diff options
Diffstat (limited to '3543.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 3543.txt | 6467 |
1 files changed, 6467 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/3543.txt b/3543.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b683c8a --- /dev/null +++ b/3543.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: 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. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. 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. |