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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Overruled, by George Bernard Shaw.
+#24 in our series by George Bernard Shaw.
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+Title: Overruled
+
+Author: George Bernard Shaw
+
+Release Date: March, 2003  [Etext #3830]
+[Yes, we are about one year ahead of schedule]
+[The actual date this file first posted = 9/30/01]
+[Date last updated: March 5, 2006]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Overruled, by George Bernard Shaw.
+******This file should be named  overr10.txt or overr10.zip******
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+This etext was produced by Eve Sobol, South Bend, Indiana, USA
+
+
+
+
+
+OVERRULED
+
+BERNARD SHAW
+
+1912
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: In the printed version of this text, all 
+apostrophes for contractions such as "can't", "wouldn't" and 
+"he'd" were omitted, to read as "cant", "wouldnt" and "hed".
+This etext restores the omitted apostrophes.
+
+
+PREFACE TO OVERRULED.
+
+THE ALLEVIATIONS OF MONOGAMY.
+
+This piece is not an argument for or against polygamy. It is a 
+clinical study of how the thing actually occurs among quite 
+ordinary people, innocent of all unconventional views concerning 
+it. The enormous majority of cases in real life are those of 
+people in that position. Those who deliberately and 
+conscientiously profess what are oddly called advanced views by 
+those others who believe them to be retrograde, are often, and 
+indeed mostly, the last people in the world to engage in 
+unconventional adventures of any kind, not only because they have 
+neither time nor disposition for them, but because the friction 
+set up between the individual and the community by the expression 
+of unusual views of any sort is quite enough hindrance to the 
+heretic without being complicated by personal scandals. Thus the 
+theoretic libertine is usually a person of blameless family life, 
+whilst the practical libertine is mercilessly severe on all other 
+libertines, and excessively conventional in professions of social 
+principle.
+
+What is more, these professions are not hypocritical: they are 
+for the most part quite sincere. The common libertine, like the 
+drunkard, succumbs to a temptation which he does not defend, and 
+against which he warns others with an earnestness proportionate 
+to the intensity of his own remorse. He (or she) may be a liar 
+and a humbug, pretending to be better than the detected 
+libertines, and clamoring for their condign punishment; but this 
+is mere self-defence. No reasonable person expects the burglar to 
+confess his pursuits, or to refrain from joining in the cry of 
+Stop Thief when the police get on the track of another burglar. 
+If society chooses to penalize candor, it has itself to thank if 
+its attack is countered by falsehood. The clamorous virtue of the 
+libertine is therefore no more hypocritical than the plea of Not 
+Guilty which is allowed to every criminal. But one result is that 
+the theorists who write most sincerely and favorably about 
+polygamy know least about it; and the practitioners who know most 
+about it keep their knowledge very jealously to themselves. Which 
+is hardly fair to the practice.
+
+
+INACCESSIBILITY OF THE FACTS.
+
+Also it is impossible to estimate its prevalence. A practice to 
+which nobody confesses may be both universal and unsuspected, 
+just as a virtue which everybody is expected, under heavy 
+penalties, to claim, may have no existence. It is often assumed--
+indeed it is the official assumption of the Churches and the 
+divorce courts that a gentleman and a lady cannot be alone 
+together innocently. And that is manifest blazing nonsense, 
+though many women have been stoned to death in the east, and 
+divorced in the west, on the strength of it. On the other hand, 
+the innocent and conventional people who regard the gallant 
+adventures as crimes of so horrible a nature that only the most 
+depraved and desperate characters engage in them or would listen 
+to advances in that direction without raising an alarm with the 
+noisiest indignation, are clearly examples of the fact that most 
+sections of society do not know how the other sections live.
+Industry is the most effective check on gallantry. Women may, as 
+Napoleon said, be the occupation of the idle man just as men are 
+the preoccupation of the idle woman; but the mass of mankind is 
+too busy and too poor for the long and expensive sieges which the 
+professed libertine lays to virtue. Still, wherever there is 
+idleness or even a reasonable supply of elegant leisure there is 
+a good deal of coquetry and philandering. It is so much 
+pleasanter to dance on the edge of a precipice than to go over it 
+that leisured society is full of people who spend a great part of 
+their lives in flirtation, and conceal nothing but the 
+humiliating secret that they have never gone any further. For 
+there is no pleasing people in the matter of reputation in this 
+department: every insult is a flattery; every testimonial is a 
+disparagement: Joseph is despised and promoted, Potiphar's wife 
+admired and condemned: in short, you are never on solid ground 
+until you get away from the subject altogether. There is a 
+continual and irreconcilable conflict between the natural and 
+conventional sides of the case, between spontaneous human 
+relations between independent men and women on the one hand and 
+the property relation between husband and wife on the other, not 
+to mention the confusion under the common name of love of a 
+generous natural attraction and interest with the murderous 
+jealousy that fastens on and clings to its mate (especially a 
+hated mate) as a tiger fastens on a carcase. And the confusion is 
+natural; for these extremes are extremes of the same passion; and 
+most cases lie somewhere on the scale between them, and are so 
+complicated by ordinary likes and dislikes, by incidental wounds 
+to vanity or gratifications of it, and by class feeling, that A 
+will be jealous of B and not of C, and will tolerate infidelities 
+on the part of D whilst being furiously angry when they are 
+committed by E.
+
+
+THE CONVENTION OF JEALOUSY
+
+That jealousy is independent of sex is shown by its intensity in 
+children, and by the fact that very jealous people are jealous of 
+everybody without regard to relationship or sex, and cannot bear 
+to hear the person they "love" speak favorably of anyone under 
+any circumstances (many women, for instance, are much more 
+jealous of their husbands' mothers and sisters than of unrelated 
+women whom they suspect him of fancying); but it is seldom 
+possible to disentangle the two passions in practice. Besides, 
+jealousy is an inculcated passion, forced by society on people in 
+whom it would not occur spontaneously. In Brieux's Bourgeois aux 
+Champs, the benevolent hero finds himself detested by the 
+neighboring peasants and farmers, not because he preserves game, 
+and sets mantraps for poachers, and defends his legal rights over 
+his land to the extremest point of unsocial savagery, but 
+because, being an amiable and public-spirited person, he refuses 
+to do all this, and thereby offends and disparages the sense of 
+property in his neighbors. The same thing is true of matrimonial 
+jealousy; the man who does not at least pretend to feel it and 
+behave as badly as if he really felt it is despised and insulted; 
+and many a man has shot or stabbed a friend or been shot or 
+stabbed by him in a duel, or disgraced himself and ruined his own 
+wife in a divorce scandal, against his conscience, against his 
+instinct, and to the destruction of his home, solely because 
+Society conspired to drive him to keep its own lower morality in 
+countenance in this miserable and undignified manner.
+
+Morality is confused in such matters. In an elegant plutocracy, a 
+jealous husband is regarded as a boor. Among the tradesmen who 
+supply that plutocracy with its meals, a husband who is not 
+jealous, and refrains from assailing his rival with his fists, is 
+regarded as a ridiculous, contemptible and cowardly cuckold. And 
+the laboring class is divided into the respectable section which 
+takes the tradesman's view, and the disreputable section which 
+enjoys the license of the plutocracy without its money: creeping 
+below the law as its exemplars prance above it; cutting down all 
+expenses of respectability and even decency; and frankly 
+accepting squalor and disrepute as the price of anarchic self-
+indulgence. The conflict between Malvolio and Sir Toby, between 
+the marquis and the bourgeois, the cavalier and the puritan, the 
+ascetic and the voluptuary, goes on continually, and goes on not 
+only between class and class and individual and individual, but 
+in the selfsame breast in a series of reactions and revulsions in 
+which the irresistible becomes the unbearable, and the unbearable 
+the irresistible, until none of us can say what our characters 
+really are in this respect.
+
+
+THE MISSING DATA OF A SCIENTIFIC NATURAL HISTORY OF MARRIAGE.
+
+Of one thing I am persuaded: we shall never attain to a 
+reasonable healthy public opinion on sex questions until we 
+offer, as the data for that opinion, our actual conduct and our 
+real thoughts instead of a moral fiction which we agree to call 
+virtuous conduct, and which we then--and here comes in the 
+mischief--pretend is our conduct and our thoughts. If the result 
+were that we all believed one another to be better than we really 
+are, there would be something to be said for it; but the actual 
+result appears to be a monstrous exaggeration of the power and 
+continuity of sexual passion. The whole world shares the fate of 
+Lucrezia Borgia, who, though she seems on investigation to have 
+been quite a suitable wife for a modern British Bishop, has been 
+invested by the popular historical imagination with all the 
+extravagances of a Messalina or a Cenci. Writers of belles 
+lettres who are rash enough to admit that their whole life is not 
+one constant preoccupation with adored members of the opposite 
+sex, and who even countenance La Rochefoucauld's remark that very 
+few people would ever imagine themselves in love if they had 
+never read anything about it, are gravely declared to be abnormal 
+or physically defective by critics of crushing unadventurousness 
+and domestication. French authors of saintly temperament are 
+forced to include in their retinue countesses of ardent 
+complexion with whom they are supposed to live in sin. 
+Sentimental controversies on the subject are endless; but they 
+are useless, because nobody tells the truth. Rousseau did it by 
+an extraordinary effort, aided by a superhuman faculty for human 
+natural history, but the result was curiously disconcerting 
+because, though the facts were so conventionally shocking that 
+people felt that they ought to matter a great deal, they actually 
+mattered very little. And even at that everybody pretends not to 
+believe him.
+
+
+ARTIFICIAL RETRIBUTION.
+
+The worst of that is that busybodies with perhaps rather more 
+than a normal taste for mischief are continually trying to make 
+negligible things matter as much in fact as they do in convention 
+by deliberately inflicting injuries--sometimes atrocious 
+injuries--on the parties concerned. Few people have any knowledge 
+of the savage punishments that are legally inflicted for 
+aberrations and absurdities to which no sanely instructed 
+community would call any attention. We create an artificial 
+morality, and consequently an artificial conscience, by 
+manufacturing disastrous consequences for events which, left to 
+themselves, would do very little harm (sometimes not any) and be 
+forgotten in a few days.
+
+But the artificial morality is not therefore to be condemned 
+offhand. In many cases it may save mischief instead of making it: 
+for example, though the hanging of a murderer is the duplication 
+of a murder, yet it may be less murderous than leaving the matter 
+to be settled by blood feud or vendetta. As long as human nature 
+insists on revenge, the official organization and satisfaction of 
+revenge by the State may be also its minimization. The mischief 
+begins when the official revenge persists after the passion it 
+satisfies has died out of the race. Stoning a woman to death in 
+the east because she has ventured to marry again after being 
+deserted by her husband may be more merciful than allowing her to 
+be mobbed to death; but the official stoning or burning of an 
+adulteress in the west would be an atrocity because few of us 
+hate an adulteress to the extent of desiring such a penalty, or 
+of being prepared to take the law into our own hands if it were 
+withheld. Now what applies to this extreme case applies also in 
+due degree to the other cases. Offences in which sex is concerned 
+are often needlessly magnified by penalties, ranging from various 
+forms of social ostracism to long sentences of penal servitude, 
+which would be seen to be monstrously disproportionate to the 
+real feeling against them if the removal of both the penalties 
+and the taboo on their discussion made it possible for us to 
+ascertain their real prevalence and estimation. Fortunately there 
+is one outlet for the truth. We are permitted to discuss in jest 
+what we may not discuss in earnest. A serious comedy about sex is 
+taboo: a farcical comedy is privileged.
+
+
+THE FAVORITE SUBJECT OF FARCICAL COMEDY.
+
+The little piece which follows this preface accordingly takes the 
+form of a farcical comedy, because it is a contribution to the 
+very extensive dramatic literature which takes as its special 
+department the gallantries of married people. The stage has been 
+preoccupied by such affairs for centuries, not only in the 
+jesting vein of Restoration Comedy and Palais Royal farce, but in 
+the more tragically turned adulteries of the Parisian school 
+which dominated the stage until Ibsen put them out of countenance 
+and relegated them to their proper place as articles of commerce. 
+Their continued vogue in that department maintains the tradition 
+that adultery is the dramatic subject par excellence, and indeed 
+that a play that is not about adultery is not a play at all. I 
+was considered a heresiarch of the most extravagant kind when I 
+expressed my opinion at the outset of my career as a playwright, 
+that adultery is the dullest of themes on the stage, and that 
+from Francesca and Paolo down to the latest guilty couple of the 
+school of Dumas fils, the romantic adulterers have all been 
+intolerable bores.
+
+
+THE PSEUDO SEX PLAY.
+
+Later on, I had occasion to point out to the defenders of sex as 
+the proper theme of drama, that though they were right in ranking 
+sex as an intensely interesting subject, they were wrong in 
+assuming that sex is an indispensable motive in popular plays. 
+The plays of Moliere are, like the novels of the Victorian epoch 
+or Don Quixote, as nearly sexless as anything not absolutely 
+inhuman can be; and some of Shakespear's plays are sexually on a 
+par with the census: they contain women as well as men, and that 
+is all. This had to be admitted; but it was still assumed that 
+the plays of the XIX century Parisian school are, in contrast 
+with the sexless masterpieces, saturated with sex; and this I 
+strenuously denied. A play about the convention that a man should 
+fight a duel or come to fisticuffs with his wife's lover if she 
+has one, or the convention that he should strangle her like 
+Othello, or turn her out of the house and never see her or allow 
+her to see her children again, or the convention that she should 
+never be spoken to again by any decent person and should finally 
+drown herself, or the convention that persons involved in scenes 
+of recrimination or confession by these conventions should call 
+each other certain abusive names and describe their conduct as 
+guilty and frail and so on: all these may provide material for 
+very effective plays; but such plays are not dramatic studies of 
+sex: one might as well say that Romeo and Juliet is a dramatic 
+study of pharmacy because the catastrophe is brought about 
+through an apothecary. Duels are not sex; divorce cases are not 
+sex; the Trade Unionism of married women is not sex. Only the 
+most insignificant fraction of the gallantries of married people 
+produce any of the conventional results; and plays occupied 
+wholly with the conventional results are therefore utterly 
+unsatisfying as sex plays, however interesting they may be as 
+plays of intrigue and plot puzzles.
+
+The world is finding this out rapidly. The Sunday papers, which 
+in the days when they appealed almost exclusively to the lower 
+middle class were crammed with police intelligence, and more 
+especially with divorce and murder cases, now lay no stress on 
+them; and police papers which confined themselves entirely to 
+such matters, and were once eagerly read, have perished through 
+the essential dulness of their topics. And yet the interest in 
+sex is stronger than ever: in fact, the literature that has 
+driven out the journalism of the divorce courts is a literature 
+occupied with sex to an extent and with an intimacy and frankness 
+that would have seemed utterly impossible to Thackeray or Dickens 
+if they had been told that the change would complete itself 
+within fifty years of their own time.
+
+
+ART AND MORALITY. 
+
+It is ridiculous to say, as inconsiderate amateurs of the arts 
+do, that art has nothing to do with morality. What is true is 
+that the artist's business is not that of the policeman; and that 
+such factitious consequences and put-up jobs as divorces and 
+executions and the detective operations that lead up to them are 
+no essential part of life, though, like poisons and buttered 
+slides and red-hot pokers, they provide material for plenty of 
+thrilling or amusing stories suited to people who are incapable 
+of any interest in psychology. But the fine artists must keep the 
+policeman out of his studies of sex and studies of crime. It is 
+by clinging nervously to the policeman that most of the pseudo 
+sex plays convince me that the writers have either never had any 
+serious personal experience of their ostensible subject, or else 
+have never conceived it possible that the stage door present the 
+phenomena of sex as they appear in nature.
+
+
+THE LIMITS OF STAGE PRESENTATION.
+
+But the stage presents much more shocking phenomena than those of 
+sex. There is, of course, a sense in which you cannot present sex 
+on the stage, just as you cannot present murder. Macbeth must no 
+more really kill Duncan than he must himself be really slain by 
+Macduff. But the feelings of a murderer can be expressed in a 
+certain artistic convention; and a carefully prearranged sword 
+exercise can be gone through with sufficient pretence of 
+earnestness to be accepted by the willing imaginations of the 
+younger spectators as a desperate combat.
+
+The tragedy of love has been presented on the stage in the same 
+way. In Tristan and Isolde, the curtain does not, as in Romeo and 
+Juliet, rise with the lark: the whole night of love is played 
+before the spectators. The lovers do not discuss marriage in an 
+elegantly sentimental way: they utter the visions and feelings 
+that come to lovers at the supreme moments of their love, totally 
+forgetting that there are such things in the world as husbands 
+and lawyers and duelling codes and theories of sin and notions of 
+propriety and all the other irrelevancies which provide
+hackneyed and bloodless material for our so-called plays of 
+passion.
+
+
+PRUDERIES OF THE FRENCH STAGE.
+
+To all stage presentations there are limits. If Macduff were to 
+stab Macbeth, the spectacle would be intolerable; and even the 
+pretence which we allow on our stage is ridiculously destructive 
+to the illusion of the scene. Yet pugilists and gladiators will 
+actually fight and kill in public without sham, even as a 
+spectacle for money. But no sober couple of lovers of any 
+delicacy could endure to be watched. We in England, accustomed to 
+consider the French stage much more licentious than the British, 
+are always surprised and puzzled when we learn, as we may do any 
+day if we come within reach of such information, that French 
+actors are often scandalized by what they consider the indecency 
+of the English stage, and that French actresses who desire a 
+greater license in appealing to the sexual instincts than the 
+French stage allows them, learn and establish themselves on the 
+English stage. The German and Russian stages are in the same 
+relation to the French and perhaps more or less all the Latin 
+stages. The reason is that, partly from a want of respect for the 
+theatre, partly from a sort of respect for art in general which 
+moves them to accord moral privileges to artists, partly from the 
+very objectionable tradition that the realm of art is Alsatia and 
+the contemplation of works of art a holiday from the burden of 
+virtue, partly because French prudery does not attach itself to 
+the same points of behavior as British prudery, and has a 
+different code of the mentionable and the unmentionable, and
+for many other reasons the French tolerate plays which are never 
+performed in England until they have been spoiled by a process of 
+bowdlerization; yet French taste is more fastidious than ours as 
+to the exhibition and treatment on the stage of the physical 
+incidents of sex. On the French stage a kiss is as obvious a 
+convention as the thrust under the arm by which Macduff runs 
+Macbeth through. It is even a purposely unconvincing convention: 
+the actors rather insisting that it shall be impossible for any 
+spectator to mistake a stage kiss for a real one. In England, on 
+the contrary, realism is carried to the point at which nobody 
+except the two performers can perceive that the caress is not 
+genuine. And here the English stage is certainly in the right; 
+for whatever question there arises as to what incidents are 
+proper for representation on the stage or not, my experience as a 
+playgoer leaves me in no doubt that once it is decided to 
+represent an incident, it will be offensive, no matter whether it 
+be a prayer or a kiss, unless it is presented with a convincing 
+appearance of sincerity.
+
+
+OUR DISILLUSIVE SCENERY.
+
+For example, the main objection to the use of illusive scenery 
+(in most modern plays scenery is not illusive; everything visible 
+is as real as in your drawing room at home) is that it is 
+unconvincing; whilst the imaginary scenery with which the 
+audience provides a platform or tribune like the Elizabethan 
+stage or the Greek stage used by Sophocles, is quite convincing. 
+In fact, the more scenery you have the less illusion you produce. 
+The wise playwright, when he cannot get absolute reality of 
+presentation, goes to the other extreme, and aims at atmosphere 
+and suggestion of mood rather than at direct simulative illusion. 
+The theatre, as I first knew it, was a place of wings and flats 
+which destroyed both atmosphere and illusion. This was tolerated, 
+and even intensely enjoyed, but not in the least because nothing 
+better was possible; for all the devices employed in the 
+productions of Mr. Granville Barker or Max Reinhardt or the 
+Moscow Art Theatre were equally available for Colley Cibber and 
+Garrick, except the intensity of our artificial light. When 
+Garrick played Richard II in slashed trunk hose and plumes, it 
+was not because he believed that the Plantagenets dressed like 
+that, or because the costumes could not have made him a XV 
+century dress as easily as a nondescript combination of the state 
+robes of George III with such scraps of older fashions as seemed 
+to playgoers for some reason to be romantic. The charm of the 
+theatre in those days was its makebelieve. It has that charm 
+still, not only for the amateurs, who are happiest when they are 
+most unnatural and impossible and absurd, but for audiences as 
+well. I have seen performances of my own plays which were to me 
+far wilder burlesques than Sheridan's Critic or Buckingham's 
+Rehearsal; yet they have produced sincere laughter and tears such 
+as the most finished metropolitan productions have failed to 
+elicit. Fielding was entirely right when he represented Partridge 
+as enjoying intensely the performance of the king in Hamlet 
+because anybody could see that the king was an actor, and 
+resenting Garrick's Hamlet because it might have been a real man. 
+Yet we have only to look at the portraits of Garrick to see that 
+his performances would nowadays seem almost as extravagantly 
+stagey as his costumes. In our day Calve's intensely real Carmen 
+never pleased the mob as much as the obvious fancy ball 
+masquerading of suburban young ladies in the same character.
+
+
+HOLDING THE MIRROR UP TO NATURE.
+
+Theatrical art begins as the holding up to Nature of a distorting 
+mirror. In this phase it pleases people who are childish enough 
+to believe that they can see what they look like and what they 
+are when they look at a true mirror. Naturally they think that a 
+true mirror can teach them nothing. Only by giving them back some 
+monstrous image can the mirror amuse them or terrify them. It is 
+not until they grow up to the point at which they learn that they 
+know very little about themselves, and that they do not see 
+themselves in a true mirror as other people see them, that they 
+become consumed with curiosity as to what they really are like, 
+and begin to demand that the stage shall be a mirror of such 
+accuracy and intensity of illumination that they shall be able to 
+get glimpses of their real selves in it, and also learn a little 
+how they appear to other people.
+
+For audiences of this highly developed class, sex can no longer 
+be ignored or conventionalized or distorted by the playwright who 
+makes the mirror. The old sentimental extravagances and the old 
+grossnesses are of no further use to him. Don Giovanni and 
+Zerlina are not gross: Tristan and Isolde are not extravagant or 
+sentimental. They say and do nothing that you cannot bear to hear 
+and see; and yet they give you, the one pair briefly and 
+slightly, and the other fully and deeply, what passes in the 
+minds of lovers. The love depicted may be that of a philosophic 
+adventurer tempting an ignorant country girl, or of a tragically 
+serious poet entangled with a woman of noble capacity in a 
+passion which has become for them the reality of the whole 
+universe. No matter: the thing is dramatized and dramatized 
+directly, not talked about as something that happened before the 
+curtain rose, or that will happen after it falls.
+
+
+FARCICAL COMEDY SHIRKING ITS SUBJECT.
+
+Now if all this can be done in the key of tragedy and philosophic 
+comedy, it can, I have always contended, be done in the key of 
+farcical comedy; and Overruled is a trifling experiment in that 
+manner. Conventional farcical comedies are always finally tedious 
+because the heart of them, the inevitable conjugal infidelity, is 
+always evaded. Even its consequences are evaded. Mr. Granville 
+Barker has pointed out rightly that if the third acts of our 
+farcical comedies dared to describe the consequences that would 
+follow from the first and second in real life, they would end as 
+squalid tragedies; and in my opinion they would be greatly 
+improved thereby even as entertainments; for I have never seen a 
+three-act farcical comedy without being bored and tired by the 
+third act, and observing that the rest of the audience were in 
+the same condition, though they were not vigilantly introspective 
+enough to find that out, and were apt to blame one another, 
+especially the husbands and wives, for their crossness. But it is 
+happily by no means true that conjugal infidelities always 
+produce tragic consequences, or that they need produce even the 
+unhappiness which they often do produce. Besides, the more 
+momentous the consequences, the more interesting become the 
+impulses and imaginations and reasonings, if any, of the people 
+who disregard them. If I had an opportunity of conversing with 
+the ghost of an executed murderer, I have no doubt he would begin 
+to tell me eagerly about his trial, with the names of the 
+distinguished ladies and gentlemen who honored him with their 
+presence on that occasion, and then about his execution. All of 
+which would bore me exceedingly. I should say, "My dear sir: such 
+manufactured ceremonies do not interest me in the least. I know 
+how a man is tried, and how he is hanged. I should have had you 
+killed in a much less disgusting, hypocritical, and unfriendly 
+manner if the matter had been in my hands. What I want to know 
+about is the murder. How did you feel when you committed it? Why 
+did you do it? What did you say to yourself about it? If, like 
+most murderers, you had not been hanged, would you have committed 
+other murders? Did you really dislike the victim, or did you want 
+his money, or did you murder a person whom you did not dislike, 
+and from whose death you had nothing to gain, merely for the sake 
+of murdering? If so, can you describe the charm to me? Does it 
+come upon you periodically; or is it chronic? Has curiosity 
+anything to do with it?" I would ply him with all manner of 
+questions to find out what murder is really like; and I should 
+not be satisfied until I had realized that I, too, might commit a 
+murder, or else that there is some specific quality present in a 
+murderer and lacking in me. And, if so, what that quality is.
+
+In just the same way, I want the unfaithful husband or the 
+unfaithful wife in a farcical comedy not to bother me with their 
+divorce cases or the stratagems they employ to avoid a divorce 
+case, but to tell me how and why married couples are unfaithful. 
+I don't want to hear the lies they tell one another to conceal 
+what they have done, but the truths they tell one another when 
+they have to face what they have done without concealment or 
+excuse. No doubt prudent and considerate people conceal such 
+adventures, when they can, from those who are most likely to be 
+wounded by them; but it is not to be presumed that, when found 
+out, they necessarily disgrace themselves by irritating lies and 
+transparent subterfuges.
+
+My playlet, which I offer as a model to all future writers of 
+farcical comedy, may now, I hope, be read without shock. I may 
+just add that Mr. Sibthorpe Juno's view that morality demands, 
+not that we should behave morally (an impossibility to our sinful 
+nature) but that we shall not attempt to defend our immoralities, 
+is a standard view in England, and was advanced in all seriousness
+by an earnest and distinguished British moralist shortly after
+the first performance of Overruled. My objection to that aspect
+of the doctrine of original sin is that no necessary and 
+inevitable operation of human nature can reasonably be regarded 
+as sinful at all, and that a morality which assumes the contrary 
+is an absurd morality, and can be kept in countenance only by 
+hypocrisy. When people were ashamed of sanitary problems, and 
+refused to face them, leaving them to solve themselves 
+clandestinely in dirt and secrecy, the solution arrived at was 
+the Black Death. A similar policy as to sex problems has solved 
+itself by an even worse plague than the Black Death; and the 
+remedy for that is not Salvarsan, but sound moral hygiene, the 
+first foundation of which is the discontinuance of our habit of 
+telling not only the comparatively harmless lies that we know we 
+ought not to tell, but the ruinous lies that we foolishly think 
+we ought to tell.
+
+
+
+OVERRULED.
+
+A lady and gentleman are sitting together on a chesterfield in a 
+retired corner of the lounge of a seaside hotel. It is a summer 
+night: the French window behind them stands open. The terrace 
+without overlooks a moonlit harbor. The lounge is dark. The 
+chesterfield, upholstered in silver grey, and the two figures on 
+it in evening dress, catch the light from an arc lamp somewhere; 
+but the walls, covered with a dark green paper, are in gloom. 
+There are two stray chairs, one on each side. On the gentleman's 
+right, behind him up near the window, is an unused fireplace. 
+Opposite it on the lady's left is a door. The gentleman is on the 
+lady's right.
+
+The lady is very attractive, with a musical voice and soft 
+appealing manners. She is young: that is, one feels sure that she 
+is under thirty-five and over twenty-four. The gentleman does not 
+look much older. He is rather handsome, and has ventured as far 
+in the direction of poetic dandyism in the arrangement of his 
+hair as any man who is not a professional artist can afford to in 
+England. He is obviously very much in love with the lady, and is, 
+in fact, yielding to an irresistible impulse to throw his arms 
+around her.
+
+
+THE LADY. Don't--oh don't be horrid. Please, Mr. Lunn [she rises 
+from the lounge and retreats behind it]! Promise me you won't be 
+horrid.
+
+GREGORY LUNN. I'm not being horrid, Mrs. Juno. I'm not going to 
+be horrid. I love you: that's all. I'm extraordinarily happy.
+
+MRS. JUNO. You will really be good?
+
+GREGORY. I'll be whatever you wish me to be. I tell you I love 
+you. I love loving you. I don't want to be tired and sorry, as I 
+should be if I were to be horrid. I don't want you to be tired 
+and sorry. Do come and sit down again.
+
+MRS. JUNO [coming back to her seat]. You're sure you don't want 
+anything you oughtn't to?
+
+GREGORY. Quite sure. I only want you [she recoils]. Don't be 
+alarmed. I like wanting you. As long as I have a want, I have a 
+reason for living. Satisfaction is death.
+
+MRS. JUNO. Yes; but the impulse to commit suicide is sometimes 
+irresistible.
+
+GREGORY. Not with you. 
+
+MRS. JUNO. What!
+
+GREGORY. Oh, it sounds uncomplimentary; but it isn't really. Do 
+you know why half the couples who find themselves situated as we 
+are now behave horridly?
+
+MRS. JUNO. Because they can't help it if they let things go too 
+far.
+
+GREGORY. Not a bit of it. It's because they have nothing else to 
+do, and no other way of entertaining each other. You don't know 
+what it is to be alone with a woman who has little beauty and 
+less conversation. What is a man to do? She can't talk 
+interestingly; and if he talks that way himself she doesn't 
+understand him. He can't look at her: if he does, he only finds 
+out that she isn't beautiful. Before the end of five minutes they 
+are both hideously bored. There's only one thing that can save 
+the situation; and that's what you call being horrid. With a 
+beautiful, witty, kind woman, there's no time for such follies. 
+It's so delightful to look at her, to listen to her voice, to 
+hear all she has to say, that nothing else happens. That is why 
+the woman who is supposed to have a thousand lovers seldom has 
+one; whilst the stupid, graceless animals of women have dozens.
+
+MRS. JUNO. I wonder! It's quite true that when one feels in 
+danger one talks like mad to stave it off, even when one doesn't 
+quite want to stave it off.
+
+GREGORY. One never does quite want to stave it off. Danger is 
+delicious. But death isn't. We court the danger; but the real 
+delight is in escaping, after all.
+
+MRS. JUNO. I don't think we'll talk about it any more. Danger is 
+all very well when you do escape; but sometimes one doesn't. I 
+tell you frankly I don't feel as safe as you do--if you really 
+do.
+
+GREGORY. But surely you can do as you please without injuring 
+anyone, Mrs. Juno. That is the whole secret of your extraordinary 
+charm for me.
+
+MRS. JUNO. I don't understand.
+
+GREGORY. Well, I hardly know how to begin to explain. But the 
+root of the matter is that I am what people call a good man.
+
+MRS. JUNO. I thought so until you began making love to me.
+
+GREGORY. But you knew I loved you all along. 
+
+MRS. JUNO. Yes, of course; but I depended on you not to tell me 
+so; because I thought you were good. Your blurting it out spoilt 
+it. And it was wicked besides. 
+
+GREGORY. Not at all. You see, it's a great many years since I've 
+been able to allow myself to fall in love. I know lots of 
+charming women; but the worst of it is, they're all married. 
+Women don't become charming, to my taste, until they're fully 
+developed; and by that time, if they're really nice, they're 
+snapped up and married. And then, because I am a good man, I have 
+to place a limit to my regard for them. I may be fortunate enough 
+to gain friendship and even very warm affection from them; but my 
+loyalty to their husbands and their hearths and their happiness 
+obliges me to draw a line and not overstep it. Of course I value 
+such affectionate regard very highly indeed. I am surrounded with 
+women who are most dear to me. But every one of them has a post 
+sticking up, if I may put it that way, with the inscription 
+Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted. How we all loathe that notice! In 
+every lovely garden, in every dell full of primroses, on every 
+fair hillside, we meet that confounded board; and there is always 
+a gamekeeper round the corner. But what is that to the horror of 
+meeting it on every beautiful woman, and knowing that there is a 
+husband round the corner? I have had this accursed board standing 
+between me and every dear and desirable woman until I thought I 
+had lost the power of letting myself fall really and 
+wholeheartedly in love.
+
+MRS. JUNO. Wasn't there a widow?
+
+GREGORY. No. Widows are extraordinarily scarce in modern society. 
+Husbands live longer than they used to; and even when they do 
+die, their widows have a string of names down for their next.
+
+MRS. JUNO. Well, what about the young girls? 
+
+GREGORY. Oh, who cares for young girls? They're sympathetic. 
+They're beginners. They don't attract me. I'm afraid of them.
+
+MRS. JUNO. That's the correct thing to say to a woman of my age. 
+But it doesn't explain why you seem to have put your scruples in 
+your pocket when you met me.
+
+GREGORY. Surely that's quite clear. I--
+
+MRS. JUNO. No: please don't explain. I don't want to know. I take 
+your word for it. Besides, it doesn't matter now. Our voyage is 
+over; and to-morrow I start for the north to my poor father's 
+place.
+
+GREGORY [surprised]. Your poor father! I thought he was alive.
+
+MRS. JUNO. So he is. What made you think he wasn't?
+
+GREGORY. You said your POOR father. 
+
+MRS. JUNO. Oh, that's a trick of mine. Rather a silly trick, I 
+Suppose; but there's something pathetic to me about men: I find 
+myself calling them poor So-and-So when there's nothing whatever 
+the matter with them. 
+
+GREGORY [who has listened in growing alarm]. But--I--is?--
+wa--? Oh, Lord!
+
+MRS. JUNO. What's the matter? 
+
+GREGORY. Nothing.
+
+MRS. JUNO. Nothing! [Rising anxiously]. Nonsense: you're ill.
+
+GREGORY. No. It was something about your late husband--
+
+MRS. JUNO. My LATE husband! What do you mean? [clutching him, 
+horror-stricken]. Don't tell me he's dead.
+
+GREGORY [rising, equally appalled]. Don't tell me he's alive.
+
+MRS. JUNO. Oh, don't frighten me like this. Of course he's 
+alive--unless you've heard anything. 
+
+GREGORY. The first day we met--on the boat--you spoke to me of 
+your poor dear husband.
+
+MRS. JUNO [releasing him, quite reassured]. Is that all?
+
+GREGORY. Well, afterwards you called him poor Tops. Always poor 
+Tops, Our poor dear Tops. What could I think?
+
+MRS. JUNO [sitting down again]. I wish you hadn't given me such a 
+shock about him; for I haven't been treating him at all well. 
+Neither have you.
+
+GREGORY [relapsing into his seat, overwhelmed]. And you mean to 
+tell me you're not a widow!
+
+MRS. JUNO. Gracious, no! I'm not in black. 
+
+GREGORY. Then I have been behaving like a blackguard. I have 
+broken my promise to my mother. I shall never have an easy 
+conscience again.
+
+MRS. JUNO. I'm sorry. I thought you knew.
+
+GREGORY. You thought I was a libertine?
+
+MRS. JUNO. No: of course I shouldn't have spoken to you if I had 
+thought that. I thought you liked me, but that you knew, and 
+would be good.
+
+GREGORY [stretching his hands towards her breast]. I thought the 
+burden of being good had fallen from my soul at last. I saw 
+nothing there but a bosom to rest on: the bosom of a lovely woman 
+of whom I could dream without guilt. What do I see now?
+
+MRS. JUNO. Just what you saw before. 
+
+GREGORY [despairingly]. No, no.
+
+MRS. JUNO. What else?
+
+GREGORY. Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted: Trespassers Will Be 
+Prosecuted.
+
+MRS. JUNO. They won't if they hold their tongues. Don't be such a 
+coward. My husband won't eat you. 
+
+GREGORY. I'm not afraid of your husband. I'm afraid of my 
+conscience.
+
+MRS. JUNO [losing patience]. Well! I don't consider myself at all 
+a badly behaved woman; for nothing has passed between us that was 
+not perfectly nice and friendly; but really! to hear a grown-up 
+man talking about promises to his mother!
+
+GREGORY [interrupting her]. Yes, Yes: I know all about that. It's 
+not romantic: it's not Don Juan: it's not advanced; but we feel 
+it all the same. It's far deeper in our blood and bones than all 
+the romantic stuff. My father got into a scandal once: that was 
+why my mother made me promise never to make love to a married 
+woman. And now I've done it I can't feel honest. Don't pretend to 
+despise me or laugh at me. You feel it too. You said just now 
+that your own conscience was uneasy when you thought of your 
+husband. What must it be when you think of my wife?
+
+MRS. JUNO [rising aghast]. Your wife!!! You don't dare sit there 
+and tell me coolly that you're a married man!
+
+GREGORY. I never led you to believe I was unmarried.
+
+MRS. JUNO. Oh! You never gave me the faintest hint that you had a 
+wife.
+
+GREGORY. I did indeed. I discussed things with you that only 
+married people really understand.
+
+MRS. JUNO. Oh!!
+
+GREGORY. I thought it the most delicate way of letting you know.
+
+MRS. JUNO. Well, you ARE a daisy, I must say. I suppose that's 
+vulgar; but really! really!! You and your goodness! However, now 
+we've found one another out there's only one thing to be done. 
+Will you please go? 
+
+GREGORY [rising slowly].  I OUGHT to go.
+
+MRS. JUNO. Well, go.
+
+GREGORY. Yes. Er--[he tries to go]. I--I somehow can't. [He sits 
+down again helplessly]. My conscience is active: my will is 
+paralyzed. This is really dreadful. Would you mind ringing the 
+bell and asking them to throw me out? You ought to, you know.
+
+MRS. JUNO. What! make a scandal in the face of the whole hotel! 
+Certainly not. Don't be a fool.
+
+GREGORY. Yes; but I can't go.
+
+MRS. JUNO. Then I can. Goodbye.
+
+GREGORY [clinging to her hand]. Can you really? 
+
+MRS. JUNO. Of course I--[she wavers]. Oh, dear! [They contemplate 
+one another helplessly]. I can't. [She sinks on the lounge, hand 
+in hand with him]. 
+
+GREGORY. For heaven's sake pull yourself together. It's a 
+question of self-control.
+
+MRS. JUNO [dragging her hand away and retreating to the end of 
+the chesterfield]. No: it's a question of distance. Self-control 
+is all very well two or three yards off, or on a ship, with 
+everybody looking on. Don't come any nearer.
+
+GREGORY. This is a ghastly business. I want to go away; and I 
+can't.
+
+MRS. JUNO. I think you ought to go [he makes an effort; and she 
+adds quickly] but if you try I shall grab you round the neck and 
+disgrace myself. I implore you to sit still and be nice.
+
+GREGORY. I implore you to run away. I believe I can trust myself 
+to let you go for your own sake. But it will break my heart.
+
+MRS. JUNO. I don't want to break your heart. I can't bear to 
+think of your sitting here alone. I can't bear to think of 
+sitting alone myself somewhere else. It's so senseless--so 
+ridiculous--when we might be so happy. I don't want to be wicked, 
+or coarse. But I like you very much; and I do want to be 
+affectionate and human.
+
+GREGORY. I ought to draw a line.
+
+MRS. JUNO. So you shall, dear. Tell me: do you really like me? I 
+don't mean LOVE me: you might love the housemaid--
+
+GREGORY [vehemently]. No!
+
+MRS. JUNO. Oh, yes you might; and what does that matter, anyhow? 
+Are you really fond of me? Are we friends--comrades? Would you be 
+sorry if I died? 
+
+GREGORY [shrinking]. Oh, don't.
+
+MRS. JUNO. Or was it the usual aimless man's lark: a mere 
+shipboard flirtation?
+
+GREGORY. Oh, no, no: nothing half so bad, so vulgar, so wrong. I 
+assure you I only meant to be agreeable. It grew on me before I 
+noticed it.
+
+MRS. JUNO. And you were glad to let it grow?
+
+GREGORY. I let it grow because the board was not up.
+
+MRS. JUNO. Bother the board! I am just as fond of Sibthorpe as--
+
+GREGORY. Sibthorpe!
+
+MRS. JUNO. Sibthorpe is my husband's Christian name. I oughtn't 
+to call him Tops to you now. 
+
+GREGORY [chuckling]. It sounded like something to drink. But I 
+have no right to laugh at him. My Christian name is Gregory, 
+which sounds like a powder.
+
+MRS. JUNO [chilled]. That is so like a man! I offer you my 
+heart's warmest friendliest feeling; and you think of nothing but 
+a silly joke. A quip like that makes you forget me.
+
+GREGORY. Forget you! Oh, if I only could!
+
+MRS. JUNO. If you could, would you?
+
+GREGORY [burying his shamed face in his hands]. No: I'd die 
+first. Oh, I hate myself.
+
+MRS. JUNO. I glory in myself. It's so jolly to be reckless. CAN a 
+man be reckless, I wonder.
+
+GREGORY [straightening himself desperately]. No. I'm not 
+reckless. I know what I'm doing: my conscience is awake. Oh, 
+where is the intoxication of love? the delirium? the madness that 
+makes a man think the world well lost for the woman he adores? I 
+don't think anything of the sort: I see that it's not worth it: I 
+know that it's wrong: I have never in my life been cooler, more 
+businesslike.
+
+MRS. JUNO. [opening her arms to him] But you can't resist me.
+
+GREGORY. I must. I ought [throwing himself into her arms]. Oh, my 
+darling, my treasure, we shall be sorry for this.
+
+MRS. JUNO. We can forgive ourselves. Could we forgive ourselves 
+if we let this moment slip?
+
+GREGORY. I protest to the last. I'm against this. I have been 
+pushed over a precipice. I'm innocent. This wild joy, this 
+exquisite tenderness, this ascent into heaven can thrill me to 
+the uttermost fibre of my heart [with a gesture of ecstasy she 
+hides her face on his shoulder]; but it can't subdue my mind or 
+corrupt my conscience, which still shouts to the skies that I'm 
+not a willing party to this outrageous conduct. I repudiate the 
+bliss with which you are filling me.
+
+MRS. JUNO. Never mind your conscience. Tell me how happy you are.
+
+GREGORY. No, I recall you to your duty. But oh, I will give you 
+my life with both hands if you can tell me that you feel for me 
+one millionth part of what I feel for you now.
+
+MRS. JUNO. Oh, yes, yes. Be satisfied with that. Ask for no more. 
+Let me go.
+
+GREGORY. I can't. I have no will. Something stronger than either 
+of us is in command here. Nothing on earth or in heaven can part 
+us now. You know that, don't you? 
+
+MRS. JUNO. Oh, don't make me say it. Of course I know. Nothing--
+not life nor death nor shame nor anything can part us.
+
+A MATTER-OF-FACT MALE VOICE IN THE CORRIDOR. All right. This must 
+be it.
+
+The two recover with a violent start; release one another; and 
+spring back to opposite sides of the lounge. 
+
+GREGORY. That did it.
+
+MRS. JUNO [in a thrilling whisper] Sh--sh--sh! That was my 
+husband's voice.
+
+GREGORY. Impossible: it's only our guilty fancy.
+
+A WOMAN'S VOICE. This is the way to the lounge. I know it.
+
+GREGORY. Great Heaven! we're both mad. That's my wife's voice.
+
+MRS. JUNO. Ridiculous! Oh! we're dreaming it all. We [the door 
+opens; and Sibthorpe Juno appears in the roseate glow of the 
+corridor (which happens to be papered in pink) with Mrs. Lunn, 
+like Tannhauser in the hill of Venus. He is a fussily energetic 
+little man, who gives himself an air of gallantry by greasing the 
+points of his moustaches and dressing very carefully. She is a 
+tall, imposing, handsome, languid woman, with flashing dark eyes 
+and long lashes. They make for the chesterfield, not noticing the 
+two palpitating figures blotted against the walls in the gloom on 
+either side. The figures flit away noiselessly through the window 
+and disappear].
+
+JUNO [officiously] Ah: here we are. [He leads the way to the 
+sofa]. Sit down: I'm sure you're tired. [She sits]. That's right. 
+[He sits beside her on her left]. Hullo! [he rises] this sofa's 
+quite warm.
+
+MRS. LUNN [bored] Is it? I don't notice it. I expect the sun's 
+been on it.
+
+JUNO. I felt it quite distinctly: I'm more thinly clad than you. 
+[He sits down again, and proceeds, with a sigh of satisfaction]. 
+What a relief to get off the ship and have a private room! That's 
+the worst of a ship. You're under observation all the time.
+
+MRS. LUNN. But why not?
+
+JUNO. Well, of course there's no reason: at least I suppose not. 
+But, you know, part of the romance of a journey is that a man 
+keeps imagining that something might happen; and he can't do that 
+if there are a lot of people about and it simply can't happen.
+
+MRS. LUNN. Mr. Juno: romance is all very well on board ship; but 
+when your foot touches the soil of England there's an end of it.
+
+JUNO. No: believe me, that's a foreigner's mistake: we are the 
+most romantic people in the world, we English. Why, my very 
+presence here is a romance.
+
+MRS. LUNN [faintly ironical] Indeed?
+
+JUNO. Yes. You've guessed, of course, that I'm a married man.
+
+MRS. LUNN. Oh, that's all right. I'm a married woman. 
+
+JUNO. Thank Heaven for that! To my English mind, passion is not 
+real passion without guilt. I am a red-blooded man, Mrs. Lunn: I 
+can't help it. The tragedy of my life is that I married, when 
+quite young, a woman whom I couldn't help being very fond of. I 
+longed for a guilty passion--for the real thing--the wicked 
+thing; and yet I couldn't care twopence for any other woman when 
+my wife was about. Year after year went by: I felt my youth 
+slipping away without ever having had a romance in my life; for 
+marriage is all very well; but it isn't romance. There's nothing 
+wrong in it, you see.
+
+MRS. LUNN. Poor man! How you must have suffered! 
+
+JUNO. No: that was what was so tame about it. I wanted to suffer. 
+You get so sick of being happily married. It's always the happy 
+marriages that break up. At last my wife and I agreed that we 
+ought to take a holiday.
+
+MRS. LUNN. Hadn't you holidays every year?
+
+JUNO. Oh, the seaside and so on! That's not what we meant. We 
+meant a holiday from one another.
+
+MRS. LUNN. How very odd!
+
+JUNO. She said it was an excellent idea; that domestic felicity 
+was making us perfectly idiotic; that she wanted a holiday, too. 
+So we agreed to go round the world in opposite directions. I 
+started for Suez on the day she sailed for New York.
+
+MRS. LUNN [suddenly becoming attentive] That's precisely what 
+Gregory and I did. Now I wonder did he want a holiday from me! 
+What he said was that he wanted the delight of meeting me after a 
+long absence.
+
+JUNO. Could anything be more romantic than that? Would anyone 
+else than an Englishman have thought of it? I daresay my 
+temperament seems tame to your boiling southern blood--
+
+MRS. LUNN. My what!
+
+JUNO. Your southern blood. Don't you remember how you told me, 
+that night in the saloon when I sang "Farewell and adieu to you 
+dear Spanish ladies," that you were by birth a lady of Spain? 
+Your splendid Andalusian beauty speaks for itself.
+
+MRS. LUNN. Stuff! I was born in Gibraltar. My father was Captain 
+Jenkins. In the artillery.
+
+JUNO [ardently] It is climate and not race that determines the 
+temperament. The fiery sun of Spain blazed on your cradle; and it 
+rocked to the roar of British cannon.
+
+MRS. LUNN. What eloquence! It reminds me of my husband when he 
+was in love before we were married. Are you in love?
+
+JUNO. Yes; and with the same woman.
+
+MRS. LUNN. Well, of course, I didn't suppose you were in love 
+with two women.
+
+JUNO. I don't think you quite understand. I meant that I am in 
+love with you.
+
+MRS. LUNN [relapsing into deepest boredom] Oh, that! Men do fall 
+in love with me. They all seem to think me a creature with 
+volcanic passions: I'm sure I don't know why; for all the 
+volcanic women I know are plain little creatures with sandy hair. 
+I don't consider human volcanoes respectable. And I'm so tired of 
+the subject! Our house is always full of women who are in love 
+with my husband and men who are in love with me. We encourage it 
+because it's pleasant to have company.
+
+JUNO. And is your husband as insensible as yourself? 
+
+MRS. LUNN. Oh, Gregory's not insensible: very far from it; but I 
+am the only woman in the world for him. 
+
+JUNO. But you? Are you really as insensible as you say you are?
+
+MRS. LUNN. I never said anything of the kind. I'm not at all 
+insensible by nature; but (I don't know whether you've noticed 
+it) I am what people call rather a fine figure of a woman.
+
+JUNO [passionately] Noticed it! Oh, Mrs. Lunn! Have I been able 
+to notice anything else since we met?
+
+MRS. LUNN. There you go, like all the rest of them! I ask you, 
+how do you expect a woman to keep up what you call her 
+sensibility when this sort of thing has happened to her about 
+three times a week ever since she was seventeen? It used to upset 
+me and terrify me at first. Then I got rather a taste for it. It 
+came to a climax with Gregory: that was why I married him. Then 
+it became a mild lark, hardly worth the trouble. After that I 
+found it valuable once or twice as a spinal tonic when I was run 
+down; but now it's an unmitigated bore. I don't mind your 
+declaration: I daresay it gives you a certain pleasure to make 
+it. I quite understand that you adore me; but (if you don't mind) 
+I'd rather you didn't keep on saying so.
+
+JUNO. Is there then no hope for me?
+
+MRS. LUNN. Oh, yes. Gregory has an idea that married women keep 
+lists of the men they'll marry if they become widows. I'll put 
+your name down, if that will satisfy you.
+
+JUNO. Is the list a long one?
+
+MRS. LUNN. Do you mean the real list? Not the one I show to 
+Gregory: there are hundreds of names on that; but the little 
+private list that he'd better not see?
+
+JUNO. Oh, will you really put me on that? Say you will.
+
+MRS. LUNN. Well, perhaps I will. [He kisses her hand]. Now don't 
+begin abusing the privilege. 
+
+JUNO. May I call you by your Christian name?
+
+MRS. LUNN. No: it's too long. You can't go about calling a woman 
+Seraphita.
+
+JUNO [ecstatically] Seraphita!
+
+MRS. LUNN. I used to be called Sally at home; but when I married 
+a man named Lunn, of course that became ridiculous. That's my one 
+little pet joke. Call me Mrs. Lunn for short. And change the 
+subject, or I shall go to sleep.
+
+JUNO. I can't change the subject. For me there is no other 
+subject. Why else have you put me on your list?
+
+MRS. LUNN. Because you're a solicitor. Gregory's a solicitor. I'm 
+accustomed to my husband being a solicitor and telling me things 
+he oughtn't to tell anybody.
+
+JUNO [ruefully] Is that all? Oh, I can't believe that the voice 
+of love has ever thoroughly awakened you. 
+
+MRS. LUNN. No: it sends me to sleep. [Juno appeals against this 
+by an amorous demonstration]. It's no use, Mr. Juno: I'm 
+hopelessly respectable: the Jenkinses always were. Don't you 
+realize that unless most women were like that, the world couldn't 
+go on as it does?
+
+JUNO [darkly] You think it goes on respectably; but I can tell 
+you as a solicitor--
+
+MRS. LUNN. Stuff! of course all the disreputable people who get 
+into trouble go to you, just as all the sick people go to the 
+doctors; but most people never go to a solicitor.
+
+JUNO [rising, with a growing sense of injury] Look here, Mrs. 
+Lunn: do you think a man's heart is a potato? or a turnip? or a 
+ball of knitting wool? that you can throw it away like this?
+
+MRS. LUNN. I don't throw away balls of knitting wool. A man's 
+heart seems to me much like a sponge: it sops up dirty water as 
+well as clean.
+
+JUNO. I have never been treated like this in my life. Here am I, 
+a married man, with a most attractive wife: a wife I adore, and 
+who adores me, and has never as much as looked at any other man 
+since we were married. I come and throw all this at your feet. 
+I! I, a solicitor! braving the risk of your husband putting me 
+into the divorce court and making me a beggar and an outcast! I 
+do this for your sake. And you go on as if I were making no 
+sacrifice: as if I had told you it's a fine evening, or asked you 
+to have a cup of tea. It's not human. It's not right. Love has 
+its rights as well as respectability [he sits down again, aloof 
+and sulky].
+
+MRS. LUNN. Nonsense! Here, here's a flower [she gives him one]. 
+Go and dream over it until you feel hungry. Nothing brings people 
+to their senses like hunger.
+
+JUNO [contemplating the flower without rapture] What good's this?
+
+MRS. LUNN [snatching it from him] Oh! you don't love me a bit.
+
+JUNO. Yes I do. Or at least I did. But I'm an Englishman; and I 
+think you ought to respect the conventions of English life.
+
+MRS. LUNN. But I am respecting them; and you're not.
+
+JUNO. Pardon me. I may be doing wrong; but I'm doing it in a 
+proper and customary manner. You may be doing right; but you're 
+doing it in an unusual and questionable manner. I am not prepared 
+to put up with that. I can stand being badly treated: I'm no 
+baby, and can take care of myself with anybody. And of course I 
+can stand being well treated. But the thing I can't stand is 
+being unexpectedly treated, It's outside my scheme of life. So 
+come now! you've got to behave naturally and straightforwardly 
+with me. You can leave husband and child, home, friends, and 
+country, for my sake, and come with me to some southern isle--or 
+say South America--where we can be all in all to one another. Or 
+you can tell your husband and let him jolly well punch my head if 
+he can. But I'm damned if I'm going to stand any eccentricity. 
+It's not respectable. 
+
+GREGORY [coming in from the terrace and advancing with dignity to 
+his wife's end of the chesterfield]. Will you have the goodness, 
+sir, in addressing this lady, to keep your temper and refrain 
+from using profane language?
+
+MRS. LUNN [rising, delighted] Gregory! Darling [she enfolds him 
+in a copious embrace]!
+
+JUNO [rising] You make love to another man to my face!
+
+MRS. LUNN. Why, he's my husband.
+
+JUNO. That takes away the last rag of excuse for such conduct. A 
+nice world it would be if married people were to carry on their 
+endearments before everybody!
+
+GREGORY. This is ridiculous. What the devil business is it of 
+yours what passes between my wife and myself? You're not her 
+husband, are you?
+
+JUNO. Not at present; but I'm on the list. I'm her prospective 
+husband: you're only her actual one. I'm the anticipation: you're 
+the disappointment.
+
+MRS. LUNN. Oh, my Gregory is not a disappointment. [Fondly] Are 
+you, dear?
+
+GREGORY. You just wait, my pet. I'll settle this chap for you. 
+[He disengages himself from her embrace, and faces Juno. She sits 
+down placidly]. You call me a disappointment, do you? Well, I 
+suppose every husband's a disappointment. What about yourself? 
+Don't try to look like an unmarried man. I happen to know the 
+lady you disappointed. I travelled in the same ship with her; 
+and--
+
+JUNO. And you fell in love with her. 
+
+GREGORY [taken aback] Who told you that?
+
+JUNO. Aha! you confess it. Well, if you want to know, nobody told 
+me. Everybody falls in love with my wife.
+
+GREGORY. And do you fall in love with everybody's wife?
+
+JUNO. Certainly not. Only with yours.
+
+MRS. LUNN. But what's the good of saying that, Mr. Juno? I'm 
+married to him; and there's an end of it. 
+
+JUNO. Not at all. You can get a divorce.
+
+MRS. LUNN. What for?
+
+JUNO. For his misconduct with my wife.
+
+GREGORY [deeply indignant] How dare you, sir, asperse the 
+character of that sweet lady? a lady whom I have taken under my 
+protection.
+
+JUNO. Protection!
+
+MRS. JUNO [returning hastily] Really you must be more careful 
+what you say about me, Mr. Lunn.
+
+JUNO. My precious! [He embraces her]. Pardon this betrayal of my 
+feeling; but I've not seen my wife for several weeks; and she is 
+very dear to me.
+
+GREGORY. I call this cheek. Who is making love to his own wife 
+before people now, pray?
+
+MRS. LUNN. Won't you introduce me to your wife, Mr. Juno?
+
+MRS. JUNO. How do you do? [They shake hands; and Mrs. Juno sits 
+down beside Mrs. Lunn, on her left]. 
+
+MRS. LUNN. I'm so glad to find you do credit to Gregory's taste. 
+I'm naturally rather particular about the women he falls in love 
+with.
+
+JUNO [sternly] This is no way to take your husband's 
+unfaithfulness. [To Lunn] You ought to teach your wife better. 
+Where's her feelings? It's scandalous. 
+
+GREGORY. What about your own conduct, pray?
+
+JUNO. I don't defend it; and there's an end of the matter.
+
+GREGORY. Well, upon my soul! What difference does your not 
+defending it make?
+
+JUNO. A fundamental difference. To serious people I may appear 
+wicked. I don't defend myself: I am wicked, though not bad at 
+heart. To thoughtless people I may even appear comic. Well, laugh 
+at me: I have given myself away. But Mrs. Lunn seems to have no 
+opinion at all about me. She doesn't seem to know whether I'm 
+wicked or comic. She doesn't seem to care. She has no more sense. 
+I say it's not right. I repeat, I have sinned; and I'm prepared 
+to suffer.
+
+MRS. JUNO. Have you really sinned, Tops?
+
+MRS. LUNN [blandly] I don't remember your sinning. I have a 
+shocking bad memory for trifles; but I think I should remember 
+that--if you mean me.
+
+JUNO [raging] Trifles! I have fallen in love with a monster.
+
+GREGORY. Don't you dare call my wife a monster.
+
+MRS. JUNO [rising quickly and coming between them]. Please don't 
+lose your temper, Mr. Lunn: I won't have my Tops bullied.
+
+GREGORY. Well, then, let him not brag about sinning with my wife. 
+[He turns impulsively to his wife; makes her rise; and takes her 
+proudly on his arm]. What pretension has he to any such honor?
+
+JUNO. I sinned in intention. [Mrs. Juno abandons him and resumes 
+her seat, chilled]. I'm as guilty as if I had actually sinned. 
+And I insist on being treated as a sinner, and not walked over as 
+if I'd done nothing, by your wife or any other man.
+
+MRS. LUNN. Tush! [She sits down again contemptuously].
+
+JUNO [furious] I won't be belittled.
+
+MRS. LUNN [to Mrs. Juno] I hope you'll come and stay with us now 
+that you and Gregory are such friends, Mrs. Juno.
+
+JUNO. This insane magnanimity--
+
+MRS. LUNN. Don't you think you've said enough, Mr. Juno? This is 
+a matter for two women to settle. Won't you take a stroll on the 
+beach with my Gregory while we talk it over. Gregory is a 
+splendid listener.
+
+JUNO. I don't think any good can come of a conversation between 
+Mr. Lunn and myself. We can hardly be expected to improve one 
+another's morals. [He passes behind the chesterfield to Mrs. 
+Lunn's end; seizes a chair; deliberately pushes it between 
+Gregory and Mrs. Lunn; and sits down with folded arms, resolved 
+not to budge].
+
+GREGORY. Oh! Indeed! Oh, all right. If you come to that--[he 
+crosses to Mrs. Juno; plants a chair by her side; and sits down 
+with equal determination].
+
+JUNO. Now we are both equally guilty. 
+
+GREGORY. Pardon me. I'm not guilty. 
+
+JUNO. In intention. Don't quibble. You were guilty in intention, 
+as I was.
+
+GREGORY. No. I should rather describe myself guilty in fact, but 
+not in intention.
+
+JUNO            { rising and     }  What!
+MRS. JUNO       { exclaiming     }  No, really--
+MRS. LUNN       { simultaneously }  Gregory!
+
+GREGORY. Yes: I maintain that I am responsible for my intentions 
+only, and not for reflex actions over which I have no control. 
+[Mrs. Juno sits down, ashamed]. I promised my mother that I would 
+never tell a lie, and that I would never make love to a married 
+woman. I never have told a lie--
+
+MRS. LUNN [remonstrating] Gregory! [She sits down again].
+
+GREGORY. I say never. On many occasions I have resorted to 
+prevarication; but on great occasions I have always told the 
+truth. I regard this as a great occasion; and I won't be 
+intimidated into breaking my promise. I solemnly declare that I 
+did not know until this evening that Mrs. Juno was married. She 
+will bear me out when I say that from that moment my intentions 
+were strictly and resolutely honorable; though my conduct, which 
+I could not control and am therefore not responsible for, was 
+disgraceful--or would have been had this gentleman not walked in 
+and begun making love to my wife under my very nose.
+
+JUNO [flinging himself back into his chair] Well, I like this!
+
+MRS. LUNN. Really, darling, there's no use in the pot calling 
+the kettle black.
+
+GREGORY. When you say darling, may I ask which of us you are 
+addressing?
+
+MRS. LUNN. I really don't know. I'm getting hopelessly confused.
+
+JUNO. Why don't you let my wife say something? I don't think she 
+ought to be thrust into the background like this.
+
+MRS. LUNN. I'm sorry, I'm sure. Please excuse me, dear.
+
+MRS. JUNO [thoughtfully] I don't know what to say. I must think 
+over it. I have always been rather severe on this sort of thing; 
+but when it came to the point I didn't behave as I thought I 
+should behave. I didn't intend to be wicked; but somehow or 
+other, Nature, or whatever you choose to call it, didn't take 
+much notice of my intentions. [Gregory instinctively seeks her 
+hand and presses it]. And I really did think, Tops, that I was 
+the only woman in the world for you.
+
+JUNO [cheerfully] Oh, that's all right, my precious. Mrs. Lunn 
+thought she was the only woman in the world for him.
+
+GREGORY [reflectively] So she is, in a sort of a way. 
+
+JUNO [flaring up] And so is my wife. Don't you set up to be a 
+better husband than I am; for you're not. I've owned I'm wrong. 
+You haven't.
+
+MRS. LUNN. Are you sorry, Gregory? 
+
+GREGORY [perplexed] Sorry?
+
+MRS. LUNN. Yes, sorry. I think it's time for you to say you're 
+sorry, and to make friends with Mr. Juno before we all dine 
+together.
+
+GREGORY. Seraphita: I promised my mother--
+
+MRS. JUNO [involuntarily] Oh, bother your mother! [Recovering 
+herself] I beg your pardon.
+
+GREGORY. A promise is a promise. I can't tell a deliberate lie. I 
+know I ought to be sorry; but the flat fact is that I'm not 
+sorry. I find that in this business, somehow or other, there is a 
+disastrous separation between  my moral principles and my 
+conduct. 
+
+JUNO. There's nothing disastrous about it. It doesn't matter 
+about your principles if your conduct is all right.
+
+GREGORY. Bosh! It doesn't matter about your principles if your 
+conduct is all right.
+
+JUNO. But your conduct isn't all right; and my principles are.
+
+GREGORY. What's the good of your principles being right if they 
+won't work?
+
+JUNO. They WILL work, sir, if you exercise self-sacrifice.
+
+GREGORY. Oh yes: if, if, if. You know jolly well that 
+self-sacrifice doesn't work either when you really want a thing. 
+How much have you sacrificed yourself, pray?
+
+MRS. LUNN. Oh, a great deal, Gregory. Don't be rude. Mr. Juno is 
+a very nice man: he has been most attentive to me on the voyage.
+
+GREGORY. And Mrs. Juno's a very nice woman. She oughtn't to be; 
+but she is.
+
+JUNO. Why oughtn't she to be a nice woman, pray? 
+
+GREGORY. I mean she oughtn't to be nice to me. And you oughtn't 
+to be nice to my wife. And your wife oughtn't to like me. And my 
+wife oughtn't to like you. And if they do, they oughtn't to go on 
+liking us. And I oughtn't to like your wife; and you oughtn't to 
+like mine; and if we do we oughtn't to go on liking them. But we 
+do, all of us. We oughtn't; but we do.
+
+JUNO. But, my dear boy, if we admit we are in the wrong where's 
+the harm of it? We're not perfect; but as long as we keep the 
+ideal before us--
+
+GREGORY. How?
+
+JUNO. By admitting we were wrong.
+
+MRS. LUNN [springing up, out of patience, and pacing round the 
+lounge intolerantly] Well, really, I must have my dinner. These 
+two men, with their morality, and their promises to their 
+mothers, and their admissions that they were wrong, and their 
+sinning and suffering, and their going on at one another as if it 
+meant anything, or as if it mattered, are getting on my nerves. 
+[Stooping over the back of the chesterfield to address Mrs. Juno] 
+If you will be so very good, my dear, as to take my sentimental 
+husband off my hands occasionally, I shall be more than obliged 
+to you: I'm sure you can stand more male sentimentality than I 
+can. [Sweeping away to the fireplace] I, on my part, will do my 
+best to amuse your excellent husband when you find him tiresome.
+
+JUNO. I call this polyandry.
+
+MRS. LUNN. I wish you wouldn't call innocent things by offensive 
+names, Mr. Juno. What do you call your own conduct?
+
+JUNO [rising] I tell you I have admitted--
+
+GREGORY    {          } What's the good of keeping on at that?
+MRS. JUNO  { together } Oh, not that again, please.
+MRS. LUNN  {          } Tops: I'll scream if you say that again.
+
+JUNO. Oh, well, if you won't listen to me--! [He sits down 
+again].
+
+MRS. JUNO. What is the position now exactly? [Mrs. Lunn shrugs 
+her shoulders and gives up the conundrum. Gregory looks at Juno. 
+Juno turns away his head huffily]. I mean, what are we going to 
+do?
+
+MRS. LUNN. What would you advise, Mr. Juno? 
+
+JUNO. I should advise you to divorce your husband. 
+
+MRS. LUNN. Do you want me to drag your wife into court and 
+disgrace her?
+
+JUNO. No: I forgot that. Excuse me; but for the moment I thought 
+I was married to you.
+
+GREGORY. I think we had better let bygones be bygones. [To Mrs. 
+Juno, very tenderly] You will forgive me, won't you? Why should 
+you let a moment's forgetfulness embitter all our future life?
+
+MRS. JUNO. But it's Mrs. Lunn who has to forgive you.
+
+GREGORY. Oh, dash it, I forgot. This is getting ridiculous.
+
+MRS. LUNN. I'm getting hungry.
+
+MRS. JUNO. Do you really mind, Mrs. Lunn?
+
+MRS. LUNN. My dear Mrs. Juno, Gregory is one of those terribly 
+uxorious men who ought to have ten wives. If any really nice 
+woman will take him off my hands for a day or two occasionally, I 
+shall be greatly obliged to her.
+
+GREGORY. Seraphita: you cut me to the soul [he weeps].
+
+MRs. LUNN. Serve you right! You'd think it quite proper if it cut 
+me to the soul.
+
+MRS. JUNO. Am I to take Sibthorpe off your hands too, Mrs. Lunn?
+
+JUNO [rising] Do you suppose I'll allow this?
+
+MRS. JUNO. You've admitted that you've done wrong, Tops. What's 
+the use of your allowing or not allowing after that?
+
+JUNO. I do not admit that I have done wrong. I admit that what I 
+did was wrong.
+
+GREGORY. Can you explain the distinction?
+
+JUNO. It's quite plain to anyone but an imbecile. If you tell me 
+I've done something wrong you insult me. But if you say that 
+something that I did is wrong you simply raise a question of 
+morals. I tell you flatly if you say I did anything wrong you 
+will have to fight me. In fact I think we ought to fight anyhow. 
+I don't particularly want to; but I feel that England expects us 
+to.
+
+GREGORY. I won't fight. If you beat me my wife would share my 
+humiliation. If I beat you, she would sympathize with you and 
+loathe me for my brutality.
+
+MRS. LUNN. Not to mention that as we are human beings and not 
+reindeer or barndoor fowl, if two men presumed to fight for us we 
+couldn't decently ever speak to either of them again.
+
+GREGORY. Besides, neither of us could beat the other, as we 
+neither of us know how to fight. We should only blacken each 
+other's eyes and make fools of ourselves.
+
+JUNO. I don't admit that. Every Englishman can use his fists.
+
+GREGORY. You're an Englishman. Can you use yours? 
+
+JUNO. I presume so: I never tried.
+
+MRS. JUNO. You never told me you couldn't fight, Tops. I thought 
+you were an accomplished boxer.
+
+JUNO. My precious: I never gave you any ground for such a belief.
+
+MRS. JUNO. You always talked as if it were a matter of course. 
+You spoke with the greatest contempt of men who didn't kick other 
+men downstairs.
+
+JUNO. Well, I can't kick Mr. Lunn downstairs. We're on the ground 
+floor.
+
+MRS. JUNO. You could throw him into the harbor.
+
+GREGORY. Do you want me to be thrown into the harbor?
+
+MRS. JUNO. No: I only want to show Tops that he's making a 
+ghastly fool of himself.
+
+GREGORY [rising and prowling disgustedly between the chesterfield 
+and the windows] We're all making fools of ourselves.
+
+JUNO [following him] Well, if we're not to fight, I must insist 
+at least on your never speaking to my wife again. 
+
+GREGORY. Does my speaking to your wife do you any harm?
+
+JUNO. No. But it's the proper course to take. [Emphatically]. We 
+MUST behave with some sort of decency.
+
+MRS. LUNN. And are you never going to speak to me again, Mr. 
+Juno?
+
+JUNO. I'm prepared to promise never to do so. I think your 
+husband has a right to demand that. Then if I speak to you after, 
+it will not be his fault. It will be a breach of my promise; and 
+I shall not attempt to defend my conduct.
+
+GREGORY [facing him] I shall talk to your wife as often as she'll 
+let me.
+
+MRS. JUNO. I have no objection to your speaking to me, Mr. Lunn.
+
+JUNO. Then I shall take steps. 
+
+GREGORY. What steps?
+
+Juno. Steps. Measures. Proceedings. What steps as may seem 
+advisable.
+
+MRS. LUNN [to Mrs. Juno] Can your husband afford a scandal, Mrs. 
+Juno?
+
+MRS. JUNO. No.
+
+MRS. LUNN. Neither can mine.
+
+GREGORY. Mrs. Juno: I'm very sorry I let you in for all this. I 
+don't know how it is that we contrive to make feelings like ours, 
+which seems to me to be beautiful and sacred feelings, and which 
+lead to such interesting and exciting adventures, end in vulgar 
+squabbles and degrading scenes.
+
+JUNO. I decline to admit that my conduct has been vulgar or 
+degrading.
+
+GREGORY. I promised--
+
+JUNO. Look here, old chap: I don't say a word against your 
+mother; and I'm sorry she's dead; but really, you know, most 
+women are mothers; and they all die some time or other; yet that 
+doesn't make them infallible authorities on morals, does it?
+
+GREGORY. I was about to say so myself. Let me add that if you do 
+things merely because you think some other fool expects you to do 
+them, and he expects you to do them because he thinks you expect 
+him to expect you to do them, it will end in everybody doing what 
+nobody wants to do, which is in my opinion a silly state of 
+things.
+
+JUNO. Lunn: I love your wife; and that's all about it.
+
+GREGORY. Juno: I love yours. What then?
+
+JUNO. Clearly she must never see you again. 
+
+MRS. JUNO. Why not?
+
+JUNO. Why not! My love: I'm surprised at you.
+
+MRS. JUNO. Am I to speak only to men who dislike me? 
+
+JUNO. Yes: I think that is, properly speaking, a married woman's 
+duty.
+
+MRS. JUNO. Then I won't do it: that's flat. I like to be liked. I 
+like to be loved. I want everyone round me to love me. I don't 
+want to meet or speak to anyone who doesn't like me.
+
+JUNO. But, my precious, this is the most horrible immorality.
+
+MRS. LUNN. I don't intend to give up meeting you, Mr. Juno. You 
+amuse me very much. I don't like being loved: it bores me. But I 
+do like to be amused.
+
+JUNO. I hope we shall meet very often. But I hope also we shall 
+not defend our conduct.
+
+MRS. JUNO [rising] This is unendurable. We've all been flirting. 
+Need we go on footling about it?
+
+JUNO [huffily] I don't know what you call footling--
+
+MRS. JUNO [cutting him short] You do. You're footling. Mr. Lunn 
+is footling. Can't we admit that we're human and have done with 
+it?
+
+JUNO. I have admitted it all along. I--
+
+MRS. JUNO [almost screaming] Then stop footling. 
+
+The dinner gong sounds.
+
+MRS. LUNN [rising] Thank heaven! Let's go in to dinner. Gregory: 
+take in Mrs. Juno.
+
+GREGORY. But surely I ought to take in our guest, and not my own 
+wife.
+
+MRS. LUNN. Well, Mrs. Juno is not your wife, is she?
+
+GREGORY. Oh, of course: I beg your pardon. I'm hopelessly 
+confused. [He offers his arm to Mrs. Juno, rather 
+apprehensively].
+
+MRS. JUNO. You seem quite afraid of me [she takes his arm].
+
+GREGORY. I am. I simply adore you. [They go out together; and as 
+they pass through the door he turns and says in a ringing voice 
+to the other couple] I have said to Mrs. Juno that I simply adore 
+her. [He takes her out defiantly].
+
+MRS. LUNN [calling after him] Yes, dear. She's a darling. [To 
+Juno] Now, Sibthorpe.
+
+JUNO [giving her his arm gallantly] You have called me 
+Sibthorpe! Thank you. I think Lunn's conduct fully justifies me 
+in allowing you to do it.
+
+MRS. LUNN. Yes: I think you may let yourself go now. 
+
+JUNO. Seraphita: I worship you beyond expression. 
+
+MRS. LUNN. Sibthorpe: you amuse me beyond description. Come. 
+[They go in to dinner together].
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of Overruled, by George Bernard Shaw.
+