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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/3544-h.zip b/3544-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e1696a7 --- /dev/null +++ b/3544-h.zip diff --git a/3544-h/3544-h.htm b/3544-h/3544-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..64b1c12 --- /dev/null +++ b/3544-h/3544-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1717 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="us-ascii"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + How he Lied to Her Husband, by George Bernard Shaw + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +Project Gutenberg's How He Lied to Her Husband, 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: How He Lied to Her Husband + +Author: George Bernard Shaw + +Release Date: February 9, 2009 [EBook #3544] +Last Updated: December 10, 2012 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOW HE LIED TO HER HUSBAND *** + + + + +Produced by Eve Sobol, and David Widger + + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h1> + HOW HE LIED TO HER HUSBAND + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By George Bernard Shaw + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto"> + <tr> + <td> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_PREF"> PREFACE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> HOW HE LIED TO HER HUSBAND </a> + </p> + </td> + </tr> + </table> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_PREF" id="link2H_PREF"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h2> + PREFACE + </h2> + <p> + Like many other works of mine, this playlet is a piece d'occasion. In 1905 + it happened that Mr Arnold Daly, who was then playing the part of Napoleon + in The Man of Destiny in New York, found that whilst the play was too long + to take a secondary place in the evening's performance, it was too short + to suffice by itself. I therefore took advantage of four days continuous + rain during a holiday in the north of Scotland to write How He Lied To Her + Husband for Mr Daly. In his hands, it served its turn very effectively. + </p> + <p> + I print it here as a sample of what can be done with even the most + hackneyed stage framework by filling it in with an observed touch of + actual humanity instead of with doctrinaire romanticism. Nothing in the + theatre is staler than the situation of husband, wife and lover, or the + fun of knockabout farce. I have taken both, and got an original play out + of them, as anybody else can if only he will look about him for his + material instead of plagiarizing Othello and the thousand plays that have + proceeded on Othello's romantic assumptions and false point of honor. + </p> + <p> + A further experiment made by Mr Arnold Daly with this play is worth + recording. In 1905 Mr Daly produced Mrs Warren's Profession in New York. + The press of that city instantly raised a cry that such persons as Mrs + Warren are "ordure," and should not be mentioned in the presence of decent + people. This hideous repudiation of humanity and social conscience so took + possession of the New York journalists that the few among them who kept + their feet morally and intellectually could do nothing to check the + epidemic of foul language, gross suggestion, and raving obscenity of word + and thought that broke out. The writers abandoned all self-restraint under + the impression that they were upholding virtue instead of outraging it. + They infected each other with their hysteria until they were for all + practical purposes indecently mad. They finally forced the police to + arrest Mr Daly and his company, and led the magistrate to express his + loathing of the duty thus forced upon him of reading an unmentionable and + abominable play. Of course the convulsion soon exhausted itself. The + magistrate, naturally somewhat impatient when he found that what he had to + read was a strenuously ethical play forming part of a book which had been + in circulation unchallenged for eight years, and had been received without + protest by the whole London and New York press, gave the journalists a + piece of his mind as to their moral taste in plays. By consent, he passed + the case on to a higher court, which declared that the play was not + immoral; acquitted Mr Daly; and made an end of the attempt to use the law + to declare living women to be "ordure," and thus enforce silence as to the + far-reaching fact that you cannot cheapen women in the market for + industrial purposes without cheapening them for other purposes as well. I + hope Mrs Warren's Profession will be played everywhere, in season and out + of season, until Mrs Warren has bitten that fact into the public + conscience, and shamed the newspapers which support a tariff to keep up + the price of every American commodity except American manhood and + womanhood. + </p> + <p> + Unfortunately, Mr Daly had already suffered the usual fate of those who + direct public attention to the profits of the sweater or the pleasures of + the voluptuary. He was morally lynched side by side with me. Months + elapsed before the decision of the courts vindicated him; and even then, + since his vindication implied the condemnation of the press, which was by + that time sober again, and ashamed of its orgy, his triumph received a + rather sulky and grudging publicity. In the meantime he had hardly been + able to approach an American city, including even those cities which had + heaped applause on him as the defender of hearth and home when he produced + Candida, without having to face articles discussing whether mothers could + allow their daughters to attend such plays as You Never Can Tell, written + by the infamous author of Mrs Warren's Profession, and acted by the + monster who produced it. What made this harder to bear was that though no + fact is better established in theatrical business than the financial + disastrousness of moral discredit, the journalists who had done all the + mischief kept paying vice the homage of assuming that it is enormously + popular and lucrative, and that I and Mr Daly, being exploiters of vice, + must therefore be making colossal fortunes out of the abuse heaped on us, + and had in fact provoked it and welcomed it with that express object. + Ignorance of real life could hardly go further. + </p> + <p> + One consequence was that Mr Daly could not have kept his financial + engagements or maintained his hold on the public had he not accepted + engagements to appear for a season in the vaudeville theatres [the + American equivalent of our music halls], where he played How He Lied to + Her Husband comparatively unhampered by the press censorship of the + theatre, or by that sophistication of the audience through press + suggestion from which I suffer more, perhaps, than any other author. + Vaudeville authors are fortunately unknown: the audiences see what the + play contains and what the actor can do, not what the papers have told + them to expect. Success under such circumstances had a value both for Mr + Daly and myself which did something to console us for the very unsavory + mobbing which the New York press organized for us, and which was not the + less disgusting because we suffered in a good cause and in the very best + company. + </p> + <p> + Mr Daly, having weathered the storm, can perhaps shake his soul free of it + as he heads for fresh successes with younger authors. But I have certain + sensitive places in my soul: I do not like that word "ordure." Apply it to + my work, and I can afford to smile, since the world, on the whole, will + smile with me. But to apply it to the woman in the street, whose spirit is + of one substance with our own and her body no less holy: to look your + women folk in the face afterwards and not go out and hang yourself: that + is not on the list of pardonable sins. + </p> + <p> + POSTSCRIPT. Since the above was written news has arrived from America that + a leading New York newspaper, which was among the most abusively clamorous + for the suppression of Mrs Warren's Profession, has just been fined + heavily for deriving part of its revenue from advertisements of Mrs + Warren's houses. + </p> + <p> + Many people have been puzzled by the fact that whilst stage entertainments + which are frankly meant to act on the spectators as aphrodisiacs, are + everywhere tolerated, plays which have an almost horrifyingly contrary + effect are fiercely attacked by persons and papers notoriously indifferent + to public morals on all other occasions. The explanation is very simple. + The profits of Mrs Warren's profession are shared not only by Mrs Warren + and Sir George Crofts, but by the landlords of their houses, the + newspapers which advertize them, the restaurants which cater for them, + and, in short, all the trades to which they are good customers, not to + mention the public officials and representatives whom they silence by + complicity, corruption, or blackmail. Add to these the employers who + profit by cheap female labor, and the shareholders whose dividends depend + on it [you find such people everywhere, even on the judicial bench and in + the highest places in Church and State], and you get a large and powerful + class with a strong pecuniary incentive to protect Mrs Warren's + profession, and a correspondingly strong incentive to conceal, from their + own consciences no less than from the world, the real sources of their + gain. These are the people who declare that it is feminine vice and not + poverty that drives women to the streets, as if vicious women with + independent incomes ever went there. These are the people who, indulgent + or indifferent to aphrodisiac plays, raise the moral hue and cry against + performances of Mrs Warren's Profession, and drag actresses to the police + court to be insulted, bullied, and threatened for fulfilling their + engagements. For please observe that the judicial decision in New York + State in favor of the play does not end the matter. In Kansas City, for + instance, the municipality, finding itself restrained by the courts from + preventing the performance, fell back on a local bye-law against indecency + to evade the Constitution of the United States. They summoned the actress + who impersonated Mrs Warren to the police court, and offered her and her + colleagues the alternative of leaving the city or being prosecuted under + this bye-law. + </p> + <p> + Now nothing is more possible than that the city councillors who suddenly + displayed such concern for the morals of the theatre were either Mrs + Warren's landlords, or employers of women at starvation wages, or + restaurant keepers, or newspaper proprietors, or in some other more or + less direct way sharers of the profits of her trade. No doubt it is + equally possible that they were simply stupid men who thought that + indecency consists, not in evil, but in mentioning it. I have, however, + been myself a member of a municipal council, and have not found municipal + councillors quite so simple and inexperienced as this. At all events I do + not propose to give the Kansas councillors the benefit of the doubt. I + therefore advise the public at large, which will finally decide the + matter, to keep a vigilant eye on gentlemen who will stand anything at the + theatre except a performance of Mrs Warren's Profession, and who assert in + the same breath that [a] the play is too loathsome to be bearable by + civilized people, and [b] that unless its performance is prohibited the + whole town will throng to see it. They may be merely excited and foolish; + but I am bound to warn the public that it is equally likely that they may + be collected and knavish. + </p> + <p> + At all events, to prohibit the play is to protect the evil which the play + exposes; and in view of that fact, I see no reason for assuming that the + prohibitionists are disinterested moralists, and that the author, the + managers, and the performers, who depend for their livelihood on their + personal reputations and not on rents, advertisements, or dividends, are + grossly inferior to them in moral sense and public responsibility. + </p> + <p> + It is true that in Mrs Warren's Profession, Society, and not any + individual, is the villain of the piece; but it does not follow that the + people who take offence at it are all champions of society. Their + credentials cannot be too carefully examined. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + HOW HE LIED TO HER HUSBAND + </h2> + <div class="play"> + <p> + It is eight o'clock in the evening. The curtains are drawn and the lamps + lighted in the drawing room of Her flat in Cromwell Road. Her lover, a + beautiful youth of eighteen, in evening dress and cape, with a bunch of + flowers and an opera hat in his hands, comes in alone. The door is near + the corner; and as he appears in the doorway, he has the fireplace on + the nearest wall to his right, and the grand piano along the opposite + wall to his left. Near the fireplace a small ornamental table has on it + a hand mirror, a fan, a pair of long white gloves, and a little white + woollen cloud to wrap a woman's head in. On the other side of the room, + near the piano, is a broad, square, softly up-holstered stool. The room + is furnished in the most approved South Kensington fashion: that is, it + is as like a show room as possible, and is intended to demonstrate the + racial position and spending powers of its owners, and not in the least + to make them comfortable. + </p> + <p> + He is, be it repeated, a very beautiful youth, moving as in a dream, + walking as on air. He puts his flowers down carefully on the table + beside the fan; takes off his cape, and, as there is no room on the + table for it, takes it to the piano; puts his hat on the cape; crosses + to the hearth; looks at his watch; puts it up again; notices the things + on the table; lights up as if he saw heaven opening before him; goes to + the table and takes the cloud in both hands, nestling his nose into its + softness and kissing it; kisses the gloves one after another; kisses the + fan: gasps a long shuddering sigh of ecstasy; sits down on the stool and + presses his hands to his eyes to shut out reality and dream a little; + takes his hands down and shakes his head with a little smile of rebuke + for his folly; catches sight of a speck of dust on his shoes and hastily + and carefully brushes it off with his handkerchief; rises and takes the + hand mirror from the table to make sure of his tie with the gravest + anxiety; and is looking at his watch again when She comes in, much + flustered. As she is dressed for the theatre; has spoilt, petted ways; + and wears many diamonds, she has an air of being a young and beautiful + woman; but as a matter of hard fact, she is, dress and pretensions + apart, a very ordinary South Kensington female of about 37, hopelessly + inferior in physical and spiritual distinction to the beautiful youth, + who hastily puts down the mirror as she enters. + </p> + <p> + HE [kissing her hand] At last! + </p> + <p> + SHE. Henry: something dreadful has happened. + </p> + <p> + HE. What's the matter? + </p> + <p> + SHE. I have lost your poems. + </p> + <p> + HE. They were unworthy of you. I will write you some more. + </p> + <p> + SHE. No, thank you. Never any more poems for me. Oh, how could I have + been so mad! so rash! so imprudent! + </p> + <p> + HE. Thank Heaven for your madness, your rashness, your imprudence! + </p> + <p> + SHE [impatiently] Oh, be sensible, Henry. Can't you see what a terrible + thing this is for me? Suppose anybody finds these poems! what will they + think? + </p> + <p> + HE. They will think that a man once loved a woman more devotedly than + ever man loved woman before. But they will not know what man it was. + </p> + <p> + SHE. What good is that to me if everybody will know what woman it was? + </p> + <p> + HE. But how will they know? + </p> + <p> + SHE. How will they know! Why, my name is all over them: my silly, + unhappy name. Oh, if I had only been christened Mary Jane, or Gladys + Muriel, or Beatrice, or Francesca, or Guinevere, or something quite + common! But Aurora! Aurora! I'm the only Aurora in London; and everybody + knows it. I believe I'm the only Aurora in the world. And it's so + horribly easy to rhyme to it! Oh, Henry, why didn't you try to restrain + your feelings a little in common consideration for me? Why didn't you + write with some little reserve? + </p> + <p> + HE. Write poems to you with reserve! You ask me that! + </p> + <p> + SHE [with perfunctory tenderness] Yes, dear, of course it was very nice + of you; and I know it was my own fault as much as yours. I ought to have + noticed that your verses ought never to have been addressed to a married + woman. + </p> + <p> + HE. Ah, how I wish they had been addressed to an unmarried woman! how I + wish they had! + </p> + <p> + SHE. Indeed you have no right to wish anything of the sort. They are + quite unfit for anybody but a married woman. That's just the difficulty. + What will my sisters-in-law think of them? + </p> + <p> + HE [painfully jarred] Have you got sisters-in-law? + </p> + <p> + SHE. Yes, of course I have. Do you suppose I am an angel? + </p> + <p> + HE [biting his lips] I do. Heaven help me, I do—or I did—or + [he almost chokes a sob]. + </p> + <p> + SHE [softening and putting her hand caressingly on his shoulder] Listen + to me, dear. It's very nice of you to live with me in a dream, and to + love me, and so on; but I can't help my husband having disagreeable + relatives, can I? + </p> + <p> + HE [brightening up] Ah, of course they are your husband's relatives: I + forgot that. Forgive me, Aurora. [He takes her hand from his shoulder + and kisses it. She sits down on the stool. He remains near the table, + with his back to it, smiling fatuously down at her]. + </p> + <p> + SHE. The fact is, Teddy's got nothing but relatives. He has eight + sisters and six half-sisters, and ever so many brothers—but I + don't mind his brothers. Now if you only knew the least little thing + about the world, Henry, you'd know that in a large family, though the + sisters quarrel with one another like mad all the time, yet let one of + the brothers marry, and they all turn on their unfortunate sister-in-law + and devote the rest of their lives with perfect unanimity to persuading + him that his wife is unworthy of him. They can do it to her very face + without her knowing it, because there are always a lot of stupid low + family jokes that nobody understands but themselves. Half the time you + can't tell what they're talking about: it just drives you wild. There + ought to be a law against a man's sister ever entering his house after + he's married. I'm as certain as that I'm sitting here that Georgina + stole those poems out of my workbox. + </p> + <p> + HE. She will not understand them, I think. + </p> + <p> + SHE. Oh, won't she! She'll understand them only too well. She'll + understand more harm than ever was in them: nasty vulgar-minded cat! + </p> + <p> + HE [going to her] Oh don't, don't think of people in that way. Don't + think of her at all. [He takes her hand and sits down on the carpet at + her feet]. Aurora: do you remember the evening when I sat here at your + feet and read you those poems for the first time? + </p> + <p> + SHE. I shouldn't have let you: I see that now. When I think of Georgina + sitting there at Teddy's feet and reading them to him for the first + time, I feel I shall just go distracted. + </p> + <p> + HE. Yes, you are right. It will be a profanation. + </p> + <p> + SHE. Oh, I don't care about the profanation; but what will Teddy think? + what will he do? [Suddenly throwing his head away from her knee]. You + don't seem to think a bit about Teddy. [She jumps up, more and more + agitated]. + </p> + <p> + HE [supine on the floor; for she has thrown him off his balance] To me + Teddy is nothing, and Georgina less than nothing. + </p> + <p> + SHE. You'll soon find out how much less than nothing she is. If you + think a woman can't do any harm because she's only a scandalmongering + dowdy ragbag, you're greatly mistaken. [She flounces about the room. He + gets up slowly and dusts his hands. Suddenly she runs to him and throws + herself into his arms]. Henry: help me. Find a way out of this for me; + and I'll bless you as long as you live. Oh, how wretched I am! [She sobs + on his breast]. + </p> + <p> + HE. And oh! how happy I am! + </p> + <p> + SHE [whisking herself abruptly away] Don't be selfish. + </p> + <p> + HE [humbly] Yes: I deserve that. I think if I were going to the stake + with you, I should still be so happy with you that I could hardly feel + your danger more than my own. + </p> + <p> + SHE [relenting and patting his hand fondly] Oh, you are a dear darling + boy, Henry; but [throwing his hand away fretfully] you're no use. I want + somebody to tell me what to do. + </p> + <p> + HE [with quiet conviction] Your heart will tell you at the right time. I + have thought deeply over this; and I know what we two must do, sooner or + later. + </p> + <p> + SHE. No, Henry. I will do nothing improper, nothing dishonorable. [She + sits down plump on the stool and looks inflexible]. + </p> + <p> + HE. If you did, you would no longer be Aurora. Our course is perfectly + simple, perfectly straightforward, perfectly stainless and true. We love + one another. I am not ashamed of that: I am ready to go out and proclaim + it to all London as simply as I will declare it to your husband when you + see—as you soon will see—that this is the only way honorable + enough for your feet to tread. Let us go out together to our own house, + this evening, without concealment and without shame. Remember! we owe + something to your husband. We are his guests here: he is an honorable + man: he has been kind to us: he has perhaps loved you as well as his + prosaic nature and his sordid commercial environment permitted. We owe + it to him in all honor not to let him learn the truth from the lips of a + scandalmonger. Let us go to him now quietly, hand in hand; bid him + farewell; and walk out of the house without concealment and subterfuge, + freely and honestly, in full honor and self-respect. + </p> + <p> + SHE [staring at him] And where shall we go to? + </p> + <p> + HE. We shall not depart by a hair's breadth from the ordinary natural + current of our lives. We were going to the theatre when the loss of the + poems compelled us to take action at once. We shall go to the theatre + still; but we shall leave your diamonds here; for we cannot afford + diamonds, and do not need them. + </p> + <p> + SHE [fretfully] I have told you already that I hate diamonds; only Teddy + insists on hanging me all over with them. You need not preach simplicity + to me. + </p> + <p> + HE. I never thought of doing so, dearest: I know that these trivialities + are nothing to you. What was I saying—oh yes. Instead of coming + back here from the theatre, you will come with me to my home—now + and henceforth our home—and in due course of time, when you are + divorced, we shall go through whatever idle legal ceremony you may + desire. I attach no importance to the law: my love was not created in me + by the law, nor can it be bound or loosed by it. That is simple enough, + and sweet enough, is it not? [He takes the flower from the table]. Here + are flowers for you: I have the tickets: we will ask your husband to + lend us the carriage to show that there is no malice, no grudge, between + us. Come! + </p> + <p> + SHE [spiritlessly, taking the flowers without looking at them, and + temporizing] Teddy isn't in yet. + </p> + <p> + HE. Well, let us take that calmly. Let us go to the theatre as if + nothing had happened, and tell him when we come back. Now or three hours + hence: to-day or to-morrow: what does it matter, provided all is done in + honor, without shame or fear? + </p> + <p> + SHE. What did you get tickets for? Lohengrin? + </p> + <p> + HE. I tried; but Lohengrin was sold out for to-night. [He takes out two + Court Theatre tickets]. + </p> + <p> + SHE. Then what did you get? + </p> + <p> + HE. Can you ask me? What is there besides Lohengrin that we two could + endure, except Candida? + </p> + <p> + SHE [springing up] Candida! No, I won't go to it again, Henry [tossing + the flower on the piano]. It is that play that has done all the + mischief. I'm very sorry I ever saw it: it ought to be stopped. + </p> + <p> + HE [amazed] Aurora! + </p> + <p> + SHE. Yes: I mean it. + </p> + <p> + HE. That divinest love poem! the poem that gave us courage to speak to + one another! that revealed to us what we really felt for one another! + That— + </p> + <p> + SHE. Just so. It put a lot of stuff into my head that I should never + have dreamt of for myself. I imagined myself just like Candida. + </p> + <p> + HE [catching her hands and looking earnestly at her] You were right. You + are like Candida. + </p> + <p> + SHE [snatching her hands away] Oh, stuff! And I thought you were just + like Eugene. [Looking critically at him] Now that I come to look at you, + you are rather like him, too. [She throws herself discontentedly into + the nearest seat, which happens to be the bench at the piano. He goes to + her]. + </p> + <p> + HE [very earnestly] Aurora: if Candida had loved Eugene she would have + gone out into the night with him without a moment's hesitation. + </p> + <p> + SHE [with equal earnestness] Henry: do you know what's wanting in that + play? + </p> + <p> + HE. There is nothing wanting in it. + </p> + <p> + SHE. Yes there is. There's a Georgina wanting in it. If Georgina had + been there to make trouble, that play would have been a true-to-life + tragedy. Now I'll tell you something about it that I have never told you + before. + </p> + <p> + HE. What is that? + </p> + <p> + SHE. I took Teddy to it. I thought it would do him good; and so it would + if I could only have kept him awake. Georgina came too; and you should + have heard the way she went on about it. She said it was downright + immoral, and that she knew the sort of woman that encourages boys to sit + on the hearthrug and make love to her. She was just preparing Teddy's + mind to poison it about me. + </p> + <p> + HE. Let us be just to Georgina, dearest + </p> + <p> + SHE. Let her deserve it first. Just to Georgina, indeed! + </p> + <p> + HE. She really sees the world in that way. That is her punishment. + </p> + <p> + SHE. How can it be her punishment when she likes it? It'll be my + punishment when she brings that budget of poems to Teddy. I wish you'd + have some sense, and sympathize with my position a little. + </p> + <p> + HE. [going away from the piano and beginning to walk about rather + testily] My dear: I really don't care about Georgina or about Teddy. All + these squabbles belong to a plane on which I am, as you say, no use. I + have counted the cost; and I do not fear the consequences. After all, + what is there to fear? Where is the difficulty? What can Georgina do? + What can your husband do? What can anybody do? + </p> + <p> + SHE. Do you mean to say that you propose that we should walk right bang + up to Teddy and tell him we're going away together? + </p> + <p> + HE. Yes. What can be simpler? + </p> + <p> + SHE. And do you think for a moment he'd stand it, like that half-baked + clergyman in the play? He'd just kill you. + </p> + <p> + HE [coming to a sudden stop and speaking with considerable confidence] + You don't understand these things, my darling, how could you? In one + respect I am unlike the poet in the play. I have followed the Greek + ideal and not neglected the culture of my body. Your husband would make + a tolerable second-rate heavy weight if he were in training and ten + years younger. As it is, he could, if strung up to a great effort by a + burst of passion, give a good account of himself for perhaps fifteen + seconds. But I am active enough to keep out of his reach for fifteen + seconds; and after that I should be simply all over him. + </p> + <p> + SHE [rising and coming to him in consternation] What do you mean by all + over him? + </p> + <p> + HE [gently] Don't ask me, dearest. At all events, I swear to you that + you need not be anxious about me. + </p> + <p> + SHE. And what about Teddy? Do you mean to tell me that you are going to + beat Teddy before my face like a brutal prizefighter? + </p> + <p> + HE. All this alarm is needless, dearest. Believe me, nothing will + happen. Your husband knows that I am capable of defending myself. Under + such circumstances nothing ever does happen. And of course I shall do + nothing. The man who once loved you is sacred to me. + </p> + <p> + SHE [suspiciously] Doesn't he love me still? Has he told you anything? + </p> + <p> + HE. No, no. [He takes her tenderly in his arms]. Dearest, dearest: how + agitated you are! how unlike yourself! All these worries belong to the + lower plane. Come up with me to the higher one. The heights, the + solitudes, the soul world! + </p> + <p> + SHE [avoiding his gaze] No: stop: it's no use, Mr Apjohn. + </p> + <p> + HE [recoiling] Mr Apjohn!!! + </p> + <p> + SHE. Excuse me: I meant Henry, of course. + </p> + <p> + HE. How could you even think of me as Mr Apjohn? I never think of you as + Mrs Bompas: it is always Cand— I mean Aurora, Aurora, Auro— + </p> + <p> + SHE. Yes, yes: that's all very well, Mr Apjohn [He is about to interrupt + again: but she won't have it] no: it's no use: I've suddenly begun to + think of you as Mr Apjohn; and it's ridiculous to go on calling you + Henry. I thought you were only a boy, a child, a dreamer. I thought you + would be too much afraid to do anything. And now you want to beat Teddy + and to break up my home and disgrace me and make a horrible scandal in + the papers. It's cruel, unmanly, cowardly. + </p> + <p> + HE [with grave wonder] Are you afraid? + </p> + <p> + SHE. Oh, of course I'm afraid. So would you be if you had any common + sense. [She goes to the hearth, turning her back to him, and puts one + tapping foot on the fender]. + </p> + <p> + HE [watching her with great gravity] Perfect love casteth out fear. That + is why I am not afraid. Mrs Bompas: you do not love me. + </p> + <p> + SHE [turning to him with a gasp of relief] Oh, thank you, thank you! You + really can be very nice, Henry. + </p> + <p> + HE. Why do you thank me? + </p> + <p> + SHE [coming prettily to him from the fireplace] For calling me Mrs + Bompas again. I feel now that you are going to be reasonable and behave + like a gentleman. [He drops on the stool; covers his face with his hand; + and groans]. What's the matter? + </p> + <p> + HE. Once or twice in my life I have dreamed that I was exquisitely happy + and blessed. But oh! the misgiving at the first stir of consciousness! + the stab of reality! the prison walls of the bedroom! the bitter, bitter + disappointment of waking! And this time! oh, this time I thought I was + awake. + </p> + <p> + SHE. Listen to me, Henry: we really haven't time for all that sort of + flapdoodle now. [He starts to his feet as if she had pulled a trigger + and straightened him by the release of a powerful spring, and goes past + her with set teeth to the little table]. Oh, take care: you nearly hit + me in the chin with the top of your head. + </p> + <p> + HE [with fierce politeness] I beg your pardon. What is it you want me to + do? I am at your service. I am ready to behave like a gentleman if you + will be kind enough to explain exactly how. + </p> + <p> + SHE [a little frightened] Thank you, Henry: I was sure you would. You're + not angry with me, are you? + </p> + <p> + HE. Go on. Go on quickly. Give me something to think about, or I will—I + will—[he suddenly snatches up her fan and it about to break it in + his clenched fists]. + </p> + <p> + SHE [running forward and catching at the fan, with loud lamentation] + Don't break my fan—no, don't. [He slowly relaxes his grip of it as + she draws it anxiously out of his hands]. No, really, that's a stupid + trick. I don't like that. You've no right to do that. [She opens the + fan, and finds that the sticks are disconnected]. Oh, how could you be + so inconsiderate? + </p> + <p> + HE. I beg your pardon. I will buy you a new one. + </p> + <p> + SHE [querulously] You will never be able to match it. And it was a + particular favorite of mine. + </p> + <p> + HE [shortly] Then you will have to do without it: that's all. + </p> + <p> + SHE. That's not a very nice thing to say after breaking my pet fan, I + think. + </p> + <p> + HE. If you knew how near I was to breaking Teddy's pet wife and + presenting him with the pieces, you would be thankful that you are alive + instead of—of—of howling about five shillings worth of + ivory. Damn your fan! + </p> + <p> + SHE. Oh! Don't you dare swear in my presence. One would think you were + my husband. + </p> + <p> + HE [again collapsing on the stool] This is some horrible dream. What has + become of you? You are not my Aurora. + </p> + <p> + SHE. Oh, well, if you come to that, what has become of you? Do you think + I would ever have encouraged you if I had known you were such a little + devil? + </p> + <p> + HE. Don't drag me down—don't—don't. Help me to find the way + back to the heights. + </p> + <p> + SHE [kneeling beside him and pleading] If you would only be reasonable, + Henry. If you would only remember that I am on the brink of ruin, and + not go on calmly saying it's all quite simple. + </p> + <p> + HE. It seems so to me. + </p> + <p> + SHE [jumping up distractedly] If you say that again I shall do something + I'll be sorry for. Here we are, standing on the edge of a frightful + precipice. No doubt it's quite simple to go over and have done with it. + But can't you suggest anything more agreeable? + </p> + <p> + HE. I can suggest nothing now. A chill black darkness has fallen: I can + see nothing but the ruins of our dream. [He rises with a deep sigh]. + </p> + <p> + SHE. Can't you? Well, I can. I can see Georgina rubbing those poems into + Teddy. [Facing him determinedly] And I tell you, Henry Apjohn, that you + got me into this mess; and you must get me out of it again. + </p> + <p> + HE [polite and hopeless] All I can say is that I am entirely at your + service. What do you wish me to do? + </p> + <p> + SHE. Do you know anybody else named Aurora? + </p> + <p> + HE. No. + </p> + <p> + SHE. There's no use in saying No in that frozen pigheaded way. You must + know some Aurora or other somewhere. + </p> + <p> + HE. You said you were the only Aurora in the world. And [lifting his + clasped fists with a sudden return of his emotion] oh God! you were the + only Aurora in the world to me. [He turns away from her, hiding his + face]. + </p> + <p> + SHE [petting him] Yes, yes, dear: of course. It's very nice of you; and + I appreciate it: indeed I do; but it's not reasonable just at present. + Now just listen to me. I suppose you know all those poems by heart. + </p> + <p> + HE. Yes, by heart. [Raising his head and looking at her, with a sudden + suspicion] Don't you? + </p> + <p> + SHE. Well, I never can remember verses; and besides, I've been so busy + that I've not had time to read them all; though I intend to the very + first moment I can get: I promise you that most faithfully, Henry. But + now try and remember very particularly. Does the name of Bompas occur in + any of the poems? + </p> + <p> + HE [indignantly] No. + </p> + <p> + SHE. You're quite sure? + </p> + <p> + HE. Of course I am quite sure. How could I use such a name in a poem? + </p> + <p> + SHE. Well, I don't see why not. It rhymes to rumpus, which seems + appropriate enough at present, goodness knows! However, you're a poet, + and you ought to know. + </p> + <p> + HE. What does it matter—now? + </p> + <p> + SHE. It matters a lot, I can tell you. If there's nothing about Bompas + in the poems, we can say that they were written to some other Aurora, + and that you showed them to me because my name was Aurora too. So you've + got to invent another Aurora for the occasion. + </p> + <p> + HE [very coldly] Oh, if you wish me to tell a lie— + </p> + <p> + SHE. Surely, as a man of honor—as a gentleman, you wouldn't tell + the truth, would you? + </p> + <p> + HE. Very well. You have broken my spirit and desecrated my dreams. I + will lie and protest and stand on my honor: oh, I will play the + gentleman, never fear. + </p> + <p> + SHE. Yes, put it all on me, of course. Don't be mean, Henry. + </p> + <p> + HE [rousing himself with an effort] You are quite right, Mrs Bompas: I + beg your pardon. You must excuse my temper. I have got growing pains, I + think. + </p> + <p> + SHE. Growing pains! + </p> + <p> + HE. The process of growing from romantic boyhood into cynical maturity + usually takes fifteen years. When it is compressed into fifteen minutes, + the pace is too fast; and growing pains are the result. + </p> + <p> + SHE. Oh, is this a time for cleverness? It's settled, isn't it, that + you're going to be nice and good, and that you'll brazen it out to Teddy + that you have some other Aurora? + </p> + <p> + HE. Yes: I'm capable of anything now. I should not have told him the + truth by halves; and now I will not lie by halves. I'll wallow in the + honor of a gentleman. + </p> + <p> + SHE. Dearest boy, I knew you would. I—Sh! [she rushes to the door, + and holds it ajar, listening breathlessly]. + </p> + <p> + HE. What is it? + </p> + <p> + SHE [white with apprehension] It's Teddy: I hear him tapping the new + barometer. He can't have anything serious on his mind or he wouldn't do + that. Perhaps Georgina hasn't said anything. [She steals back to the + hearth]. Try and look as if there was nothing the matter. Give me my + gloves, quick. [He hands them to her. She pulls on one hastily and + begins buttoning it with ostentatious unconcern]. Go further away from + me, quick. [He walks doggedly away from her until the piano prevents his + going farther]. If I button my glove, and you were to hum a tune, don't + you think that— + </p> + <p> + HE. The tableau would be complete in its guiltiness. For Heaven's sake, + Mrs Bompas, let that glove alone: you look like a pickpocket. + </p> + <p> + Her husband comes in: a robust, thicknecked, well groomed city man, with + a strong chin but a blithering eye and credulous mouth. He has a + momentous air, but shows no sign of displeasure: rather the contrary. + </p> + <p> + HER HUSBAND. Hallo! I thought you two were at the theatre. + </p> + <p> + SHE. I felt anxious about you, Teddy. Why didn't you come home to + dinner? + </p> + <p> + HER HUSBAND. I got a message from Georgina. She wanted me to go to her. + </p> + <p> + SHE. Poor dear Georgina! I'm sorry I haven't been able to call on her + this last week. I hope there's nothing the matter with her. + </p> + <p> + HER HUSBAND. Nothing, except anxiety for my welfare and yours. [She + steals a terrified look at Henry]. By, the way, Apjohn, I should like a + word with you this evening, if Aurora can spare you for a moment. + </p> + <p> + HE [formally] I am at your service. + </p> + <p> + HER HUSBAND. No hurry. After the theatre will do. + </p> + <p> + HE. We have decided not to go. + </p> + <p> + HER HUSBAND. Indeed! Well, then, shall we adjourn to my snuggery? + </p> + <p> + SHE. You needn't move. I shall go and lock up my diamonds since I'm not + going to the theatre. Give me my things. + </p> + <p> + HER HUSBAND [as he hands her the cloud and the mirror] Well, we shall + have more room here. + </p> + <p> + HE [looking about him and shaking his shoulders loose] I think I should + prefer plenty of room. + </p> + <p> + HER HUSBAND. So, if it's not disturbing you, Rory—? + </p> + <p> + SHE. Not at all. [She goes out]. + </p> + <p> + When the two men are alone together, Bompas deliberately takes the poems + from his breast pocket; looks at them reflectively; then looks at Henry, + mutely inviting his attention. Henry refuses to understand, doing his + best to look unconcerned. + </p> + <p> + HER HUSBAND. Do these manuscripts seem at all familiar to you, may I + ask? + </p> + <p> + HE. Manuscripts? + </p> + <p> + HER HUSBAND. Yes. Would you like to look at them a little closer? [He + proffers them under Henry's nose]. + </p> + <p> + HE [as with a sudden illumination of glad surprise] Why, these are my + poems. + </p> + <p> + HER HUSBAND. So I gather. + </p> + <p> + HE. What a shame! Mrs Bompas has shown them to you! You must think me an + utter ass. I wrote them years ago after reading Swinburne's Songs Before + Sunrise. Nothing would do me then but I must reel off a set of Songs to + the Sunrise. Aurora, you know: the rosy fingered Aurora. They're all + about Aurora. When Mrs Bompas told me her name was Aurora, I couldn't + resist the temptation to lend them to her to read. But I didn't bargain + for your unsympathetic eyes. + </p> + <p> + HER HUSBAND [grinning] Apjohn: that's really very ready of you. You are + cut out for literature; and the day will come when Rory and I will be + proud to have you about the house. I have heard far thinner stories from + much older men. + </p> + <p> + HE [with an air of great surprise] Do you mean to imply that you don't + believe me? + </p> + <p> + HER HUSBAND. Do you expect me to believe you? + </p> + <p> + HE. Why not? I don't understand. + </p> + <p> + HER HUSBAND. Come! Don't underrate your own cleverness, Apjohn. I think + you understand pretty well. + </p> + <p> + HE. I assure you I am quite at a loss. Can you not be a little more + explicit? + </p> + <p> + HER HUSBAND. Don't overdo it, old chap. However, I will just be so far + explicit as to say that if you think these poems read as if they were + addressed, not to a live woman, but to a shivering cold time of day at + which you were never out of bed in your life, you hardly do justice to + your own literary powers—which I admire and appreciate, mind you, + as much as any man. Come! own up. You wrote those poems to my wife. [An + internal struggle prevents Henry from answering]. Of course you did. [He + throws the poems on the table; and goes to the hearthrug, where he + plants himself solidly, chuckling a little and waiting for the next + move]. + </p> + <p> + HE [formally and carefully] Mr Bompas: I pledge you my word you are + mistaken. I need not tell you that Mrs Bompas is a lady of stainless + honor, who has never cast an unworthy thought on me. The fact that she + has shown you my poems— + </p> + <p> + HER HUSBAND. That's not a fact. I came by them without her knowledge. + She didn't show them to me. + </p> + <p> + HE. Does not that prove their perfect innocence? She would have shown + them to you at once if she had taken your quite unfounded view of them. + </p> + <p> + HER HUSBAND [shaken] Apjohn: play fair. Don't abuse your intellectual + gifts. Do you really mean that I am making a fool of myself? + </p> + <p> + HE [earnestly] Believe me, you are. I assure you, on my honor as a + gentleman, that I have never had the slightest feeling for Mrs Bompas + beyond the ordinary esteem and regard of a pleasant acquaintance. + </p> + <p> + HER HUSBAND [shortly, showing ill humor for the first time] Oh, indeed. + [He leaves his hearth and begins to approach Henry slowly, looking him + up and down with growing resentment]. + </p> + <p> + HE [hastening to improve the impression made by his mendacity] I should + never have dreamt of writing poems to her. The thing is absurd. + </p> + <p> + HER HUSBAND [reddening ominously] Why is it absurd? + </p> + <p> + HE [shrugging his shoulders] Well, it happens that I do not admire Mrs + Bompas—in that way. + </p> + <p> + HER HUSBAND [breaking out in Henry's face] Let me tell you that Mrs + Bompas has been admired by better men than you, you soapy headed little + puppy, you. + </p> + <p> + HE [much taken aback] There is no need to insult me like this. I assure + you, on my honor as a— + </p> + <p> + HER HUSBAND [too angry to tolerate a reply, and boring Henry more and + more towards the piano] You don't admire Mrs Bompas! You would never + dream of writing poems to Mrs Bompas! My wife's not good enough for you, + isn't she. [Fiercely] Who are you, pray, that you should be so jolly + superior? + </p> + <p> + HE. Mr Bompas: I can make allowances for your jealousy— + </p> + <p> + HER HUSBAND. Jealousy! do you suppose I'm jealous of YOU? No, nor of ten + like you. But if you think I'll stand here and let you insult my wife in + her own house, you're mistaken. + </p> + <p> + HE [very uncomfortable with his back against the piano and Teddy + standing over him threateningly] How can I convince you? Be reasonable. + I tell you my relations with Mrs Bompas are relations of perfect + coldness—of indifference— + </p> + <p> + HER HUSBAND [scornfully] Say it again: say it again. You're proud of it, + aren't you? Yah! You're not worth kicking. + </p> + <p> + Henry suddenly executes the feat known to pugilists as dipping, and + changes sides with Teddy, who it now between Henry and the piano. + </p> + <p> + HE. Look here: I'm not going to stand this. + </p> + <p> + HER HUSBAND. Oh, you have some blood in your body after all! Good job! + </p> + <p> + HE. This is ridiculous. I assure you Mrs. Bompas is quite— + </p> + <p> + HER HUSBAND. What is Mrs Bompas to you, I'd like to know. I'll tell you + what Mrs Bompas is. She's the smartest woman in the smartest set in + South Kensington, and the handsomest, and the cleverest, and the most + fetching to experienced men who know a good thing when they see it, + whatever she may be to conceited penny-a-lining puppies who think + nothing good enough for them. It's admitted by the best people; and not + to know it argues yourself unknown. Three of our first actor-managers + have offered her a hundred a week if she'd go on the stage when they + start a repertory theatre; and I think they know what they're about as + well as you. The only member of the present Cabinet that you might call + a handsome man has neglected the business of the country to dance with + her, though he don't belong to our set as a regular thing. One of the + first professional poets in Bedford Park wrote a sonnet to her, worth + all your amateur trash. At Ascot last season the eldest son of a duke + excused himself from calling on me on the ground that his feelings for + Mrs Bompas were not consistent with his duty to me as host; and it did + him honor and me too. But [with gathering fury] she isn't good enough + for you, it seems. You regard her with coldness, with indifference; and + you have the cool cheek to tell me so to my face. For two pins I'd + flatten your nose in to teach you manners. Introducing a fine woman to + you is casting pearls before swine [yelling at him] before SWINE! d'ye + hear? + </p> + <p> + HE [with a deplorable lack of polish] You call me a swine again and I'll + land you one on the chin that'll make your head sing for a week. + </p> + <p> + HER HUSBAND [exploding] What—! + </p> + <p> + He charges at Henry with bull-like fury. Henry places himself on guard + in the manner of a well taught boxer, and gets away smartly, but + unfortunately forgets the stool which is just behind him. He falls + backwards over it, unintentionally pushing it against the shins of + Bompas, who falls forward over it. Mrs Bompas, with a scream, rushes + into the room between the sprawling champions, and sits down on the + floor in order to get her right arm round her husband's neck. + </p> + <p> + SHE. You shan't, Teddy: you shan't. You will be killed: he is a + prizefighter. + </p> + <p> + HER HUSBAND [vengefully] I'll prizefight him. [He struggles vainly to + free himself from her embrace]. + </p> + <p> + SHE. Henry: don't let him fight you. Promise me that you won't. + </p> + <p> + HE [ruefully] I have got a most frightful bump on the back of my head. + [He tries to rise]. + </p> + <p> + SHE [reaching out her left hand to seize his coat tail, and pulling him + down again, whilst keeping fast hold of Teddy with the other hand] Not + until you have promised: not until you both have promised. [Teddy tries + to rise: she pulls him back again]. Teddy: you promise, don't you? Yes, + yes. Be good: you promise. + </p> + <p> + HER HUSBAND. I won't, unless he takes it back. + </p> + <p> + SHE. He will: he does. You take it back, Henry?—yes. + </p> + <p> + HE [savagely] Yes. I take it back. [She lets go his coat. He gets up. So + does Teddy]. I take it all back, all, without reserve. + </p> + <p> + SHE [on the carpet] Is nobody going to help me up? [They each take a + hand and pull her up]. Now won't you shake hands and be good? + </p> + <p> + HE [recklessly] I shall do nothing of the sort. I have steeped myself in + lies for your sake; and the only reward I get is a lump on the back of + my head the size of an apple. Now I will go back to the straight path. + </p> + <p> + SHE. Henry: for Heaven's sake— + </p> + <p> + HE. It's no use. Your husband is a fool and a brute— + </p> + <p> + HER HUSBAND. What's that you say? + </p> + <p> + HE. I say you are a fool and a brute; and if you'll step outside with me + I'll say it again. [Teddy begins to take off his coat for combat]. Those + poems were written to your wife, every word of them, and to nobody else. + [The scowl clears away from Bompas's countenance. Radiant, he replaces + his coat]. I wrote them because I loved her. I thought her the most + beautiful woman in the world; and I told her so over and over again. I + adored her: do you hear? I told her that you were a sordid commercial + chump, utterly unworthy of her; and so you are. + </p> + <p> + HER HUSBAND [so gratified, he can hardly believe his ears] You don't + mean it! + </p> + <p> + HE. Yes, I do mean it, and a lot more too. I asked Mrs Bompas to walk + out of the house with me—to leave you—to get divorced from + you and marry me. I begged and implored her to do it this very night. It + was her refusal that ended everything between us. [Looking very + disparagingly at him] What she can see in you, goodness only knows! + </p> + <p> + HER HUSBAND [beaming with remorse] My dear chap, why didn't you say so + before? I apologize. Come! Don't bear malice: shake hands. Make him + shake hands, Rory. + </p> + <p> + SHE. For my sake, Henry. After all, he's my husband. Forgive him. Take + his hand. [Henry, dazed, lets her take his hand and place it in + Teddy's]. + </p> + <p> + HER HUSBAND [shaking it heartily] You've got to own that none of your + literary heroines can touch my Rory. [He turns to her and claps her with + fond pride on the shoulder]. Eh, Rory? They can't resist you: none of + em. Never knew a man yet that could hold out three days. + </p> + <p> + SHE. Don't be foolish, Teddy. I hope you were not really hurt, Henry. + [She feels the back of his head. He flinches]. Oh, poor boy, what a + bump! I must get some vinegar and brown paper. [She goes to the bell and + rings]. + </p> + <p> + HER HUSBAND. Will you do me a great favor, Apjohn. I hardly like to ask; + but it would be a real kindness to us both. + </p> + <p> + HE. What can I do? + </p> + <p> + HER HUSBAND [taking up the poems] Well, may I get these printed? It + shall be done in the best style. The finest paper, sumptuous binding, + everything first class. They're beautiful poems. I should like to show + them about a bit. + </p> + <p> + SHE [running back from the bell, delighted with the idea, and coming + between them] Oh Henry, if you wouldn't mind! + </p> + <p> + HE. Oh, I don't mind. I am past minding anything. I have grown too fast + this evening. + </p> + <p> + SHE. How old are you, Henry? + </p> + <p> + HE. This morning I was eighteen. Now I am—confound it! I'm quoting + that beast of a play [he takes the Candida tickets out of his pocket and + tears them up viciously]. + </p> + <p> + HER HUSBAND. What shall we call the volume? To Aurora, or something like + that, eh? + </p> + <p> + HE. I should call it How He Lied to Her Husband. + </p> + <br /> + </div> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's How He Lied to Her Husband, by George Bernard Shaw + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOW HE LIED TO HER HUSBAND *** + +***** This file should be named 3544-h.htm or 3544-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/4/3544/ + +Produced by Eve Sobol, and David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: How He Lied to Her Husband + +Author: George Bernard Shaw + +Posting Date: February 9, 2009 [EBook #3544] +Release Date: November, 2002 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOW HE LIED TO HER HUSBAND *** + + + + +Produced by Eve Sobol + + + + + +HOW HE LIED TO HER HUSBAND + + +By George Bernard Shaw + + + + +PREFACE + +Like many other works of mine, this playlet is a piece d'occasion. In +1905 it happened that Mr Arnold Daly, who was then playing the part of +Napoleon in The Man of Destiny in New York, found that whilst the play +was too long to take a secondary place in the evening's performance, it +was too short to suffice by itself. I therefore took advantage of four +days continuous rain during a holiday in the north of Scotland to write +How He Lied To Her Husband for Mr Daly. In his hands, it served its turn +very effectively. + +I print it here as a sample of what can be done with even the most +hackneyed stage framework by filling it in with an observed touch of +actual humanity instead of with doctrinaire romanticism. Nothing in the +theatre is staler than the situation of husband, wife and lover, or the +fun of knockabout farce. I have taken both, and got an original play +out of them, as anybody else can if only he will look about him for his +material instead of plagiarizing Othello and the thousand plays that +have proceeded on Othello's romantic assumptions and false point of +honor. + +A further experiment made by Mr Arnold Daly with this play is worth +recording. In 1905 Mr Daly produced Mrs Warren's Profession in New York. +The press of that city instantly raised a cry that such persons as Mrs +Warren are "ordure," and should not be mentioned in the presence +of decent people. This hideous repudiation of humanity and social +conscience so took possession of the New York journalists that the +few among them who kept their feet morally and intellectually could do +nothing to check the epidemic of foul language, gross suggestion, +and raving obscenity of word and thought that broke out. The writers +abandoned all self-restraint under the impression that they were +upholding virtue instead of outraging it. They infected each other with +their hysteria until they were for all practical purposes indecently +mad. They finally forced the police to arrest Mr Daly and his company, +and led the magistrate to express his loathing of the duty thus forced +upon him of reading an unmentionable and abominable play. Of course the +convulsion soon exhausted itself. The magistrate, naturally somewhat +impatient when he found that what he had to read was a strenuously +ethical play forming part of a book which had been in circulation +unchallenged for eight years, and had been received without protest by +the whole London and New York press, gave the journalists a piece of his +mind as to their moral taste in plays. By consent, he passed the case +on to a higher court, which declared that the play was not immoral; +acquitted Mr Daly; and made an end of the attempt to use the law to +declare living women to be "ordure," and thus enforce silence as to +the far-reaching fact that you cannot cheapen women in the market for +industrial purposes without cheapening them for other purposes as well. +I hope Mrs Warren's Profession will be played everywhere, in season and +out of season, until Mrs Warren has bitten that fact into the public +conscience, and shamed the newspapers which support a tariff to keep +up the price of every American commodity except American manhood and +womanhood. + +Unfortunately, Mr Daly had already suffered the usual fate of those who +direct public attention to the profits of the sweater or the pleasures +of the voluptuary. He was morally lynched side by side with me. Months +elapsed before the decision of the courts vindicated him; and even then, +since his vindication implied the condemnation of the press, which was +by that time sober again, and ashamed of its orgy, his triumph received +a rather sulky and grudging publicity. In the meantime he had hardly +been able to approach an American city, including even those cities +which had heaped applause on him as the defender of hearth and home when +he produced Candida, without having to face articles discussing whether +mothers could allow their daughters to attend such plays as You Never +Can Tell, written by the infamous author of Mrs Warren's Profession, and +acted by the monster who produced it. What made this harder to bear was +that though no fact is better established in theatrical business than +the financial disastrousness of moral discredit, the journalists who had +done all the mischief kept paying vice the homage of assuming that it +is enormously popular and lucrative, and that I and Mr Daly, being +exploiters of vice, must therefore be making colossal fortunes out of +the abuse heaped on us, and had in fact provoked it and welcomed it with +that express object. Ignorance of real life could hardly go further. + +One consequence was that Mr Daly could not have kept his financial +engagements or maintained his hold on the public had he not accepted +engagements to appear for a season in the vaudeville theatres [the +American equivalent of our music halls], where he played How He Lied +to Her Husband comparatively unhampered by the press censorship of +the theatre, or by that sophistication of the audience through press +suggestion from which I suffer more, perhaps, than any other author. +Vaudeville authors are fortunately unknown: the audiences see what the +play contains and what the actor can do, not what the papers have told +them to expect. Success under such circumstances had a value both for Mr +Daly and myself which did something to console us for the very unsavory +mobbing which the New York press organized for us, and which was not the +less disgusting because we suffered in a good cause and in the very best +company. + +Mr Daly, having weathered the storm, can perhaps shake his soul free +of it as he heads for fresh successes with younger authors. But I have +certain sensitive places in my soul: I do not like that word "ordure." +Apply it to my work, and I can afford to smile, since the world, on the +whole, will smile with me. But to apply it to the woman in the street, +whose spirit is of one substance with our own and her body no less holy: +to look your women folk in the face afterwards and not go out and hang +yourself: that is not on the list of pardonable sins. + +POSTSCRIPT. Since the above was written news has arrived from America +that a leading New York newspaper, which was among the most abusively +clamorous for the suppression of Mrs Warren's Profession, has just been +fined heavily for deriving part of its revenue from advertisements of +Mrs Warren's houses. + +Many people have been puzzled by the fact that whilst stage +entertainments which are frankly meant to act on the spectators as +aphrodisiacs, are everywhere tolerated, plays which have an almost +horrifyingly contrary effect are fiercely attacked by persons and papers +notoriously indifferent to public morals on all other occasions. The +explanation is very simple. The profits of Mrs Warren's profession +are shared not only by Mrs Warren and Sir George Crofts, but by the +landlords of their houses, the newspapers which advertize them, the +restaurants which cater for them, and, in short, all the trades to +which they are good customers, not to mention the public officials +and representatives whom they silence by complicity, corruption, or +blackmail. Add to these the employers who profit by cheap female labor, +and the shareholders whose dividends depend on it [you find such people +everywhere, even on the judicial bench and in the highest places in +Church and State], and you get a large and powerful class with a +strong pecuniary incentive to protect Mrs Warren's profession, and a +correspondingly strong incentive to conceal, from their own consciences +no less than from the world, the real sources of their gain. These are +the people who declare that it is feminine vice and not poverty that +drives women to the streets, as if vicious women with independent +incomes ever went there. These are the people who, indulgent or +indifferent to aphrodisiac plays, raise the moral hue and cry against +performances of Mrs Warren's Profession, and drag actresses to the +police court to be insulted, bullied, and threatened for fulfilling +their engagements. For please observe that the judicial decision in New +York State in favor of the play does not end the matter. In Kansas City, +for instance, the municipality, finding itself restrained by the courts +from preventing the performance, fell back on a local bye-law against +indecency to evade the Constitution of the United States. They summoned +the actress who impersonated Mrs Warren to the police court, and offered +her and her colleagues the alternative of leaving the city or being +prosecuted under this bye-law. + +Now nothing is more possible than that the city councillors who suddenly +displayed such concern for the morals of the theatre were either Mrs +Warren's landlords, or employers of women at starvation wages, or +restaurant keepers, or newspaper proprietors, or in some other more +or less direct way sharers of the profits of her trade. No doubt it +is equally possible that they were simply stupid men who thought that +indecency consists, not in evil, but in mentioning it. I have, however, +been myself a member of a municipal council, and have not found +municipal councillors quite so simple and inexperienced as this. At all +events I do not propose to give the Kansas councillors the benefit of +the doubt. I therefore advise the public at large, which will finally +decide the matter, to keep a vigilant eye on gentlemen who will stand +anything at the theatre except a performance of Mrs Warren's Profession, +and who assert in the same breath that [a] the play is too loathsome to +be bearable by civilized people, and [b] that unless its performance +is prohibited the whole town will throng to see it. They may be merely +excited and foolish; but I am bound to warn the public that it is +equally likely that they may be collected and knavish. + +At all events, to prohibit the play is to protect the evil which the +play exposes; and in view of that fact, I see no reason for assuming +that the prohibitionists are disinterested moralists, and that +the author, the managers, and the performers, who depend for +their livelihood on their personal reputations and not on rents, +advertisements, or dividends, are grossly inferior to them in moral +sense and public responsibility. + +It is true that in Mrs Warren's Profession, Society, and not any +individual, is the villain of the piece; but it does not follow that +the people who take offence at it are all champions of society. Their +credentials cannot be too carefully examined. + + + + +HOW HE LIED TO HER HUSBAND + +It is eight o'clock in the evening. The curtains are drawn and the lamps +lighted in the drawing room of Her flat in Cromwell Road. Her lover, a +beautiful youth of eighteen, in evening dress and cape, with a bunch of +flowers and an opera hat in his hands, comes in alone. The door is near +the corner; and as he appears in the doorway, he has the fireplace on +the nearest wall to his right, and the grand piano along the opposite +wall to his left. Near the fireplace a small ornamental table has on it +a hand mirror, a fan, a pair of long white gloves, and a little white +woollen cloud to wrap a woman's head in. On the other side of the room, +near the piano, is a broad, square, softly up-holstered stool. The room +is furnished in the most approved South Kensington fashion: that is, it +is as like a show room as possible, and is intended to demonstrate the +racial position and spending powers of its owners, and not in the least +to make them comfortable. + +He is, be it repeated, a very beautiful youth, moving as in a dream, +walking as on air. He puts his flowers down carefully on the table +beside the fan; takes off his cape, and, as there is no room on the +table for it, takes it to the piano; puts his hat on the cape; crosses +to the hearth; looks at his watch; puts it up again; notices the things +on the table; lights up as if he saw heaven opening before him; goes to +the table and takes the cloud in both hands, nestling his nose into its +softness and kissing it; kisses the gloves one after another; kisses the +fan: gasps a long shuddering sigh of ecstasy; sits down on the stool and +presses his hands to his eyes to shut out reality and dream a little; +takes his hands down and shakes his head with a little smile of rebuke +for his folly; catches sight of a speck of dust on his shoes and hastily +and carefully brushes it off with his handkerchief; rises and takes +the hand mirror from the table to make sure of his tie with the gravest +anxiety; and is looking at his watch again when She comes in, much +flustered. As she is dressed for the theatre; has spoilt, petted ways; +and wears many diamonds, she has an air of being a young and beautiful +woman; but as a matter of hard fact, she is, dress and pretensions +apart, a very ordinary South Kensington female of about 37, hopelessly +inferior in physical and spiritual distinction to the beautiful youth, +who hastily puts down the mirror as she enters. + +HE [kissing her hand] At last! + +SHE. Henry: something dreadful has happened. + +HE. What's the matter? + +SHE. I have lost your poems. + +HE. They were unworthy of you. I will write you some more. + +SHE. No, thank you. Never any more poems for me. Oh, how could I have +been so mad! so rash! so imprudent! + +HE. Thank Heaven for your madness, your rashness, your imprudence! + +SHE [impatiently] Oh, be sensible, Henry. Can't you see what a terrible +thing this is for me? Suppose anybody finds these poems! what will they +think? + +HE. They will think that a man once loved a woman more devotedly than +ever man loved woman before. But they will not know what man it was. + +SHE. What good is that to me if everybody will know what woman it was? + +HE. But how will they know? + +SHE. How will they know! Why, my name is all over them: my silly, +unhappy name. Oh, if I had only been christened Mary Jane, or Gladys +Muriel, or Beatrice, or Francesca, or Guinevere, or something quite +common! But Aurora! Aurora! I'm the only Aurora in London; and everybody +knows it. I believe I'm the only Aurora in the world. And it's so +horribly easy to rhyme to it! Oh, Henry, why didn't you try to restrain +your feelings a little in common consideration for me? Why didn't you +write with some little reserve? + +HE. Write poems to you with reserve! You ask me that! + +SHE [with perfunctory tenderness] Yes, dear, of course it was very nice +of you; and I know it was my own fault as much as yours. I ought to have +noticed that your verses ought never to have been addressed to a married +woman. + +HE. Ah, how I wish they had been addressed to an unmarried woman! how I +wish they had! + +SHE. Indeed you have no right to wish anything of the sort. They are +quite unfit for anybody but a married woman. That's just the difficulty. +What will my sisters-in-law think of them? + +HE [painfully jarred] Have you got sisters-in-law? + +SHE. Yes, of course I have. Do you suppose I am an angel? + +HE [biting his lips] I do. Heaven help me, I do--or I did--or [he almost +chokes a sob]. + +SHE [softening and putting her hand caressingly on his shoulder] Listen +to me, dear. It's very nice of you to live with me in a dream, and to +love me, and so on; but I can't help my husband having disagreeable +relatives, can I? + +HE [brightening up] Ah, of course they are your husband's relatives: I +forgot that. Forgive me, Aurora. [He takes her hand from his shoulder +and kisses it. She sits down on the stool. He remains near the table, +with his back to it, smiling fatuously down at her]. + +SHE. The fact is, Teddy's got nothing but relatives. He has eight +sisters and six half-sisters, and ever so many brothers--but I don't +mind his brothers. Now if you only knew the least little thing about +the world, Henry, you'd know that in a large family, though the sisters +quarrel with one another like mad all the time, yet let one of the +brothers marry, and they all turn on their unfortunate sister-in-law and +devote the rest of their lives with perfect unanimity to persuading +him that his wife is unworthy of him. They can do it to her very face +without her knowing it, because there are always a lot of stupid low +family jokes that nobody understands but themselves. Half the time you +can't tell what they're talking about: it just drives you wild. There +ought to be a law against a man's sister ever entering his house after +he's married. I'm as certain as that I'm sitting here that Georgina +stole those poems out of my workbox. + +HE. She will not understand them, I think. + +SHE. Oh, won't she! She'll understand them only too well. She'll +understand more harm than ever was in them: nasty vulgar-minded cat! + +HE [going to her] Oh don't, don't think of people in that way. Don't +think of her at all. [He takes her hand and sits down on the carpet at +her feet]. Aurora: do you remember the evening when I sat here at your +feet and read you those poems for the first time? + +SHE. I shouldn't have let you: I see that now. When I think of Georgina +sitting there at Teddy's feet and reading them to him for the first +time, I feel I shall just go distracted. + +HE. Yes, you are right. It will be a profanation. + +SHE. Oh, I don't care about the profanation; but what will Teddy think? +what will he do? [Suddenly throwing his head away from her knee]. You +don't seem to think a bit about Teddy. [She jumps up, more and more +agitated]. + +HE [supine on the floor; for she has thrown him off his balance] To me +Teddy is nothing, and Georgina less than nothing. + +SHE. You'll soon find out how much less than nothing she is. If you +think a woman can't do any harm because she's only a scandalmongering +dowdy ragbag, you're greatly mistaken. [She flounces about the room. He +gets up slowly and dusts his hands. Suddenly she runs to him and throws +herself into his arms]. Henry: help me. Find a way out of this for me; +and I'll bless you as long as you live. Oh, how wretched I am! [She sobs +on his breast]. + +HE. And oh! how happy I am! + +SHE [whisking herself abruptly away] Don't be selfish. + +HE [humbly] Yes: I deserve that. I think if I were going to the stake +with you, I should still be so happy with you that I could hardly feel +your danger more than my own. + +SHE [relenting and patting his hand fondly] Oh, you are a dear darling +boy, Henry; but [throwing his hand away fretfully] you're no use. I want +somebody to tell me what to do. + +HE [with quiet conviction] Your heart will tell you at the right time. I +have thought deeply over this; and I know what we two must do, sooner or +later. + +SHE. No, Henry. I will do nothing improper, nothing dishonorable. [She +sits down plump on the stool and looks inflexible]. + +HE. If you did, you would no longer be Aurora. Our course is perfectly +simple, perfectly straightforward, perfectly stainless and true. We love +one another. I am not ashamed of that: I am ready to go out and proclaim +it to all London as simply as I will declare it to your husband when you +see--as you soon will see--that this is the only way honorable enough +for your feet to tread. Let us go out together to our own house, +this evening, without concealment and without shame. Remember! we owe +something to your husband. We are his guests here: he is an honorable +man: he has been kind to us: he has perhaps loved you as well as his +prosaic nature and his sordid commercial environment permitted. We owe +it to him in all honor not to let him learn the truth from the lips of +a scandalmonger. Let us go to him now quietly, hand in hand; bid him +farewell; and walk out of the house without concealment and subterfuge, +freely and honestly, in full honor and self-respect. + +SHE [staring at him] And where shall we go to? + +HE. We shall not depart by a hair's breadth from the ordinary natural +current of our lives. We were going to the theatre when the loss of the +poems compelled us to take action at once. We shall go to the theatre +still; but we shall leave your diamonds here; for we cannot afford +diamonds, and do not need them. + +SHE [fretfully] I have told you already that I hate diamonds; only Teddy +insists on hanging me all over with them. You need not preach simplicity +to me. + +HE. I never thought of doing so, dearest: I know that these trivialities +are nothing to you. What was I saying--oh yes. Instead of coming +back here from the theatre, you will come with me to my home--now and +henceforth our home--and in due course of time, when you are divorced, +we shall go through whatever idle legal ceremony you may desire. I +attach no importance to the law: my love was not created in me by the +law, nor can it be bound or loosed by it. That is simple enough, and +sweet enough, is it not? [He takes the flower from the table]. Here are +flowers for you: I have the tickets: we will ask your husband to lend +us the carriage to show that there is no malice, no grudge, between us. +Come! + +SHE [spiritlessly, taking the flowers without looking at them, and +temporizing] Teddy isn't in yet. + +HE. Well, let us take that calmly. Let us go to the theatre as if +nothing had happened, and tell him when we come back. Now or three hours +hence: to-day or to-morrow: what does it matter, provided all is done in +honor, without shame or fear? + +SHE. What did you get tickets for? Lohengrin? + +HE. I tried; but Lohengrin was sold out for to-night. [He takes out two +Court Theatre tickets]. + +SHE. Then what did you get? + +HE. Can you ask me? What is there besides Lohengrin that we two could +endure, except Candida? + +SHE [springing up] Candida! No, I won't go to it again, Henry [tossing +the flower on the piano]. It is that play that has done all the +mischief. I'm very sorry I ever saw it: it ought to be stopped. + +HE [amazed] Aurora! + +SHE. Yes: I mean it. + +HE. That divinest love poem! the poem that gave us courage to speak to +one another! that revealed to us what we really felt for one another! +That-- + +SHE. Just so. It put a lot of stuff into my head that I should never +have dreamt of for myself. I imagined myself just like Candida. + +HE [catching her hands and looking earnestly at her] You were right. You +are like Candida. + +SHE [snatching her hands away] Oh, stuff! And I thought you were just +like Eugene. [Looking critically at him] Now that I come to look at you, +you are rather like him, too. [She throws herself discontentedly into +the nearest seat, which happens to be the bench at the piano. He goes to +her]. + +HE [very earnestly] Aurora: if Candida had loved Eugene she would have +gone out into the night with him without a moment's hesitation. + +SHE [with equal earnestness] Henry: do you know what's wanting in that +play? + +HE. There is nothing wanting in it. + +SHE. Yes there is. There's a Georgina wanting in it. If Georgina had +been there to make trouble, that play would have been a true-to-life +tragedy. Now I'll tell you something about it that I have never told you +before. + +HE. What is that? + +SHE. I took Teddy to it. I thought it would do him good; and so it would +if I could only have kept him awake. Georgina came too; and you should +have heard the way she went on about it. She said it was downright +immoral, and that she knew the sort of woman that encourages boys to sit +on the hearthrug and make love to her. She was just preparing Teddy's +mind to poison it about me. + +HE. Let us be just to Georgina, dearest + +SHE. Let her deserve it first. Just to Georgina, indeed! + +HE. She really sees the world in that way. That is her punishment. + +SHE. How can it be her punishment when she likes it? It'll be my +punishment when she brings that budget of poems to Teddy. I wish you'd +have some sense, and sympathize with my position a little. + +HE. [going away from the piano and beginning to walk about rather +testily] My dear: I really don't care about Georgina or about Teddy. All +these squabbles belong to a plane on which I am, as you say, no use. I +have counted the cost; and I do not fear the consequences. After all, +what is there to fear? Where is the difficulty? What can Georgina do? +What can your husband do? What can anybody do? + +SHE. Do you mean to say that you propose that we should walk right bang +up to Teddy and tell him we're going away together? + +HE. Yes. What can be simpler? + +SHE. And do you think for a moment he'd stand it, like that half-baked +clergyman in the play? He'd just kill you. + +HE [coming to a sudden stop and speaking with considerable confidence] +You don't understand these things, my darling, how could you? In one +respect I am unlike the poet in the play. I have followed the Greek +ideal and not neglected the culture of my body. Your husband would make +a tolerable second-rate heavy weight if he were in training and ten +years younger. As it is, he could, if strung up to a great effort by +a burst of passion, give a good account of himself for perhaps fifteen +seconds. But I am active enough to keep out of his reach for fifteen +seconds; and after that I should be simply all over him. + +SHE [rising and coming to him in consternation] What do you mean by all +over him? + +HE [gently] Don't ask me, dearest. At all events, I swear to you that +you need not be anxious about me. + +SHE. And what about Teddy? Do you mean to tell me that you are going to +beat Teddy before my face like a brutal prizefighter? + +HE. All this alarm is needless, dearest. Believe me, nothing will +happen. Your husband knows that I am capable of defending myself. Under +such circumstances nothing ever does happen. And of course I shall do +nothing. The man who once loved you is sacred to me. + +SHE [suspiciously] Doesn't he love me still? Has he told you anything? + +HE. No, no. [He takes her tenderly in his arms]. Dearest, dearest: how +agitated you are! how unlike yourself! All these worries belong to +the lower plane. Come up with me to the higher one. The heights, the +solitudes, the soul world! + +SHE [avoiding his gaze] No: stop: it's no use, Mr Apjohn. + +HE [recoiling] Mr Apjohn!!! + +SHE. Excuse me: I meant Henry, of course. + +HE. How could you even think of me as Mr Apjohn? I never think of you as +Mrs Bompas: it is always Cand-- I mean Aurora, Aurora, Auro-- + +SHE. Yes, yes: that's all very well, Mr Apjohn [He is about to interrupt +again: but she won't have it] no: it's no use: I've suddenly begun to +think of you as Mr Apjohn; and it's ridiculous to go on calling you +Henry. I thought you were only a boy, a child, a dreamer. I thought you +would be too much afraid to do anything. And now you want to beat Teddy +and to break up my home and disgrace me and make a horrible scandal in +the papers. It's cruel, unmanly, cowardly. + +HE [with grave wonder] Are you afraid? + +SHE. Oh, of course I'm afraid. So would you be if you had any common +sense. [She goes to the hearth, turning her back to him, and puts one +tapping foot on the fender]. + +HE [watching her with great gravity] Perfect love casteth out fear. That +is why I am not afraid. Mrs Bompas: you do not love me. + +SHE [turning to him with a gasp of relief] Oh, thank you, thank you! You +really can be very nice, Henry. + +HE. Why do you thank me? + +SHE [coming prettily to him from the fireplace] For calling me Mrs +Bompas again. I feel now that you are going to be reasonable and behave +like a gentleman. [He drops on the stool; covers his face with his hand; +and groans]. What's the matter? + +HE. Once or twice in my life I have dreamed that I was exquisitely happy +and blessed. But oh! the misgiving at the first stir of consciousness! +the stab of reality! the prison walls of the bedroom! the bitter, bitter +disappointment of waking! And this time! oh, this time I thought I was +awake. + +SHE. Listen to me, Henry: we really haven't time for all that sort of +flapdoodle now. [He starts to his feet as if she had pulled a trigger +and straightened him by the release of a powerful spring, and goes past +her with set teeth to the little table]. Oh, take care: you nearly hit +me in the chin with the top of your head. + +HE [with fierce politeness] I beg your pardon. What is it you want me to +do? I am at your service. I am ready to behave like a gentleman if you +will be kind enough to explain exactly how. + +SHE [a little frightened] Thank you, Henry: I was sure you would. You're +not angry with me, are you? + +HE. Go on. Go on quickly. Give me something to think about, or I will--I +will--[he suddenly snatches up her fan and it about to break it in his +clenched fists]. + +SHE [running forward and catching at the fan, with loud lamentation] +Don't break my fan--no, don't. [He slowly relaxes his grip of it as she +draws it anxiously out of his hands]. No, really, that's a stupid trick. +I don't like that. You've no right to do that. [She opens the fan, +and finds that the sticks are disconnected]. Oh, how could you be so +inconsiderate? + +HE. I beg your pardon. I will buy you a new one. + +SHE [querulously] You will never be able to match it. And it was a +particular favorite of mine. + +HE [shortly] Then you will have to do without it: that's all. + +SHE. That's not a very nice thing to say after breaking my pet fan, I +think. + +HE. If you knew how near I was to breaking Teddy's pet wife and +presenting him with the pieces, you would be thankful that you are alive +instead of--of--of howling about five shillings worth of ivory. Damn +your fan! + +SHE. Oh! Don't you dare swear in my presence. One would think you were +my husband. + +HE [again collapsing on the stool] This is some horrible dream. What has +become of you? You are not my Aurora. + +SHE. Oh, well, if you come to that, what has become of you? Do you think +I would ever have encouraged you if I had known you were such a little +devil? + +HE. Don't drag me down--don't--don't. Help me to find the way back to +the heights. + +SHE [kneeling beside him and pleading] If you would only be reasonable, +Henry. If you would only remember that I am on the brink of ruin, and +not go on calmly saying it's all quite simple. + +HE. It seems so to me. + +SHE [jumping up distractedly] If you say that again I shall do something +I'll be sorry for. Here we are, standing on the edge of a frightful +precipice. No doubt it's quite simple to go over and have done with it. +But can't you suggest anything more agreeable? + +HE. I can suggest nothing now. A chill black darkness has fallen: I can +see nothing but the ruins of our dream. [He rises with a deep sigh]. + +SHE. Can't you? Well, I can. I can see Georgina rubbing those poems into +Teddy. [Facing him determinedly] And I tell you, Henry Apjohn, that you +got me into this mess; and you must get me out of it again. + +HE [polite and hopeless] All I can say is that I am entirely at your +service. What do you wish me to do? + +SHE. Do you know anybody else named Aurora? + +HE. No. + +SHE. There's no use in saying No in that frozen pigheaded way. You must +know some Aurora or other somewhere. + +HE. You said you were the only Aurora in the world. And [lifting his +clasped fists with a sudden return of his emotion] oh God! you were +the only Aurora in the world to me. [He turns away from her, hiding his +face]. + +SHE [petting him] Yes, yes, dear: of course. It's very nice of you; and +I appreciate it: indeed I do; but it's not reasonable just at present. +Now just listen to me. I suppose you know all those poems by heart. + +HE. Yes, by heart. [Raising his head and looking at her, with a sudden +suspicion] Don't you? + +SHE. Well, I never can remember verses; and besides, I've been so busy +that I've not had time to read them all; though I intend to the very +first moment I can get: I promise you that most faithfully, Henry. But +now try and remember very particularly. Does the name of Bompas occur in +any of the poems? + +HE [indignantly] No. + +SHE. You're quite sure? + +HE. Of course I am quite sure. How could I use such a name in a poem? + +SHE. Well, I don't see why not. It rhymes to rumpus, which seems +appropriate enough at present, goodness knows! However, you're a poet, +and you ought to know. + +HE. What does it matter--now? + +SHE. It matters a lot, I can tell you. If there's nothing about Bompas +in the poems, we can say that they were written to some other Aurora, +and that you showed them to me because my name was Aurora too. So you've +got to invent another Aurora for the occasion. + +HE [very coldly] Oh, if you wish me to tell a lie-- + +SHE. Surely, as a man of honor--as a gentleman, you wouldn't tell the +truth, would you? + +HE. Very well. You have broken my spirit and desecrated my dreams. +I will lie and protest and stand on my honor: oh, I will play the +gentleman, never fear. + +SHE. Yes, put it all on me, of course. Don't be mean, Henry. + +HE [rousing himself with an effort] You are quite right, Mrs Bompas: I +beg your pardon. You must excuse my temper. I have got growing pains, I +think. + +SHE. Growing pains! + +HE. The process of growing from romantic boyhood into cynical maturity +usually takes fifteen years. When it is compressed into fifteen minutes, +the pace is too fast; and growing pains are the result. + +SHE. Oh, is this a time for cleverness? It's settled, isn't it, that +you're going to be nice and good, and that you'll brazen it out to Teddy +that you have some other Aurora? + +HE. Yes: I'm capable of anything now. I should not have told him the +truth by halves; and now I will not lie by halves. I'll wallow in the +honor of a gentleman. + +SHE. Dearest boy, I knew you would. I--Sh! [she rushes to the door, and +holds it ajar, listening breathlessly]. + +HE. What is it? + +SHE [white with apprehension] It's Teddy: I hear him tapping the new +barometer. He can't have anything serious on his mind or he wouldn't +do that. Perhaps Georgina hasn't said anything. [She steals back to the +hearth]. Try and look as if there was nothing the matter. Give me my +gloves, quick. [He hands them to her. She pulls on one hastily and +begins buttoning it with ostentatious unconcern]. Go further away from +me, quick. [He walks doggedly away from her until the piano prevents his +going farther]. If I button my glove, and you were to hum a tune, don't +you think that-- + +HE. The tableau would be complete in its guiltiness. For Heaven's sake, +Mrs Bompas, let that glove alone: you look like a pickpocket. + +Her husband comes in: a robust, thicknecked, well groomed city man, +with a strong chin but a blithering eye and credulous mouth. He has a +momentous air, but shows no sign of displeasure: rather the contrary. + +HER HUSBAND. Hallo! I thought you two were at the theatre. + +SHE. I felt anxious about you, Teddy. Why didn't you come home to +dinner? + +HER HUSBAND. I got a message from Georgina. She wanted me to go to her. + +SHE. Poor dear Georgina! I'm sorry I haven't been able to call on her +this last week. I hope there's nothing the matter with her. + +HER HUSBAND. Nothing, except anxiety for my welfare and yours. [She +steals a terrified look at Henry]. By, the way, Apjohn, I should like a +word with you this evening, if Aurora can spare you for a moment. + +HE [formally] I am at your service. + +HER HUSBAND. No hurry. After the theatre will do. + +HE. We have decided not to go. + +HER HUSBAND. Indeed! Well, then, shall we adjourn to my snuggery? + +SHE. You needn't move. I shall go and lock up my diamonds since I'm not +going to the theatre. Give me my things. + +HER HUSBAND [as he hands her the cloud and the mirror] Well, we shall +have more room here. + +HE [looking about him and shaking his shoulders loose] I think I should +prefer plenty of room. + +HER HUSBAND. So, if it's not disturbing you, Rory--? + +SHE. Not at all. [She goes out]. + +When the two men are alone together, Bompas deliberately takes the poems +from his breast pocket; looks at them reflectively; then looks at Henry, +mutely inviting his attention. Henry refuses to understand, doing his +best to look unconcerned. + +HER HUSBAND. Do these manuscripts seem at all familiar to you, may I +ask? + +HE. Manuscripts? + +HER HUSBAND. Yes. Would you like to look at them a little closer? [He +proffers them under Henry's nose]. + +HE [as with a sudden illumination of glad surprise] Why, these are my +poems. + +HER HUSBAND. So I gather. + +HE. What a shame! Mrs Bompas has shown them to you! You must think me an +utter ass. I wrote them years ago after reading Swinburne's Songs Before +Sunrise. Nothing would do me then but I must reel off a set of Songs +to the Sunrise. Aurora, you know: the rosy fingered Aurora. They're all +about Aurora. When Mrs Bompas told me her name was Aurora, I couldn't +resist the temptation to lend them to her to read. But I didn't bargain +for your unsympathetic eyes. + +HER HUSBAND [grinning] Apjohn: that's really very ready of you. You are +cut out for literature; and the day will come when Rory and I will be +proud to have you about the house. I have heard far thinner stories from +much older men. + +HE [with an air of great surprise] Do you mean to imply that you don't +believe me? + +HER HUSBAND. Do you expect me to believe you? + +HE. Why not? I don't understand. + +HER HUSBAND. Come! Don't underrate your own cleverness, Apjohn. I think +you understand pretty well. + +HE. I assure you I am quite at a loss. Can you not be a little more +explicit? + +HER HUSBAND. Don't overdo it, old chap. However, I will just be so far +explicit as to say that if you think these poems read as if they were +addressed, not to a live woman, but to a shivering cold time of day at +which you were never out of bed in your life, you hardly do justice to +your own literary powers--which I admire and appreciate, mind you, as +much as any man. Come! own up. You wrote those poems to my wife. [An +internal struggle prevents Henry from answering]. Of course you did. +[He throws the poems on the table; and goes to the hearthrug, where +he plants himself solidly, chuckling a little and waiting for the next +move]. + +HE [formally and carefully] Mr Bompas: I pledge you my word you are +mistaken. I need not tell you that Mrs Bompas is a lady of stainless +honor, who has never cast an unworthy thought on me. The fact that she +has shown you my poems-- + +HER HUSBAND. That's not a fact. I came by them without her knowledge. +She didn't show them to me. + +HE. Does not that prove their perfect innocence? She would have shown +them to you at once if she had taken your quite unfounded view of them. + +HER HUSBAND [shaken] Apjohn: play fair. Don't abuse your intellectual +gifts. Do you really mean that I am making a fool of myself? + +HE [earnestly] Believe me, you are. I assure you, on my honor as a +gentleman, that I have never had the slightest feeling for Mrs Bompas +beyond the ordinary esteem and regard of a pleasant acquaintance. + +HER HUSBAND [shortly, showing ill humor for the first time] Oh, indeed. +[He leaves his hearth and begins to approach Henry slowly, looking him +up and down with growing resentment]. + +HE [hastening to improve the impression made by his mendacity] I should +never have dreamt of writing poems to her. The thing is absurd. + +HER HUSBAND [reddening ominously] Why is it absurd? + +HE [shrugging his shoulders] Well, it happens that I do not admire Mrs +Bompas--in that way. + +HER HUSBAND [breaking out in Henry's face] Let me tell you that Mrs +Bompas has been admired by better men than you, you soapy headed little +puppy, you. + +HE [much taken aback] There is no need to insult me like this. I assure +you, on my honor as a-- + +HER HUSBAND [too angry to tolerate a reply, and boring Henry more and +more towards the piano] You don't admire Mrs Bompas! You would never +dream of writing poems to Mrs Bompas! My wife's not good enough for you, +isn't she. [Fiercely] Who are you, pray, that you should be so jolly +superior? + +HE. Mr Bompas: I can make allowances for your jealousy-- + +HER HUSBAND. Jealousy! do you suppose I'm jealous of YOU? No, nor of ten +like you. But if you think I'll stand here and let you insult my wife in +her own house, you're mistaken. + +HE [very uncomfortable with his back against the piano and Teddy +standing over him threateningly] How can I convince you? Be reasonable. +I tell you my relations with Mrs Bompas are relations of perfect +coldness--of indifference-- + +HER HUSBAND [scornfully] Say it again: say it again. You're proud of it, +aren't you? Yah! You're not worth kicking. + +Henry suddenly executes the feat known to pugilists as dipping, and +changes sides with Teddy, who it now between Henry and the piano. + +HE. Look here: I'm not going to stand this. + +HER HUSBAND. Oh, you have some blood in your body after all! Good job! + +HE. This is ridiculous. I assure you Mrs. Bompas is quite-- + +HER HUSBAND. What is Mrs Bompas to you, I'd like to know. I'll tell +you what Mrs Bompas is. She's the smartest woman in the smartest set in +South Kensington, and the handsomest, and the cleverest, and the most +fetching to experienced men who know a good thing when they see it, +whatever she may be to conceited penny-a-lining puppies who think +nothing good enough for them. It's admitted by the best people; and not +to know it argues yourself unknown. Three of our first actor-managers +have offered her a hundred a week if she'd go on the stage when they +start a repertory theatre; and I think they know what they're about as +well as you. The only member of the present Cabinet that you might call +a handsome man has neglected the business of the country to dance with +her, though he don't belong to our set as a regular thing. One of the +first professional poets in Bedford Park wrote a sonnet to her, worth +all your amateur trash. At Ascot last season the eldest son of a duke +excused himself from calling on me on the ground that his feelings for +Mrs Bompas were not consistent with his duty to me as host; and it did +him honor and me too. But [with gathering fury] she isn't good enough +for you, it seems. You regard her with coldness, with indifference; +and you have the cool cheek to tell me so to my face. For two pins I'd +flatten your nose in to teach you manners. Introducing a fine woman to +you is casting pearls before swine [yelling at him] before SWINE! d'ye +hear? + +HE [with a deplorable lack of polish] You call me a swine again and I'll +land you one on the chin that'll make your head sing for a week. + +HER HUSBAND [exploding] What--! + +He charges at Henry with bull-like fury. Henry places himself on +guard in the manner of a well taught boxer, and gets away smartly, +but unfortunately forgets the stool which is just behind him. He falls +backwards over it, unintentionally pushing it against the shins of +Bompas, who falls forward over it. Mrs Bompas, with a scream, rushes +into the room between the sprawling champions, and sits down on the +floor in order to get her right arm round her husband's neck. + +SHE. You shan't, Teddy: you shan't. You will be killed: he is a +prizefighter. + +HER HUSBAND [vengefully] I'll prizefight him. [He struggles vainly to +free himself from her embrace]. + +SHE. Henry: don't let him fight you. Promise me that you won't. + +HE [ruefully] I have got a most frightful bump on the back of my head. +[He tries to rise]. + +SHE [reaching out her left hand to seize his coat tail, and pulling him +down again, whilst keeping fast hold of Teddy with the other hand] Not +until you have promised: not until you both have promised. [Teddy tries +to rise: she pulls him back again]. Teddy: you promise, don't you? Yes, +yes. Be good: you promise. + +HER HUSBAND. I won't, unless he takes it back. + +SHE. He will: he does. You take it back, Henry?--yes. + +HE [savagely] Yes. I take it back. [She lets go his coat. He gets up. So +does Teddy]. I take it all back, all, without reserve. + +SHE [on the carpet] Is nobody going to help me up? [They each take a +hand and pull her up]. Now won't you shake hands and be good? + +HE [recklessly] I shall do nothing of the sort. I have steeped myself in +lies for your sake; and the only reward I get is a lump on the back of +my head the size of an apple. Now I will go back to the straight path. + +SHE. Henry: for Heaven's sake-- + +HE. It's no use. Your husband is a fool and a brute-- + +HER HUSBAND. What's that you say? + +HE. I say you are a fool and a brute; and if you'll step outside with me +I'll say it again. [Teddy begins to take off his coat for combat]. Those +poems were written to your wife, every word of them, and to nobody else. +[The scowl clears away from Bompas's countenance. Radiant, he replaces +his coat]. I wrote them because I loved her. I thought her the most +beautiful woman in the world; and I told her so over and over again. I +adored her: do you hear? I told her that you were a sordid commercial +chump, utterly unworthy of her; and so you are. + +HER HUSBAND [so gratified, he can hardly believe his ears] You don't +mean it! + +HE. Yes, I do mean it, and a lot more too. I asked Mrs Bompas to walk +out of the house with me--to leave you--to get divorced from you and +marry me. I begged and implored her to do it this very night. It was her +refusal that ended everything between us. [Looking very disparagingly at +him] What she can see in you, goodness only knows! + +HER HUSBAND [beaming with remorse] My dear chap, why didn't you say +so before? I apologize. Come! Don't bear malice: shake hands. Make him +shake hands, Rory. + +SHE. For my sake, Henry. After all, he's my husband. Forgive him. +Take his hand. [Henry, dazed, lets her take his hand and place it in +Teddy's]. + +HER HUSBAND [shaking it heartily] You've got to own that none of your +literary heroines can touch my Rory. [He turns to her and claps her with +fond pride on the shoulder]. Eh, Rory? They can't resist you: none of +em. Never knew a man yet that could hold out three days. + +SHE. Don't be foolish, Teddy. I hope you were not really hurt, Henry. +[She feels the back of his head. He flinches]. Oh, poor boy, what a +bump! I must get some vinegar and brown paper. [She goes to the bell and +rings]. + +HER HUSBAND. Will you do me a great favor, Apjohn. I hardly like to ask; +but it would be a real kindness to us both. + +HE. What can I do? + +HER HUSBAND [taking up the poems] Well, may I get these printed? It +shall be done in the best style. The finest paper, sumptuous binding, +everything first class. They're beautiful poems. I should like to show +them about a bit. + +SHE [running back from the bell, delighted with the idea, and coming +between them] Oh Henry, if you wouldn't mind! + +HE. Oh, I don't mind. I am past minding anything. I have grown too fast +this evening. + +SHE. How old are you, Henry? + +HE. This morning I was eighteen. Now I am--confound it! I'm quoting +that beast of a play [he takes the Candida tickets out of his pocket and +tears them up viciously]. + +HER HUSBAND. What shall we call the volume? To Aurora, or something like +that, eh? + +HE. I should call it How He Lied to Her Husband. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's How He Lied to Her Husband, by George Bernard Shaw + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOW HE LIED TO HER HUSBAND *** + +***** This file should be named 3544.txt or 3544.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/4/3544/ + +Produced by Eve Sobol + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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In 1905 it happened that Mr Arnold Daly, who was then +playing the part of Napoleon in The Man of Destiny in New York, +found that whilst the play was too long to take a secondary place +in the evening's performance, it was too short to suffice by +itself. I therefore took advantage of four days continuous rain +during a holiday in the north of Scotland to write How He Lied To +Her Husband for Mr Daly. In his hands, it served its turn very +effectively. + +I print it here as a sample of what can be done with even the +most hackneyed stage framework by filling it in with an observed +touch of actual humanity instead of with doctrinaire romanticism. +Nothing in the theatre is staler than the situation of husband, +wife and lover, or the fun of knockabout farce. I have taken +both, and got an original play out of them, as anybody else can +if only he will look about him for his material instead of +plagiarizing Othello and the thousand plays that have proceeded +on Othello's romantic assumptions and false point of honor. + +A further experiment made by Mr Arnold Daly with this play is +worth recording. In 1905 Mr Daly produced Mrs Warren's Profession +in New York. The press of that city instantly raised a cry that +such persons as Mrs Warren are "ordure," and should not be +mentioned in the presence of decent people. This hideous +repudiation of humanity and social conscience so took possession +of the New York journalists that the few among them who kept +their feet morally and intellectually could do nothing to check +the epidemic of foul language, gross suggestion, and raving +obscenity of word and thought that broke out. The writers +abandoned all self-restraint under the impression that they were +upholding virtue instead of outraging it. They infected each +other with their hysteria until they were for all practical +purposes indecently mad. They finally forced the police to arrest +Mr Daly and his company, and led the magistrate to express his +loathing of the duty thus forced upon him of reading an +unmentionable and abominable play. Of course the convulsion soon +exhausted itself. The magistrate, naturally somewhat impatient +when he found that what he had to read was a strenuously ethical +play forming part of a book which had been in circulation +unchallenged for eight years, and had been received without +protest by the whole London and New York press, gave the +journalists a piece of his mind as to their moral taste in plays. +By consent, he passed the case on to a higher court, which +declared that the play was not immoral; acquitted Mr Daly; and +made an end of the attempt to use the law to declare living women +to be "ordure," and thus enforce silence as to the far-reaching +fact that you cannot cheapen women in the market for industrial +purposes without cheapening them for other purposes as well. I +hope Mrs Warren's Profession will be played everywhere, in season +and out of season, until Mrs Warren has bitten that fact into the +public conscience, and shamed the newspapers which support a +tariff to keep up the price of every American commodity except +American manhood and womanhood. + +Unfortunately, Mr Daly had already suffered the usual fate of +those who direct public attention to the profits of the sweater +or the pleasures of the voluptuary. He was morally lynched side +by side with me. Months elapsed before the decision of the courts +vindicated him; and even then, since his vindication implied the +condemnation of the press, which was by that time sober again, +and ashamed of its orgy, his triumph received a rather sulky and +grudging publicity. In the meantime he had hardly been able to +approach an American city, including even those cities which had +heaped applause on him as the defender of hearth and home when he +produced Candida, without having to face articles discussing +whether mothers could allow their daughters to attend such plays +as You Never Can Tell, written by the infamous author of Mrs +Warren's Profession, and acted by the monster who produced it. +What made this harder to bear was that though no fact is better +established in theatrical business than the financial +disastrousness of moral discredit, the journalists who had done +all the mischief kept paying vice the homage of assuming that it +is enormously popular and lucrative, and that I and Mr Daly, +being exploiters of vice, must therefore be making colossal +fortunes out of the abuse heaped on us, and had in fact provoked +it and welcomed it with that express object. Ignorance of real +life could hardly go further. + +One consequence was that Mr Daly could not have kept his +financial engagements or maintained his hold on the public had he +not accepted engagements to appear for a season in the vaudeville +theatres [the American equivalent of our music halls], where he +played How He Lied to Her Husband comparatively unhampered by the +press censorship of the theatre, or by that sophistication of the +audience through press suggestion from which I suffer more, +perhaps, than any other author. Vaudeville authors are +fortunately unknown: the audiences see what the play contains and +what the actor can do, not what the papers have told them to +expect. Success under such circumstances had a value both for Mr +Daly and myself which did something to console us for the very +unsavory mobbing which the New York press organized for us, and +which was not the less disgusting because we suffered in a good +cause and in the very best company. + +Mr Daly, having weathered the storm, can perhaps shake his soul +free of it as he heads for fresh successes with younger authors. +But I have certain sensitive places in my soul: I do not like +that word "ordure." Apply it to my work, and I can afford to +smile, since the world, on the whole, will smile with me. But to +apply it to the woman in the street, whose spirit is of one +substance with our own and her body no less holy: to look your +women folk in the face afterwards and not go out and hang +yourself: that is not on the list of pardonable sins. + +POSTSCRIPT. Since the above was written news has arrived from +America that a leading New York newspaper, which was among the +most abusively clamorous for the suppression of Mrs Warren's +Profession, has just been fined heavily for deriving part of its +revenue from advertisements of Mrs Warren's houses. + +Many people have been puzzled by the fact that whilst stage +entertainments which are frankly meant to act on the spectators +as aphrodisiacs, are everywhere tolerated, plays which have an +almost horrifyingly contrary effect are fiercely attacked by +persons and papers notoriously indifferent to public morals on +all other occasions. The explanation is very simple. The profits +of Mrs Warren's profession are shared not only by Mrs Warren and +Sir George Crofts, but by the landlords of their houses, the +newspapers which advertize them, the restaurants which cater for +them, and, in short, all the trades to which they are good +customers, not to mention the public officials and +representatives whom they silence by complicity, corruption, or +blackmail. Add to these the employers who profit by cheap female +labor, and the shareholders whose dividends depend on it [you +find such people everywhere, even on the judicial bench and in +the highest places in Church and State], and you get a large and +powerful class with a strong pecuniary incentive to protect Mrs +Warren's profession, and a correspondingly strong incentive to +conceal, from their own consciences no less than from the world, +the real sources of their gain. These are the people who declare +that it is feminine vice and not poverty that drives women to the +streets, as if vicious women with independent incomes ever went +there. These are the people who, indulgent or indifferent to +aphrodisiac plays, raise the moral hue and cry against +performances of Mrs Warren's Profession, and drag actresses to +the police court to be insulted, bullied, and threatened for +fulfilling their engagements. For please observe that the +judicial decision in New York State in favor of the play does not +end the matter. In Kansas City, for instance, the municipality, +finding itself restrained by the courts from preventing the +performance, fell back on a local bye-law against indecency to +evade the Constitution of the United States. They summoned the +actress who impersonated Mrs Warren to the police court, and +offered her and her colleagues the alternative of leaving the +city or being prosecuted under this bye-law. + +Now nothing is more possible than that the city councillors who +suddenly displayed such concern for the morals of the theatre +were either Mrs Warren's landlords, or employers of women at +starvation wages, or restaurant keepers, or newspaper +proprietors, or in some other more or less direct way sharers of +the profits of her trade. No doubt it is equally possible that +they were simply stupid men who thought that indecency consists, +not in evil, but in mentioning it. I have, however, been myself a +member of a municipal council, and have not found municipal +councillors quite so simple and inexperienced as this. At all +events I do not propose to give the Kansas councillors the +benefit of the doubt. I therefore advise the public at large, +which will finally decide the matter, to keep a vigilant eye on +gentlemen who will stand anything at the theatre except a +performance of Mrs Warren's Profession, and who assert in the +same breath that [a] the play is too loathsome to be bearable by +civilized people, and [b] that unless its performance is +prohibited the whole town will throng to see it. They may be +merely excited and foolish; but I am bound to warn the public +that it is equally likely that they may be collected and knavish. + +At all events, to prohibit the play is to protect the evil which +the play exposes; and in view of that fact, I see no reason for +assuming that the prohibitionists are disinterested moralists, +and that the author, the managers, and the performers, who depend +for their livelihood on their personal reputations and not on +rents, advertisements, or dividends, are grossly inferior to them +in moral sense and public responsibility. + +It is true that in Mrs Warren's Profession, Society, and not any +individual, is the villain of the piece; but it does not follow +that the people who take offence at it are all champions of +society. Their credentials cannot be too carefully examined. + + + +HOW HE LIED TO HER HUSBAND + +It is eight o'clock in the evening. The curtains are drawn +and the lamps lighted in the drawing room of Her flat in +Cromwell Road. Her lover, a beautiful youth of eighteen, in +evening dress and cape, with a bunch of flowers and an opera hat +in his hands, comes in alone. The door is near the corner; and as +he appears in the doorway, he has the fireplace on the nearest +wall to his right, and the grand piano along the opposite wall to +his left. Near the fireplace a small ornamental table has on it a +hand mirror, a fan, a pair of long white gloves, and a little +white woollen cloud to wrap a woman's head in. On the other side +of the room, near the piano, is a broad, square, softly up- +holstered stool. The room is furnished in the most approved +South Kensington fashion: that is, it is as like a show room as +possible, and is intended to demonstrate the racial position and +spending powers of its owners, and not in the least to make them +comfortable. + +He is, be it repeated, a very beautiful youth, moving as in a +dream, walking as on air. He puts his flowers down carefully on +the table beside the fan; takes off his cape, and, as there is no +room on the table for it, takes it to the piano; puts his hat on +the cape; crosses to the hearth; looks at his watch; puts it up +again; notices the things on the table; lights up as if he saw +heaven opening before him; goes to the table and takes the cloud +in both hands, nestling his nose into its softness and kissing +it; kisses the gloves one after another; kisses the fan: gasps a +long shuddering sigh of ecstasy; sits down on the stool and +presses his hands to his eyes to shut out reality and dream a +little; takes his hands down and shakes his head with a little +smile of rebuke for his folly; catches sight of a speck of dust +on his shoes and hastily and carefully brushes it off with his +handkerchief; rises and takes the hand mirror from the table to +make sure of his tie with the gravest anxiety; and is looking at +his watch again when She comes in, much flustered. As she is +dressed for the theatre; has spoilt, petted ways; and wears many +diamonds, she has an air of being a young and beautiful woman; +but as a matter of hard fact, she is, dress and pretensions +apart, a very ordinary South Kensington female of about 37, +hopelessly inferior in physical and spiritual distinction to the +beautiful youth, who hastily puts down the mirror as she enters. + +HE [kissing her hand] At last! + +SHE. Henry: something dreadful has happened. + +HE. What's the matter? + +SHE. I have lost your poems. + +HE. They were unworthy of you. I will write you some more. + +SHE. No, thank you. Never any more poems for me. Oh, how could I +have been so mad! so rash! so imprudent! + +HE. Thank Heaven for your madness, your rashness, your +imprudence! + +SHE [impatiently] Oh, be sensible, Henry. Can't you see what a +terrible thing this is for me? Suppose anybody finds these poems! +what will they think? + +HE. They will think that a man once loved a woman more devotedly +than ever man loved woman before. But they will not know what man +it was. + +SHE. What good is that to me if everybody will know what woman it +was? + +HE. But how will they know? + +SHE. How will they know! Why, my name is all over them: my silly, +unhappy name. Oh, if I had only been christened Mary Jane, or +Gladys Muriel, or Beatrice, or Francesca, or Guinevere, or +something quite common! But Aurora! Aurora! I'm the only Aurora +in London; and everybody knows it. I believe I'm the only Aurora +in the world. And it's so horribly easy to rhyme to it! Oh, +Henry, why didn't you try to restrain your feelings a little in +common consideration for me? Why didn't you write with some +little reserve? + +HE. Write poems to you with reserve! You ask me that! + +SHE [with perfunctory tenderness] Yes, dear, of course it was +very nice of you; and I know it was my own fault as much as +yours. I ought to have noticed that your verses ought never to +have been addressed to a married woman. + +HE. Ah, how I wish they had been addressed to an unmarried woman! +how I wish they had! + +SHE. Indeed you have no right to wish anything of the sort. They +are quite unfit for anybody but a married woman. That's just the +difficulty. What will my sisters-in-law think of them? + +HE [painfully jarred] Have you got sisters-in-law? + +SHE. Yes, of course I have. Do you suppose I am an angel? + +HE [biting his lips] I do. Heaven help me, I do--or I did--or [he +almost chokes a sob]. + +SHE [softening and putting her hand caressingly on his shoulder] +Listen to me, dear. It's very nice of you to live with me in a +dream, and to love me, and so on; but I can't help my husband +having disagreeable relatives, can I? + +HE [brightening up] Ah, of course they are your husband's +relatives: I forgot that. Forgive me, Aurora. [He takes her hand +from his shoulder and kisses it. She sits down on the stool. He +remains near the table, with his back to it, smiling fatuously +down at her]. + +SHE. The fact is, Teddy's got nothing but relatives. He has eight +sisters and six half-sisters, and ever so many brothers--but I +don't mind his brothers. Now if you only knew the least little +thing about the world, Henry, you'd know that in a large family, +though the sisters quarrel with one another like mad all the +time, yet let one of the brothers marry, and they all turn on +their unfortunate sister-in-law and devote the rest of their +lives with perfect unanimity to persuading him that his wife is +unworthy of him. They can do it to her very face without her +knowing it, because there are always a lot of stupid low family +jokes that nobody understands but themselves. Half the time you +can't tell what they're talking about: it just drives you wild. +There ought to be a law against a man's sister ever entering his +house after he's married. I'm as certain as that I'm sitting here +that Georgina stole those poems out of my workbox. + +HE. She will not understand them, I think. + +SHE. Oh, won't she! She'll understand them only too well. She'll +understand more harm than ever was in them: nasty vulgar-minded +cat! + +HE [going to her] Oh don't, don't think of people in that way. +Don't think of her at all. [He takes her hand and sits down on +the carpet at her feet]. Aurora: do you remember the evening when +I sat here at your feet and read you those poems for the first +time? + +SHE. I shouldn't have let you: I see that now. When I think of +Georgina sitting there at Teddy's feet and reading them to him +for the first time, I feel I shall just go distracted. + +HE. Yes, you are right. It will be a profanation. + +SHE. Oh, I don't care about the profanation; but what will Teddy +think? what will he do? [Suddenly throwing his head away from her +knee]. You don't seem to think a bit about Teddy. [She jumps up, +more and more agitated]. + +HE [supine on the floor; for she has thrown him off his balance] +To me Teddy is nothing, and Georgina less than nothing. + +SHE. You'll soon find out how much less than nothing she is. If +you think a woman can't do any harm because she's only a +scandalmongering dowdy ragbag, you're greatly mistaken. [She +flounces about the room. He gets up slowly and dusts his hands. +Suddenly she runs to him and throws herself into his arms]. +Henry: help me. Find a way out of this for me; and I'll bless you +as long as you live. Oh, how wretched I am! [She sobs on his +breast]. + +HE. And oh! how happy I am! + +SHE [whisking herself abruptly away] Don't be selfish. + +HE [humbly] Yes: I deserve that. I think if I were going to the +stake with you, I should still be so happy with you that I could +hardly feel your danger more than my own. + +SHE [relenting and patting his hand fondly] Oh, you are a dear +darling boy, Henry; but [throwing his hand away fretfully] you're +no use. I want somebody to tell me what to do. + +HE [with quiet conviction] Your heart will tell you at the right +time. I have thought deeply over this; and I know what we two +must do, sooner or later. + +SHE. No, Henry. I will do nothing improper, nothing dishonorable. +[She sits down plump on the stool and looks inflexible]. + +HE. If you did, you would no longer be Aurora. Our course is +perfectly simple, perfectly straightforward, perfectly stainless +and true. We love one another. I am not ashamed of that: I am +ready to go out and proclaim it to all London as simply as I will +declare it to your husband when you see--as you soon will see-- +that this is the only way honorable enough for your feet to +tread. Let us go out together to our own house, this evening, +without concealment and without shame. Remember! we owe something +to your husband. We are his guests here: he is an honorable man: +he has been kind to us: he has perhaps loved you as well as his +prosaic nature and his sordid commercial environment permitted. +We owe it to him in all honor not to let him learn the truth from +the lips of a scandalmonger. Let us go to him now quietly, hand +in hand; bid him farewell; and walk out of the house without +concealment and subterfuge, freely and honestly, in full honor +and self-respect. + +SHE [staring at him] And where shall we go to? + +HE. We shall not depart by a hair's breadth from the ordinary +natural current of our lives. We were going to the theatre when +the loss of the poems compelled us to take action at once. We +shall go to the theatre still; but we shall leave your diamonds +here; for we cannot afford diamonds, and do not need them. + +SHE [fretfully] I have told you already that I hate diamonds; +only Teddy insists on hanging me all over with them. You need not +preach simplicity to me. + +HE. I never thought of doing so, dearest: I know that these +trivialities are nothing to you. What was I saying--oh yes. +Instead of coming back here from the theatre, you will come with +me to my home--now and henceforth our home--and in due course of +time, when you are divorced, we shall go through whatever idle +legal ceremony you may desire. I attach no importance to the +law: my love was not created in me by the law, nor can it be +bound or loosed by it. That is simple enough, and sweet enough, +is it not? [He takes the flower from the table]. Here are flowers +for you: I have the tickets: we will ask your husband to lend us +the carriage to show that there is no malice, no grudge, between +us. Come! + +SHE [spiritlessly, taking the flowers without looking at them, +and temporizing] Teddy isn't in yet. + +HE. Well, let us take that calmly. Let us go to the theatre as if +nothing had happened. and tell him when we come back. Now or +three hours hence: to-day or to-morrow: what does it matter, +provided all is done in honor, without shame or fear? + +SHE. What did you get tickets for? Lohengrin? + +HE. I tried; but Lohengrin was sold out for to-night. [He takes +out two Court Theatre tickets]. + +SHE. Then what did you get? + +HE. Can you ask me? What is there besides Lohengrin that we two +could endure, except Candida? + +SHE [springing up] Candida! No, I won't go to it again, Henry +[tossing the flower on the piano]. It is that play that has done +all the mischief. I'm very sorry I ever saw it: it ought to be +stopped. + +HE [amazed] Aurora! + +SHE. Yes: I mean it. + +HE. That divinest love poem! the poem that gave us courage to +speak to one another! that revealed to us what we really felt for +one another! That-- + +SHE. Just so. It put a lot of stuff into my head that I should +never have dreamt of for myself. I imagined myself just like +Candida. + +HE [catching her hands and looking earnestly at her] You were +right. You are like Candida. + +SHE [snatching her hands away] Oh, stuff! And I thought you were +just like Eugene. [Looking critically at him] Now that I come to +look at you, you are rather like him, too. [She throws herself +discontentedly into the nearest seat, which happens to be the +bench at the piano. He goes to her]. + +HE [very earnestly] Aurora: if Candida had loved Eugene she would +have gone out into the night with him without a moment's +hesitation. + +SHE [with equal earnestness] Henry: do you know what's wanting in +that play? + +HE. There is nothing wanting in it. + +SHE. Yes there is. There's a Georgina wanting in it. If Georgina +had been there to make trouble, that play would have been a +true-to-life tragedy. Now I'll tell you something about it that I +have never told you before. + +HE. What is that? + +SHE. I took Teddy to it. I thought it would do him good; and so +it would if I could only have kept him awake. Georgina came too; +and you should have heard the way she went on about it. She said +it was downright immoral, and that she knew the sort of woman +that encourages boys to sit on the hearthrug and make love to +her. She was just preparing Teddy's mind to poison it about me. + +HE. Let us be just to Georgina, dearest + +SHE. Let her deserve it first. Just to Georgina, indeed! + +HE. She really sees the world in that way. That is her +punishment. + +SHE. How can it be her punishment when she likes it? It'll be my +punishment when she brings that budget of poems to Teddy. I wish +you'd have some sense, and sympathize with my position a little. + +HE. [going away from the piano and beginning to walk about rather +testily] My dear: I really don't care about Georgina or about +Teddy. All these squabbles belong to a plane on which I am, as +you say, no use. I have counted the cost; and I do not fear the +consequences. After all, what is there to fear? Where is the +difficulty? What can Georgina do? What can your husband do? What +can anybody do? + +SHE. Do you mean to say that you propose that we should walk +right bang up to Teddy and tell him we're going away together? + +HE. Yes. What can be simpler? + +SHE. And do you think for a moment he'd stand it, like that +half-baked clergyman in the play? He'd just kill you. + +HE [coming to a sudden stop and speaking with considerable +confidence] You don't understand these things, my darling, +how could you? In one respect I am unlike the poet in the play. I +have followed the Greek ideal and not neglected the culture of my +body. Your husband would make a tolerable second-rate heavy +weight if he were in training and ten years younger. As it is, he +could, if strung up to a great effort by a burst of passion, give +a good account of himself for perhaps fifteen seconds. But I am +active enough to keep out of his reach for fifteen seconds; and +after that I should be simply all over him. + +SHE [rising and coming to him in consternation] What do you mean +by all over him? + +HE [gently] Don't ask me, dearest. At all events, I swear to you +that you need not be anxious about me. + +SHE. And what about Teddy? Do you mean to tell me that you are +going to beat Teddy before my face like a brutal prizefighter? + +HE. All this alarm is needless, dearest. Believe me, nothing will +happen. Your husband knows that I am capable of defending myself. +Under such circumstances nothing ever does happen. And of course +I shall do nothing. The man who once loved you is sacred to me. + +SHE [suspiciously] Doesn't he love me still? Has he told you +anything? + +HE. No, no. [He takes her tenderly in his arms]. Dearest, +dearest: how agitated you are! how unlike yourself! All these +worries belong to the lower plane. Come up with me to the higher +one. The heights, the solitudes, the soul world! + +SHE [avoiding his gaze] No: stop: it's no use, Mr Apjohn. + +HE [recoiling] Mr Apjohn!!! + +SHE. Excuse me: I meant Henry, of course. + +HE. How could you even think of me as Mr Apjohn? I never think of +you as Mrs Bompas: it is always Cand-- I mean Aurora, Aurora, +Auro-- + +SHE. Yes, yes: that's all very well, Mr Apjohn [He is about to +interrupt again: but she won't have it] no: it's no use: I've +suddenly begun to think of you as Mr Apjohn; and it's ridiculous +to go on calling you Henry. I thought you were only a boy, a +child, a dreamer. I thought you would be too much afraid to do +anything. And now you want to beat Teddy and to break up my home +and disgrace me and make a horrible scandal in the papers. It's +cruel, unmanly, cowardly. + +HE [with grave wonder] Are you afraid? + +SHE. Oh, of course I'm afraid. So would you be if you had any +common sense. [She goes to the hearth, turning her back to him, +and puts one tapping foot on the fender]. + +HE [watching her with great gravity] Perfect love casteth out +fear. That is why I am not afraid. Mrs Bompas: you do not love +me. + +SHE [turning to him with a gasp of relief] Oh, thank you, thank +you! You really can be very nice, Henry. + +HE. Why do you thank me? + +SHE [coming prettily to him from the fireplace] For calling me +Mrs Bompas again. I feel now that you are going to be reasonable +and behave like a gentleman. [He drops on the stool; covers his +face with his hand; and groans]. What's the matter? + +HE. Once or twice in my life I have dreamed that I was +exquisitely happy and blessed. But oh! the misgiving at the first +stir of consciousness! the stab of reality! the prison walls of +the bedroom! the bitter, bitter disappointment of waking! And +this time! oh, this time I thought I was awake. + +SHE. Listen to me, Henry: we really haven't time for all that +sort of flapdoodle now. [He starts to his feet as if she had +pulled a trigger and straightened him by the release of a +powerful spring, and goes past her with set teeth to the little +table]. Oh, take care: you nearly hit me in the chin with the top +of your head. + +HE [with fierce politeness] I beg your pardon. What is it you +want me to do? I am at your service. I am ready to behave like a +gentleman if you will be kind enough to explain exactly how. + +SHE [a little frightened] Thank you, Henry: I was sure you would. +You're not angry with me, are you? + +HE. Go on. Go on quickly. Give me something to think about, or I +will--I will--[he suddenly snatches up her fan and it about to +break it in his clenched fists]. + +SHE [running forward and catching at the fan, with loud +lamentation] Don't break my fan--no, don't. [He slowly relaxes +his grip of it as she draws it anxiously out of his hands]. +No, really, that's a stupid trick. I don't like that. You've no +right to do that. [She opens the fan, and finds that the sticks +are disconnected]. Oh, how could you be so inconsiderate? + +HE. I beg your pardon. I will buy you a new one. + +SHE [querulously] You will never be able to match it. And it was +a particular favorite of mine. + +HE [shortly] Then you will have to do without it: that's all. + +SHE. That's not a very nice thing to say after breaking my pet +fan, I think. + +HE. If you knew how near I was to breaking Teddy's pet wife and +presenting him with the pieces, you would be thankful that you +are alive instead of--of--of howling about five shillings worth +of ivory. Damn your fan! + +SHE. Oh! Don't you dare swear in my presence. One would think you +were my husband. + +HE [again collapsing on the stool] This is some horrible dream. +What has become of you? You are not my Aurora. + +SHE. Oh, well, if you come to that, what has become of you? Do +you think I would ever have encouraged you if I had known you +were such a little devil? + +HE. Don't drag me down--don't--don't. Help me to find the way +back to the heights. + +SHE [kneeling beside him and pleading] If you would only be +reasonable, Henry. If you would only remember that I am on the +brink of ruin, and not go on calmly saying it's all quite simple. + +HE. It seems so to me. + +SHE [jumping up distractedly] If you say that again I shall do +something I'll be sorry for. Here we are, standing on the edge of +a frightful precipice. No doubt it's quite simple to go over and +have done with it. But can't you suggest anything more agreeable? + +HE. I can suggest nothing now. A chill black darkness has +fallen: I can see nothing but the ruins of our dream. [He rises +with a deep sigh]. + +SHE. Can't you? Well, I can. I can see Georgina rubbing those +poems into Teddy. [Facing him determinedly] And I tell you, Henry +Apjohn, that you got me into this mess; and you must get me out +of it again. + +HE [polite and hopeless] All I can say is that I am entirely at +your service. What do you wish me to do? + +SHE. Do you know anybody else named Aurora? + +HE. No. + +SHE. There's no use in saying No in that frozen pigheaded way. +You must know some Aurora or other somewhere. + +HE. You said you were the only Aurora in the world. And [lifting +his clasped fists with a sudden return of his emotion] oh God! +you were the only Aurora in the world to me. [He turns away from +her, hiding his face]. + +SHE [petting him] Yes, yes, dear: of course. It's very nice of +you; and I appreciate it: indeed I do; but it's not reasonable +just at present. Now just listen to me. I suppose you know all +those poems by heart. + +HE. Yes, by heart. [Raising his head and looking at her, with a +sudden suspicion] Don't you? + +SHE. Well, I never can remember verses; and besides, I've been so +busy that I've not had time to read them all; though I intend to +the very first moment I can get: I promise you that most +faithfully, Henry. But now try and remember very particularly. +Does the name of Bompas occur in any of the poems? + +HE [indignantly] No. + +SHE. You're quite sure? + +HE. Of course I am quite sure. How could I use such a name in a +poem? + +SHE. Well, I don't see why not. It rhymes to rumpus, which seems +appropriate enough at present, goodness knows! However, you're a +poet, and you ought to know. + +HE. What does it matter--now? + +SHE. It matters a lot, I can tell you. If there's nothing about +Bompas in the poems, we can say that they were written to some +other Aurora, and that you showed them to me because my name was +Aurora too. So you've got to invent another Aurora for the +occasion. + +HE [very coldly] Oh, if you wish me to tell a lie-- + +SHE. Surely, as a man of honor--as a gentleman, you wouldn't tell +the truth, would you? + +HE. Very well. You have broken my spirit and desecrated my +dreams. I will lie and protest and stand on my honor: oh, I will +play the gentleman, never fear. + +SHE. Yes, put it all on me, of course. Don't be mean, Henry. + +HE [rousing himself with an effort] You are quite right, Mrs +Bompas: I beg your pardon. You must excuse my temper. I have got +growing pains, I think. + +SHE. Growing pains! + +HE. The process of growing from romantic boyhood into cynical +maturity usually takes fifteen years. When it is compressed into +fifteen minutes, the pace is too fast; and growing pains are the +result. + +SHE. Oh, is this a time for cleverness? It's settled, isn't it, +that you're going to be nice and good, and that you'll brazen it +out to Teddy that you have some other Aurora? + +HE. Yes: I'm capable of anything now. I should not have told him +the truth by halves; and now I will not lie by halves. I'll +wallow in the honor of a gentleman. + +SHE. Dearest boy, I knew you would. I--Sh! [she rushes to the +door, and holds it ajar, listening breathlessly]. + +HE. What is it? + +SHE [white with apprehension] It's Teddy: I hear him tapping the +new barometer. He can't have anything serious on his mind or he +wouldn't do that. Perhaps Georgina hasn't said anything. [She +steals back to the hearth]. Try and look as if there was nothing +the matter. Give me my gloves, quick. [He hands them to her. She +pulls on one hastily and begins buttoning it with ostentatious +unconcern]. Go further away from me, quick. [He walks doggedly +away from her until the piano prevents his going farther]. If I +button my glove, and you were to hum a tune, don't you think +that-- + +HE. The tableau would be complete in its guiltiness. For Heaven's +sake, Mrs Bompas, let that glove alone: you look like a +pickpocket. + +Her husband comes in: a robust, thicknecked, well groomed city +man, with a strong chin but a blithering eye and credulous mouth. +He has a momentous air, but shows no sign of displeasure: rather +the contrary. + +HER HUSBAND. Hallo! I thought you two were at the theatre. + +SHE. I felt anxious about you, Teddy. Why didn't you come home to +dinner? + +HER HUSBAND. I got a message from Georgina. She wanted me to go +to her. + +SHE. Poor dear Georgina! I'm sorry I haven't been able to call on +her this last week. I hope there's nothing the matter with her. + +HER HUSBAND. Nothing, except anxiety for my welfare and yours. +[She steals a terrified look at Henry]. By, the way, Apjohn, I +should like a word with you this evening, if Aurora can spare you +for a moment. + +HE [formally] I am at your service. + +HER HUSBAND. No hurry. After the theatre will do. + +HE. We have decided not to go. + +HER HUSBAND. Indeed! Well, then, shall we adjourn to my snuggery? + +SHE. You needn't move. I shall go and lock up my diamonds since +I'm not going to the theatre. Give me my things. + +HER HUSBAND [as he hands her the cloud and the mirror] Well, we +shall have more room here. + +HE [looking about him and shaking his shoulders loose] I think I +should prefer plenty of room. + +HER HUSBAND. So, if it's not disturbing you, Rory--? + +SHE. Not at all. [She goes out]. + +When the two men are alone together, Bompas deliberately takes +the poems from his breast pocket; looks at them reflectively; +then looks at Henry, mutely inviting his attention. Henry refuses +to understand, doing his best to look unconcerned. + +HER HUSBAND. Do these manuscripts seem at all familiar to you, +may I ask? + +HE. Manuscripts? + +HER HUSBAND. Yes. Would you like to look at them a little closer? +[He proffers them under Henry's nose]. + +HE [as with a sudden illumination of glad surprise] Why, these +are my poems. + +HER HUSBAND. So I gather. + +HE. What a shame! Mrs Bompas has shown them to you! You must +think me an utter ass. I wrote them years ago after reading +Swinburne's Songs Before Sunrise. Nothing would do me then but I +must reel off a set of Songs to the Sunrise. Aurora, you know: +the rosy fingered Aurora. They're all about Aurora. When Mrs +Bompas told me her name was Aurora, I couldn't resist the +temptation to lend them to her to read. But I didn't bargain for +your unsympathetic eyes. + +HER HUSBAND [grinning] Apjohn: that's really very ready of you. +You are cut out for literature; and the day will come when Rory +and I will be proud to have you about the house. I have heard far +thinner stories from much older men. + +HE [with an air of great surprise] Do you mean to imply that you +don't believe me? + +HER HUSBAND. Do you expect me to believe you? + +HE. Why not? I don't understand. + +HER HUSBAND. Come! Don't underrate your own cleverness, Apjohn. I +think you understand pretty well. + +HE. I assure you I am quite at a loss. Can you not be a little +more explicit? + +HER HUSBAND. Don't overdo it, old chap. However, I will just be +so far explicit as to say that if you think these poems read as +if they were addressed, not to a live woman, but to a shivering +cold time of day at which you were never out of bed in your life, +you hardly do justice to your own literary powers--which I admire +and appreciate, mind you, as much as any man. Come! own up. You +wrote those poems to my wife. [An internal struggle prevents +Henry from answering]. Of course you did. [He throws the poems on +the table; and goes to the hearthrug, where he plants himself +solidly, chuckling a little and waiting for the next move]. + +HE [formally and carefully] Mr Bompas: I pledge you my word you +are mistaken. I need not tell you that Mrs Bompas is a lady of +stainless honor, who has never cast an unworthy thought on me. +The fact that she has shown you my poems-- + +HER HUSBAND. That's not a fact. I came by them without her +knowledge. She didn't show them to me. + +HE. Does not that prove their perfect innocence? She would have +shown them to you at once if she had taken your quite unfounded +view of them. + +HER HUSBAND [shaken] Apjohn: play fair. Don't abuse your +intellectual gifts. Do you really mean that I am making a fool of +myself? + +HE [earnestly] Believe me, you are. I assure you, on my honor as +a gentleman, that I have never had the slightest feeling for Mrs +Bompas beyond the ordinary esteem and regard of a pleasant +acquaintance. + +HER HUSBAND [shortly, showing ill humor for the first time] Oh, +indeed. [He leaves his hearth and begins to approach Henry +slowly, looking him up and down with growing resentment]. + +HE [hastening to improve the impression made by his mendacity] I +should never have dreamt of writing poems to her. The thing is +absurd. + +HER HUSBAND [reddening ominously] Why is it absurd? + +HE [shrugging his shoulders] Well, it happens that I do not +admire Mrs Bompas--in that way. + +HER HUSBAND [breaking out in Henry's face] Let me tell you that +Mrs Bompas has been admired by better men than you, you soapy +headed little puppy, you. + +HE [much taken aback] There is no need to insult me like this. I +assure you, on my honor as a-- + +HER HUSBAND [too angry to tolerate a reply, and boring Henry more +and more towards the piano] You don't admire Mrs Bompas! You +would never dream of writing poems to Mrs Bompas! My wife's not +good enough for you, isn't she. [Fiercely] Who are you, pray, +that you should be so jolly superior? + +HE. Mr Bompas: I can make allowances for your jealousy-- + +HER HUSBAND. Jealousy! do you suppose I'm jealous of YOU? No, nor +of ten like you. But if you think I'll stand here and let you +insult my wife in her own house, you're mistaken. + +HE [very uncomfortable with his back against the piano and Teddy +standing over him threateningly] How can I convince you? Be +reasonable. I tell you my relations with Mrs Bompas are relations +of perfect coldness--of indifference-- + +HER HUSBAND [scornfully] Say it again: say it again. You're proud +of it, aren't you? Yah! You're not worth kicking. + +Henry suddenly executes the feat known to pugilists as dipping, +and changes sides with Teddy, who it now between Henry and the +piano. + +HE. Look here: I'm not going to stand this. + +HER HUSBAND. Oh, you have some blood in your body after all! Good +job! + +HE. This is ridiculous. I assure you Mrs. Bompas is quite-- + +HER HUSBAND. What is Mrs Bompas to you, I'd like to know. I'll +tell you what Mrs Bompas is. She's the smartest woman in the +smartest set in South Kensington, and the handsomest, and the +cleverest, and the most fetching to experienced men who know a +good thing when they see it, whatever she may be to conceited +penny-a-lining puppies who think nothing good enough for them. +It's admitted by the best people; and not to know it argues +yourself unknown. Three of our first actor-managers have offered +her a hundred a week if she'd go on the stage when they start a +repertory theatre; and I think they know what they're about as +well as you. The only member of the present Cabinet that you +might call a handsome man has neglected the business of the +country to dance with her, though he don't belong to our set as a +regular thing. One of the first professional poets in Bedford +Park wrote a sonnet to her, worth all your amateur trash. At +Ascot last season the eldest son of a duke excused himself from +calling on me on the ground that his feelings for Mrs Bompas were +not consistent with his duty to me as host; and it did him honor +and me too. But [with gathering fury] she isn't good enough for +you, it seems. You regard her with coldness, with indifference; +and you have the cool cheek to tell me so to my face. For two +pins I'd flatten your nose in to teach you manners. Introducing a +fine woman to you is casting pearls before swine [yelling at him] +before SWINE! d'ye hear? + +HE [with a deplorable lack of polish] You call me a swine again +and I'll land you one on the chin that'll make your head sing for +a week. + +HER HUSBAND [exploding] What--! + +He charges at Henry with bull-like fury. Henry places himself on +guard in the manner of a well taught boxer, and gets away +smartly, but unfortunately forgets the stool which is just behind +him. He falls backwards over it, unintentionally pushing it +against the shins of Bompas, who falls forward over it. Mrs +Bompas, with a scream, rushes into the room between the sprawling +champions, and sits down on the floor in order to get her right +arm round her husband's neck. + +SHE. You shan't, Teddy: you shan't. You will be killed: he is a +prizefighter. + +HER HUSBAND [vengefully] I'll prizefight him. [He struggles +vainly to free himself from her embrace]. + +SHE. Henry: don't let him fight you. Promise me that you won't. + +HE [ruefully] I have got a most frightful bump on the back of my +head. [He tries to rise]. + +SHE [reaching out her left hand to seize his coat tail, and +pulling him down again, whilst keeping fast hold of Teddy with +the other hand] Not until you have promised: not until you both +have promised. [Teddy tries to rise: she pulls him back again]. +Teddy: you promise, don't you? Yes, yes. Be good: you promise. + +HER HUSBAND. I won't, unless he takes it back. + +SHE. He will: he does. You take it back, Henry?--yes. + +HE [savagely] Yes. I take it back. [She lets go his coat. He gets +up. So does Teddy]. I take it all back, all, without reserve. + +SHE [on the carpet] Is nobody going to help me up? [They each +take a hand and pull her up]. Now won't you shake hands and be +good? + +HE [recklessly] I shall do nothing of the sort. I have steeped +myself in lies for your sake; and the only reward I get is a lump +on the back of my head the size of an apple. Now I will go back +to the straight path. + +SHE. Henry: for Heaven's sake-- + +HE. It's no use. Your husband is a fool and a brute-- + +HER HUSBAND. What's that you say? + +HE. I say you are a fool and a brute; and if you'll step outside +with me I'll say it again. [Teddy begins to take off his coat for +combat]. Those poems were written to your wife, every word of +them, and to nobody else. [The scowl clears away from Bompas's +countenance. Radiant, he replaces his coat]. I wrote them because +I loved her. I thought her the most beautiful woman in the world; +and I told her so over and over again. I adored her: do you hear? +I told her that you were a sordid commercial chump, utterly +unworthy of her; and so you are. + +HER HUSBAND [so gratified, he can hardly believe his ears] You +don't mean it! + +HE. Yes, I do mean it, and a lot more too. I asked Mrs Bompas to +walk out of the house with me--to leave you--to get divorced from +you and marry me. I begged and implored her to do it this very +night. It was her refusal that ended everything between us. +[Looking very disparagingly at him] What she can see in you, +goodness only knows! + +HER HUSBAND [beaming with remorse] My dear chap, why didn't you +say so before? I apologize. Come! Don't bear malice: shake hands. +Make him shake hands, Rory. + +SHE. For my sake, Henry. After all, he's my husband. Forgive him. +Take his hand. [Henry, dazed, lets her take his hand and place it +in Teddy's]. + +HER HUSBAND [shaking it heartily] You've got to own that none of +your literary heroines can touch my Rory. [He turns to her and +claps her with fond pride on the shoulder]. Eh, Rory? They can't +resist you: none of em. Never knew a man yet that could hold out +three days. + +SHE. Don't be foolish, Teddy. I hope you were not really hurt, +Henry. [She feels the back of his head. He flinches]. Oh, poor +boy, what a bump! I must get some vinegar and brown paper. [She +goes to the bell and rings]. + +HER HUSBAND. Will you do me a great favor, Apjohn. I hardly like +to ask; but it would be a real kindness to us both. + +HE. What can I do? + +HER HUSBAND [taking up the poems] Well, may I get these printed? +It shall be done in the best style. The finest paper, sumptuous +binding, everything first class. They're beautiful poems. I +should like to show them about a bit. + +SHE [running back from the bell, delighted with the idea, and +coming between them] Oh Henry, if you wouldn't mind! + +HE. Oh, I don't mind. I am past minding anything. I have grown +too fast this evening. + +SHE. How old are you, Henry? + +HE. This morning I was eighteen. Now I am--confound it! I'm +quoting that beast of a play [he takes the Candida tickets out of +his pocket and tears them up viciously]. + +HER HUSBAND. What shall we call the volume? To Aurora, or +something like that, eh? + +HE. I should call it How He Lied to Her Husband. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's How He Lied to Her Husband by George Bernard Shaw + diff --git a/old/lied210.zip b/old/lied210.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..945bef4 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/lied210.zip |