I beg the gentleman's pardon. Well, what became +of the money? + +ELLIE. We all got new clothes and moved into another house. And I +went to another school for two years. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Only two years? + +ELLIE. That was all: for at the end of two years my father was +utterly ruined. + +MRS HUSHABYE. How? + +ELLIE. I don't know. I never could understand. But it was +dreadful. When we were poor my father had never been in debt. But +when he launched out into business on a large scale, he had to +incur liabilities. When the business went into liquidation he +owed more money than Mr Mangan had given him. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Bit off more than he could chew, I suppose. + +ELLIE. I think you are a little unfeeling about it. + +MRS HUSHABYE. My pettikins, you mustn't mind my way of talking. I +was quite as sensitive and particular as you once; but I have +picked up so much slang from the children that I am really hardly +presentable. I suppose your father had no head for business, and +made a mess of it. + +ELLIE. Oh, that just shows how entirely you are mistaken about +him. The business turned out a great success. It now pays +forty-four per cent after deducting the excess profits tax. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Then why aren't you rolling in money? + +ELLIE. I don't know. It seems very unfair to me. You see, my +father was made bankrupt. It nearly broke his heart, because he +had persuaded several of his friends to put money into the +business. He was sure it would succeed; and events proved that he +was quite right. But they all lost their money. It was dreadful. +I don't know what we should have done but for Mr Mangan. + +MRS HUSHABYE. What! Did the Boss come to the rescue again, after +all his money being thrown away? + +ELLIE. He did indeed, and never uttered a reproach to my father. +He bought what was left of the business--the buildings and the +machinery and things--from the official trustee for enough money +to enable my father to pay six-and-eight-pence in the pound and +get his discharge. Everyone pitied Papa so much, and saw so +plainly that he was an honorable man, that they let him off at +six-and-eight-pence instead of ten shillings. Then Mr. Mangan +started a company to take up the business, and made my father a +manager in it to save us from starvation; for I wasn't earning +anything then. + +MRS. HUSHABYE. Quite a romance. And when did the Boss develop the +tender passion? + +ELLIE. Oh, that was years after, quite lately. He took the chair +one night at a sort of people's concert. I was singing there. As +an amateur, you know: half a guinea for expenses and three songs +with three encores. He was so pleased with my singing that he +asked might he walk home with me. I never saw anyone so taken +aback as he was when I took him home and introduced him to my +father, his own manager. It was then that my father told me how +nobly he had behaved. Of course it was considered a great chance +for me, as he is so rich. And--and--we drifted into a sort of +understanding--I suppose I should call it an engagement--[she is +distressed and cannot go on]. + +MRS HUSHABYE [rising and marching about]. You may have drifted +into it; but you will bounce out of it, my pettikins, if I am to +have anything to do with it. + +ELLIE [hopelessly]. No: it's no use. I am bound in honor and +gratitude. I will go through with it. + +MRS HUSHABYE [behind the sofa, scolding down at her]. You know, +of course, that it's not honorable or grateful to marry a man you +don't love. Do you love this Mangan man? + +ELLIE. Yes. At least-- + +MRS HUSHABYE. I don't want to know about "at least": I want to +know the worst. Girls of your age fall in love with all sorts of +impossible people, especially old people. + +ELLIE. I like Mr Mangan very much; and I shall always be-- + +MRS HUSHABYE [impatiently completing the sentence and prancing +away intolerantly to starboard]. --grateful to him for his +kindness to dear father. I know. Anybody else? + +ELLIE. What do you mean? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Anybody else? Are you in love with anybody else? + +ELLIE. Of course not. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Humph! [The book on the drawing-table catches her +eye. She picks it up, and evidently finds the title very +unexpected. She looks at Ellie, and asks, quaintly] Quite sure +you're not in love with an actor? + +ELLIE. No, no. Why? What put such a thing into your head? + +MRS HUSHABYE. This is yours, isn't it? Why else should you be +reading Othello? + +ELLIE. My father taught me to love Shakespeare. + +MRS HUSHAYE [flinging the book down on the table]. Really! your +father does seem to be about the limit. + +ELLIE [naively]. Do you never read Shakespeare, Hesione? That +seems to me so extraordinary. I like Othello. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Do you, indeed? He was jealous, wasn't he? + +ELLIE. Oh, not that. I think all the part about jealousy is +horrible. But don't you think it must have been a wonderful +experience for Desdemona, brought up so quietly at home, to meet +a man who had been out in the world doing all sorts of brave +things and having terrible adventures, and yet finding something +in her that made him love to sit and talk with her and tell her +about them? + +MRS HUSHABYE. That's your idea of romance, is it? + +ELLIE. Not romance, exactly. It might really happen. + +Ellie's eyes show that she is not arguing, but in a daydream. Mrs +Hushabye, watching her inquisitively, goes deliberately back to +the sofa and resumes her seat beside her. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Ellie darling, have you noticed that some of those +stories that Othello told Desdemona couldn't have happened--? + +ELLIE. Oh, no. Shakespeare thought they could have happened. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Hm! Desdemona thought they could have happened. But +they didn't. + +ELLIE. Why do you look so enigmatic about it? You are such a +sphinx: I never know what you mean. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Desdemona would have found him out if she had +lived, you know. I wonder was that why he strangled her! + +ELLIE. Othello was not telling lies. + +MRS HUSHABYE. How do you know? + +ELLIE. Shakespeare would have said if he was. Hesione, there are +men who have done wonderful things: men like Othello, only, of +course, white, and very handsome, and-- + +MRS HUSHABYE. Ah! Now we're coming to it. Tell me all about him. +I knew there must be somebody, or you'd never have been so +miserable about Mangan: you'd have thought it quite a lark to +marry him. + +ELLIE [blushing vividly]. Hesione, you are dreadful. But I don't +want to make a secret of it, though of course I don't tell +everybody. Besides, I don't know him. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Don't know him! What does that mean? + +ELLIE. Well, of course I know him to speak to. + +MRS HUSHABYE. But you want to know him ever so much more +intimately, eh? + +ELLIE. No, no: I know him quite--almost intimately. + +MRS HUSHABYE. You don't know him; and you know him almost +intimately. How lucid! + +ELLIE. I mean that he does not call on us. I--I got into +conversation with him by chance at a concert. + +MRS HUSHABYE. You seem to have rather a gay time at your +concerts, Ellie. + +ELLIE. Not at all: we talk to everyone in the greenroom waiting +for our turns. I thought he was one of the artists: he looked so +splendid. But he was only one of the committee. I happened to +tell him that I was copying a picture at the National Gallery. I +make a little money that way. I can't paint much; but as it's +always the same picture I can do it pretty quickly and get two or +three pounds for it. It happened that he came to the National +Gallery one day. + +MRS HUSHABYE. One students' day. Paid sixpence to stumble about +through a crowd of easels, when he might have come in next day +for nothing and found the floor clear! Quite by accident? + +ELLIE [triumphantly]. No. On purpose. He liked talking to me. He +knows lots of the most splendid people. Fashionable women who are +all in love with him. But he ran away from them to see me at the +National Gallery and persuade me to come with him for a drive +round Richmond Park in a taxi. + +MRS HUSHABYE. My pettikins, you have been going it. It's +wonderful what you good girls can do without anyone saying a +word. + +ELLIE. I am not in society, Hesione. If I didn't make +acquaintances in that way I shouldn't have any at all. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Well, no harm if you know how to take care of +yourself. May I ask his name? + +ELLIE [slowly and musically]. Marcus Darnley. + +MRS HUSHABYE [echoing the music]. Marcus Darnley! What a splendid +name! + +ELLIE. Oh, I'm so glad you think so. I think so too; but I was +afraid it was only a silly fancy of my own. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Hm! Is he one of the Aberdeen Darnleys? + +ELLIE. Nobody knows. Just fancy! He was found in an antique +chest-- + +MRS HUSHABYE. A what? + +ELLIE. An antique chest, one summer morning in a rose garden, +after a night of the most terrible thunderstorm. + +MRS HUSHABYE. What on earth was he doing in the chest? Did he get +into it because he was afraid of the lightning? + +ELLIE. Oh, no, no: he was a baby. The name Marcus Darnley was +embroidered on his baby clothes. And five hundred pounds in gold. + +MRS HUSHABYE [Looking hard at her]. Ellie! + +ELLIE. The garden of the Viscount-- + +MRS HUSHABYE. --de Rougemont? + +ELLIE [innocently]. No: de Larochejaquelin. A French family. A +vicomte. His life has been one long romance. A tiger-- + +MRS HUSHABYE. Slain by his own hand? + +ELLIE. Oh, no: nothing vulgar like that. He saved the life of the +tiger from a hunting party: one of King Edward's hunting parties +in India. The King was furious: that was why he never had his +military services properly recognized. But he doesn't care. He is +a Socialist and despises rank, and has been in three revolutions +fighting on the barricades. + +MRS HUSHABYE. How can you sit there telling me such lies? You, +Ellie, of all people! And I thought you were a perfectly simple, +straightforward, good girl. + +ELLIE [rising, dignified but very angry]. Do you mean you don't +believe me? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Of course I don't believe you. You're inventing +every word of it. Do you take me for a fool? + +Ellie stares at her. Her candor is so obvious that Mrs Hushabye +is puzzled. + +ELLIE. Goodbye, Hesione. I'm very sorry. I see now that it sounds +very improbable as I tell it. But I can't stay if you think that +way about me. + +MRS HUSHABYE [catching her dress]. You shan't go. I couldn't be +so mistaken: I know too well what liars are like. Somebody has +really told you all this. + +ELLIE [flushing]. Hesione, don't say that you don't believe him. +I couldn't bear that. + +MRS HUSHABYE [soothing her]. Of course I believe him, dearest. +But you should have broken it to me by degrees. [Drawing her back +to her seat]. Now tell me all about him. Are you in love with +him? + +ELLIE. Oh, no. I'm not so foolish. I don't fall in love with +people. I'm not so silly as you think. + +MRS HUSHABYE. I see. Only something to think about--to give some +interest and pleasure to life. + +ELLIE. Just so. That's all, really. + +MRS HUSHABYE. It makes the hours go fast, doesn't it? No tedious +waiting to go to sleep at nights and wondering whether you will +have a bad night. How delightful it makes waking up in the +morning! How much better than the happiest dream! All life +transfigured! No more wishing one had an interesting book to +read, because life is so much happier than any book! No desire +but to be alone and not to have to talk to anyone: to be alone +and just think about it. + +ELLIE [embracing her]. Hesione, you are a witch. How do you know? +Oh, you are the most sympathetic woman in the world! + +MRS HUSHABYE [caressing her]. Pettikins, my pettikins, how I envy +you! and how I pity you! + +ELLIE. Pity me! Oh, why? + +A very handsome man of fifty, with mousquetaire moustaches, +wearing a rather dandified curly brimmed hat, and carrying an +elaborate walking-stick, comes into the room from the hall, and +stops short at sight of the women on the sofa. + +ELLIE [seeing him and rising in glad surprise]. Oh! Hesione: this +is Mr Marcus Darnley. + +MRS HUSHABYE [rising]. What a lark! He is my husband. + +ELLIE. But now--[she stops suddenly: then turns pale and sways]. + +MRS HUSHABYE [catching her and sitting down with her on the +sofa]. Steady, my pettikins. + +THE MAN [with a mixture of confusion and effrontery, depositing +his hat and stick on the teak table]. My real name, Miss Dunn, is +Hector Hushabye. I leave you to judge whether that is a name any +sensitive man would care to confess to. I never use it when I can +possibly help it. I have been away for nearly a month; and I had +no idea you knew my wife, or that you were coming here. I am none +the less delighted to find you in our little house. + +ELLIE [in great distress]. I don't know what to do. Please, may I +speak to papa? Do leave me. I can't bear it. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Be off, Hector. + +HECTOR. I-- + +MRS HUSHABYE. Quick, quick. Get out. + +HECTOR. If you think it better--[he goes out, taking his hat with +him but leaving the stick on the table]. + +MRS HUSHABYE [laying Ellie down at the end of the sofa]. Now, +pettikins, he is gone. There's nobody but me. You can let +yourself go. Don't try to control yourself. Have a good cry. + +ELLIE [raising her head]. Damn! + +MRS HUSHABYE. Splendid! Oh, what a relief! I thought you were +going to be broken-hearted. Never mind me. Damn him again. + +ELLIE. I am not damning him. I am damning myself for being such a +fool. [Rising]. How could I let myself be taken in so? [She +begins prowling to and fro, her bloom gone, looking curiously +older and harder]. + +MRS HUSHABYE [cheerfully]. Why not, pettikins? Very few young +women can resist Hector. I couldn't when I was your age. He is +really rather splendid, you know. + +ELLIE [turning on her]. Splendid! Yes, splendid looking, of +course. But how can you love a liar? + +MRS HUSHABYE. I don't know. But you can, fortunately. Otherwise +there wouldn't be much love in the world. + +ELLIE. But to lie like that! To be a boaster! a coward! + +MRS HUSHABYE [rising in alarm]. Pettikins, none of that, if you +please. If you hint the slightest doubt of Hector's courage, he +will go straight off and do the most horribly dangerous things to +convince himself that he isn't a coward. He has a dreadful trick +of getting out of one third-floor window and coming in at +another, just to test his nerve. He has a whole drawerful of +Albert Medals for saving people's lives. + +ELLIE. He never told me that. + +MRS HUSHABYE. He never boasts of anything he really did: he can't +bear it; and it makes him shy if anyone else does. All his +stories are made-up stories. + +ELLIE [coming to her]. Do you mean that he is really brave, and +really has adventures, and yet tells lies about things that he +never did and that never happened? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Yes, pettikins, I do. People don't have their +virtues and vices in sets: they have them anyhow: all mixed. + +ELLIE [staring at her thoughtfully]. There's something odd about +this house, Hesione, and even about you. I don't know why I'm +talking to you so calmly. I have a horrible fear that my heart is +broken, but that heartbreak is not like what I thought it must +be. + +MRS HUSHABYE [fondling her]. It's only life educating you, +pettikins. How do you feel about Boss Mangan now? + +ELLIE [disengaging herself with an expression of distaste]. Oh, +how can you remind me of him, Hesione? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Sorry, dear. I think I hear Hector coming back. You +don't mind now, do you, dear? + +ELLIE. Not in the least. I am quite cured. + +Mazzini Dunn and Hector come in from the hall. + +HECTOR [as he opens the door and allows Mazzini to pass in]. One +second more, and she would have been a dead woman! + +MAZZINI. Dear! dear! what an escape! Ellie, my love, Mr Hushabye +has just been telling me the most extraordinary-- + +ELLIE. Yes, I've heard it [she crosses to the other side of the +room]. + +HECTOR [following her]. Not this one: I'll tell it to you after +dinner. I think you'll like it. The truth is I made it up for +you, and was looking forward to the pleasure of telling it to +you. But in a moment of impatience at being turned out of the +room, I threw it away on your father. + +ELLIE [turning at bay with her back to the carpenter's bench, +scornfully self-possessed]. It was not thrown away. He believes +it. I should not have believed it. + +MAZZINI [benevolently]. Ellie is very naughty, Mr Hushabye. Of +course she does not really think that. [He goes to the +bookshelves, and inspects the titles of the volumes]. + +Boss Mangan comes in from the hall, followed by the captain. +Mangan, carefully frock-coated as for church or for a diHECTORs' +meeting, is about fifty-five, with a careworn, mistrustful +expression, standing a little on an entirely imaginary dignity, +with a dull complexion, straight, lustreless hair, and features +so entirely commonplace that it is impossible to describe them. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [to Mrs Hushabye, introducing the newcomer]. +Says his name is Mangan. Not able-bodied. + +MRS HUSHABYE [graciously]. How do you do, Mr Mangan? + +MANGAN [shaking hands]. Very pleased. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Dunn's lost his muscle, but recovered his +nerve. Men seldom do after three attacks of delirium tremens [he +goes into the pantry]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. I congratulate you, Mr Dunn. + +MAZZINI [dazed]. I am a lifelong teetotaler. + +MRS HUSHABYE. You will find it far less trouble to let papa have +his own way than try to explain. + +MAZZINI. But three attacks of delirium tremens, really! + +MRS HUSHABYE [to Mangan]. Do you know my husband, Mr Mangan [she +indicates Hector]. + +MANGAN [going to Hector, who meets him with outstretched hand]. +Very pleased. [Turning to Ellie]. I hope, Miss Ellie, you have +not found the journey down too fatiguing. [They shake hands]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Hector, show Mr Dunn his room. + +HECTOR. Certainly. Come along, Mr Dunn. [He takes Mazzini out]. + +ELLIE. You haven't shown me my room yet, Hesione. + +MRS HUSHABYE. How stupid of me! Come along. Make yourself quite +at home, Mr Mangan. Papa will entertain you. [She calls to the +captain in the pantry]. Papa, come and explain the house to Mr +Mangan. + +She goes out with Ellie. The captain comes from the pantry. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You're going to marry Dunn's daughter. Don't. +You're too old. + +MANGAN [staggered]. Well! That's fairly blunt, Captain. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It's true. + +MANGAN. She doesn't think so. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. She does. + +MANGAN. Older men than I have-- + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [finishing the sentence for him].--made fools of +themselves. That, also, is true. + +MANGAN [asserting himself]. I don't see that this is any business +of yours. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It is everybody's business. The stars in their +courses are shaken when such things happen. + +MANGAN. I'm going to marry her all the same. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. How do you know? + +MANGAN [playing the strong man]. I intend to. I mean to. See? I +never made up my mind to do a thing yet that I didn't bring it +off. That's the sort of man I am; and there will be a better +understanding between us when you make up your mind to that, +Captain. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You frequent picture palaces. + +MANGAN. Perhaps I do. Who told you? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Talk like a man, not like a movie. You mean +that you make a hundred thousand a year. + +MANGAN. I don't boast. But when I meet a man that makes a hundred +thousand a year, I take off my hat to that man, and stretch out +my hand to him and call him brother. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Then you also make a hundred thousand a year, +hey? + +MANGAN. No. I can't say that. Fifty thousand, perhaps. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. His half brother only [he turns away from +Mangan with his usual abruptness, and collects the empty tea-cups +on the Chinese tray]. + +MANGAN [irritated]. See here, Captain Shotover. I don't quite +understand my position here. I came here on your daughter's +invitation. Am I in her house or in yours? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You are beneath the dome of heaven, in the +house of God. What is true within these walls is true outside +them. Go out on the seas; climb the mountains; wander through the +valleys. She is still too young. + +MANGAN [weakening]. But I'm very little over fifty. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You are still less under sixty. Boss Mangan, +you will not marry the pirate's child [he carries the tray away +into the pantry]. + +MANGAN [following him to the half door]. What pirate's child? +What are you talking about? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [in the pantry]. Ellie Dunn. You will not marry +her. + +MANGAN. Who will stop me? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [emerging]. My daughter [he makes for the door +leading to the hall]. + +MANGAN [following him]. Mrs Hushabye! Do you mean to say she +brought me down here to break it off? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [stopping and turning on him]. I know nothing +more than I have seen in her eye. She will break it off. Take my +advice: marry a West Indian negress: they make excellent wives. I +was married to one myself for two years. + +MANGAN. Well, I am damned! + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I thought so. I was, too, for many years. The +negress redeemed me. + +MANGAN [feebly]. This is queer. I ought to walk out of this +house. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Why? + +MANGAN. Well, many men would be offended by your style of +talking. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Nonsense! It's the other sort of talking that +makes quarrels. Nobody ever quarrels with me. + +A gentleman, whose first-rate tailoring and frictionless manners +proclaim the wellbred West Ender, comes in from the hall. He has +an engaging air of being young and unmarried, but on close +inspection is found to be at least over forty. + +THE GENTLEMAN. Excuse my intruding in this fashion, but there is +no knocker on the door and the bell does not seem to ring. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Why should there be a knocker? Why should the +bell ring? The door is open. + +THE GENTLEMAN. Precisely. So I ventured to come in. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Quite right. I will see about a room for you +[he makes for the door]. + +THE GENTLEMAN [stopping him]. But I'm afraid you don't know who I +am. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. DO you suppose that at my age I make +distinctions between one fellow creature and another? [He goes +out. Mangan and the newcomer stare at one another]. + +MANGAN. Strange character, Captain Shotover, sir. + +THE GENTLEMAN. Very. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [shouting outside]. Hesione, another person has +arrived and wants a room. Man about town, well dressed, fifty. + +THE GENTLEMAN. Fancy Hesione's feelings! May I ask are you a +member of the family? + +MANGAN. No. + +THE GENTLEMAN. I am. At least a connection. + +Mrs Hushabye comes back. + +MRS HUSHABYE. How do you do? How good of you to come! + +THE GENTLEMAN. I am very glad indeed to make your acquaintance, +Hesione. [Instead of taking her hand he kisses her. At the same +moment the captain appears in the doorway]. You will excuse my +kissing your daughter, Captain, when I tell you that-- + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Stuff! Everyone kisses my daughter. Kiss her as +much as you like [he makes for the pantry]. + +THE GENTLEMAN. Thank you. One moment, Captain. [The captain halts +and turns. The gentleman goes to him affably]. Do you happen to +remember but probably you don't, as it occurred many years ago-- +that your younger daughter married a numskull? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Yes. She said she'd marry anybody to get away +from this house. I should not have recognized you: your head is +no longer like a walnut. Your aspect is softened. You have been +boiled in bread and milk for years and years, like other married +men. Poor devil! [He disappears into the pantry]. + +MRS HUSHABYE [going past Mangan to the gentleman and scrutinizing +him]. I don't believe you are Hastings Utterword. + +THE GENTLEMAN. I am not. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Then what business had you to kiss me? + +THE GENTLEMAN. I thought I would like to. The fact is, I am +Randall Utterword, the unworthy younger brother of Hastings. I +was abroad diplomatizing when he was married. + +LADY UTTERWORD [dashing in]. Hesione, where is the key of the +wardrobe in my room? My diamonds are in my dressing-bag: I must +lock it up--[recognizing the stranger with a shock] Randall, how +dare you? [She marches at him past Mrs Hushabye, who retreats and +joins Mangan near the sofa]. + +RANDALL. How dare I what? I am not doing anything. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Who told you I was here? + +RANDALL. Hastings. You had just left when I called on you at +Claridge's; so I followed you down here. You are looking +extremely well. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Don't presume to tell me so. + +MRS HUSHABYE. What is wrong with Mr Randall, Addy? + +LADY UTTERWORD [recollecting herself]. Oh, nothing. But he has no +right to come bothering you and papa without being invited [she +goes to the window-seat and sits down, turning away from them +ill-humoredly and looking into the garden, where Hector and Ellie +are now seen strolling together]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. I think you have not met Mr Mangan, Addy. + +LADY UTTERWORD [turning her head and nodding coldly to Mangan]. I +beg your pardon. Randall, you have flustered me so: I make a +perfect fool of myself. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Lady Utterword. My sister. My younger sister. + +MANGAN [bowing]. Pleased to meet you, Lady Utterword. + +LADY UTTERWORD [with marked interest]. Who is that gentleman +walking in the garden with Miss Dunn? + +MRS HUSHABYE. I don't know. She quarrelled mortally with my +husband only ten minutes ago; and I didn't know anyone else had +come. It must be a visitor. [She goes to the window to look]. Oh, +it is Hector. They've made it up. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Your husband! That handsome man? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Well, why shouldn't my husband be a handsome man? + +RANDALL [joining them at the window]. One's husband never is, +Ariadne [he sits by Lady Utterword, on her right]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. One's sister's husband always is, Mr Randall. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Don't be vulgar, Randall. And you, Hesione, are +just as bad. + +Ellie and Hector come in from the garden by the starboard door. +Randall rises. Ellie retires into the corner near the pantry. +Hector comes forward; and Lady Utterword rises looking her very +best. + +MRS. HUSHABYE. Hector, this is Addy. + +HECTOR [apparently surprised]. Not this lady. + +LADY UTTERWORD [smiling]. Why not? + +HECTOR [looking at her with a piercing glance of deep but +respectful admiration, his moustache bristling]. I thought-- +[pulling himself together]. I beg your pardon, Lady Utterword. I +am extremely glad to welcome you at last under our roof [he +offers his hand with grave courtesy]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. She wants to be kissed, Hector. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Hesione! [But she still smiles]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Call her Addy; and kiss her like a good +brother-in-law; and have done with it. [She leaves them to +themselves]. + +HECTOR. Behave yourself, Hesione. Lady Utterword is entitled not +only to hospitality but to civilization. + +LADY UTTERWORD [gratefully]. Thank you, Hector. [They shake hands +cordially]. + +Mazzini Dunn is seen crossing the garden from starboard to port. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [coming from the pantry and addressing Ellie]. +Your father has washed himself. + +ELLIE [quite self-possessed]. He often does, Captain Shotover. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. A strange conversion! I saw him through the +pantry window. + +Mazzini Dunn enters through the port window door, newly washed +and brushed, and stops, smiling benevolently, between Mangan and +Mrs Hushabye. + +MRS HUSHABYE [introducing]. Mr Mazzini Dunn, Lady Ut--oh, I +forgot: you've met. [Indicating Ellie] Miss Dunn. + +MAZZINI [walking across the room to take Ellie's hand, and +beaming at his own naughty irony]. I have met Miss Dunn also. She +is my daughter. [He draws her arm through his caressingly]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Of course: how stupid! Mr Utterword, my sister's-- +er-- + +RANDALL [shaking hands agreeably]. Her brother-in-law, Mr Dunn. +How do you do? + +MRS HUSHABYE. This is my husband. + +HECTOR. We have met, dear. Don't introduce us any more. [He moves +away to the big chair, and adds] Won't you sit down, Lady +Utterword? [She does so very graciously]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Sorry. I hate it: it's like making people show +their tickets. + +MAZZINI [sententiously]. How little it tells us, after all! The +great question is, not who we are, but what we are. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Ha! What are you? + +MAZZINI [taken aback]. What am I? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. A thief, a pirate, and a murderer. + +MAZZINI. I assure you you are mistaken. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. An adventurous life; but what does it end in? +Respectability. A ladylike daughter. The language and appearance +of a city missionary. Let it be a warning to all of you [he goes +out through the garden]. + +DUNN. I hope nobody here believes that I am a thief, a pirate, or +a murderer. Mrs Hushabye, will you excuse me a moment? I must +really go and explain. [He follows the captain]. + +MRS HUSHABYE [as he goes]. It's no use. You'd really better-- +[but Dunn has vanished]. We had better all go out and look for +some tea. We never have regular tea; but you can always get some +when you want: the servants keep it stewing all day. The kitchen +veranda is the best place to ask. May I show you? [She goes to +the starboard door]. + +RANDALL [going with her]. Thank you, I don't think I'll take any +tea this afternoon. But if you will show me the garden-- + +MRS HUSHABYE. There's nothing to see in the garden except papa's +observatory, and a gravel pit with a cave where he keeps dynamite +and things of that sort. However, it's pleasanter out of doors; +so come along. + +RANDALL. Dynamite! Isn't that rather risky? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Well, we don't sit in the gravel pit when there's a +thunderstorm. + +LADY UTTERORRD. That's something new. What is the dynamite for? + +HECTOR. To blow up the human race if it goes too far. He is +trying to discover a psychic ray that will explode all the +explosive at the well of a Mahatma. + +ELLIE. The captain's tea is delicious, Mr Utterword. + +MRS HUSHABYE [stopping in the doorway]. Do you mean to say that +you've had some of my father's tea? that you got round him before +you were ten minutes in the house? + +ELLIE. I did. + +MRS HUSHABYE. You little devil! [She goes out with Randall]. + +MANGAN. Won't you come, Miss Ellie? + +ELLIE. I'm too tired. I'll take a book up to my room and rest a +little. [She goes to the bookshelf]. + +MANGAN. Right. You can't do better. But I'm disappointed. [He +follows Randall and Mrs Hushabye]. + +Ellie, Hector, and Lady Utterword are left. Hector is close to +Lady Utterword. They look at Ellie, waiting for her to go. + +ELLIE [looking at the title of a book]. Do you like stories of +adventure, Lady Utterword? + +LADY UTTERWORD [patronizingly]. Of course, dear. + +ELLIE. Then I'll leave you to Mr Hushabye. [She goes out through +the hall]. + +HECTOR. That girl is mad about tales of adventure. The lies I +have to tell her! + +LADY UTTERWORD [not interested in Ellie]. When you saw me what +did you mean by saying that you thought, and then stopping short? +What did you think? + +HECTOR [folding his arms and looking down at her magnetically]. +May I tell you? + +LADY UTTERWORD. Of course. + +HECTOR. It will not sound very civil. I was on the point of +saying, "I thought you were a plain woman." + +LADY UTTERWORD. Oh, for shame, Hector! What right had you to +notice whether I am plain or not? + +HECTOR. Listen to me, Ariadne. Until today I have seen only +photographs of you; and no photograph can give the strange +fascination of the daughters of that supernatural old man. There +is some damnable quality in them that destroys men's moral sense, +and carries them beyond honor and dishonor. You know that, don't +you? + +LADY UTTERWORD. Perhaps I do, Hector. But let me warn you once +for all that I am a rigidly conventional woman. You may think +because I'm a Shotover that I'm a Bohemian, because we are all so +horribly Bohemian. But I'm not. I hate and loathe Bohemianism. No +child brought up in a strict Puritan household ever suffered from +Puritanism as I suffered from our Bohemianism. + +HECTOR. Our children are like that. They spend their holidays in +the houses of their respectable schoolfellows. + +LADY UTTERWORD. I shall invite them for Christmas. + +HECTOR. Their absence leaves us both without our natural +chaperones. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Children are certainly very inconvenient +sometimes. But intelligent people can always manage, unless they +are Bohemians. + +HECTOR. You are no Bohemian; but you are no Puritan either: your +attraction is alive and powerful. What sort of woman do you count +yourself? + +LADY UTTERWORD. I am a woman of the world, Hector; and I can +assure you that if you will only take the trouble always to do +the perfectly correct thing, and to say the perfectly correct +thing, you can do just what you like. An ill-conducted, careless +woman gets simply no chance. An ill-conducted, careless man is +never allowed within arm's length of any woman worth knowing. + +HECTOR. I see. You are neither a Bohemian woman nor a Puritan +woman. You are a dangerous woman. + +LADY UTTERWORD. On the contrary, I am a safe woman. + +HECTOR. You are a most accursedly attractive woman. Mind, I am +not making love to you. I do not like being attracted. But you +had better know how I feel if you are going to stay here. + +LADY UTTERWORD. You are an exceedingly clever lady-killer, +Hector. And terribly handsome. I am quite a good player, myself, +at that game. Is it quite understood that we are only playing? + +HECTOR. Quite. I am deliberately playing the fool, out of sheer +worthlessness. + +LADY UTTERWORD [rising brightly]. Well, you are my +brother-in-law, Hesione asked you to kiss me. [He seizes her in +his arms and kisses her strenuously]. Oh! that was a little more +than play, brother-in-law. [She pushes him suddenly away]. You +shall not do that again. + +HECTOR. In effect, you got your claws deeper into me than I +intended. + +MRS HUBHABYE [coming in from the garden]. Don't let me disturb +you; I only want a cap to put on daddiest. The sun is setting; +and he'll catch cold [she makes for the door leading to the +hall]. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Your husband is quite charming, darling. He has +actually condescended to kiss me at last. I shall go into the +garden: it's cooler now [she goes out by the port door]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Take care, dear child. I don't believe any man can +kiss Addy without falling in love with her. [She goes into the +hall]. + +HECTOR [striking himself on the chest]. Fool! Goat! + +Mrs Hushabye comes back with the captain's cap. + +HECTOR. Your sister is an extremely enterprising old girl. +Where's Miss Dunn! + +MRS HUSHABYE. Mangan says she has gone up to her room for a nap. +Addy won't let you talk to Ellie: she has marked you for her own. + +HECTOR. She has the diabolical family fascination. I began making +love to her automatically. What am I to do? I can't fall in love; +and I can't hurt a woman's feelings by telling her so when she +falls in love with me. And as women are always falling in love +with my moustache I get landed in all sorts of tedious and +terrifying flirtations in which I'm not a bit in earnest. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, neither is Addy. She has never been in love in +her life, though she has always been trying to fall in head over +ears. She is worse than you, because you had one real go at +least, with me. + +HECTOR. That was a confounded madness. I can't believe that such +an amazing experience is common. It has left its mark on me. I +believe that is why I have never been able to repeat it. + +MRS HUSHABYE [laughing and caressing his arm]. We were +frightfully in love with one another, Hector. It was such an +enchanting dream that I have never been able to grudge it to you +or anyone else since. I have invited all sorts of pretty women to +the house on the chance of giving you another turn. But it has +never come off. + +HECTOR. I don't know that I want it to come off. It was damned +dangerous. You fascinated me; but I loved you; so it was heaven. +This sister of yours fascinates me; but I hate her; so it is +hell. I shall kill her if she persists. + +MRS. HUSHABYE. Nothing will kill Addy; she is as strong as a +horse. [Releasing him]. Now I am going off to fascinate somebody. + +HECTOR. The Foreign Office toff? Randall? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Goodness gracious, no! Why should I fascinate him? + +HECTOR. I presume you don't mean the bloated capitalist, Mangan? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Hm! I think he had better be fascinated by me than +by Ellie. [She is going into the garden when the captain comes in +from it with some sticks in his hand]. What have you got there, +daddiest? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Dynamite. + +MRS HUSHABYE. You've been to the gravel pit. Don't drop it about +the house, there's a dear. [She goes into the garden, where the +evening light is now very red]. + +HECTOR. Listen, O sage. How long dare you concentrate on a +feeling without risking having it fixed in your consciousness all +the rest of your life? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Ninety minutes. An hour and a half. [He goes +into the pantry]. + +Hector, left alone, contracts his brows, and falls into a +day-dream. He does not move for some time. Then he folds his +arms. Then, throwing his hands behind him, and gripping one with +the other, he strides tragically once to and fro. Suddenly he +snatches his walking stick from the teak table, and draws it; for +it is a swordstick. He fights a desperate duel with an imaginary +antagonist, and after many vicissitudes runs him through the body +up to the hilt. He sheathes his sword and throws it on the sofa, +falling into another reverie as he does so. He looks straight +into the eyes of an imaginary woman; seizes her by the arms; and +says in a deep and thrilling tone, "Do you love me!" The captain +comes out of the pantry at this moment; and Hector, caught with +his arms stretched out and his fists clenched, has to account for +his attitude by going through a series of gymnastic exercises. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. That sort of strength is no good. You will +never be as strong as a gorilla. + +HECTOR. What is the dynamite for? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. To kill fellows like Mangan. + +HECTOR. No use. They will always be able to buy more dynamite +than you. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I will make a dynamite that he cannot explode. + +HECTOR. And that you can, eh? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Yes: when I have attained the seventh degree of +concentration. + +HECTOR. What's the use of that? You never do attain it. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What then is to be done? Are we to be kept +forever in the mud by these hogs to whom the universe is nothing +but a machine for greasing their bristles and filling their +snouts? + +HECTOR. Are Mangan's bristles worse than Randall's lovelocks? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER,. We must win powers of life and death over them +both. I refuse to die until I have invented the means. + +HECTOR. Who are we that we should judge them? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What are they that they should judge us? Yet +they do, unhesitatingly. There is enmity between our seed and +their seed. They know it and act on it, strangling our souls. +They believe in themselves. When we believe in ourselves, we +shall kill them. + +HECTOR. It is the same seed. You forget that your pirate has a +very nice daughter. Mangan's son may be a Plato: Randall's a +Shelley. What was my father? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The damnedst scoundrel I ever met. [He replaces +the drawing-board; sits down at the table; and begins to mix a +wash of color]. + +HECTOR. Precisely. Well, dare you kill his innocent +grandchildren? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. They are mine also. + +HECTOR. Just so--we are members one of another. [He throws +himself carelessly on the sofa]. I tell you I have often thought +of this killing of human vermin. Many men have thought of it. +Decent men are like Daniel in the lion's den: their survival is a +miracle; and they do not always survive. We live among the +Mangans and Randalls and Billie Dunns as they, poor devils, live +among the disease germs and the doctors and the lawyers and the +parsons and the restaurant chefs and the tradesmen and the +servants and all the rest of the parasites and blackmailers. What +are our terrors to theirs? Give me the power to kill them; and +I'll spare them in sheer-- + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [cutting in sharply]. Fellow feeling? + +HECTOR. No. I should kill myself if I believed that. I must +believe that my spark, small as it is, is divine, and that the +red light over their door is hell fire. I should spare them in +simple magnanimous pity. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You can't spare them until you have the power +to kill them. At present they have the power to kill you. There +are millions of blacks over the water for them to train and let +loose on us. They're going to do it. They're doing it already. + +HECTOR. They are too stupid to use their power. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [throwing down his brush and coming to the end +of the sofa]. Do not deceive yourself: they do use it. We kill +the better half of ourselves every day to propitiate them. The +knowledge that these people are there to render all our +aspirations barren prevents us having the aspirations. And when +we are tempted to seek their destruction they bring forth demons +to delude us, disguised as pretty daughters, and singers and +poets and the like, for whose sake we spare them. + +HECTOR [sitting up and leaning towards him]. May not Hesione be +such a demon, brought forth by you lest I should slay you? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. That is possible. She has used you up, and left +you nothing but dreams, as some women do. + +HECTOR. Vampire women, demon women. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Men think the world well lost for them, and +lose it accordingly. Who are the men that do things? The husbands +of the shrew and of the drunkard, the men with the thorn in the +flesh. [Walking distractedly away towards the pantry]. I must +think these things out. [Turning suddenly]. But I go on with the +dynamite none the less. I will discover a ray mightier than any +X-ray: a mind ray that will explode the ammunition in the belt of +my adversary before he can point his gun at me. And I must hurry. +I am old: I have no time to waste in talk [he is about to go into +the pantry, and Hector is making for the hall, when Hesione comes +back]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Daddiest, you and Hector must come and help me to +entertain all these people. What on earth were you shouting +about? + +HECTOR [stopping in the act of turning the door handle]. He is +madder than usual. + +MRS HUSHABYE. We all are. + +HECTOR. I must change [he resumes his door opening]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Stop, stop. Come back, both of you. Come back. +[They return, reluctantly]. Money is running short. + +HECTOR. Money! Where are my April dividends? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Where is the snow that fell last year? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Where is all the money you had for that patent +lifeboat I invented? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Five hundred pounds; and I have made it last since +Easter! + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Since Easter! Barely four months! Monstrous +extravagance! I could live for seven years on 500 pounds. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Not keeping open house as we do here, daddiest. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Only 500 pounds for that lifeboat! I got twelve +thousand for the invention before that. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Yes, dear; but that was for the ship with the +magnetic keel that sucked up submarines. Living at the rate we +do, you cannot afford life-saving inventions. Can't you think of +something that will murder half Europe at one bang? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No. I am ageing fast. My mind does not dwell on +slaughter as it did when I was a boy. Why doesn't your husband +invent something? He does nothing but tell lies to women. + +HECTOR. Well, that is a form of invention, is it not? However, +you are right: I ought to support my wife. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Indeed you shall do nothing of the sort: I should +never see you from breakfast to dinner. I want my husband. + +HECTOR [bitterly]. I might as well be your lapdog. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Do you want to be my breadwinner, like the other +poor husbands? + +HECTOR. No, by thunder! What a damned creature a husband is +anyhow! + +MRS HUSHABYE [to the captain]. What about that harpoon cannon? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No use. It kills whales, not men. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Why not? You fire the harpoon out of a cannon. It +sticks in the enemy's general; you wind him in; and there you +are. + +HECTOR. You are your father's daughter, Hesione. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. There is something in it. Not to wind in +generals: they are not dangerous. But one could fire a grapnel +and wind in a machine gun or even a tank. I will think it out. + +MRS HUSHABYE [squeezing the captain's arm affectionately]. Saved! +You are a darling, daddiest. Now we must go back to these +dreadful people and entertain them. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. They have had no dinner. Don't forget that. + +HECTOR. Neither have I. And it is dark: it must be all hours. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, Guinness will produce some sort of dinner for +them. The servants always take jolly good care that there is food +in the house. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [raising a strange wail in the darkness]. What a +house! What a daughter! + +MRS HUSHABYE [raving]. What a father! + +HECTOR [following suit]. What a husband! + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Is there no thunder in heaven? + +HECTOR. Is there no beauty, no bravery, on earth? + +MRS HUSHABYE. What do men want? They have their food, their +firesides, their clothes mended, and our love at the end of the +day. Why are they not satisfied? Why do they envy us the pain +with which we bring them into the world, and make strange dangers +and torments for themselves to be even with us? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [weirdly chanting]. + I builded a house for my daughters, and opened the doors + thereof, + That men might come for their choosing, and their betters + spring from their love; + But one of them married a numskull; + +HECTOR [taking up the rhythm]. + The other a liar wed; + +MRS HUSHABYE [completing the stanza]. + And now must she lie beside him, even as she made her bed. + +LADY UTTERWORD [calling from the garden]. Hesione! Hesione! Where +are you? + +HECTOR. The cat is on the tiles. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Coming, darling, coming [she goes quickly into the +garden]. + +The captain goes back to his place at the table. + +HECTOR [going out into the hall]. Shall I turn up the lights for +you? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No. Give me deeper darkness. Money is not made +in the light. + + + +ACT II + +The same room, with the lights turned up and the curtains drawn. +Ellie comes in, followed by Mangan. Both are dressed for dinner. +She strolls to the drawing-table. He comes between the table and +the wicker chair. + +MANGAN. What a dinner! I don't call it a dinner: I call it a +meal. + +ELLIE. I am accustomed to meals, Mr Mangan, and very lucky to get +them. Besides, the captain cooked some maccaroni for me. + +MANGAN [shuddering liverishly]. Too rich: I can't eat such +things. I suppose it's because I have to work so much with my +brain. That's the worst of being a man of business: you are +always thinking, thinking, thinking. By the way, now that we are +alone, may I take the opportunity to come to a little +understanding with you? + +ELLIE [settling into the draughtsman's seat]. Certainly. I should +like to. + +MANGAN [taken aback]. Should you? That surprises me; for I +thought I noticed this afternoon that you avoided me all you +could. Not for the first time either. + +ELLIE. I was very tired and upset. I wasn't used to the ways of +this extraordinary house. Please forgive me. + +MANGAN. Oh, that's all right: I don't mind. But Captain Shotover +has been talking to me about you. You and me, you know. + +ELLIE [interested]. The captain! What did he say? + +MANGAN. Well, he noticed the difference between our ages. + +ELLIE. He notices everything. + +MANGAN. You don't mind, then? + +ELLIE. Of course I know quite well that our engagement-- + +MANGAN. Oh! you call it an engagement. + +ELLIE. Well, isn't it? + +MANGAN. Oh, yes, yes: no doubt it is if you hold to it. This is +the first time you've used the word; and I didn't quite know +where we stood: that's all. [He sits down in the wicker chair; +and resigns himself to allow her to lead the conversation]. You +were saying--? + +ELLIE. Was I? I forget. Tell me. Do you like this part of the +country? I heard you ask Mr Hushabye at dinner whether there are +any nice houses to let down here. + +MANGAN. I like the place. The air suits me. I shouldn't be +surprised if I settled down here. + +ELLIE. Nothing would please me better. The air suits me too. And +I want to be near Hesione. + +MANGAN [with growing uneasiness]. The air may suit us; but the +question is, should we suit one another? Have you thought about +that? + +ELLIE. Mr Mangan, we must be sensible, mustn't we? It's no use +pretending that we are Romeo and Juliet. But we can get on very +well together if we choose to make the best of it. Your kindness +of heart will make it easy for me. + +MANGAN [leaning forward, with the beginning of something like +deliberate unpleasantness in his voice]. Kindness of heart, eh? I +ruined your father, didn't I? + +ELLIE. Oh, not intentionally. + +MANGAN. Yes I did. Ruined him on purpose. + +ELLIE. On purpose! + +MANGAN. Not out of ill-nature, you know. And you'll admit that I +kept a job for him when I had finished with him. But business is +business; and I ruined him as a matter of business. + +ELLIE. I don't understand how that can be. Are you trying to make +me feel that I need not be grateful to you, so that I may choose +freely? + +MANGAN [rising aggressively]. No. I mean what I say. + +ELLIE. But how could it possibly do you any good to ruin my +father? The money he lost was yours. + +MANGAN [with a sour laugh]. Was mine! It is mine, Miss Ellie, and +all the money the other fellows lost too. [He shoves his hands +into his pockets and shows his teeth]. I just smoked them out +like a hive of bees. What do you say to that? A bit of shock, eh? + +ELLIE. It would have been, this morning. Now! you can't think how +little it matters. But it's quite interesting. Only, you must +explain it to me. I don't understand it. [Propping her elbows on +the drawingboard and her chin on her hands, she composes herself +to listen with a combination of conscious curiosity with +unconscious contempt which provokes him to more and more +unpleasantness, and an attempt at patronage of her ignorance]. + +MANGAN. Of course you don't understand: what do you know about +business? You just listen and learn. Your father's business was a +new business; and I don't start new businesses: I let other +fellows start them. They put all their money and their friends' +money into starting them. They wear out their souls and bodies +trying to make a success of them. They're what you call +enthusiasts. But the first dead lift of the thing is too much for +them; and they haven't enough financial experience. In a year or +so they have either to let the whole show go bust, or sell out to +a new lot of fellows for a few deferred ordinary shares: that is, +if they're lucky enough to get anything at all. As likely as not +the very same thing happens to the new lot. They put in more +money and a couple of years' more work; and then perhaps they +have to sell out to a third lot. If it's really a big thing the +third lot will have to sell out too, and leave their work and +their money behind them. And that's where the real business man +comes in: where I come in. But I'm cleverer than some: I don't +mind dropping a little money to start the process. I took your +father's measure. I saw that he had a sound idea, and that he +would work himself silly for it if he got the chance. I saw that +he was a child in business, and was dead certain to outrun his +expenses and be in too great a hurry to wait for his market. I +knew that the surest way to ruin a man who doesn't know how to +handle money is to give him some. I explained my idea to some +friends in the city, and they found the money; for I take no +risks in ideas, even when they're my own. Your father and the +friends that ventured their money with him were no more to me +than a heap of squeezed lemons. You've been wasting your +gratitude: my kind heart is all rot. I'm sick of it. When I see +your father beaming at me with his moist, grateful eyes, +regularly wallowing in gratitude, I sometimes feel I must tell +him the truth or burst. What stops me is that I know he wouldn't +believe me. He'd think it was my modesty, as you did just now. +He'd think anything rather than the truth, which is that he's a +blamed fool, and I am a man that knows how to take care of +himself. [He throws himself back into the big chair with large +self approval]. Now what do you think of me, Miss Ellie? + +ELLIE [dropping her hands]. How strange! that my mother, who knew +nothing at all about business, should have been quite right about +you! She always said not before papa, of course, but to us +children--that you were just that sort of man. + +MANGAN [sitting up, much hurt]. Oh! did she? And yet she'd have +let you marry me. + +ELLIE. Well, you see, Mr Mangan, my mother married a very good +man--for whatever you may think of my father as a man of +business, he is the soul of goodness--and she is not at all keen +on my doing the same. + +MANGAN. Anyhow, you don't want to marry me now, do you? + +ELLIE. [very calmly]. Oh, I think so. Why not? + +MANGAN. [rising aghast]. Why not! + +ELLIE. I don't see why we shouldn't get on very well together. + +MANGAN. Well, but look here, you know--[he stops, quite at a +loss]. + +ELLIE. [patiently]. Well? + +MANGAN. Well, I thought you were rather particular about people's +characters. + +ELLIE. If we women were particular about men's characters, we +should never get married at all, Mr Mangan. + +MANGAN. A child like you talking of "we women"! What next! You're +not in earnest? + +ELLIE. Yes, I am. Aren't you? + +MANGAN. You mean to hold me to it? + +ELLIE. Do you wish to back out of it? + +MANGAN. Oh, no. Not exactly back out of it. + +ELLIE. Well? + +He has nothing to say. With a long whispered whistle, he drops +into the wicker chair and stares before him like a beggared +gambler. But a cunning look soon comes into his face. He leans +over towards her on his right elbow, and speaks in a low steady +voice. + +MANGAN. Suppose I told you I was in love with another woman! + +ELLIE [echoing him]. Suppose I told you I was in love with +another man! + +MANGAN [bouncing angrily out of his chair]. I'm not joking. + +ELLIE. Who told you I was? + +MANGAN. I tell you I'm serious. You're too young to be serious; +but you'll have to believe me. I want to be near your friend Mrs +Hushabye. I'm in love with her. Now the murder's out. + +ELLIE. I want to be near your friend Mr Hushabye. I'm in love +with him. [She rises and adds with a frank air] Now we are in one +another's confidence, we shall be real friends. Thank you for +telling me. + +MANGAN [almost beside himself]. Do you think I'll be made a +convenience of like this? + +ELLIE. Come, Mr Mangan! you made a business convenience of my +father. Well, a woman's business is marriage. Why shouldn't I +make a domestic convenience of you? + +MANGAN. Because I don't choose, see? Because I'm not a silly gull +like your father. That's why. + +ELLIE [with serene contempt]. You are not good enough to clean my +father's boots, Mr Mangan; and I am paying you a great compliment +in condescending to make a convenience of you, as you call it. Of +course you are free to throw over our engagement if you like; +but, if you do, you'll never enter Hesione's house again: I will +take care of that. + +MANGAN [gasping]. You little devil, you've done me. [On the point +of collapsing into the big chair again he recovers himself]. Wait +a bit, though: you're not so cute as you think. You can't beat +Boss Mangan as easy as that. Suppose I go straight to Mrs +Hushabye and tell her that you're in love with her husband. + +ELLIE. She knows it. + +MANGAN. You told her!!! + +ELLIE. She told me. + +MANGAN [clutching at his bursting temples]. Oh, this is a crazy +house. Or else I'm going clean off my chump. Is she making a swop +with you--she to have your husband and you to have hers? + +ELLIE. Well, you don't want us both, do you? + +MANGAN [throwing himself into the chair distractedly]. My brain +won't stand it. My head's going to split. Help! Help me to hold +it. Quick: hold it: squeeze it. Save me. [Ellie comes behind his +chair; clasps his head hard for a moment; then begins to draw her +hands from his forehead back to his ears]. Thank you. [Drowsily]. +That's very refreshing. [Waking a little]. Don't you hypnotize +me, though. I've seen men made fools of by hypnotism. + +ELLIE [steadily]. Be quiet. I've seen men made fools of without +hypnotism. + +MANGAN [humbly]. You don't dislike touching me, I hope. You never +touched me before, I noticed. + +ELLIE. Not since you fell in love naturally with a grown-up nice +woman, who will never expect you to make love to her. And I will +never expect him to make love to me. + +MANGAN. He may, though. + +ELLIE [making her passes rhythmically]. Hush. Go to sleep. Do you +hear? You are to go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep; be quiet, +deeply deeply quiet; sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep. + +He falls asleep. Ellie steals away; turns the light out; and goes +into the garden. + +Nurse Guinness opens the door and is seen in the light which +comes in from the hall. + +GUINNESS [speaking to someone outside]. Mr Mangan's not here, +duckie: there's no one here. It's all dark. + +MRS HUSHABYE [without]. Try the garden. Mr Dunn and I will be in +my boudoir. Show him the way. + +GUINNESS. Yes, ducky. [She makes for the garden door in the dark; +stumbles over the sleeping Mangan and screams]. Ahoo! O Lord, +Sir! I beg your pardon, I'm sure: I didn't see you in the dark. +Who is it? [She goes back to the door and turns on the light]. +Oh, Mr Mangan, sir, I hope I haven't hurt you plumping into your +lap like that. [Coming to him]. I was looking for you, sir. Mrs +Hushabye says will you please [noticing that he remains quite +insensible]. Oh, my good Lord, I hope I haven't killed him. Sir! +Mr Mangan! Sir! [She shakes him; and he is rolling inertly off +the chair on the floor when she holds him up and props him +against the cushion]. Miss Hessy! Miss Hessy! [quick, doty +darling. Miss Hessy! [Mrs Hushabye comes in from the hall, +followed by Mazzini Dunn]. Oh, Miss Hessy, I've been and killed +him. + +Mazzini runs round the back of the chair to Mangan's right hand, +and sees that the nurse's words are apparently only too true. + +MAZZINI. What tempted you to commit such a crime, woman? + +MRS HUSHABYE [trying not to laugh]. Do you mean, you did it on +purpose? + +GUINNESS. Now is it likely I'd kill any man on purpose? I fell +over him in the dark; and I'm a pretty tidy weight. He never +spoke nor moved until I shook him; and then he would have dropped +dead on the floor. Isn't it tiresome? + +MRS HUSHABYE [going past the nurse to Mangan's side, and +inspecting him less credulously than Mazzini]. Nonsense! he is +not dead: he is only asleep. I can see him breathing. + +GUINNESS. But why won't he wake? + +MAZZINI [speaking very politely into Mangan's ear]. Mangan! My +dear Mangan! [he blows into Mangan's ear]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. That's no good [she shakes him vigorously]. Mr +Mangan, wake up. Do you hear? [He begins to roll over]. Oh! +Nurse, nurse: he's falling: help me. + +Nurse Guinness rushes to the rescue. With Mazzini's assistance, +Mangan is propped safely up again. + +GUINNESS [behind the chair; bending over to test the case with +her nose]. Would he be drunk, do you think, pet? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Had he any of papa's rum? + +MAZZINI. It can't be that: he is most abstemious. I am afraid he +drank too much formerly, and has to drink too little now. You +know, Mrs Hushabye, I really think he has been hypnotized. + +GUINNESS. Hip no what, sir? + +MAZZINI. One evening at home, after we had seen a hypnotizing +performance, the children began playing at it; and Ellie stroked +my head. I assure you I went off dead asleep; and they had to +send for a professional to wake me up after I had slept eighteen +hours. They had to carry me upstairs; and as the poor children +were not very strong, they let me slip; and I rolled right down +the whole flight and never woke up. [Mrs Hushabye splutters]. Oh, +you may laugh, Mrs Hushabye; but I might have been killed. + +MRS HUSHABYE. I couldn't have helped laughing even if you had +been, Mr Dunn. So Ellie has hypnotized him. What fun! + +MAZZINI. Oh no, no, no. It was such a terrible lesson to her: +nothing would induce her to try such a thing again. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Then who did it? I didn't. + +MAZZINI. I thought perhaps the captain might have done it +unintentionally. He is so fearfully magnetic: I feel vibrations +whenever he comes close to me. + +GUINNESS. The captain will get him out of it anyhow, sir: I'll +back him for that. I'll go fetch him [she makes for the pantry]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Wait a bit. [To Mazzini]. You say he is all right +for eighteen hours? + +MAZZINI. Well, I was asleep for eighteen hours. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Were you any the worse for it? + +MAZZINI. I don't quite remember. They had poured brandy down my +throat, you see; and-- + +MRS HUSHABYE. Quite. Anyhow, you survived. Nurse, darling: go and +ask Miss Dunn to come to us here. Say I want to speak to her +particularly. You will find her with Mr Hushabye probably. + +GUINNESS. I think not, ducky: Miss Addy is with him. But I'll +find her and send her to you. [She goes out into the garden]. + +MRS HUSHABYE [calling Mazzini's attention to the figure on the +chair]. Now, Mr Dunn, look. Just look. Look hard. Do you still +intend to sacrifice your daughter to that thing? + +MAZZINI [troubled]. You have completely upset me, Mrs Hushabye, +by all you have said to me. That anyone could imagine that I--I, +a consecrated soldier of freedom, if I may say so--could +sacrifice Ellie to anybody or anyone, or that I should ever have +dreamed of forcing her inclinations in any way, is a most painful +blow to my--well, I suppose you would say to my good opinion of +myself. + +MRS HUSHABYE [rather stolidly]. Sorry. + +MAZZINI [looking forlornly at the body]. What is your objection +to poor Mangan, Mrs Hushabye? He looks all right to me. But then +I am so accustomed to him. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Have you no heart? Have you no sense? Look at the +brute! Think of poor weak innocent Ellie in the clutches of this +slavedriver, who spends his life making thousands of rough +violent workmen bend to his will and sweat for him: a man +accustomed to have great masses of iron beaten into shape for him +by steam-hammers! to fight with women and girls over a halfpenny +an hour ruthlessly! a captain of industry, I think you call him, +don't you? Are you going to fling your delicate, sweet, helpless +child into such a beast's claws just because he will keep her in +an expensive house and make her wear diamonds to show how rich he +is? + +MAZZINI [staring at her in wide-eyed amazement]. Bless you, dear +Mrs Hushabye, what romantic ideas of business you have! Poor dear +Mangan isn't a bit like that. + +MRS HUSHABYE [scornfully]. Poor dear Mangan indeed! + +MAZZINI. But he doesn't know anything about machinery. He never +goes near the men: he couldn't manage them: he is afraid of them. +I never can get him to take the least interest in the works: he +hardly knows more about them than you do. People are cruelly +unjust to Mangan: they think he is all rugged strength just +because his manners are bad. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Do you mean to tell me he isn't strong enough to +crush poor little Ellie? + +MAZZINI. Of course it's very hard to say how any marriage will +turn out; but speaking for myself, I should say that he won't +have a dog's chance against Ellie. You know, Ellie has remarkable +strength of character. I think it is because I taught her to like +Shakespeare when she was very young. + +MRS HUSHABYE [contemptuously]. Shakespeare! The next thing you +will tell me is that you could have made a great deal more money +than Mangan. [She retires to the sofa, and sits down at the port +end of it in the worst of humors]. + +MAZZINI [following her and taking the other end]. No: I'm no good +at making money. I don't care enough for it, somehow. I'm not +ambitious! that must be it. Mangan is wonderful about money: he +thinks of nothing else. He is so dreadfully afraid of being poor. +I am always thinking of other things: even at the works I think +of the things we are doing and not of what they cost. And the +worst of it is, poor Mangan doesn't know what to do with his +money when he gets it. He is such a baby that he doesn't know +even what to eat and drink: he has ruined his liver eating and +drinking the wrong things; and now he can hardly eat at all. +Ellie will diet him splendidly. You will be surprised when you +come to know him better: he is really the most helpless of +mortals. You get quite a protective feeling towards him. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Then who manages his business, pray? + +MAZZINI. I do. And of course other people like me. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Footling people, you mean. + +MAZZINI. I suppose you'd think us so. + +MRS HUSHABYE. And pray why don't you do without him if you're all +so much cleverer? + +MAZZINI. Oh, we couldn't: we should ruin the business in a year. +I've tried; and I know. We should spend too much on everything. +We should improve the quality of the goods and make them too +dear. We should be sentimental about the hard cases among the +work people. But Mangan keeps us in order. He is down on us about +every extra halfpenny. We could never do without him. You see, he +will sit up all night thinking of how to save sixpence. Won't +Ellie make him jump, though, when she takes his house in hand! + +MRS HUSHABYE. Then the creature is a fraud even as a captain of +industry! + +MAZZINI. I am afraid all the captains of industry are what you +call frauds, Mrs Hushabye. Of course there are some manufacturers +who really do understand their own works; but they don't make as +high a rate of profit as Mangan does. I assure you Mangan is +quite a good fellow in his way. He means well. + +MRS HUSHABYE. He doesn't look well. He is not in his first youth, +is he? + +MAZZINI. After all, no husband is in his first youth for very +long, Mrs Hushabye. And men can't afford to marry in their first +youth nowadays. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Now if I said that, it would sound witty. Why can't +you say it wittily? What on earth is the matter with you? Why +don't you inspire everybody with confidence? with respect? + +MAZZINI [humbly]. I think that what is the matter with me is that +I am poor. You don't know what that means at home. Mind: I don't +say they have ever complained. They've all been wonderful: +they've been proud of my poverty. They've even joked about it +quite often. But my wife has had a very poor time of it. She has +been quite resigned-- + +MRS HUSHABYE [shuddering involuntarily!! + +MAZZINI. There! You see, Mrs Hushabye. I don't want Ellie to live +on resignation. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Do you want her to have to resign herself to living +with a man she doesn't love? + +MAZZINI [wistfully]. Are you sure that would be worse than living +with a man she did love, if he was a footling person? + +MRS HUSHABYE [relaxing her contemptuous attitude, quite +interested in Mazzini now]. You know, I really think you must +love Ellie very much; for you become quite clever when you talk +about her. + +MAZZINI. I didn't know I was so very stupid on other subjects. + +MRS HUSHABYE. You are, sometimes. + +MAZZINI [turning his head away; for his eyes are wet]. I have +learnt a good deal about myself from you, Mrs Hushabye; and I'm +afraid I shall not be the happier for your plain speaking. But if +you thought I needed it to make me think of Ellie's happiness you +were very much mistaken. + +MRS HUSHABYE [leaning towards him kindly]. Have I been a beast? + +MAZZINI [pulling himself together]. It doesn't matter about me, +Mrs Hushabye. I think you like Ellie; and that is enough for me. + +MRS HUSHABYE. I'm beginning to like you a little. I perfectly +loathed you at first. I thought you the most odious, +self-satisfied, boresome elderly prig I ever met. + +MAZZINI [resigned, and now quite cheerful]. I daresay I am all +that. I never have been a favorite with gorgeous women like you. +They always frighten me. + +MRS HUSHABYE [pleased]. Am I a gorgeous woman, Mazzini? I shall +fall in love with you presently. + +MAZZINI [with placid gallantry]. No, you won't, Hesione. But you +would be quite safe. Would you believe it that quite a lot of +women have flirted with me because I am quite safe? But they get +tired of me for the same reason. + +MRS HUSHABYE [mischievously]. Take care. You may not be so safe +as you think. + +MAZZINI. Oh yes, quite safe. You see, I have been in love really: +the sort of love that only happens once. [Softly]. That's why +Ellie is such a lovely girl. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Well, really, you are coming out. Are you quite +sure you won't let me tempt you into a second grand passion? + +MAZZINI. Quite. It wouldn't be natural. The fact is, you don't +strike on my box, Mrs Hushabye; and I certainly don't strike on +yours. + +MRS HUSHABYE. I see. Your marriage was a safety match. + +MAZZINI. What a very witty application of the expression I used! +I should never have thought of it. + +Ellie comes in from the garden, looking anything but happy. + +MRS HUSHABYE [rising]. Oh! here is Ellie at last. [She goes +behind the sofa]. + +ELLIE [on the threshold of the starboard door]. Guinness said you +wanted me: you and papa. + +MRS HUSHABYE. You have kept us waiting so long that it almost +came to--well, never mind. Your father is a very wonderful man +[she ruffles his hair affectionately]: the only one I ever met +who could resist me when I made myself really agreeable. [She +comes to the big chair, on Mangan's left]. Come here. I have +something to show you. [Ellie strolls listlessly to the other +side of the chair]. Look. + +ELLIE [contemplating Mangan without interest]. I know. He is only +asleep. We had a talk after dinner; and he fell asleep in the +middle of it. + +MRS HUSHABYE. You did it, Ellie. You put him asleep. + +MAZZINI [rising quickly and coming to the back of the chair]. Oh, +I hope not. Did you, Ellie? + +ELLIE [wearily]. He asked me to. + +MAZZINI. But it's dangerous. You know what happened to me. + +ELLIE [utterly indifferent]. Oh, I daresay I can wake him. If +not, somebody else can. + +MRS HUSHABYE. It doesn't matter, anyhow, because I have at last +persuaded your father that you don't want to marry him. + +ELLIE [suddenly coming out of her listlessness, much vexed]. But +why did you do that, Hesione? I do want to marry him. I fully +intend to marry him. + +MAZZINI. Are you quite sure, Ellie? Mrs Hushabye has made me feel +that I may have been thoughtless and selfish about it. + +ELLIE [very clearly and steadily]. Papa. When Mrs. Hushabye takes +it on herself to explain to you what I think or don't think, shut +your ears tight; and shut your eyes too. Hesione knows nothing +about me: she hasn't the least notion of the sort of person I am, +and never will. I promise you I won't do anything I don't want to +do and mean to do for my own sake. + +MAZZINI. You are quite, quite sure? + +ELLIE. Quite, quite sure. Now you must go away and leave me to +talk to Mrs Hushabye. + +MAZZINI. But I should like to hear. Shall I be in the way? + +ELLIE [inexorable]. I had rather talk to her alone. + +MAZZINI [affectionately]. Oh, well, I know what a nuisance +parents are, dear. I will be good and go. [He goes to the garden +door]. By the way, do you remember the address of that +professional who woke me up? Don't you think I had better +telegraph to him? + +MRS HUSHABYE [moving towards the sofa]. It's too late to +telegraph tonight. + +MAZZINI. I suppose so. I do hope he'll wake up in the course of +the night. [He goes out into the garden]. + +ELLIE [turning vigorously on Hesione the moment her father is out +of the room]. Hesione, what the devil do you mean by making +mischief with my father about Mangan? + +MRS HUSHABYE [promptly losing her temper]. Don't you dare speak +to me like that, you little minx. Remember that you are in my +house. + +ELLIE. Stuff! Why don't you mind your own business? What is it to +you whether I choose to marry Mangan or not? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Do you suppose you can bully me, you miserable +little matrimonial adventurer? + +ELLIE. Every woman who hasn't any money is a matrimonial +adventurer. It's easy for you to talk: you have never known what +it is to want money; and you can pick up men as if they were +daisies. I am poor and respectable-- + +MRS HUSHABYE [interrupting]. Ho! respectable! How did you pick up +Mangan? How did you pick up my husband? You have the audacity to +tell me that I am a--a--a-- + +ELLIE. A siren. So you are. You were born to lead men by the +nose: if you weren't, Marcus would have waited for me, perhaps. + +MRS HUSHABYE [suddenly melting and half laughing]. Oh, my poor +Ellie, my pettikins, my unhappy darling! I am so sorry about +Hector. But what can I do? It's not my fault: I'd give him to you +if I could. + +ELLIE. I don't blame you for that. + +MRS HUSHABYE. What a brute I was to quarrel with you and call you +names! Do kiss me and say you're not angry with me. + +ELLIE [fiercely]. Oh, don't slop and gush and be sentimental. +Don't you see that unless I can be hard--as hard as nails--I +shall go mad? I don't care a damn about your calling me names: do +you think a woman in my situation can feel a few hard words? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Poor little woman! Poor little situation! + +ELLIE. I suppose you think you're being sympathetic. You are just +foolish and stupid and selfish. You see me getting a smasher +right in the face that kills a whole part of my life: the best +part that can never come again; and you think you can help me +over it by a little coaxing and kissing. When I want all the +strength I can get to lean on: something iron, something stony, I +don't care how cruel it is, you go all mushy and want to slobber +over me. I'm not angry; I'm not unfriendly; but for God's sake do +pull yourself together; and don't think that because you're on +velvet and always have been, women who are in hell can take it as +easily as you. + +MRS HUSHABYE [shrugging her shoulders]. Very well. [She sits down +on the sofa in her old place. But I warn you that when I am +neither coaxing and kissing nor laughing, I am just wondering how +much longer I can stand living in this cruel, damnable world. You +object to the siren: well, I drop the siren. You want to rest +your wounded bosom against a grindstone. Well [folding her arms] +here is the grindstone. + +ELLIE [sitting down beside her, appeased]. That's better: you +really have the trick of falling in with everyone's mood; but you +don't understand, because you are not the sort of woman for whom +there is only one man and only one chance. + +MRS HUSHABYE. I certainly don't understand how your marrying that +object [indicating Mangan] will console you for not being able to +marry Hector. + +ELLIE. Perhaps you don't understand why I was quite a nice girl +this morning, and am now neither a girl nor particularly nice. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, yes, I do. It's because you have made up your +mind to do something despicable and wicked. + +ELLIE. I don't think so, Hesione. I must make the best of my +ruined house. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Pooh! You'll get over it. Your house isn't ruined. + +ELLIE. Of course I shall get over it. You don't suppose I'm going +to sit down and die of a broken heart, I hope, or be an old maid +living on a pittance from the Sick and Indigent Roomkeepers' +Association. But my heart is broken, all the same. What I mean by +that is that I know that what has happened to me with Marcus will +not happen to me ever again. In the world for me there is Marcus +and a lot of other men of whom one is just the same as another. +Well, if I can't have love, that's no reason why I should have +poverty. If Mangan has nothing else, he has money. + +MRS HUSHABYE. And are there no YOUNG men with money? + +ELLIE. Not within my reach. Besides, a young man would have the +right to expect love from me, and would perhaps leave me when he +found I could not give it to him. Rich young men can get rid of +their wives, you know, pretty cheaply. But this object, as you +call him, can expect nothing more from me than I am prepared to +give him. + +MRS HUSHABYE. He will be your owner, remember. If he buys you, he +will make the bargain pay him and not you. Ask your father. + +ELLIE [rising and strolling to the chair to contemplate their +subject]. You need not trouble on that score, Hesione. I have +more to give Boss Mangan than he has to give me: it is I who am +buying him, and at a pretty good price too, I think. Women are +better at that sort of bargain than men. I have taken the Boss's +measure; and ten Boss Mangans shall not prevent me doing far more +as I please as his wife than I have ever been able to do as a +poor girl. [Stooping to the recumbent figure]. Shall they, Boss? +I think not. [She passes on to the drawing-table, and leans +against the end of it, facing the windows]. I shall not have to +spend most of my time wondering how long my gloves will last, +anyhow. + +MRS HUSHABYE [rising superbly]. Ellie, you are a wicked, sordid +little beast. And to think that I actually condescended to +fascinate that creature there to save you from him! Well, let me +tell you this: if you make this disgusting match, you will never +see Hector again if I can help it. + +ELLIE [unmoved]. I nailed Mangan by telling him that if he did +not marry me he should never see you again [she lifts herself on +her wrists and seats herself on the end of the table]. + +MRS HUSHABYE [recoiling]. Oh! + +ELLIE. So you see I am not unprepared for your playing that trump +against me. Well, you just try it: that's all. I should have made +a man of Marcus, not a household pet. + +MRS HUSHABYE [flaming]. You dare! + +ELLIE [looking almost dangerous]. Set him thinking about me if +you dare. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Well, of all the impudent little fiends I ever met! +Hector says there is a certain point at which the only answer you +can give to a man who breaks all the rules is to knock him down. +What would you say if I were to box your ears? + +ELLIE [calmly]. I should pull your hair. + +MRS HUSHABYE [mischievously]. That wouldn't hurt me. Perhaps it +comes off at night. + +ELLIE [so taken aback that she drops off the table and runs to +her]. Oh, you don't mean to say, Hesione, that your beautiful +black hair is false? + +MRS HUSHABYE [patting it]. Don't tell Hector. He believes in it. + +ELLIE [groaning]. Oh! Even the hair that ensnared him false! +Everything false! + +MRS HUSHABYE. Pull it and try. Other women can snare men in their +hair; but I can swing a baby on mine. Aha! you can't do that, +Goldylocks. + +ELLIE [heartbroken]. No. You have stolen my babies. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Pettikins, don't make me cry. You know what you +said about my making a household pet of him is a little true. +Perhaps he ought to have waited for you. Would any other woman on +earth forgive you? + +ELLIE. Oh, what right had you to take him all for yourself! +[Pulling herself together]. There! You couldn't help it: neither +of us could help it. He couldn't help it. No, don't say anything +more: I can't bear it. Let us wake the object. [She begins +stroking Mangan's head, reversing the movement with which she put +him to sleep]. Wake up, do you hear? You are to wake up at once. +Wake up, wake up, wake-- + +MANGAN [bouncing out of the chair in a fury and turning on them]. +Wake up! So you think I've been asleep, do you? [He kicks the +chair violently back out of his way, and gets between them]. You +throw me into a trance so that I can't move hand or foot--I might +have been buried alive! it's a mercy I wasn't--and then you think +I was only asleep. If you'd let me drop the two times you rolled +me about, my nose would have been flattened for life against the +floor. But I've found you all out, anyhow. I know the sort of +people I'm among now. I've heard every word you've said, you and +your precious father, and [to Mrs Hushabye] you too. So I'm an +object, am I? I'm a thing, am I? I'm a fool that hasn't sense +enough to feed myself properly, am I? I'm afraid of the men that +would starve if it weren't for the wages I give them, am I? I'm +nothing but a disgusting old skinflint to be made a convenience +of by designing women and fool managers of my works, am I? I'm-- + +MRS HUSHABYE [with the most elegant aplomb]. Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh! Mr +Mangan, you are bound in honor to obliterate from your mind all +you heard while you were pretending to be asleep. It was not +meant for you to hear. + +MANGAN. Pretending to be asleep! Do you think if I was only +pretending that I'd have sprawled there helpless, and listened to +such unfairness, such lies, such injustice and plotting and +backbiting and slandering of me, if I could have up and told you +what I thought of you! I wonder I didn't burst. + +MRS HUSHABYE [sweetly]. You dreamt it all, Mr Mangan. We were +only saying how beautifully peaceful you looked in your sleep. +That was all, wasn't it, Ellie? Believe me, Mr Mangan, all those +unpleasant things came into your mind in the last half second +before you woke. Ellie rubbed your hair the wrong way; and the +disagreeable sensation suggested a disagreeable dream. + +MANGAN [doggedly]. I believe in dreams. + +MRS HUSHABYE. So do I. But they go by contraries, don't they? + +MANGAN [depths of emotion suddenly welling up in him]. I shan't +forget, to my dying day, that when you gave me the glad eye that +time in the garden, you were making a fool of me. That was a +dirty low mean thing to do. You had no right to let me come near +you if I disgusted you. It isn't my fault if I'm old and haven't +a moustache like a bronze candlestick as your husband has. There +are things no decent woman would do to a man--like a man hitting +a woman in the breast. + +Hesione, utterly shamed, sits down on the sofa and covers her +face with her hands. Mangan sits down also on his chair and +begins to cry like a child. Ellie stares at them. Mrs Hushabye, +at the distressing sound he makes, takes down her hands and looks +at him. She rises and runs to him. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Don't cry: I can't bear it. Have I broken your +heart? I didn't know you had one. How could I? + +MANGAN. I'm a man, ain't I? + +MRS HUSHABYE [half coaxing, half rallying, altogether tenderly]. +Oh no: not what I call a man. Only a Boss: just that and nothing +else. What business has a Boss with a heart? + +MANGAN. Then you're not a bit sorry for what you did, nor +ashamed? + +MRS HUSHABYE. I was ashamed for the first time in my life when +you said that about hitting a woman in the breast, and I found +out what I'd done. My very bones blushed red. You've had your +revenge, Boss. Aren't you satisfied? + +MANGAN. Serve you right! Do you hear? Serve you right! You're +just cruel. Cruel. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Yes: cruelty would be delicious if one could only +find some sort of cruelty that didn't really hurt. By the way +[sitting down beside him on the arm of the chair], what's your +name? It's not really Boss, is it? + +MANGAN [shortly]. If you want to know, my name's Alfred. + +MRS HUSHABYE [springs up]. Alfred!! Ellie, he was christened +after Tennyson!!! + +MANGAN [rising]. I was christened after my uncle, and never had a +penny from him, damn him! What of it? + +MRS HUSHABYE. It comes to me suddenly that you are a real person: +that you had a mother, like anyone else. [Putting her hands on +his shoulders and surveying him]. Little Alf! + +MANGAN. Well, you have a nerve. + +MRS HUSHABYE. And you have a heart, Alfy, a whimpering little +heart, but a real one. [Releasing him suddenly]. Now run and make +it up with Ellie. She has had time to think what to say to you, +which is more than I had [she goes out quickly into the garden by +the port door]. + +MANGAN. That woman has a pair of hands that go right through you. + +ELLIE. Still in love with her, in spite of all we said about you? + +MANGAN. Are all women like you two? Do they never think of +anything about a man except what they can get out of him? You +weren't even thinking that about me. You were only thinking +whether your gloves would last. + +ELLIE. I shall not have to think about that when we are married. + +MANGAN. And you think I am going to marry you after what I heard +there! + +ELLIE. You heard nothing from me that I did not tell you before. + +MANGAN. Perhaps you think I can't do without you. + +ELLIE. I think you would feel lonely without us all, now, after +coming to know us so well. + +MANGAN [with something like a yell of despair]. Am I never to +have the last word? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [appearing at the starboard garden door]. There +is a soul in torment here. What is the matter? + +MANGAN. This girl doesn't want to spend her life wondering how +long her gloves will last. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [passing through]. Don't wear any. I never do +[he goes into the pantry]. + +LADY UTTERWORD [appearing at the port garden door, in a handsome +dinner dress]. Is anything the matter? + +ELLIE. This gentleman wants to know is he never to have the last +word? + +LADY UTTERWORD [coming forward to the sofa]. I should let him +have it, my dear. The important thing is not to have the last +word, but to have your own way. + +MANGAN. She wants both. + +LADY UTTERWORD. She won't get them, Mr Mangan. Providence always +has the last word. + +MANGAN [desperately]. Now you are going to come religion over me. +In this house a man's mind might as well be a football. I'm +going. [He makes for the hall, but is stopped by a hail from the +Captain, who has just emerged from his pantry]. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Whither away, Boss Mangan? + +MANGAN. To hell out of this house: let that be enough for you and +all here. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You were welcome to come: you are free to go. +The wide earth, the high seas, the spacious skies are waiting for +you outside. + +LADY UTTERWORD. But your things, Mr Mangan. Your bag, your comb +and brushes, your pyjamas-- + +HECTOR [who has just appeared in the port doorway in a handsome +Arab costume]. Why should the escaping slave take his chains with +him? + +MANGAN. That's right, Hushabye. Keep the pyjamas, my lady, and +much good may they do you. + +HECTOR [advancing to Lady Utterword's left hand]. Let us all go +out into the night and leave everything behind us. + +MANGAN. You stay where you are, the lot of you. I want no +company, especially female company. + +ELLIE. Let him go. He is unhappy here. He is angry with us. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Go, Boss Mangan; and when you have found the +land where there is happiness and where there are no women, send +me its latitude and longitude; and I will join you there. + +LADY UTTERWORD. You will certainly not be comfortable without +your luggage, Mr Mangan. + +ELLIE [impatient]. Go, go: why don't you go? It is a heavenly +night: you can sleep on the heath. Take my waterproof to lie on: +it is hanging up in the hall. + +HECTOR. Breakfast at nine, unless you prefer to breakfast with +the captain at six. + +ELLIE. Good night, Alfred. + +HECTOR. Alfred! [He runs back to the door and calls into the +garden]. Randall, Mangan's Christian name is Alfred. + +RANDALL [appearing in the starboard doorway in evening dress]. +Then Hesione wins her bet. + +Mrs Hushabye appears in the port doorway. She throws her left arm +round Hector's neck: draws him with her to the back of the sofa: +and throws her right arm round Lady Utterword's neck. + +MRS HUSHABYE. They wouldn't believe me, Alf. + +They contemplate him. + +MANGAN. Is there any more of you coming in to look at me, as if I +was the latest thing in a menagerie? + +MRS HUSHABYE. You are the latest thing in this menagerie. + +Before Mangan can retort, a fall of furniture is heard from +upstairs: then a pistol shot, and a yell of pain. The staring +group breaks up in consternation. + +MAZZINI'S VOICE [from above]. Help! A burglar! Help! + +HECTOR [his eyes blazing]. A burglar!!! + +MRS HUSHABYE. No, Hector: you'll be shot [but it is too late; he +has dashed out past Mangan, who hastily moves towards the +bookshelves out of his way]. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [blowing his whistle]. All hands aloft! [He +strides out after Hector]. + +LADY UTTERWORD. My diamonds! [She follows the captain]. + +RANDALL [rushing after her]. No. Ariadne. Let me. + +ELLIE. Oh, is papa shot? [She runs out]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Are you frightened, Alf? + +MANGAN. No. It ain't my house, thank God. + +MRS HUSHABYE. If they catch a burglar, shall we have to go into +court as witnesses, and be asked all sorts of questions about our +private lives? + +MANGAN. You won't be believed if you tell the truth. + +Mazzini, terribly upset, with a duelling pistol in his hand, +comes from the hall, and makes his way to the drawing-table. + +MAZZINI. Oh, my dear Mrs Hushabye, I might have killed him. [He +throws the pistol on the table and staggers round to the chair]. +I hope you won't believe I really intended to. + +Hector comes in, marching an old and villainous looking man +before him by the collar. He plants him in the middle of the room +and releases him. + +Ellie follows, and immediately runs across to the back of her +father's chair and pats his shoulders. + +RANDALL [entering with a poker]. Keep your eye on this door, +Mangan. I'll look after the other [he goes to the starboard door +and stands on guard there]. + +Lady Utterword comes in after Randall, and goes between Mrs +Hushabye and Mangan. + +Nurse Guinness brings up the rear, and waits near the door, on +Mangan's left. + +MRS HUSHABYE. What has happened? + +MAZZINI. Your housekeeper told me there was somebody upstairs, +and gave me a pistol that Mr Hushabye had been practising with. I +thought it would frighten him; but it went off at a touch. + +THE BURGLAR. Yes, and took the skin off my ear. Precious near +took the top off my head. Why don't you have a proper revolver +instead of a thing like that, that goes off if you as much as +blow on it? + +HECTOR. One of my duelling pistols. Sorry. + +MAZZINI. He put his hands up and said it was a fair cop. + +THE BURGLAR. So it was. Send for the police. + +HECTOR. No, by thunder! It was not a fair cop. We were four to +one. + +MRS HUSHABYE. What will they do to him? + +THE BURGLAR. Ten years. Beginning with solitary. Ten years off my +life. I shan't serve it all: I'm too old. It will see me out. + +LADY UTTERWORD. You should have thought of that before you stole +my diamonds. + +THE BURGLAR. Well, you've got them back, lady, haven't you? Can +you give me back the years of my life you are going to take from +me? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, we can't bury a man alive for ten years for a +few diamonds. + +THE BURGLAR. Ten little shining diamonds! Ten long black years! + +LADY UTTERWORD. Think of what it is for us to be dragged through +the horrors of a criminal court, and have all our family affairs +in the papers! If you were a native, and Hastings could order you +a good beating and send you away, I shouldn't mind; but here in +England there is no real protection for any respectable person. + +THE BURGLAR. I'm too old to be giv a hiding, lady. Send for the +police and have done with it. It's only just and right you +should. + +RANDALL [who has relaxed his vigilance on seeing the burglar so +pacifically disposed, and comes forward swinging the poker +between his fingers like a well folded umbrella]. It is neither +just nor right that we should be put to a lot of inconvenience to +gratify your moral enthusiasm, my friend. You had better get out, +while you have the chance. + +THE BURGLAR [inexorably]. No. I must work my sin off my +conscience. This has come as a sort of call to me. Let me spend +the rest of my life repenting in a cell. I shall have my reward +above. + +MANGAN [exasperated]. The very burglars can't behave naturally in +this house. + +HECTOR. My good sir, you must work out your salvation at somebody +else's expense. Nobody here is going to charge you. + +THE BURGLAR. Oh, you won't charge me, won't you? + +HECTOR. No. I'm sorry to be inhospitable; but will you kindly +leave the house? + +THE BURGLAR. Right. I'll go to the police station and give myself +up. [He turns resolutely to the door: but Hector stops him]. + +HECTOR. { Oh, no. You mustn't do that. +RANDALL. [speaking { No no. Clear out man, can't you; and + together] don't be a fool. +MRS. HUSHABYE { Don't be so silly. Can't you repent at + home? + +LADY UTTERWORD. You will have to do as you are told. + +THE BURGLAR. It's compounding a felony, you know. + +MRS HUSHABYE. This is utterly ridiculous. Are we to be forced to +prosecute this man when we don't want to? + +THE BURGLAR. Am I to be robbed of my salvation to save you the +trouble of spending a day at the sessions? Is that justice? Is it +right? Is it fair to me? + +MAZZINI [rising and leaning across the table persuasively as if +it were a pulpit desk or a shop counter]. Come, come! let me show +you how you can turn your very crimes to account. Why not set up +as a locksmith? You must know more about locks than most honest +men? + +THE BURGLAR. That's true, sir. But I couldn't set up as a +locksmith under twenty pounds. + +RANDALL. Well, you can easily steal twenty pounds. You will find +it in the nearest bank. + +THE BURGLAR [horrified]. Oh, what a thing for a gentleman to put +into the head of a poor criminal scrambling out of the bottomless +pit as it were! Oh, shame on you, sir! Oh, God forgive you! [He +throws himself into the big chair and covers his face as if in +prayer]. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Really, Randall! + +HECTOR. It seems to me that we shall have to take up a collection +for this inopportunely contrite sinner. + +LADY UTTERWORD. But twenty pounds is ridiculous. + +THE BURGLAR [looking up quickly]. I shall have to buy a lot of +tools, lady. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Nonsense: you have your burgling kit. + +THE BURGLAR. What's a jimmy and a centrebit and an acetylene +welding plant and a bunch of skeleton keys? I shall want a forge, +and a smithy, and a shop, and fittings. I can't hardly do it for +twenty. + +HECTOR. My worthy friend, we haven't got twenty pounds. + +THE BURGLAR [now master of the situation]. You can raise it among +you, can't you? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Give him a sovereign, Hector, and get rid of him. + +HECTOR [giving him a pound]. There! Off with you. + +THE BURGLAR [rising and taking the money very ungratefully]. I +won't promise nothing. You have more on you than a quid: all the +lot of you, I mean. + +LADY UTTERWORD [vigorously]. Oh, let us prosecute him and have +done with it. I have a conscience too, I hope; and I do not feel +at all sure that we have any right to let him go, especially if +he is going to be greedy and impertinent. + +THE BURGLAR [quickly]. All right, lady, all right. I've no wish +to be anything but agreeable. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen; +and thank you kindly. + +He is hurrying out when he is confronted in the doorway by +Captain Shotover. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [fixing the burglar with a piercing regard]. +What's this? Are there two of you? + +THE BURGLAR [falling on his knees before the captain in abject +terror]. Oh, my good Lord, what have I done? Don't tell me it's +your house I've broken into, Captain Shotover. + +The captain seizes him by the collar: drags him to his feet: and +leads him to the middle of the group, Hector falling back beside +his wife to make way for them. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [turning him towards Ellie]. Is that your +daughter? [He releases him]. + +THE BURGLAR. Well, how do I know, Captain? You know the sort of +life you and me has led. Any young lady of that age might be my +daughter anywhere in the wide world, as you might say. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [to Mazzini]. You are not Billy Dunn. This is +Billy Dunn. Why have you imposed on me? + +THE BURGLAR [indignantly to Mazzini]. Have you been giving +yourself out to be me? You, that nigh blew my head off! Shooting +yourself, in a manner of speaking! + +MAZZINI. My dear Captain Shotover, ever since I came into this +house I have done hardly anything else but assure you that I am +not Mr William Dunn, but Mazzini Dunn, a very different person. + +THE BURGLAR. He don't belong to my branch, Captain. There's two +sets in the family: the thinking Dunns and the drinking Dunns, +each going their own ways. I'm a drinking Dunn: he's a thinking +Dunn. But that didn't give him any right to shoot me. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. So you've turned burglar, have you? + +THE BURGLAR. No, Captain: I wouldn't disgrace our old sea calling +by such a thing. I am no burglar. + +LADY UTTERWORD. What were you doing with my diamonds? + +GUINNESS. What did you break into the house for if you're no +burglar? + +RANDALL. Mistook the house for your own and came in by the wrong +window, eh? + +THE BURGLAR. Well, it's no use my telling you a lie: I can take +in most captains, but not Captain Shotover, because he sold +himself to the devil in Zanzibar, and can divine water, spot +gold, explode a cartridge in your pocket with a glance of his +eye, and see the truth hidden in the heart of man. But I'm no +burglar. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Are you an honest man? + +THE BURGLAR. I don't set up to be better than my +fellow-creatures, and never did, as you well know, Captain. But +what I do is innocent and pious. I enquire about for houses where +the right sort of people live. I work it on them same as I worked +it here. I break into the house; put a few spoons or diamonds in +my pocket; make a noise; get caught; and take up a collection. +And you wouldn't believe how hard it is to get caught when you're +actually trying to. I have knocked over all the chairs in a room +without a soul paying any attention to me. In the end I have had +to walk out and leave the job. + +RANDALL. When that happens, do you put back the spoons and +diamonds? + +THE BURGLAR. Well, I don't fly in the face of Providence, if +that's what you want to know. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Guinness, you remember this man? + +GUINNESS. I should think I do, seeing I was married to him, the +blackguard! + +HESIONE } [exclaiming { Married to him! +LADY UTTERWORD } together] { Guinness!! + +THE BURGLAR. It wasn't legal. I've been married to no end of +women. No use coming that over me. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Take him to the forecastle [he flings him to +the door with a strength beyond his years]. + +GUINNESS. I suppose you mean the kitchen. They won't have him +there. Do you expect servants to keep company with thieves and +all sorts? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Land-thieves and water-thieves are the same +flesh and blood. I'll have no boatswain on my quarter-deck. Off +with you both. + +THE BURGLAR. Yes, Captain. [He goes out humbly]. + +MAZZINI. Will it be safe to have him in the house like that? + +GUINNESS. Why didn't you shoot him, sir? If I'd known who he was, +I'd have shot him myself. [She goes out]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Do sit down, everybody. [She sits down on the +sofa]. + +They all move except Ellie. Mazzini resumes his seat. Randall +sits down in the window-seat near the starboard door, again +making a pendulum of his poker, and studying it as Galileo might +have done. Hector sits on his left, in the middle. Mangan, +forgotten, sits in the port corner. Lady Utterword takes the big +chair. Captain Shotover goes into the pantry in deep abstraction. +They all look after him: and Lady Utterword coughs consciously. + +MRS HUSHABYE. So Billy Dunn was poor nurse's little romance. I +knew there had been somebody. + +RANDALL. They will fight their battles over again and enjoy +themselves immensely. + +LADY UTTERWORD [irritably]. You are not married; and you know +nothing about it, Randall. Hold your tongue. + +RANDALL. Tyrant! + +MRS HUSHABYE. Well, we have had a very exciting evening. +Everything will be an anticlimax after it. We'd better all go to +bed. + +RANDALL. Another burglar may turn up. + +MAZZINI. Oh, impossible! I hope not. + +RANDALL. Why not? There is more than one burglar in England. + +MRS HUSHABYE. What do you say, Alf? + +MANGAN [huffily]. Oh, I don't matter. I'm forgotten. The burglar +has put my nose out of joint. Shove me into a corner and have +done with me. + +MRS HUSHABYE [jumping up mischievously, and going to him]. Would +you like a walk on the heath, Alfred? With me? + +ELLIE. Go, Mr Mangan. It will do you good. Hesione will soothe +you. + +MRS HUSHABYE [slipping her arm under his and pulling him +upright]. Come, Alfred. There is a moon: it's like the night in +Tristan and Isolde. [She caresses his arm and draws him to the +port garden door]. + +MANGAN [writhing but yielding]. How you can have the face-the +heart-[he breaks down and is heard sobbing as she takes him out]. + +LADY UTTERWORD. What an extraordinary way to behave! What is the +matter with the man? + +ELLIE [in a strangely calm voice, staring into an imaginary +distance]. His heart is breaking: that is all. [The captain +appears at the pantry door, listening]. It is a curious +sensation: the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our +powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your boats are +burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and +the beginning of peace. + +LADY UTTERWORD [suddenly rising in a rage, to the astonishment of +the rest]. How dare you? + +HECTOR. Good heavens! What's the matter? + +RANDALL [in a warning whisper]. Tch--tch-tch! Steady. + +ELLIE [surprised and haughty]. I was not addressing you +particularly, Lady Utterword. And I am not accustomed to being +asked how dare I. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Of course not. Anyone can see how badly you have +been brought up. + +MAZZINI. Oh, I hope not, Lady Utterword. Really! + +LADY UTTERWORD. I know very well what you meant. The impudence! + +ELLIE. What on earth do you mean? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [advancing to the table]. She means that her +heart will not break. She has been longing all her life for +someone to break it. At last she has become afraid she has none +to break. + +LADY UTTERWORD [flinging herself on her knees and throwing her +arms round him]. Papa, don't say you think I've no heart. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [raising her with grim tenderness]. If you had +no heart how could you want to have it broken, child? + +HECTOR [rising with a bound]. Lady Utterword, you are not to be +trusted. You have made a scene [he runs out into the garden +through the starboard door]. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Oh! Hector, Hector! [she runs out after him]. + +RANDALL. Only nerves, I assure you. [He rises and follows her, +waving the poker in his agitation]. Ariadne! Ariadne! For God's +sake, be careful. You will--[he is gone]. + +MAZZINI [rising]. How distressing! Can I do anything, I wonder? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [promptly taking his chair and setting to work +at the drawing-board]. No. Go to bed. Good-night. + +MAZZINI [bewildered]. Oh! Perhaps you are right. + +ELLIE. Good-night, dearest. [She kisses him]. + +MAZZINI. Good-night, love. [He makes for the door, but turns +aside to the bookshelves]. I'll just take a book [he takes one]. +Good-night. [He goes out, leaving Ellie alone with the captain]. + +The captain is intent on his drawing. Ellie, standing sentry over +his chair, contemplates him for a moment. + +ELLIE. Does nothing ever disturb you, Captain Shotover? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I've stood on the bridge for eighteen hours in +a typhoon. Life here is stormier; but I can stand it. + +ELLIE. Do you think I ought to marry Mr Mangan? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [never looking up]. One rock is as good as +another to be wrecked on. + +ELLIE. I am not in love with him. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Who said you were? + +ELLIE. You are not surprised? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Surprised! At my age! + +ELLIE. It seems to me quite fair. He wants me for one thing: I +want him for another. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Money? + +ELLIE. Yes. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Well, one turns the cheek: the other kisses it. +One provides the cash: the other spends it. + +ELLIE. Who will have the best of the bargain, I wonder? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You. These fellows live in an office all day. +You will have to put up with him from dinner to breakfast; but +you will both be asleep most of that time. All day you will be +quit of him; and you will be shopping with his money. If that is +too much for you, marry a seafaring man: you will be bothered +with him only three weeks in the year, perhaps. + +ELLIE. That would be best of all, I suppose. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It's a dangerous thing to be married right up +to the hilt, like my daughter's husband. The man is at home all +day, like a damned soul in hell. + +ELLIE. I never thought of that before. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. If you're marrying for business, you can't be +too businesslike. + +ELLIE. Why do women always want other women's husbands? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Why do horse-thieves prefer a horse that is +broken-in to one that is wild? + +ELLIE [with a short laugh]. I suppose so. What a vile world it +is! + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It doesn't concern me. I'm nearly out of it. + +ELLIE. And I'm only just beginning. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Yes; so look ahead. + +ELLIE. Well, I think I am being very prudent. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I didn't say prudent. I said look ahead. + +ELLIE. What's the difference? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It's prudent to gain the whole world and lose +your own soul. But don't forget that your soul sticks to you if +you stick to it; but the world has a way of slipping through your +fingers. + +ELLIE [wearily, leaving him and beginning to wander restlessly +about the room]. I'm sorry, Captain Shotover; but it's no use +talking like that to me. Old-fashioned people are no use to me. +Old-fashioned people think you can have a soul without money. +They think the less money you have, the more soul you have. Young +people nowadays know better. A soul is a very expensive thing to +keep: much more so than a motor car. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Is it? How much does your soul eat? + +ELLIE. Oh, a lot. It eats music and pictures and books and +mountains and lakes and beautiful things to wear and nice people +to be with. In this country you can't have them without lots of +money: that is why our souls are so horribly starved. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Mangan's soul lives on pig's food. + +ELLIE. Yes: money is thrown away on him. I suppose his soul was +starved when he was young. But it will not be thrown away on me. +It is just because I want to save my soul that I am marrying for +money. All the women who are not fools do. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. There are other ways of getting money. Why +don't you steal it? + +ELLIE. Because I don't want to go to prison. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Is that the only reason? Are you quite sure +honesty has nothing to do with it? + +ELLIE. Oh, you are very very old-fashioned, Captain. Does any +modern girl believe that the legal and illegal ways of getting +money are the honest and dishonest ways? Mangan robbed my father +and my father's friends. I should rob all the money back from +Mangan if the police would let me. As they won't, I must get it +back by marrying him. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I can't argue: I'm too old: my mind is made up +and finished. All I can tell you is that, old-fashioned or +new-fashioned, if you sell yourself, you deal your soul a blow +that all the books and pictures and concerts and scenery in the +world won't heal [he gets up suddenly and makes for the pantry]. + +ELLIE [running after him and seizing him by the sleeve]. Then why +did you sell yourself to the devil in Zanzibar? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [stopping, startled]. What? + +ELLIE. You shall not run away before you answer. I have found out +that trick of yours. If you sold yourself, why shouldn't I? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I had to deal with men so degraded that they +wouldn't obey me unless I swore at them and kicked them and beat +them with my fists. Foolish people took young thieves off the +streets; flung them into a training ship where they were taught +to fear the cane instead of fearing God; and thought they'd made +men and sailors of them by private subscription. I tricked these +thieves into believing I'd sold myself to the devil. It saved my +soul from the kicking and swearing that was damning me by inches. + +ELLIE [releasing him]. I shall pretend to sell myself to Boss +Mangan to save my soul from the poverty that is damning me by +inches. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Riches will damn you ten times deeper. Riches +won't save even your body. + +ELLIE. Old-fashioned again. We know now that the soul is the +body, and the body the soul. They tell us they are different +because they want to persuade us that we can keep our souls if we +let them make slaves of our bodies. I am afraid you are no use to +me, Captain. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What did you expect? A Savior, eh? Are you +old-fashioned enough to believe in that? + +ELLIE. No. But I thought you were very wise, and might help me. +Now I have found you out. You pretend to be busy, and think of +fine things to say, and run in and out to surprise people by +saying them, and get away before they can answer you. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It confuses me to be answered. It discourages +me. I cannot bear men and women. I have to run away. I must run +away now [he tries to]. + +ELLIE [again seizing his arm]. You shall not run away from me. I +can hypnotize you. You are the only person in the house I can say +what I like to. I know you are fond of me. Sit down. [She draws +him to the sofa]. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [yielding]. Take care: I am in my dotage. Old +men are dangerous: it doesn't matter to them what is going to +happen to the world. + +They sit side by side on the sofa. She leans affectionately +against him with her head on his shoulder and her eyes half +closed. + +ELLIE [dreamily]. I should have thought nothing else mattered to +old men. They can't be very interested in what is going to happen +to themselves. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. A man's interest in the world is only the +overflow from his interest in himself. When you are a child your +vessel is not yet full; so you care for nothing but your own +affairs. When you grow up, your vessel overflows; and you are a +politician, a philosopher, or an explorer and adventurer. In old +age the vessel dries up: there is no overflow: you are a child +again. I can give you the memories of my ancient wisdom: mere +scraps and leavings; but I no longer really care for anything but +my own little wants and hobbies. I sit here working out my old +ideas as a means of destroying my fellow-creatures. I see my +daughters and their men living foolish lives of romance and +sentiment and snobbery. I see you, the younger generation, +turning from their romance and sentiment and snobbery to money +and comfort and hard common sense. I was ten times happier on the +bridge in the typhoon, or frozen into Arctic ice for months in +darkness, than you or they have ever been. You are looking for a +rich husband. At your age I looked for hardship, danger, horror, +and death, that I might feel the life in me more intensely. I did +not let the fear of death govern my life; and my reward was, I +had my life. You are going to let the fear of poverty govern your +life; and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not +live. + +ELLIE [sitting up impatiently]. But what can I do? I am not a sea +captain: I can't stand on bridges in typhoons, or go slaughtering +seals and whales in Greenland's icy mountains. They won't let +women be captains. Do you want me to be a stewardess? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. There are worse lives. The stewardesses could +come ashore if they liked; but they sail and sail and sail. + +ELLIE. What could they do ashore but marry for money? I don't +want to be a stewardess: I am too bad a sailor. Think of +something else for me. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I can't think so long and continuously. I am +too old. I must go in and out. [He tries to rise]. + +ELLIE [pulling him back]. You shall not. You are happy here, +aren't you? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I tell you it's dangerous to keep me. I can't +keep awake and alert. + +ELLIE. What do you run away for? To sleep? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No. To get a glass of rum. + +ELLIE [frightfully disillusioned]. Is that it? How disgusting! Do +you like being drunk? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No: I dread being drunk more than anything in +the world. To be drunk means to have dreams; to go soft; to be +easily pleased and deceived; to fall into the clutches of women. +Drink does that for you when you are young. But when you are old: +very very old, like me, the dreams come by themselves. You don't +know how terrible that is: you are young: you sleep at night +only, and sleep soundly. But later on you will sleep in the +afternoon. Later still you will sleep even in the morning; and +you will awake tired, tired of life. You will never be free from +dozing and dreams; the dreams will steal upon your work every ten +minutes unless you can awaken yourself with rum. I drink now to +keep sober; but the dreams are conquering: rum is not what it +was: I have had ten glasses since you came; and it might be so +much water. Go get me another: Guinness knows where it is. You +had better see for yourself the horror of an old man drinking. + +ELLIE. You shall not drink. Dream. I like you to dream. You must +never be in the real world when we talk together. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I am too weary to resist, or too weak. I am in +my second childhood. I do not see you as you really are. I can't +remember what I really am. I feel nothing but the accursed +happiness I have dreaded all my life long: the happiness that +comes as life goes, the happiness of yielding and dreaming +instead of resisting and doing, the sweetness of the fruit that +is going rotten. + +ELLIE. You dread it almost as much as I used to dread losing my +dreams and having to fight and do things. But that is all over +for me: my dreams are dashed to pieces. I should like to marry a +very old, very rich man. I should like to marry you. I had much +rather marry you than marry Mangan. Are you very rich? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No. Living from hand to mouth. And I have a +wife somewhere in Jamaica: a black one. My first wife. Unless +she's dead. + +ELLIE. What a pity! I feel so happy with you. [She takes his +hand, almost unconsciously, and pats it]. I thought I should +never feel happy again. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Why? + +ELLIE. Don't you know? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No. + +ELLIE. Heartbreak. I fell in love with Hector, and didn't know he +was married. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Heartbreak? Are you one of those who are so +sufficient to themselves that they are only happy when they are +stripped of everything, even of hope? + +ELLIE [gripping the hand]. It seems so; for I feel now as if +there was nothing I could not do, because I want nothing. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. That's the only real strength. That's genius. +That's better than rum. + +ELLIE [throwing away his hand]. Rum! Why did you spoil it? + +Hector and Randall come in from the garden through the starboard +door. + +HECTOR. I beg your pardon. We did not know there was anyone here. + +ELLIE [rising]. That means that you want to tell Mr Randall the +story about the tiger. Come, Captain: I want to talk to my +father; and you had better come with me. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [rising]. Nonsense! the man is in bed. + +ELLIE. Aha! I've caught you. My real father has gone to bed; but +the father you gave me is in the kitchen. You knew quite well all +along. Come. [She draws him out into the garden with her through +the port door]. + +HECTOR. That's an extraordinary girl. She has the Ancient Mariner +on a string like a Pekinese dog. + +RANDALL. Now that they have gone, shall we have a friendly chat? + +HECTOR. You are in what is supposed to be my house. I am at your +disposal. + +Hector sits down in the draughtsman's chair, turning it to face +Randall, who remains standing, leaning at his ease against the +carpenter's bench. + +RANDALL. I take it that we may be quite frank. I mean about Lady +Utterword. + +HECTOR. You may. I have nothing to be frank about. I never met +her until this afternoon. + +RANDALL [straightening up]. What! But you are her sister's +husband. + +HECTOR. Well, if you come to that, you are her husband's brother. + +RANDALL. But you seem to be on intimate terms with her. + +HECTOR. So do you. + +RANDALL. Yes: but I AM on intimate terms with her. I have known +her for years. + +HECTOR. It took her years to get to the same point with you that +she got to with me in five minutes, it seems. + +RANDALL [vexed]. Really, Ariadne is the limit [he moves away +huffishly towards the windows]. + +HECTOR [coolly]. She is, as I remarked to Hesione, a very +enterprising woman. + +RANDALL [returning, much troubled]. You see, Hushabye, you are +what women consider a good-looking man. + +HECTOR. I cultivated that appearance in the days of my vanity; +and Hesione insists on my keeping it up. She makes me wear these +ridiculous things [indicating his Arab costume] because she +thinks me absurd in evening dress. + +RANDALL. Still, you do keep it up, old chap. Now, I assure you I +have not an atom of jealousy in my disposition + +HECTOR. The question would seem to be rather whether your brother +has any touch of that sort. + +RANDALL. What! Hastings! Oh, don't trouble about Hastings. He has +the gift of being able to work sixteen hours a day at the dullest +detail, and actually likes it. That gets him to the top wherever +he goes. As long as Ariadne takes care that he is fed regularly, +he is only too thankful to anyone who will keep her in good humor +for him. + +HECTOR. And as she has all the Shotover fascination, there is +plenty of competition for the job, eh? + +RANDALL [angrily]. She encourages them. Her conduct is perfectly +scandalous. I assure you, my dear fellow, I haven't an atom of +jealousy in my composition; but she makes herself the talk of +every place she goes to by her thoughtlessness. It's nothing +more: she doesn't really care for the men she keeps hanging about +her; but how is the world to know that? It's not fair to +Hastings. It's not fair to me. + +HECTOR. Her theory is that her conduct is so correct + +RANDALL. Correct! She does nothing but make scenes from morning +till night. You be careful, old chap. She will get you into +trouble: that is, she would if she really cared for you. + +HECTOR. Doesn't she? + +RANDALL. Not a scrap. She may want your scalp to add to her +collection; but her true affection has been engaged years ago. +You had really better be careful. + +HECTOR. Do you suffer much from this jealousy? + +RANDALL. Jealousy! I jealous! My dear fellow, haven't I told you +that there is not an atom of-- + +HECTOR. Yes. And Lady Utterword told me she never made scenes. +Well, don't waste your jealousy on my moustache. Never waste +jealousy on a real man: it is the imaginary hero that supplants +us all in the long run. Besides, jealousy does not belong to your +easy man-of-the-world pose, which you carry so well in other +respects. + +RANDALL. Really, Hushabye, I think a man may be allowed to be a +gentleman without being accused of posing. + +HECTOR. It is a pose like any other. In this house we know all +the poses: our game is to find out the man under the pose. The +man under your pose is apparently Ellie's favorite, Othello. + +RANDALL. Some of your games in this house are damned annoying, +let me tell you. + +HECTOR. Yes: I have been their victim for many years. I used to +writhe under them at first; but I became accustomed to them. At +last I learned to play them. + +RANDALL. If it's all the same to you I had rather you didn't play +them on me. You evidently don't quite understand my character, or +my notions of good form. + +HECTOR. Is it your notion of good form to give away Lady +Utterword? + +RANDALL [a childishly plaintive note breaking into his huff]. I +have not said a word against Lady Utterword. This is just the +conspiracy over again. + +HECTOR. What conspiracy? + +RANDALL. You know very well, sir. A conspiracy to make me out to +be pettish and jealous and childish and everything I am not. +Everyone knows I am just the opposite. + +HECTOR [rising]. Something in the air of the house has upset you. +It often does have that effect. [He goes to the garden door and +calls Lady Utterword with commanding emphasis]. Ariadne! + +LADY UTTERWORD [at some distance]. Yes. + +RANDALL. What are you calling her for? I want to speak-- + +LADY UTTERWORD [arriving breathless]. Yes. You really are a +terribly commanding person. What's the matter? + +HECTOR. I do not know how to manage your friend Randall. No doubt +you do. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Randall: have you been making yourself +ridiculous, as usual? I can see it in your face. Really, you are +the most pettish creature. + +RANDALL. You know quite well, Ariadne, that I have not an ounce +of pettishness in my disposition. I have made myself perfectly +pleasant here. I have remained absolutely cool and imperturbable +in the face of a burglar. Imperturbability is almost too strong a +point of mine. But [putting his foot down with a stamp, and +walking angrily up and down the room] I insist on being treated +with a certain consideration. I will not allow Hushabye to take +liberties with me. I will not stand your encouraging people as +you do. + +HECTOR. The man has a rooted delusion that he is your husband. + +LADY UTTERWORD. I know. He is jealous. As if he had any right to +be! He compromises me everywhere. He makes scenes all over the +place. Randall: I will not allow it. I simply will not allow it. +You had no right to discuss me with Hector. I will not be +discussed by men. + +HECTOR. Be reasonable, Ariadne. Your fatal gift of beauty forces +men to discuss you. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Oh indeed! what about YOUR fatal gift of beauty? + +HECTOR. How can I help it? + +LADY UTTERWORD. You could cut off your moustache: I can't cut off +my nose. I get my whole life messed up with people falling in +love with me. And then Randall says I run after men. + +RANDALL. I-- + +LADY UTTERWORD. Yes you do: you said it just now. Why can't you +think of something else than women? Napoleon was quite right when +he said that women are the occupation of the idle man. Well, if +ever there was an idle man on earth, his name is Randall +Utterword. + +RANDALL. Ariad-- + +LADY UTTERWORD [overwhelming him with a torrent of words]. Oh yes +you are: it's no use denying it. What have you ever done? What +good are you? You are as much trouble in the house as a child of +three. You couldn't live without your valet. + +RANDALL. This is-- + +LADY UTTERWORD. Laziness! You are laziness incarnate. You are +selfishness itself. You are the most uninteresting man on earth. +You can't even gossip about anything but yourself and your +grievances and your ailments and the people who have offended +you. [Turning to Hector]. Do you know what they call him, Hector? + +HECTOR } [speaking { Please don't tell me. +RANDALL } together] { I'll not stand it-- + +LADY UTTERWORD. Randall the Rotter: that is his name in good +society. + +RANDALL [shouting]. I'll not bear it, I tell you. Will you listen +to me, you infernal--[he chokes]. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Well: go on. What were you going to call me? An +infernal what? Which unpleasant animal is it to be this time? + +RANDALL [foaming]. There is no animal in the world so hateful as +a woman can be. You are a maddening devil. Hushabye, you will not +believe me when I tell you that I have loved this demon all my +life; but God knows I have paid for it [he sits down in the +draughtsman's chair, weeping]. + +LADY UTTERWORD [standing over him with triumphant contempt]. +Cry-baby! + +HECTOR [gravely, coming to him]. My friend, the Shotover sisters +have two strange powers over men. They can make them love; and +they can make them cry. Thank your stars that you are not married +to one of them. + +LADY UTTERWORD [haughtily]. And pray, Hector-- + +HECTOR [suddenly catching her round the shoulders: swinging her +right round him and away from Randall: and gripping her throat +with the other hand]. Ariadne, if you attempt to start on me, +I'll choke you: do you hear? The cat-and-mouse game with the +other sex is a good game; but I can play your head off at it. [He +throws her, not at all gently, into the big chair, and proceeds, +less fiercely but firmly]. It is true that Napoleon said that +woman is the occupation of the idle man. But he added that she is +the relaxation of the warrior. Well, I am the warrior. So take +care. + +LADY UTTERWORD [not in the least put out, and rather pleased by +his violence]. My dear Hector, I have only done what you asked me +to do. + +HECTOR. How do you make that out, pray? + +LADY UTTERWORD. You called me in to manage Randall, didn't you? +You said you couldn't manage him yourself. + +HECTOR. Well, what if I did? I did not ask you to drive the man +mad. + +LADY UTTERWORD. He isn't mad. That's the way to manage him. If +you were a mother, you'd understand. + +HECTOR. Mother! What are you up to now? + +LADY UTTERWORD. It's quite simple. When the children got nerves +and were naughty, I smacked them just enough to give them a good +cry and a healthy nervous shock. They went to sleep and were +quite good afterwards. Well, I can't smack Randall: he is too +big; so when he gets nerves and is naughty, I just rag him till +he cries. He will be all right now. Look: he is half asleep +already [which is quite true]. + +RANDALL [waking up indignantly]. I'm not. You are most cruel, +Ariadne. [Sentimentally]. But I suppose I must forgive you, as +usual [he checks himself in the act of yawning]. + +LADY UTTERWORD [to Hector]. Is the explanation satisfactory, +dread warrior? + +HECTOR. Some day I shall kill you, if you go too far. I thought +you were a fool. + +LADY UTTERWORD [laughing]. Everybody does, at first. But I am not +such a fool as I look. [She rises complacently]. Now, Randall, go +to bed. You will be a good boy in the morning. + +RANDALL [only very faintly rebellious]. I'll go to bed when I +like. It isn't ten yet. + +LADY UTTERWORD. It is long past ten. See that he goes to bed at +once, Hector. [She goes into the garden]. + +HECTOR. Is there any slavery on earth viler than this slavery of +men to women? + +RANDALL [rising resolutely]. I'll not speak to her tomorrow. I'll +not speak to her for another week. I'll give her such a lesson. +I'll go straight to bed without bidding her good-night. [He makes +for the door leading to the hall]. + +HECTOR. You are under a spell, man. Old Shotover sold himself to +the devil in Zanzibar. The devil gave him a black witch for a +wife; and these two demon daughters are their mystical progeny. I +am tied to Hesione's apron-string; but I'm her husband; and if I +did go stark staring mad about her, at least we became man and +wife. But why should you let yourself be dragged about and beaten +by Ariadne as a toy donkey is dragged about and beaten by a +child? What do you get by it? Are you her lover? + +RANDALL. You must not misunderstand me. In a higher sense--in a +Platonic sense-- + +HECTOR. Psha! Platonic sense! She makes you her servant; and when +pay-day comes round, she bilks you: that is what you mean. + +RANDALL [feebly]. Well, if I don't mind, I don't see what +business it is of yours. Besides, I tell you I am going to punish +her. You shall see: I know how to deal with women. I'm really +very sleepy. Say good-night to Mrs Hushabye for me, will you, +like a good chap. Good-night. [He hurries out]. + +HECTOR. Poor wretch! Oh women! women! women! [He lifts his fists +in invocation to heaven]. Fall. Fall and crush. [He goes out into +the garden]. + + + +ACT III + +In the garden, Hector, as he comes out through the glass door of +the poop, finds Lady Utterword lying voluptuously in the hammock +on the east side of the flagstaff, in the circle of light cast by +the electric arc, which is like a moon in its opal globe. Beneath +the head of the hammock, a campstool. On the other side of the +flagstaff, on the long garden seat, Captain Shotover is asleep, +with Ellie beside him, leaning affectionately against him on his +right hand. On his left is a deck chair. Behind them in the +gloom, Hesione is strolling about with Mangan. It is a fine still +night, moonless. + +LADY UTTERWORD. What a lovely night! It seems made for us. + +HECTOR. The night takes no interest in us. What are we to the +night? [He sits down moodily in the deck chair]. + +ELLIE [dreamily, nestling against the captain]. Its beauty soaks +into my nerves. In the night there is peace for the old and hope +for the young. + +HECTOR. Is that remark your own? + +ELLIE. No. Only the last thing the captain said before he went to +sleep. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I'm not asleep. + +HECTOR. Randall is. Also Mr Mazzini Dunn. Mangan, too, probably. + +MANGAN. No. + +HECTOR. Oh, you are there. I thought Hesione would have sent you +to bed by this time. + +MRS HUSHABYE [coming to the back of the garden seat, into the +light, with Mangan]. I think I shall. He keeps telling me he has +a presentiment that he is going to die. I never met a man so +greedy for sympathy. + +MANGAN [plaintively]. But I have a presentiment. I really have. +And you wouldn't listen. + +MRS HUSHABYE. I was listening for something else. There was a +sort of splendid drumming in the sky. Did none of you hear it? It +came from a distance and then died away. + +MANGAN. I tell you it was a train. + +MRS HUSHABYE. And I tell you, Alf, there is no train at this +hour. The last is nine forty-five. + +MANGAN. But a goods train. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Not on our little line. They tack a truck on to the +passenger train. What can it have been, Hector? + +HECTOR. Heaven's threatening growl of disgust at us useless +futile creatures. [Fiercely]. I tell you, one of two things must +happen. Either out of that darkness some new creation will come +to supplant us as we have supplanted the animals, or the heavens +will fall in thunder and destroy us. + +LADY UTTERWORD [in a cool instructive manner, wallowing +comfortably in her hammock]. We have not supplanted the animals, +Hector. Why do you ask heaven to destroy this house, which could +be made quite comfortable if Hesione had any notion of how to +live? Don't you know what is wrong with it? + +HECTOR. We are wrong with it. There is no sense in us. We are +useless, dangerous, and ought to be abolished. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Nonsense! Hastings told me the very first day he +came here, nearly twenty-four years ago, what is wrong with the +house. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What! The numskull said there was something +wrong with my house! + +LADY UTTERWORD. I said Hastings said it; and he is not in the +least a numskull. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What's wrong with my house? + +LADY UTTERWORD. Just what is wrong with a ship, papa. Wasn't it +clever of Hastings to see that? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The man's a fool. There's nothing wrong with a +ship. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Yes, there is. + +MRS HUSHABYE. But what is it? Don't be aggravating, Addy. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Guess. + +HECTOR. Demons. Daughters of the witch of Zanzibar. Demons. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Not a bit. I assure you, all this house needs to +make it a sensible, healthy, pleasant house, with good appetites +and sound sleep in it, is horses. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Horses! What rubbish! + +LADY UTTERWORD. Yes: horses. Why have we never been able to let +this house? Because there are no proper stables. Go anywhere in +England where there are natural, wholesome, contented, and really +nice English people; and what do you always find? That the +stables are the real centre of the household; and that if any +visitor wants to play the piano the whole room has to be upset +before it can be opened, there are so many things piled on it. I +never lived until I learned to ride; and I shall never ride +really well because I didn't begin as a child. There are only two +classes in good society in England: the equestrian classes and +the neurotic classes. It isn't mere convention: everybody can see +that the people who hunt are the right people and the people who +don't are the wrong ones. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. There is some truth in this. My ship made a man +of me; and a ship is the horse of the sea. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Exactly how Hastings explained your being a +gentleman. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Not bad for a numskull. Bring the man here with +you next time: I must talk to him. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Why is Randall such an obvious rotter? He is well +bred; he has been at a public school and a university; he has +been in the Foreign Office; he knows the best people and has +lived all his life among them. Why is he so unsatisfactory, so +contemptible? Why can't he get a valet to stay with him longer +than a few months? Just because he is too lazy and +pleasure-loving to hunt and shoot. He strums the piano, and +sketches, and runs after married women, and reads literary books +and poems. He actually plays the flute; but I never let him bring +it into my house. If he would only--[she is interrupted by the +melancholy strains of a flute coming from an open window above. +She raises herself indignantly in the hammock]. Randall, you have +not gone to bed. Have you been listening? [The flute replies +pertly]. How vulgar! Go to bed instantly, Randall: how dare you? +[The window is slammed down. She subsides]. How can anyone care +for such a creature! + +MRS HUSHABYE. Addy: do you think Ellie ought to marry poor Alfred +merely for his money? + +MANGAN [much alarmed]. What's that? Mrs Hushabye, are my affairs +to be discussed like this before everybody? + +LADY UTTERWORD. I don't think Randall is listening now. + +MANGAN. Everybody is listening. It isn't right. + +MRS HUSHABYE. But in the dark, what does it matter? Ellie doesn't +mind. Do you, Ellie? + +ELLIE. Not in the least. What is your opinion, Lady Utterword? +You have so much good sense. + +MANGAN. But it isn't right. It--[Mrs Hushabye puts her hand on +his mouth]. Oh, very well. + +LADY UTTERWORD. How much money have you, Mr. Mangan? + +MANGAN. Really--No: I can't stand this. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Nonsense, Mr Mangan! It all turns on your income, +doesn't it? + +MANGAN. Well, if you come to that, how much money has she? + +ELLIE. None. + +LADY UTTERWORD. You are answered, Mr Mangan. And now, as you have +made Miss Dunn throw her cards on the table, you cannot refuse to +show your own. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Come, Alf! out with it! How much? + +MANGAN [baited out of all prudence]. Well, if you want to know, I +have no money and never had any. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Alfred, you mustn't tell naughty stories. + +MANGAN. I'm not telling you stories. I'm telling you the raw +truth. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Then what do you live on, Mr Mangan? + +MANGAN. Travelling expenses. And a trifle of commission. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What more have any of us but travelling +expenses for our life's journey? + +MRS HUSHABYE. But you have factories and capital and things? + +MANGAN. People think I have. People think I'm an industrial +Napoleon. That's why Miss Ellie wants to marry me. But I tell you +I have nothing. + +ELLIE. Do you mean that the factories are like Marcus's tigers? +That they don't exist? + +MANGAN. They exist all right enough. But they're not mine. They +belong to syndicates and shareholders and all sorts of lazy +good-for-nothing capitalists. I get money from such people to +start the factories. I find people like Miss Dunn's father to +work them, and keep a tight hand so as to make them pay. Of +course I make them keep me going pretty well; but it's a dog's +life; and I don't own anything. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Alfred, Alfred, you are making a poor mouth of it +to get out of marrying Ellie. + +MANGAN. I'm telling the truth about my money for the first time +in my life; and it's the first time my word has ever been +doubted. + +LADY UTTERWORD. How sad! Why don't you go in for politics, Mr +Mangan? + +MANGAN. Go in for politics! Where have you been living? I am in +politics. + +LADY UTTERWORD. I'm sure I beg your pardon. I never heard of you. + +MANGAN. Let me tell you, Lady Utterword, that the Prime Minister +of this country asked me to join the Government without even +going through the nonsense of an election, as the dictator of a +great public department. + +LADY UTTERWORD. As a Conservative or a Liberal? + +MANGAN. No such nonsense. As a practical business man. [They all +burst out laughing]. What are you all laughing at? + +MRS HUSHARYE. Oh, Alfred, Alfred! + +ELLIE. You! who have to get my father to do everything for you! + +MRS HUSHABYE. You! who are afraid of your own workmen! + +HECTOR. You! with whom three women have been playing cat and +mouse all the evening! + +LADY UTTERWORD. You must have given an immense sum to the party +funds, Mr Mangan. + +MANGAN. Not a penny out of my own pocket. The syndicate found the +money: they knew how useful I should be to them in the +Government. + +LADY UTTERWORD. This is most interesting and unexpected, Mr +Mangan. And what have your administrative achievements been, so +far? + +MANGAN. Achievements? Well, I don't know what you call +achievements; but I've jolly well put a stop to the games of the +other fellows in the other departments. Every man of them thought +he was going to save the country all by himself, and do me out of +the credit and out of my chance of a title. I took good care that +if they wouldn't let me do it they shouldn't do it themselves +either. I may not know anything about my own machinery; but I +know how to stick a ramrod into the other fellow's. And now they +all look the biggest fools going. + +HECTOR. And in heaven's name, what do you look like? + +MANGAN. I look like the fellow that was too clever for all the +others, don't I? If that isn't a triumph of practical business, +what is? + +HECTOR. Is this England, or is it a madhouse? + +LADY UTTERWORD. Do you expect to save the country, Mr Mangan? + +MANGAN. Well, who else will? Will your Mr Randall save it? + +LADY UTTERWORD. Randall the rotter! Certainly not. + +MANGAN. Will your brother-in-law save it with his moustache and +his fine talk? + +HECTOR. Yes, if they will let me. + +MANGAN [sneering]. Ah! Will they let you? + +HECTOR. No. They prefer you. + +MANGAN. Very well then, as you're in a world where I'm +appreciated and you're not, you'd best be civil to me, hadn't +you? Who else is there but me? + +LADY UTTERWORD. There is Hastings. Get rid of your ridiculous +sham democracy; and give Hastings the necessary powers, and a +good supply of bamboo to bring the British native to his senses: +he will save the country with the greatest ease. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It had better be lost. Any fool can govern with +a stick in his hand. I could govern that way. It is not God's +way. The man is a numskull. + +LADY UTTERWORD. The man is worth all of you rolled into one. What +do you say, Miss Dunn? + +ELLIE. I think my father would do very well if people did not put +upon him and cheat him and despise him because he is so good. + +MANGAN [contemptuously]. I think I see Mazzini Dunn getting into +parliament or pushing his way into the Government. We've not come +to that yet, thank God! What do you say, Mrs Hushabye? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, I say it matters very little which of you +governs the country so long as we govern you. + +HECTOR. We? Who is we, pray? + +MRS HUSHABYE. The devil's granddaughters, dear. The lovely women. + +HECTOR [raising his hands as before]. Fall, I say, and deliver us +from the lures of Satan! + +ELLIE. There seems to be nothing real in the world except my +father and Shakespeare. Marcus's tigers are false; Mr Mangan's +millions are false; there is nothing really strong and true about +Hesione but her beautiful black hair; and Lady Utterword's is too +pretty to be real. The one thing that was left to me was the +Captain's seventh degree of concentration; and that turns out to +be-- + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Rum. + +LADY UTTERWORD [placidly]. A good deal of my hair is quite +genuine. The Duchess of Dithering offered me fifty guineas for +this [touching her forehead] under the impression that it was a +transformation; but it is all natural except the color. + +MANGAN [wildly]. Look here: I'm going to take off all my clothes +[he begins tearing off his coat]. + +LADY UTTERWORD. } [in { Mr. Mangan! +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER } consterna- { What's that? +HECTOR. } tion] { Ha! Ha! Do. Do +ELLIE } { Please don't. + +MRS HUSHABYE [catching his arm and stopping him]. Alfred, for +shame! Are you mad? + +MANGAN. Shame! What shame is there in this house? Let's all strip +stark naked. We may as well do the thing thoroughly when we're +about it. We've stripped ourselves morally naked: well, let us +strip ourselves physically naked as well, and see how we like it. +I tell you I can't bear this. I was brought up to be respectable. +I don't mind the women dyeing their hair and the men drinking: +it's human nature. But it's not human nature to tell everybody +about it. Every time one of you opens your mouth I go like this +[he cowers as if to avoid a missile], afraid of what will come +next. How are we to have any self-respect if we don't keep it up +that we're better than we really are? + +LADY UTTERWORD. I quite sympathize with you, Mr Mangan. I have +been through it all; and I know by experience that men and women +are delicate plants and must be cultivated under glass. Our +family habit of throwing stones in all directions and letting the +air in is not only unbearably rude, but positively dangerous. +Still, there is no use catching physical colds as well as moral +ones; so please keep your clothes on. + +MANGAN. I'll do as I like: not what you tell me. Am I a child or +a grown man? I won't stand this mothering tyranny. I'll go back +to the city, where I'm respected and made much of. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Goodbye, Alf. Think of us sometimes in the city. +Think of Ellie's youth! + +ELLIE. Think of Hesione's eyes and hair! + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Think of this garden in which you are not a dog +barking to keep the truth out! + +HECTOR. Think of Lady Utterword's beauty! her good sense! her +style! + +LADY UTTERWORD. Flatterer. Think, Mr. Mangan, whether you can +really do any better for yourself elsewhere: that is the +essential point, isn't it? + +MANGAN [surrendering]. All right: all right. I'm done. Have it +your own way. Only let me alone. I don't know whether I'm on my +head or my heels when you all start on me like this. I'll stay. +I'll marry her. I'll do anything for a quiet life. Are you +satisfied now? + +ELLIE. No. I never really intended to make you marry me, Mr +Mangan. Never in the depths of my soul. I only wanted to feel my +strength: to know that you could not escape if I chose to take +you. + +MANGAN [indignantly]. What! Do you mean to say you are going to +throw me over after my acting so handsome? + +LADY UTTERWORD. I should not be too hasty, Miss Dunn. You can +throw Mr Mangan over at any time up to the last moment. Very few +men in his position go bankrupt. You can live very comfortably on +his reputation for immense wealth. + +ELLIE. I cannot commit bigamy, Lady Utterword. + +MRS HUSHABYE. } { Bigamy! Whatever on earth are you + } { talking about, Ellie? +LADY UTTERWORD } [exclaiming { Bigamy! What do you mean, Miss + } { Dunn? +MANGAN } altogether] { Bigamy! Do you mean to say you're + } { married already? +HECTOR } { Bigamy! This is some enigma. + +ELLIE. Only half an hour ago I became Captain Shotover's white +wife. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Ellie! What nonsense! Where? + +ELLIE. In heaven, where all true marriages are made. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Really, Miss Dunn! Really, papa! + +MANGAN. He told me I was too old! And him a mummy! + +HECTOR [quoting Shelley]. + +"Their altar the grassy earth outspreads + And their priest the muttering wind." + +ELLIE. Yes: I, Ellie Dunn, give my broken heart and my strong +sound soul to its natural captain, my spiritual husband and +second father. + +She draws the captain's arm through hers, and pats his hand. The +captain remains fast asleep. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, that's very clever of you, pettikins. Very +clever. Alfred, you could never have lived up to Ellie. You must +be content with a little share of me. + +MANGAN [snifflng and wiping his eyes]. It isn't kind--[his +emotion chokes him]. + +LADY UTTERWORD. You are well out of it, Mr Mangan. Miss Dunn is +the most conceited young woman I have met since I came back to +England. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, Ellie isn't conceited. Are you, pettikins? + +ELLIE. I know my strength now, Hesione. + +MANGAN. Brazen, I call you. Brazen. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Tut, tut, Alfred: don't be rude. Don't you feel how +lovely this marriage night is, made in heaven? Aren't you happy, +you and Hector? Open your eyes: Addy and Ellie look beautiful +enough to please the most fastidious man: we live and love and +have not a care in the world. We women have managed all that for +you. Why in the name of common sense do you go on as if you were +two miserable wretches? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I tell you happiness is no good. You can be +happy when you are only half alive. I am happier now I am half +dead than ever I was in my prime. But there is no blessing on my +happiness. + +ELLIE [her face lighting up]. Life with a blessing! that is what +I want. Now I know the real reason why I couldn't marry Mr +Mangan: there would be no blessing on our marriage. There is a +blessing on my broken heart. There is a blessing on your beauty, +Hesione. There is a blessing on your father's spirit. Even on the +lies of Marcus there is a blessing; but on Mr Mangan's money +there is none. + +MANGAN. I don't understand a word of that. + +ELLIE. Neither do I. But I know it means something. + +MANGAN. Don't say there was any difficulty about the blessing. I +was ready to get a bishop to marry us. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Isn't he a fool, pettikins? + +HECTOR [fiercely]. Do not scorn the man. We are all fools. + +Mazzini, in pyjamas and a richly colored silk dressing gown, +comes from the house, on Lady Utterword's side. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Oh! here comes the only man who ever resisted me. +What's the matter, Mr Dunn? Is the house on fire? + +MAZZINI. Oh, no: nothing's the matter: but really it's impossible +to go to sleep with such an interesting conversation going on +under one's window, and on such a beautiful night too. I just had +to come down and join you all. What has it all been about? + +MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, wonderful things, soldier of freedom. + +HECTOR. For example, Mangan, as a practical business man, has +tried to undress himself and has failed ignominiously; whilst +you, as an idealist, have succeeded brilliantly. + +MAZZINI. I hope you don't mind my being like this, Mrs Hushabye. +[He sits down on the campstool]. + +MRS HUSHABYE. On the contrary, I could wish you always like that. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Your daughter's match is off, Mr Dunn. It seems +that Mr Mangan, whom we all supposed to be a man of property, +owns absolutely nothing. + +MAZZINI. Well, of course I knew that, Lady Utterword. But if +people believe in him and are always giving him money, whereas +they don't believe in me and never give me any, how can I ask +poor Ellie to depend on what I can do for her? + +MANGAN. Don't you run away with this idea that I have nothing. +I-- + +HECTOR. Oh, don't explain. We understand. You have a couple of +thousand pounds in exchequer bills, 50,000 shares worth tenpence +a dozen, and half a dozen tabloids of cyanide of potassium to +poison yourself with when you are found out. That's the reality +of your millions. + +MAZZINI. Oh no, no, no. He is quite honest: the businesses are +genuine and perfectly legal. + +HECTOR [disgusted]. Yah! Not even a great swindler! + +MANGAN. So you think. But I've been too many for some honest men, +for all that. + +LADY UTTERWORD. There is no pleasing you, Mr Mangan. You are +determined to be neither rich nor poor, honest nor dishonest. + +MANGAN. There you go again. Ever since I came into this silly +house I have been made to look like a fool, though I'm as good a +man in this house as in the city. + +ELLIE [musically]. Yes: this silly house, this strangely happy +house, this agonizing house, this house without foundations. I +shall call it Heartbreak House. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Stop, Ellie; or I shall howl like an animal. + +MANGAN [breaks into a low snivelling]!!! + +MRS HUSAHBYE. There! you have set Alfred off. + +ELLIE. I like him best when he is howling. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Silence! [Mangan subsides into silence]. I say, +let the heart break in silence. + +HECTOR. Do you accept that name for your house? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It is not my house: it is only my kennel. + +HECTOR. We have been too long here. We do not live in this house: +we haunt it. + +LADY UTTERWORD [heart torn]. It is dreadful to think how you have +been here all these years while I have gone round the world. I +escaped young; but it has drawn me back. It wants to break my +heart too. But it shan't. I have left you and it behind. It was +silly of me to come back. I felt sentimental about papa and +Hesione and the old place. I felt them calling to me. + +MAZZINI. But what a very natural and kindly and charming human +feeling, Lady Utterword! + +LADY UTTERWORD. So I thought, Mr Dunn. But I know now that it was +only the last of my influenza. I found that I was not remembered +and not wanted. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You left because you did not want us. Was there +no heartbreak in that for your father? You tore yourself up by +the roots; and the ground healed up and brought forth fresh +plants and forgot you. What right had you to come back and probe +old wounds? + +MRS HUSHABYE. You were a complete stranger to me at first, Addy; +but now I feel as if you had never been away. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Thank you, Hesione; but the influenza is quite +cured. The place may be Heartbreak House to you, Miss Dunn, and +to this gentleman from the city who seems to have so little +self-control; but to me it is only a very ill-regulated and +rather untidy villa without any stables. + +HECTOR. Inhabited by--? + +ELLIE. A crazy old sea captain and a young singer who adores him. + +MRS HUSHABYE. A sluttish female, trying to stave off a double +chin and an elderly spread, vainly wooing a born soldier of +freedom. + +MAZZINI. Oh, really, Mrs Hushabye-- + +MANGAN. A member of His Majesty's Government that everybody sets +down as a nincompoop: don't forget him, Lady Utterword. + +LADY UTTERWORD. And a very fascinating gentleman whose chief +occupation is to be married to my sister. + +HECTOR. All heartbroken imbeciles. + +MAZZINI. Oh no. Surely, if I may say so, rather a favorable +specimen of what is best in our English culture. You are very +charming people, most advanced, unprejudiced, frank, humane, +unconventional, democratic, free-thinking, and everything that is +delightful to thoughtful people. + +MRS HUSHABYE. You do us proud, Mazzini. + +MAZZINI. I am not flattering, really. Where else could I feel +perfectly at ease in my pyjamas? I sometimes dream that I am in +very distinguished society, and suddenly I have nothing on but my +pyjamas! Sometimes I haven't even pyjamas. And I always feel +overwhelmed with confusion. But here, I don't mind in the least: +it seems quite natural. + +LADY UTTERWORD. An infallible sign that you are now not in really +distinguished society, Mr Dunn. If you were in my house, you +would feel embarrassed. + +MAZZINI. I shall take particular care to keep out of your house, +Lady Utterword. + +LADY UTTERWORD. You will be quite wrong, Mr Dunn. I should make +you very comfortable; and you would not have the trouble and +anxiety of wondering whether you should wear your purple and gold +or your green and crimson dressing-gown at dinner. You complicate +life instead of simplifying it by doing these ridiculous things. + +ELLIE. Your house is not Heartbreak House: is it, Lady Utterword? + +HECTOR. Yet she breaks hearts, easy as her house is. That poor +devil upstairs with his flute howls when she twists his heart, +just as Mangan howls when my wife twists his. + +LADY UTTERWORD. That is because Randall has nothing to do but +have his heart broken. It is a change from having his head +shampooed. Catch anyone breaking Hastings' heart! + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The numskull wins, after all. + +LADY UTTERWORD. I shall go back to my numskull with the greatest +satisfaction when I am tired of you all, clever as you are. + +MANGAN [huffily]. I never set up to be clever. + +LADY UTTERWORD. I forgot you, Mr Mangan. + +MANGAN. Well, I don't see that quite, either. + +LADY UTTERWORD. You may not be clever, Mr Mangan; but you are +successful. + +MANGAN. But I don't want to be regarded merely as a successful +man. I have an imagination like anyone else. I have a +presentiment + +MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, you are impossible, Alfred. Here I am devoting +myself to you; and you think of nothing but your ridiculous +presentiment. You bore me. Come and talk poetry to me under the +stars. [She drags him away into the darkness]. + +MANGAN [tearfully, as he disappears]. Yes: it's all very well to +make fun of me; but if you only knew-- + +HECTOR [impatiently]. How is all this going to end? + +MAZZINI. It won't end, Mr Hushabye. Life doesn't end: it goes on. + +ELLIE. Oh, it can't go on forever. I'm always expecting +something. I don't know what it is; but life must come to a point +sometime. + +LADY UTTERWORD. The point for a young woman of your age is a +baby. + +HECTOR. Yes, but, damn it, I have the same feeling; and I can't +have a baby. + +LADY UTTERWORD. By deputy, Hector. + +HECTOR. But I have children. All that is over and done with for +me: and yet I too feel that this can't last. We sit here talking, +and leave everything to Mangan and to chance and to the devil. +Think of the powers of destruction that Mangan and his mutual +admiration gang wield! It's madness: it's like giving a torpedo +to a badly brought up child to play at earthquakes with. + +MAZZINI. I know. I used often to think about that when I was +young. + +HECTOR. Think! What's the good of thinking about it? Why didn't +you do something? + +MAZZINI. But I did. I joined societies and made speeches and +wrote pamphlets. That was all I could do. But, you know, though +the people in the societies thought they knew more than Mangan, +most of them wouldn't have joined if they had known as much. You +see they had never had any money to handle or any men to manage. +Every year I expected a revolution, or some frightful smash-up: +it seemed impossible that we could blunder and muddle on any +longer. But nothing happened, except, of course, the usual +poverty and crime and drink that we are used to. Nothing ever +does happen. It's amazing how well we get along, all things +considered. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Perhaps somebody cleverer than you and Mr Mangan +was at work all the time. + +MAZZINI. Perhaps so. Though I was brought up not to believe in +anything, I often feel that there is a great deal to be said for +the theory of an over-ruling Providence, after all. + +LADY UTTERWORD. Providence! I meant Hastings. + +MAZZINI. Oh, I beg your pardon, Lady Utterword. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Every drunken skipper trusts to Providence. But +one of the ways of Providence with drunken skippers is to run +them on the rocks. + +MAZZINI. Very true, no doubt, at sea. But in politics, I assure +you, they only run into jellyfish. Nothing happens. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. At sea nothing happens to the sea. Nothing +happens to the sky. The sun comes up from the east and goes down +to the west. The moon grows from a sickle to an arc lamp, and +comes later and later until she is lost in the light as other +things are lost in the darkness. After the typhoon, the +flying-fish glitter in the sunshine like birds. It's amazing how +they get along, all things considered. Nothing happens, except +something not worth mentioning. + +ELLIE. What is that, O Captain, O my captain? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [savagely]. Nothing but the smash of the drunken +skipper's ship on the rocks, the splintering of her rotten +timbers, the tearing of her rusty plates, the drowning of the +crew like rats in a trap. + +ELLIE. Moral: don't take rum. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [vehemently]. That is a lie, child. Let a man +drink ten barrels of rum a day, he is not a drunken skipper until +he is a drifting skipper. Whilst he can lay his course and stand +on his bridge and steer it, he is no drunkard. It is the man who +lies drinking in his bunk and trusts to Providence that I call +the drunken skipper, though he drank nothing but the waters of +the River Jordan. + +ELLIE. Splendid! And you haven't had a drop for an hour. You see +you don't need it: your own spirit is not dead. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Echoes: nothing but echoes. The last shot was +fired years ago. + +HECTOR. And this ship that we are all in? This soul's prison we +call England? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The captain is in his bunk, drinking bottled +ditch-water; and the crew is gambling in the forecastle. She will +strike and sink and split. Do you think the laws of God will be +suspended in favor of England because you were born in it? + +HECTOR. Well, I don't mean to be drowned like a rat in a trap. I +still have the will to live. What am I to do? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Do? Nothing simpler. Learn your business as an +Englishman. + +HECTOR. And what may my business as an Englishman be, pray? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Navigation. Learn it and live; or leave it and +be damned. + +ELLIE. Quiet, quiet: you'll tire yourself. + +MAZZINI. I thought all that once, Captain; but I assure you +nothing will happen. + +A dull distant explosion is heard. + +HECTOR [starting up]. What was that? + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Something happening [he blows his whistle]. +Breakers ahead! + +The light goes out. + +HECTOR [furiously]. Who put that light out? Who dared put that +light out? + +NURSE GUINNESS [running in from the house to the middle of the +esplanade]. I did, sir. The police have telephoned to say we'll +be summoned if we don't put that light out: it can be seen for +miles. + +HECTOR. It shall be seen for a hundred miles [he dashes into the +house]. + +NURSE GUINNESS. The Rectory is nothing but a heap of bricks, they +say. Unless we can give the Rector a bed he has nowhere to lay +his head this night. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The Church is on the rocks, breaking up. I told +him it would unless it headed for God's open sea. + +NURSE GUINNESS. And you are all to go down to the cellars. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Go there yourself, you and all the crew. Batten +down the hatches. + +NURSE GUINNESS. And hide beside the coward I married! I'll go on +the roof first. [The lamp lights up again]. There! Mr Hushabye's +turned it on again. + +THE BURGLAR [hurrying in and appealing to Nurse Guinness]. Here: +where's the way to that gravel pit? The boot-boy says there's a +cave in the gravel pit. Them cellars is no use. Where's the +gravel pit, Captain? + +NURSE GUINNESS. Go straight on past the flagstaff until you fall +into it and break your dirty neck. [She pushes him contemptuously +towards the flagstaff, and herself goes to the foot of the +hammock and waits there, as it were by Ariadne's cradle]. + +Another and louder explosion is heard. The burglar stops and +stands trembling. + +ELLIE [rising]. That was nearer. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The next one will get us. [He rises]. Stand by, +all hands, for judgment. + +THE BURGLAR. Oh my Lordy God! [He rushes away frantically past +the flagstaff into the gloom]. + +MRS HUSHABYE [emerging panting from the darkness]. Who was that +running away? [She comes to Ellie]. Did you hear the explosions? +And the sound in the sky: it's splendid: it's like an orchestra: +it's like Beethoven. + +ELLIE. By thunder, Hesione: it is Beethoven. + +She and Hesione throw themselves into one another's arms in wild +excitement. The light increases. + +MAZZINI [anxiously]. The light is getting brighter. + +NURSE GUINNESS [looking up at the house]. It's Mr Hushabye +turning on all the lights in the house and tearing down the +curtains. + +RANDALL [rushing in in his pyjamas, distractedly waving a flute]. +Ariadne, my soul, my precious, go down to the cellars: I beg and +implore you, go down to the cellars! + +LADY UTTERWORD [quite composed in her hammock]. The governor's +wife in the cellars with the servants! Really, Randall! + +RANDALL. But what shall I do if you are killed? + +LADY UTTERWORD. You will probably be killed, too, Randall. Now +play your flute to show that you are not afraid; and be good. +Play us "Keep the home fires burning." + +NURSE GUINNESS [grimly]. THEY'LL keep the home fires burning for +us: them up there. + +RANDALL [having tried to play]. My lips are trembling. I can't +get a sound. + +MAZZINI. I hope poor Mangan is safe. + +MRS HUSHABYE. He is hiding in the cave in the gravel pit. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. My dynamite drew him there. It is the hand of +God. + +HECTOR [returning from the house and striding across to his +former place]. There is not half light enough. We should be +blazing to the skies. + +ELLIE [tense with excitement]. Set fire to the house, Marcus. + +MRS HUSHABYE. My house! No. + +HECTOR. I thought of that; but it would not be ready in time. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The judgment has come. Courage will not save +you; but it will show that your souls are still live. + +MRS HUSHABYE. Sh-sh! Listen: do you hear it now? It's +magnificent. + +They all turn away from the house and look up, listening. + +HECTOR [gravely]. Miss Dunn, you can do no good here. We of this +house are only moths flying into the candle. You had better go +down to the cellar. + +ELLIE [scornfully]. I don't think. + +MAZZINI. Ellie, dear, there is no disgrace in going to the +cellar. An officer would order his soldiers to take cover. Mr +Hushabye is behaving like an amateur. Mangan and the burglar are +acting very sensibly; and it is they who will survive. + +ELLIE. Let them. I shall behave like an amateur. But why should +you run any risk? + +MAZZINI. Think of the risk those poor fellows up there are +running! + +NURSE GUINNESS. Think of them, indeed, the murdering blackguards! +What next? + +A terrific explosion shakes the earth. They reel back into their +seats, or clutch the nearest support. They hear the falling of +the shattered glass from the windows. + +MAZZINI. Is anyone hurt? + +HECTOR. Where did it fall? + +NURSE GUINNESS [in hideous triumph]. Right in the gravel pit: I +seen it. Serve un right! I seen it [she runs away towards the +gravel pit, laughing harshly]. + +HECTOR. One husband gone. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Thirty pounds of good dynamite wasted. + +MAZZINI. Oh, poor Mangan! + +HECTOR. Are you immortal that you need pity him? Our turn next. + +They wait in silence and intense expectation. Hesione and Ellie +hold each other's hand tight. + +A distant explosion is heard. + +MRS HUSHABYE [relaxing her grip]. Oh! they have passed us. + +LADY UTTERWORD. The danger is over, Randall. Go to bed. + +CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Turn in, all hands. The ship is safe. [He sits +down and goes asleep]. + +ELLIE [disappointedly]. Safe! + +HECTOR [disgustedly]. Yes, safe. And how damnably dull the world +has become again suddenly! [he sits down]. + +MAZZINI [sitting down]. I was quite wrong, after all. It is we +who have survived; and Mangan and the burglar- + +HECTOR. --the two burglars-- + +LADY UTTERWORD. --the two practical men of business-- + +MAZZINI. --both gone. And the poor clergyman will have to get a +new house. + +MRS HUSHABYE. But what a glorious experience! I hope they'll come +again tomorrow night. + +ELLIE [radiant at the prospect]. Oh, I hope so. + +Randall at last succeeds in keeping the home fires burning on his flute. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext of Heartbreak House, by George Bernard Shaw + diff --git a/old/hrtbk10.zip b/old/hrtbk10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..17dddce --- /dev/null +++ b/old/hrtbk10.zip |