I k 4k I i I 1 411 I-.- -';l-.- PeWMMF 1;11.,I la I. I ic- - -- - -- - lulUh L4 OF THE vi RSff YOF.Micjaw, IT Lj 77- 777 THE GI-FT OF Wl." /1).. i "J i f-I I. i iyqv - k HEARTBREAK HOUSE GREAT CATHERINE O'FLAHERTY V. C. THE INCA OF PERUSALEM AUGUSTUS DOES HIS BIT ANNAJANSKA I Heartbreak House, Great Catherine, the War. B and Playlets of Bernard Shaw Brentano's. New York MCMXIX COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY GEORGE BERNARD SHAW All rights reserved. T E-P LIMNPTO0N-PRE SS NOR W 00D-M A SSU-S-A CONTENTS PAGE PAGE Heartbreak House: a Fantasia in the Russian manner on English themes.......... 1 Heartbreak House and Horseback Hall ix Where Heartbreak House stands ix The Inhabitants....... x Horseback Hall...... xi Revolution on the Shelf.. xii The Cherry Orchard..... xiii Nature's Long Credits.... xiv The Wicked Half Century.. xv Hypochondria........ xvii Those who do not know how to live must make a Merit of Dying.......... xix War Delirium....... xix Madness in Court. '..... xxi The Long Arm of War.... xxii The Rabid Watchdogs of Liberty xxiv The Sufferings of the Sane.. xxvi Evil in the Throne of Good xxviii Straining at the Gnat and swallowing the Camel.... xxix Little Minds and Big Battles. xxxi v vi Heartbreak House PAGE PAGE The Dumb Capables and the Noisy Incapables...... xxxiii The Practical Business Men xxxv How the Fools shouted the Wise Men down....... xxxv The Mad Election..... xxxvii The Yahoo and the Angry Ape xxxviii Plague on Both your Houses! xl How the Theatre fared... xli The Soldier at the Theatre Front xlii Commerce in the Theatre. xlv Unser Shakespeare...... xlv The Higher Drama put out of Action.......... xlvi Church and Theatre... xlviii The Next Phase....... 1 The Ephemeral Thrones and the Eternal Theatre...... liii How War muzzles the Dramatic Poet........... liv Great Catherine (Whom Glory Still Adores).......... 125 O'Flaherty V. C.: a Recruiting Pamphlet........... 179 The Inca of Perusalem: an Almost Historical Comedietta...... 213 Augustus Does His Bit: a Trueto-Life Farce......... 247 Annajanska, The Bolshevik Empress: a Revolutionary Romancelet... 275 HEARTBREAK HOUSE XXVI 1913-16 4 I HEARTBREAK HOUSE AND HORSEBACK HALL Where Heartbreak House stands HEARTBREAK HOUSE is not merely the name of the play which follows this preface. It is cultured, leisured Europe before the war. When the play was begun not a shot had been fired; and only the professional diplomatists and the very few amateurs whose hobby is foreign policy even knew that the guns were loaded. A Russian playwright, Tchekov, had produced four fascinating dramatic studies of Heartbreak House, of which three, The Cherry Orchard, Uncle Vanya, and The Seagull, had been performed in England. Tolstoy, in his Fruits of Enlightenment, had shown us through it in his most ferociously contemptuous manner. Tolstoy did not waste any sympathy on it: it was to him the house in which Europe was stifling its soul; and he knew that our utter enervation and futilization in that overheated drawingroom atmosphere was delivering the world over to the control of ignorant and soulless cunning and energy, with the frightful consequences which have now overtaken it. Tolstoy was no pessimist: he was not disposed to leave the house standing if he could bring it down about the ears of its pretty and amiable voluptuaries; and he wielded the pickaxe ix X Heartbreak House with a will. He treated the case of the inmates as one of opium poisoning, to be dealt with by seizing the patients roughly and exercising them violently until they were broad awake. Tchekov, more of a fatalist, had no faith in these charming people extricating themselves. They would, he thought, be sold up and sent adrift by the bailiffs; and he therefore had no scruple in exploiting and even flattering their charm. The Inhabitants Tchekov's plays, being less lucrative than swings and roundabouts, got no further in England, where theatres are only ordinary commercial affairs, than a couple of performances by the Stage Society. We stared and said, "How Russian!" They did not strike me in that way. Just as Ibsen's intensely Norwegian plays exactly fitted every middle and professional class suburb in Europe, these intensely Russian plays fitted all the country houses in Europe in which the pleasures of music, art, literature, and the theatre had supplanted hunting, shooting, fishing, flirting, eating, and drinking. The same nice people, the same utter futility. The nice people could read; some of them could write; and they were the sole repositories of culture who had social opportunities of contact with our politicians, administrators, and newspaper proprietors, or any chance of sharing or influencing their activities. But they shrank from that contact. They hated politics. They did not wish to realize Utopia for the common people: they wished to realize their favorite fictions and poems in their own lives; and, when they could, they lived without scruple on incomes which they did nothing Heartbreak House xi to earn. The women in their girlhood made themselves look like variety theatre stars, and settled down later into the types of beauty imagined by the previous generation of painters. They took the only part of our society in which there was leisure for high culture, and made it an economic, political, and, as far as practicable, a moral vacuum; and as Nature, abhorring the vacuum, immediately filled it up with sex and with all sorts of refined pleasures, it was a very delightful place at its best for moments of relaxation. In other moments it was disastrous. For prime ministers and their like, it was a veritable Capua. Horseback Hall But where were our front benchers to nest if not here? The alternative to Heartbreak House was Horseback Hall, consisting of a prison for horses with an annex for the ladies and gentlemen who rode them, hunted them, talked about them, bought them and sold them, and gave nine-tenths of their lives to them, dividing the other tenth between charity, churchgoing (as a substitute for religion), and conservative electioneering (as a substitute for politics). It is true that the two establishments got mixed at the edges. Exiles from the library, the music room, and the picture gallery would be found languishing among the stables, miserably discontented; and hardy horsewomen who slept at the first chord of Schumann were born, horribly misplaced, into the garden of Klingsor; but sometimes one came upon horsebreakers and heartbreakers who could make the best of both worlds. As a rule, however, the two were apart and knew little of one another; so the prime minister folk had to choose between bar xui Heartbreak House barism and Capua. And of the two atmospheres it is hard to say which was the more fatal to statesmanship. Revolution on the Shelf Heartbreak House was quite familiar with revolutionary ideas on paper. It aimed at being advanced and freethinking, and hardly ever went to church or kept the Sabbath except by a little extra fun at weekends. When you spent a Friday to Tuesday in it you found on the shelf in your bedroom not only the books of poets and novelists, but of revolutionary biologists and even economists. Without at least a few plays by myself and Mr Granville Barker, and a few stories by Mr H. G. Wells, Mr Arnold Bennett, and Mr John Galsworthy, the house would have been out of the movement. You would find Blake among the poets, and beside him Bergson, Butler, Scott Haldane, the poems of Meredith and Thomas Hardy, and, generally speaking, all the literary implements for forming the mind of the perfect modern Socialist and Creative Evolutionist. It was a curious experience to spend Sunday in dipping into these books, and on Monday morning to read in the daily paper that the country had just been brought to the verge of anarchy because a new Home Secretary or chief of police without an idea in his head that his great-grandmother might not have had to apologize for, had refused to "recognize" some powerful Trade Union, just as a gondola might refuse to recognize a 20,000-ton liner. In short, power and culture were in separate compartments. The barbarians were not only literally in the saddle, but on the front bench in the House of Commons, with nobody to correct their incredible ignorance of modern thought and political science but Heartbreak House xiii upstarts from the counting-house, who had spent their lives furnishing their pockets instead of their minds. Both, however, were practised in dealing with money and with men, as far as acquiring the one and exploiting the other went; and although this is as undesirable an expertness as that of the medieval robber baron, it qualifies men to keep an estate or a business going in its old routine without necessarily understanding it, just as Bond Street tradesmen and domestic servants keep fashionable society going without any instruction in sociology. The Cherry Orchard The Heartbreak people neither could nor would do anything of the sort. With their heads as full of the Anticipations of Mr H. G. Wells as the heads of our actual rulers were empty even of the anticipations of Erasmus or Sir Thomas More, they refused the drudgery of politics, and would have made a very poor job of it if they had changed their minds. Not that they would have been allowed to meddle anyhow, as only through the accident of being a. hereditary peer can anyone in these days of Votes for Everybody get into parliament if handicapped by a serious modern cultural equipment; but if they had, their habit of living in a vacuum would have left them helpless and ineffective in public affairs. Even in private life they were often helpless wasters of their inheritance, like the people in Tchekov's Cherry Orchard. Even those who lived within their incomes were really kept going by their solicitors and agents, being unable to manage an estate or run a business without continual prompting from those who have to learn how to do such things or starve. xiv Heartbreak House From what is called Democracy no corrective to this state of things could be hoped. It is said that every people has the Government it deserves. It is more to the point that every Government has the electorate it deserves; for the orators of the front bench can edify or debauch an ignorant electorate at will. Thus our democracy moves in a vicious circle of reciprocal worthiness and unworthiness. Nature's Long Credits Nature's way of dealing with unhealthy conditions is unfortunately not one that compels us to conduct a solvent hygiene on a cash basis. She demoralizes us with long credits and reckless overdrafts, and then pulls us up cruelly with catastrophic bankruptcies. Take, for example, common domestic sanitation. A whole city generation may neglect it utterly and scandalously, if not with absolute impunity, yet without any evil consequences that anyone thinks of tracing to it. In a hospital two generations of medical students may tolerate dirt and carelessness, and then go out into general practice to spread the doctrine that fresh air is a fad, and sanitation an imposture set up to make profits for plumbers. Then suddenly Nature takes her revenge. She strikes at the city with a pestilence and at the hospital with an epidemic of hospital gangrene, slaughtering right and left until the innocent young have paid for the guilty old, and the account is balanced. And then she goes to sleep again and gives another period of credit, with the same result. This is what has just happened in our political hygiene. Political science has been as recklessly neglected by Governments and electorates during my Heartbreak House xv lifetime as sanitary science was in the days of Charles the Second. In international relations diplomacy has been a boyishly lawless affair of family intrigues, commercial and territorial brigandage, torpors of pseudogoodnature produced by laziness and spasms of ferocious activity produced by terror. But in these islands we muddled through. Nature gave us a longer credit than she gave to France or Germany or Russia. To British centenarians who died in their beds in 1914, any dread of having to hide underground in London from the shells of an enemy seemed more remote and fantastic than a dread of the appearance of a colony of cobras and rattlesnakes in Kensington Gardens. In the prophetic works of Charles Dickens we were warned against many evils which have since come to pass; but of the evil of being slaughtered by a foreign foe on our own doorsteps there was no shadow. Nature gave us a very long credit; and we abused it to the utmost. But when she struck at last she struck with a vengeance. For four years she smote our firstborn and heaped on us plagues of which Egypt never dreamed. They were all as preventible as the great Plague of London, and came solely because they had not been prevented. They were not undone by winning the war. The earth is still bursting with the dead bodies of the victors. The Wicked Half Century It is difficult to say whether indifference and neglect are worse than false doctrine; but Heartbreak House and Horseback Hall unfortunately suffered from both. For half a century before the war civilization had been going to the devil very precipitately under the influ xvi Heartbreak House ence of a pseudo-science as disastrous as the blackest Calvinism. Calvinism taught that as we are predestinately saved or damned, nothing that we can do can alter our destiny. Still, as Calvinism gave the individual no clue as to whether he had drawn a lucky number or an unlucky one, it left him a fairly strong interest in encouraging his hopes of salvation and allaying his fear of damnation by behaving as one of the elect might be expected to behave rather than as one of the reprobate. But in the middle of the nineteenth century naturalists and physicists assured the world, in the name of Science, that salvation and damnation are all nonsense, and that predestination is the central truth of religion, inasmuch as human beings are produced by their environment, their sins and good deeds being only a series of chemical and mechanical reactions over which they have no control. Such figments as mind, choice, purpose, conscience, will, and so forth, are, they taught, mere illusions, produced because they are useful in the continual struggle of the human machine to maintain its environment in a favorable condition, a process incidentally involving the ruthless destruction or subjection of its competitors for the supply (assumed to be limited) of subsistence available. We taught Prussia this religion; and Prussia bettered our instruction so effectively that we presently found ourselves confronted with the necessity of destroying Prussia to prevent Prussia destroying us. And that has just ended in each destroying the other to an extent doubtfully reparable in our time. It may be asked how so imbecile and dangerous a creed ever came to be accepted by intelligent beings. I will answer that question more fully in my next volume of plays, which will be entirely devoted to the subject. For the present I will only say that there Heartbreak House xvll were better reasons than the obvious one that such sham science as this opened a scientific career to very stupid men, and all the other careers to shameless rascals, provided they were industrious enough. It is true that this motive operated very powerfully; but when the new departure in scientific doctrine which is associated with the name of the great naturalist Charles Darwin began, it was not only a reaction against a barbarous pseudo-evangelical teleology intolerably obstructive to all scientific progress, but was accompanied, as it happened, by discoveries of extraordinary interest in physics, chemistry, and that lifeless method of evolution which its investigators called Natural Selection. Howbeit, there was only one result possible in the ethical sphere, and that was the banishment of conscience from human affairs, or, as Samuel Butler vehemently put it, "of mind from the universe." Hypochondria Now Heartbreak House, with Butler and Bergson and Scott Haldane alongside Blake and the other major poets on its shelves (to say nothing of Wagner and the tone poets), was not so completely blinded by the doltish materialism of the laboratories as the uncultured world outside. But being an idle house it was a hypochondriacal house, always running after cures. It would stop eating meat, not on valid Shelleyan grounds, but in order to get rid of a bogey called Uric Acid; and it would actually let you pull all its teeth out to exorcise another demon named Pyorrhea. It was superstitious, and addicted to table-rapping, materialization seances, clairvoyance, palmistry, crystalgazing and the like to such an extent that it may be XVWMl Heartbreak House doubted whether ever before in the history of the world did soothsayers, astrologers, and unregistered therapeutic specialists of all sorts flourish as they did during this half century of the drift to the abyss. 'The registered doctors and surgeons were hard put to it to compete with the unregistered. They were not clever enough to appeal to the imagination and sociability of the Heartbreakers by the arts of the actor, the orator, the poet, the winning conversationalist. They had to fall back coarsely on the terror of infection and death. They prescribed inoculations and operations. Whatever part of a human being could be cut out without necessarily killing him they cut out; and he often died (unnecessarily of course) in consequence. From such trifles as uvulas and tonsils they went on to ovaries and appendices until at last no one's inside was safe. They explained that the human intestine was too long, and that nothing could make a child of Adam healthy except short circuiting the pylorus by cutting a length out of the lower intestine and fastening it directly to the stomach. As their mechanist theory taught them that medicine was the business of the chemist's laboratory, and surgery of the carpenter's shop, and also that Science (by which they meant their practices) was so important that no consideration for the interests of any individual creature, whether frog or. philosopher, much less the vulgar commonplaces of sentimental ethics, could weigh for a moment against the remotest off-chance of an addition to the body of scientific knowledge, they operated and vivisected and inoculated and lied on a stupendous scale, clamoring for and actually acquiring such legal powers over the bodies of their fellow-citizens as neither king, pope, nor parliament dare ever have claimed. The Inquisition itself was a Liberal institution compared to the General Medical Council. Heartbreak House xix Those who do not know how to live must make a Merit of Dying Heartbreak House was far too lazy and shallow to extricate itself from this palace of evil enchantment. It rhapsodized about love; but it believed in cruelty. It was afraid of the cruel people; and it saw that cruelty was at least effective. Cruelty did things that made money, whereas Love did nothing but prove the soundness of Larochefoucauld's saying that very few people would fall in love if they had never read about it. Heartbreak House, in short, did not know how to live, at which point all that was left to it was the boast that at least it knew how to die: a melancholy accomplishment which the outbreak of war presently gave it practically unlimited opportunities of displaying. Thus were the firstborn of Heartbreak House smitten; and the young, the innocent, the hopeful expiated the folly and worthlessness of their elders. War Delirium Only those who have lived through a first-rate war, not in the field, but at home, and kept their heads, can possibly understand the bitterness of Shakespeare and Swift, who both went through this experience. The horror of Peer Gynt in the madhouse, when the lunatics, exalted by illusions of splendid talent and visions of a dawning millennium, crowned him as their emperor, was tame in comparison. I do not know whether anyone really kept his head completely except those who had to keep it because they had to conduct the war at first hand. I should not have kept my own (as far as I did keep it) if I had not at once understood XX Heartbreak House that as a scribe and speaker I too was under the most serious public obligation to keep my grip on realities; but this did not save me from a considerable degree of hyperaesthesia. There were of course some happy people to whom the war meant nothing: all political and general matters lying outside their little circle of interest. But the ordinary war-conscious civilian went mad, the main symptom being a conviction that the whole order of nature had been reversed. All foods, he felt, must now be adulterated. All schools must be closed. No advertisements must be sent to the newspapers, of which new editions must appear and be bought up every ten minutes. Travelling must be stopped, or, that being impossible, greatly hindered. All pretences about fine art and culture and the like must be flung off as an intolerable affectation; and the picture galleries and museums and schools at once occupied by war workers. The British Museum itself was saved only by a hair's breadth. The sincerity of all this, and of much more which would not be believed if I chronicled it, may be established by one conclusive instance of the general craziness. Men were seized with the illusion that they could win the war by giving away money. And they not only subscribed millions to Funds of all sorts with no discoverable object, and to ridiculous voluntary organizations for doing what was plainly the business of the civil and military authorities, but actually handed out money to any thief in the street who had the presence of mind to pretend that he (or she) was "collecting" it for the annihilation of the enemy. Swindlers were emboldened to take offices; label themselves Anti-Enemy Leagues; and simply pocket the money that was heaped on them. Attractively dressed young women found that they had nothing to do but parade the streets, collectingbox in hand, and live gloriously on the profits. Many Heartbreak House xxi months elapsed before, as a first sign of returning sanity, the police swept an Anti-Enemy secretary into prison pour encourager les autres, and the passionate penny collecting of the Flag Days was brought under some sort of regulation. Madness in Court The demoralization did not spare the Law Courts. Soldiers were acquitted, even on fully proved indictments for wilful murder, until at last the judges and magistrates had to announce that what was called the Unwritten Law, which meant simply that a soldier could do what he liked with impunity in civil life, was not the law of the land, and that a Victoria Cross did not carry with it a perpetual plenary indulgence. Unfortunately the insanity of the juries and magistrates did not always manifest itself in indulgence. No person unlucky enough to be charged with any sort of conduct, however reasonable and salutary, that did not smack of war delirium, had the slightest chance of acquittal. There were in the country, too, a certain number of people who had conscientious objections to war as criminal or unchristian. The Act of Parliament introducing Compulsory Military Service thoughtlessly exempted these persons, merely requiring them to prove the genuineness of their convictions. Those who did so were very ill-advised from the point of view of their own personal interest; for they were persecuted with savage logicality in spite of the law; whilst those who made no pretence of having any objection to war at all, and had not only had military training in Officers' Training Corps, but had proclaimed on public occasions that they were perfectly ready to engage in civil war on behalf of their political opinions, were allowed xxii Heartbreak House the benefit of the Act on the ground that they did not approve of this particular war. For the Christians there was no mercy. In cases where the evidence as to their being killed by ill treatment was so unequivocal that the verdict would certainly have been one of wilful murder had the prejudice of the coroner's jury been on the other side, their tormentors were gratuitously declared to be blameless. There was only one virtue, pugnacity: only one vice, pacifism. That is an essential condition of war; but the Government had not the courage to legislate accordingly; and its law was set aside for Lynch law. The climax of legal lawlessness was reached in France. The greatest Socialist statesman in Europe, Jaures, was shot and killed by a gentleman who resented his efforts to avert the war. M. Clemenceau was shot by another gentleman of less popular opinions, and happily came off no worse than having to spend a precautionary couple of days in bed. The slayer of Jaures was recklessly acquitted: the would-be slayer of M. Clemenceau was carefully found guilty. There is no reason to doubt that the same thing would have happened in England if the war had begun with a successful attempt to assassinate Keir Hardie, and ended with an unsuccessful one to assassinate Mr Lloyd George. The Long Arm of War The pestilence which is the usual accompaniment of war was called influenza. Whether it was really a war pestilence or not was made doubtful by the fact that it did its worst in places remote from the battlefields, notably on the west coast of North America and in India. But the moral pestilence, which was Heartbreak House xxiii unquestionably a war pestilence, reproduced this phenomenon. One would have supposed that the war fever would have raged most furiously in the countries actually under fire, and that the others would be more reasonable. Belgium and Flanders, where over large districts literally not one stone was left upon another as the opposed armies drove each other back and forward over it after terrific preliminary bombardments, might have been pardoned for relieving their feelings more emphatically than by shrugging their shoulders and saying, "C'est la guerre." England, inviolate for so many centuries that the swoop of war on her homesteads had long ceased to be more credible than a return of the Flood, could hardly be expected to keep her temper sweet when she knew at last what it was to hide in cellars and underground railway stations, or lie quaking in bed, whilst bombs crashed, houses crumbled, and aircraft guns distributed shrapnel on friend and foe alike until certain shop windows in London, formerly full of fashionable hats, were filled with steel helmets. Slain and mutilated women and children, and burnt and wrecked dwellings, excuse a good deal of violent language, and produce a wrath on which many suns go down before it is appeased. Yet it was in the United States of America, where nobody slept the worse for the war, that the war fever went beyond all sense and reason. In European Courts there was vindictive illegality: in American Courts there was raving lunacy. It is not for me to chronicle the extravagances of an Ally: let some candid American do that. I can only say that to us sitting in our gardens in England, with the guns in France making themselves felt by a throb in the air as unmistakeable as an audible sound, or with tightening hearts studying the phases of the moon in London in their bearing on the chances whether i xxiv Heartbreak House our houses would be standing or ourselves alive next morning, the newspaper accounts of the sentences American Courts were passing on young girls and old men alike for the expression of opinions which were being uttered amid thundering applause before huge audiences in England, and the more private records of the methods by which the American War Loans were raised, were so amazing that they put the guns and the possibilities of a raid clean out of our heads for the moment. The Rabid Watchdogs of Liberty Not content with these rancorous abuses of the existing law, the war maniacs made a frantic rush to abolish all constitutional guarantees of liberty and well-being. The ordinary law was superseded by Acts under which newspapers were seized and their printing machinery destroyed by simple police raids a la Russe, and persons arrested and shot without any pretence of trial by jury or publicity of procedure or evidence. Though it was urgently necessary that production should be increased by the most scientific organization and economy of labor, and though no fact was better established than that excessive duration and intensity of toil reduces production heavily instead of increasing it, the factory laws were suspended, and men and women recklessly over-worked until the loss of their efficiency became too glaring to be ignored. Remonstrances and warnings were met either with an accusation of pro-Germanism or the formula, "Remember that we are at war now." I have said that men assumed that war had reversed the order of nature, and that all was lost unless we did the exact opposite of everything we had found Heartbreak House XXV necessary and beneficial in peace. But the truth was worse than that. The war did not change men's minds in any such impossible way. What really happened was that the impact of physical death and destruction, the one reality that every fool can understand, tore off the masks of education, art, science and religion from our ignorance and barbarism, and left us glorying grotesquely in the licence suddenly accorded to our vilest passions and most abject terrors. Ever since Thucydides wrote his history, it has been on record that when the angel of death sounds his trumpet the pretences of civilization are blown from men's heads into the mud like hats in a gust of wind. But when this scripture was fulfilled among us, the shock was not the less appalling because a few students of Greek history were not surprised by it. Indeed these students threw themselves into the orgy as shamelessly as the illiterate. The Christian priest joining in the war dance without even throwing off his cassock first, and the respectable school governor expelling the German professor with insult and bodily violence, and declaring that no English child should ever again be taught the language of Luther and Goethe, were kept in countenance by the most impudent repudiations of every decency of civilization and every lesson of political experience on the part of the very persons who, as university professors, historians, philosophers, and men of science, were the accredited custodians of culture. It was crudely natural, and perhaps necessary for recruiting purposes, that German militarism and German dynastic ambition should be painted by journalists and recruiters in black and red as European dangers (as in fact they are), leaving it to be inferred that our own militarism and our own political constitution are millennially democratic (which they certainly are not); but when it came to frantic xxvi Heartbreak House denunciations of German chemistry, German biology, German poetry, German music, German literature, German philosophy, and even German engineering, as malignant abominations standing towards British and French chemistry and so forth in the relation of heaven to hell, it was clear that the utterers of such barbarous ravings had never really understood or cared for the arts and sciences they professed and were profaning, and were only the appallingly degenerate descendants of the men of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries who, recognizing no national frontiers in the great realm of the human mind, kept the European comity of that realm loftily and even ostentatiously above the rancors of the battle-field. Tearing the Garter from the Kaiser's leg, striking the German dukes from the roll of our peerage, changing the King's illustrious and historically appropriate surname (for the war was the old war of Guelph against Ghibelline, with the Kaiser as Arch-Ghibelline) to that of a traditionless locality. One felt that the figure of St. George and the Dragon on our coinage should be replaced by that of the soldier driving his spear through Archimedes. But by that time there was no coinage: only paper money in which ten shillings called itself a pound as confidently as the people who were disgracing their country called themselves patriots. The Sufferings of the Sane The mental distress of living amid the obscene din of all these carmagnoles and corobberies was not the only burden that lay on sane people during the war. There was also the emotional strain, complicated by the offended economic sense, produced by the casualty lists. The stupid, the selfish, the narrow-minded, the Heartbreak House xxvii callous and unimaginative were spared a great deal. "Blood and destruction shall be so in use that mothers shall but smile when they behold their infantes quartered by the hands of war," was a Shakespearean prophecy that very nearly came true; for when nearly every house had a slaughtered son to mourn, we should all have gone quite out of our senses if we had taken our own and our friend's bereavements at their peace value. It became necessary to give them a false value; to proclaim the young life worthily and gloriously sacrificed to redeem the liberty of mankind, instead of to expiate the heedlessness and folly of their fathers, and expiate it in vain. We had even to assume that the parents and not the children had made the sacrifice, until at last the comic papers were driven to satirize fat old men, sitting comfortably in club chairs, and boasting of the sons they had "given" to their country. No one grudged these anodynes to acute personal grief; but they only embittered those who knew that the young men were having their teeth set on. edge because their parents had eaten sour political grapes. Then think of the young men themselves! Many of them had no illusions about the policy that led to the war: they went clear-sighted to a horribly repugnant duty. Men essentially gentle and essentially wise, with really valuable work in hand, laid it down voluntarily and spent months forming fours in the barrack yard, and stabbing sacks of straw in the public eye, so that they might go out to kill and maim men as gentle as themselves. These men, who were perhaps, as a class, our most efficient soldiers (Frederick Keeling, for example), were not duped for a moment by the hypocritical melodrama that consoled and stimulated the others. They left their creative work to drudge at destruction, exactly as they would have xxviii Heartbreak House left it to take their turn at the pumps in a sinking ship. They did not, like some of the conscientious objectors, hold back because the ship had been neglected by its officers and scuttled by its wreckers. The ship had to be saved, even if Newton had to leave his fluxions and Michael Angelo his marbles to save it; so they threw away the tools of their beneficent and ennobling trades, and took up the blood-stained bayonet and the murderous bomb, forcing themselves to pervert their divine instinct for perfect artistic execution to the effective handling of these diabolical things, and their economic faculty for organization to the contriving of ruin and slaughter. For it gave an ironic edge to their tragedy that the very talents they were forced to prostitute made the prostitution not only effective, but even interesting; so that some of them were rapidly promoted, and found themselves actually becoming artists in war, with a growing relish for it, like Napoleon and all the other scourges of mankind, in spite of themselves. For many of them there was not even this consolation. They "stuck it," and hated it, to the end. Evil in the Throne of Good This distress of the gentle was so acute that those who shared it in civil life, without having to shed blood with their own hands, or witness destruction with their own eyes, hardly care to obtrude their own woes. Nevertheless, even when sitting at home in safety, it was not easy for those who had to,write and speak about the war to throw away their highest conscience, and deliberately work to a standard of inevitable evil instead of to the ideal of life more abundant. I can answer for at least one person who Heartbreak House xxix found the change from the wisdom of Jesus and St. Francis to the morals of Richard III and the madness of Don Quixote extremely irksome. But that change had to be made; and we are all the worse for it, except those for whom it was not really a change at all, but only a relief from hypocrisy. Think, too, of those who, though they had neither to write nor to fight, and had no children of their own to lose, yet knew the inestimable loss to the world of four years of the life of a generation wasted on destruction. Hardly one of the epoch-making works of the human mind might not have been aborted or destroyed by taking their authors away from their natural work for four critical years. Not only were Shakespeares and Platos being killed outright; but many of the best harvests of the survivors had to be sown in the barren soil of the trenches. And this was no mere British consideration. To the truly civilized man, to the good European, the slaughter of the German youth was as disastrous as the slaughter of the English. Fools exulted in "German losses." They were our losses as well. Imagine exulting in the death of Beethoven because Bill Sykes dealt him his death blow! Straining at the Gnat and swallowing the Camel But most people could not comprehend these sorrows. There was a frivolous exultation in death for its own sake, which was at bottom an inability to realize that the deaths were real deaths and not stage ones. Again and again, when an air raider dropped a bomb which tore a child and its mother limb from limb, the people who saw it, though they had been reading with great cheerfulness of thousands of such XXX Heartbreak House happenings day after day in their newspapers, suddenly burst into furious imprecations on "the Huns" as murderers, and shrieked for savage and satisfying vengeance. At such moments it became clear that the deaths they had not seen meant no more to them than the mimic death of the cinema screen. Sometimes it was not necessary that death should be actually witnessed: it had only to take place under circumstances of sufficient novelty and proximity to bring it home almost as sensationally and effectively as if it had been actually visible. For example, in the spring of 1915 there was an appalling slaughter of our young soldiers at Neuve Chapelle and at the Gallipoli landing. I will not go so far as to say that our civilians were delighted to have such exciting news to read at breakfast. But I cannot pretend that I noticed either in the papers, or in general intercourse, any feeling beyond the usual one that the cinema show at the front was going splendidly, and that our boys were the bravest of the brave. Suddenly there came the news that an Atlantic liner, the Lusitania, had been torpedoed, and that several well-known first-class passengers, including a famous theatrical manager and the author of a popular farce, had been drowned, among others. The others included Sir Hugh Lane; but as he had only laid the country under great obligations in the sphere of the fine arts, no great stress was laid on that loss. Immediately an amazing frenzy swept through the country. Men who up to that time had kept their heads now lost them utterly. "Killing saloon passengers! What next?" was the essence of the whole agitation; but it is far too trivial a phrase to convey the faintest notion of the rage which possessed us. To me, with my mind full of the hideous cost of Neuve Chapelle, Ypres, and the Gallipoli landing, the fuss Heartbreak House xxxi about the Lusitania seemed almost a heartless impertinence, though I was well acquainted personally with the three best-known victims, and understood, better perhaps than most people, the misfortune of the death of Lane. I even found a grim satisfaction, very intelligible to all soldiers, in the fact that the civilians who found the war such splendid British sport should get a sharp taste of what it was to the actual combatants. I expressed my impatience very freely, and found that my very straightforward and natural feeling in the matter was received as a monstrous and heartless paradox. When I asked those who gaped at me whether they had anything to say about the holocaust of Festubert, they gaped wider than before, having totally forgotten it, or rather, having never realized it. They were not heartless any more than I was; but the big catastrophe was too big for them to grasp, and the little one had been just the right size for them. I was not surprised. Have I not seen a public body for just the same reason pass a vote for ~30,000 without a word, and then spend three special meetings, prolonged into the night, over an item of seven shillings for refreshments? Little Minds and Big Battles Nobody will be able to understand the vagaries of public feeling during the war unless they bear constantly in mind that the war in its entire magnitude did not exist for the average civilian. He could not conceive even a battle, much less a campaign. To the suburbs the war was nothing but a suburban squabble. To the miner and navvy it was only a series of bayonet fights between German champions and English ones. The enormity of it was quite xxxil *XI Heartbreak House beyond most of us. Its episodes had to be reduced to the dimensions of a railway accident or a shipwreck before it could produce any effect on our minds at all. To us the ridiculous bombardments of Scarborough and Ramsgate were colossal tragedies, and the battle of Jutland a mere ballad. The words "after thorough artillery preparation" in the news from the front meant nothing to us; but when our seaside trippers learned that an elderly gentleman at breakfast in a week-end marine hotel had been interrupted by a bomb dropping into his egg-cup, their wrath and horror knew no bounds. They declared that this would put a new spirit into the army, and had no suspicion that the soldiers in the trenches roared with laughter over it for days, and told each other that it would do the blighters at home good to have a taste of what the army was up against. Sometimes the smallness of view was pathetic. A man would work at home regardless of the call "to make the world safe for democracy' His brother would be killed at the front. Immediately he would throw up his work and take up the war as a family blood feud against the Germans. Sometimes it was comic. A wounded man, entitled to his discharge, would return to the trenches with a grim determination to find the Hun who had wounded him and pay him out for it. It is impossible to estimate what proportion of us, in khaki or out of it, grasped the war and its political antecedents as a whole in the light of any philosophy of history or knowledge of what war is. I doubt whether it was as high as our proportion of higher mathematicians. But there can be no doubt that it was prodigiously outnumbered by the comparatively ignorant and childish. Remember that these people had to be stimulated to make the sacrifices demanded by the war, and that this could not be done by appeals Heartbreak House xxxiii XXXlll to a knowledge which they did not possess, and a comprehension of which they were incapable. When the armistice at last set me free to tell the truth about the war at the following general election, a soldier said to a candidate whom I was supporting, "If I had known all that in 1914, they would never have got me into khaki." And that, of course, was precisely why it had been necessary to stuff him with a romance that any diplomatist would have laughed at. Thus the natural confusion of ignorance was increased by a deliberately propagated confusion of nursery bogey stories and melodramatic nonsense, which at last overreached itself and made it impossible to stop the war before we had not only achieved the triumph of vanquishing the German army and thereby overthrowing its militarist monarchy, but made the very serious mistake of ruining the centre of Europe, a thing that no sane European State could afford to do. The Dumb Capables and the Noisy Incapables Confronted with this picture of insensate delusion and folly, the critical reader will immediately counterplead that England all this time was conducting a war which involved the organization of several millions of fighting men and of the workers who were supplying them with provisions, munitions, and transport, and that this could not have been done by a mob of hysterical ranters. This is fortunately true. To pass from the newspaper offices and political platforms and club fenders and suburban drawing-rooms to the Army and the munition factories was to pass from Bedlam to the busiest and sanest of workaday worlds. It was to rediscover England, and find solid xxxiv Heartbreak House ground for the faith of those who still believed in her. But a necessary condition of this efficiency was that those who were efficient should give all their time to their business and leave the rabble raving to its heart's content. Indeed the raving was useful to the efficient, because, as it was always wide of the mark, it often distracted attention very conveniently from operations that would have been defeated or hindered by publicity. A precept which I endeavored vainly to popularize early in the war, "If you have anything to do go and do it: if not, for heaven's sake get out of the way," was only half carried out. Certainly the capable people went and did it; but the incapables would by no means get out of the way: they fussed and bawled and were only prevented from getting very seriously into the way by the blessed fact that they never knew where the way was. Thus whilst all the efficiency of England was silent and invisible, all its imbecility was deafening the heavens with its clamor and blotting out the sun with its dust. It was also unfortunately intimidating the Government by its blusterings into using the irresistible powers of the State to intimidate the sensible people, thus enabling a despicable minority of would-be lynchers to set up a reign of terror which could at any time have been broken by a single stern word from a responsible minister. But our ministers had not that sort of courage: neither Heartbreak House nor Horseback Hall had bred it, much less the suburbs. When matters at last came to the looting of shops by criminals under patriotic pretexts, it was the police force and not the Government that put its foot down. There was even one deplorable moment, during the submarine scare, in which the Government yielded to a childish cry for the maltreatment of naval prisoners of war, and, to our great disgrace, was forced by the enemy to behave itself. And yet behind all this public Heartbreak House xxxv blundering and misconduct and futile mischief, the effective England was carrying on with the most formidable capacity and activity. The ostensible England was making the empire sick with its incontinences, its ignorances, its ferocities, its panics, and its endless and intolerable blarings of Allied national anthems in season and out. The esoteric England was proceeding irresistibly to the conquest of Europe. The Practical Business Men From the beginning the useless people set up a shriek for "practical business men." By this they meant men who had become rich by placing their personal interests before those of the country, and measuring the success of every activity by the pecuniary profit it brought to them and to those on whom they depended for their supplies of capital. The pitiable failure of some conspicuous samples from the first batch we tried of these poor devils helped to give the whole public side of the war an air of monstrous and hopeless farce. They proved not only that they were useless for public work, but that in a well-ordered nation they would never have been allowed to control private enterprise. How the Fools shouted the Wise Men down Thus, like a fertile country flooded with mud, England showed no sign of her greatness in the days when she was putting forth all her strength to save herself from the worst consequences of her littleness. Most of the men of action, occupied to the last hour of their time xxxvi Heartbreak House with urgent practical work, had to leave to idler people, or to professional rhetoricians, the presentation of the war to the reason and imagination of the country and the world in speeches, poems, manifestoes, picture posters, and newspaper articles. I have had the privilege of hearing some of our ablest commanders talking about their work; and I have shared the common lot of reading the accounts of that work given to the world by the newspapers. No two experiences could be more different. But in the end the talkers obtained a dangerous ascendancy over the rank and file of the men of action; for though the great men of action are always inveterate talkers and often very clever writers, and therefore cannot have their minds formed for them by others, the average man of action, like the average fighter with the bayonet, can give no account of himself in words even to himself, and is apt to pick up and accept what he reads about himself and other people in the papers, except when the writer is rash enough to commit himself on technical points. It was not uncommon during the war to hear a soldier, or a civilian engaged on war work, describing events within his own experience that reduced to utter absurdity the ravings and maunderings of his daily paper, and yet echo the opinions of that paper like a parrot. Thus, to escape from the prevailing confusion and folly, it was not enough to seek the company of the ordinary man of action: one had to get into contact with the master spirits. This was a privilege which only a handful of people could enjoy. For the unprivileged citizen there was no escape. To him the whole country seemed mad, futile, silly, incompetent, with no hope of victory except the hope that the enemy might be just as mad. Only by very resolute reflection and reasoning could he reassure himself that if there was nothing more solid beneath Heartbreak House xxxvii *XXXVll these appalling appearances the war could not possibly have gone on for a single day without a total breakdown of its organization. The Mad Election Happy were the fools and the thoughtless men of action in those days. The worst of it was that the fools were very strongly represented in parliament, as fools not only elect fools, but can persuade men of action to elect them too. The election that immediately followed the armistice was perhaps the maddest that has ever taken place. Soldiers who had done voluntary and heroic service in the field were defeated by persons who had apparently never run a risk or spent a farthing that they could avoid, and who even had in the course of the election to apologize publicly for bawling Pacifist or Pro-German at their opponent. Party leaders seek such followers, who can always be depended on to walk tamely into the lobby at the party whip's orders, provided the leader will make their seats safe for them by the process which was called, in derisive reference to the war rationing system, "giving them the coupon." Other incidents were so grotesque that I cannot mention them without enabling the reader to identify the parties, which would not be fair, as they were no more to blame than thousands of others who must necessarily be nameless. The general result was patently absurd; and the electorate, disgusted at its own work, instantly recoiled to the opposite extreme, and cast out all the coupon candidates at the earliest bye-elections by equally silly majorities. But the mischief of the general election could not be undone; and the Government had not only to pretend to abuse its European victory xxxviii Heartbreak House as it had promised, but actually to do it by starving the enemies who had thrown down their arms. It had, in short, won the election by pledging itself to be thriftlessly wicked, cruel, and vindictive; and it did not find it as easy to escape from this pledge as it had from nobler ones. The end, as I write, is not yet; but it is clear that this thoughtless savagery will recoil on the heads of the Allies so severely that we shall be forced by the sternest necessity to take up our share of healing the Europe we have wounded almost to death instead of attempting to complete her destruction. The Yahoo and the Angry Ape Contemplating this picture of a state of mankind so recent that no denial of its truth is possible, one understands Shakespeare comparing Man to an angry ape, Swift describing him as a Yahoo rebuked by the superior virtue of the horse, and Wellington declaring that the British can behave themselves neither in victory nor defeat. Yet none of the three had seen war as we have seen it. Shakespeare blamed great men, saying that "Could great men thunder as Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet; for every pelting petty officer would use his heaven for thunder: nothing but thunder." What would Shakespeare have said if he had seen something far more destructive than thunder in the hand of every village laborer, and found on the Messines Ridge the craters of the nineteen volcanoes that were let loose there at the touch of a finger that might have been a child's finger without the result being a whit less ruinous? Shakespeare may have seen a Stratford cottage struck by one of Jove's thunderbolts, and have helped to extinguish the lighted Heartbreak House xxxix thatch and clear away the bits of the broken chimney. What would he have said if he had seen Ypres as it is now, or returned to Stratford, as French peasants are returning to their homes to-day, to find the old familiar signpost inscribed "To Stratford, 1 mile," and at the end of the mile nothing but some holes in the ground and a fragment of a broken churn here and there? Would not the spectacle of the angry ape endowed with powers of destruction that Jove never pretended to, have beggared even his command of words? And yet, what is there to say except that war puts a strain on human nature that breaks down the better half of it, and makes the worse half a diabolical virtue? Better for us if it broke it down altogether, for then the warlike way out of our difficulties would be barred to us, and we should take greater care not to get into them. In truth, it is, as Byron said, "not difficult to die," and enormously difficult to live: that explains why, at bottom, peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous. Did any hero of the war face the glorious risk of death more bravely than the traitor Bolo faced the ignominious certainty of it? Bolo taught us all how to die: can we say that he taught us all how to live? Hardly a week passes now without some soldier who braved death in the field so recklessly that he was decorated or specially commended for it, being haled before our magistrates for having failed to resist the paltriest temptations of peace, with no better excuse than the old one that "a man must live." Strange that one who, sooner than do honest work, will sell his honor for a bottle of wine, a visit to the theatre, and an hour with a strange woman, all obtained by passing a worthless cheque, could yet stake his life on the most desperate chances of the battle-field! Does it not seem as if, xl Heartbreak House after all, the glory of death were cheaper than the glory of life? If it is not easier to attain, why do so many more men attain it? At all events it is clear that the kingdom of the Prince of Peace has not yet become the kingdom of this world. His attempts at invasion have been resisted far more fiercely than the Kaiser's. Successful as that resistance has been, it has piled up a sort of National Debt that is not the less oppressive because we have no figures for it and do not intend to pay it. A blockade that cuts off "the grace of our Lord" is in the long run less bearable than the blockades which merely cut off raw materials; and against that blockade our Armada is impotent. In the blockader's house, he has assured us, there are many mansions; but I am afraid they do not include either Heartbreak House or Horseback Hall. Plague on Both your Houses! Meanwhile the Bolshevist picks and petards are at work on the foundations of both buildings; and though the Bolshevists may be buried in the ruins, their deaths will not save the edifices. Unfortunately they can be built again. Like Doubting Castle, they have been demolished many times by successive Greathearts, and rebuilt by Simple, Sloth, and Presumption, by Feeble Mind and Much Afraid, and by all the jurymen of Vanity Fair. Another generation of "secondary education" at our ancient public schools and the cheaper institutions that ape them will be quite sufficient to keep the two going until the next war. For the instruction of that generation I leave these pages as a record of what civilian life was during the war: a matter on which history is usually silent. For Heartbreak House xli tunately it was a very short war. It is true that the people who thought it could not last more than six months were very signally refuted by the event. As Sir Douglas Haig has pointed out, its Waterloos lasted months instead of hours. But there would have been nothing surprising in its lasting thirty years. If it had not been for the fact that the blockade achieved the amazing feat of starving out Europe, which it could not possibly have done had Europe been properly organized for war, or even for peace, the war would have lasted until the belligerents were so tired of it that they could no longer be compelled to compel themselves to go on with it. Considering its magnitude, the war of 1914-18 will certainly be classed as the shortest in history. The end came so suddenly that the combatant literally stumbled over it; and yet it came a full year later than it should have come if the belligerents had not been far too afraid of one another to face the situation sensibly. Germany, having failed to provide for the war she began, failed again to surrender before she was dangerously exhausted. Her opponents, equally improvident, went as much too close to bankruptcy as Germany to starvation. It was a bluff at which both were bluffed. And, with the usual irony of war, it remains doubtful whether Germany and Russia, the defeated, will not be the gainers; for the victors are already busy fastening on themselves the chains they have struck from the limbs of the vanquished. How the Theatre fared Let us now contract our view rather violently from the European theatre of war to the theatre in which the fights are sham fights, and the slain, rising the xlii Heartbreak House moment the curtain has fallen, go comfortably home to supper after washing off their rose-pink wounds. It is nearly twenty years since I was last obliged to introduce a play in the form of a book for lack of an opportunity of presenting it in its proper mode by a performance in a theatre. The war has thrown me back on this expedient. Heartbreak House has not yet reached the stage. I have withheld it because the war has completely upset the economic conditions which formerly enabled serious drama to pay its way in London. The change is not in the theatres nor in the management of them, nor in the authors and actors, but in the audiences. For four years the London theatres were crowded every night with thousands of soldiers on leave from the front. These soldiers were not seasoned London playgoers. A childish experience of my own gave me a clue to their condition. When I was a small boy I was taken to the opera. I did not then know what an opera was, though I could whistle a good deal of opera music. I had seen in my mother's album photographs of all the great opera singers, mostly in evening dress. In the theatre I found myself before a gilded balcony filled with persons in evening dress whom I took to be the opera singers. I picked out one massive dark lady as Alboni, and wondered how soon she would stand up and sing. I was puzzled by the fact that I was made to sit with my back to the singers instead of facing them. When the curtain went up, my astonishment and delight were unbounded. The Soldier at the Theatre Front In 1915, I saw in the theatres men in khaki in just the same predicament. To everyone who had my Heartbreak House xliii clue to their state of mind it was evident that they had never been in a theatre before and did not know what it was. At one of our great variety theatres I sat beside a young officer, not at all a rough specimen, who, even when the curtain rose and enlightened him as to the place where he had to look for his entertainment, found the dramatic part of it utterly incomprehensible. He did not know how to play his part of the game. He could understand the people on the stage singing and dancing and performing gymnastic feats. He not only understood but intensely enjoyed an artist who imitated cocks crowing and pigs squeaking. But the people who pretended that they were somebody else, and that the painted picture behind them was real, bewildered him. In his presence I realized how very sophisticated the natural man has to become before the conventions of the theatre can be easily acceptable, or the purpose of the drama obvious to him. Well, from the moment when the routine of leave for our soldiers was established, such novices, accompanied by damsels (called flappers) often as innocent as themselves, crowded the theatres to the doors. It was hardly possible at first to find stuff crude enough to nurse them on. The best music-hall comedians ransacked their memories for the oldest quips and the most childish antics to avoid carrying the military spectators out of their depth. I believe that this was a mistake as far as the novices were concerned. Shakespeare, or the dramatized histories of George Barnwell, Maria Martin, or the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, would probably have been quite popular with them. But the novices were only a minority after all. The cultivated soldier, who in time of peace would look at nothing theatrical except the most advanced postIbsen plays in the most artistic settings, found him xliv Heartbreak House self, to his own astonishment, thirsting for silly jokes, dances, and brainlessly sensuous exhibitions of pretty girls. The author of some of the most grimly serious plays of our time told me that after enduring the trenches for months without a glimpse of the female of his species, it gave him an entirely innocent but delightful pleasure merely to see a flapper. The reaction from the battle-field produced a condition of hyperaesthesia in which all the theatrical values were altered. Trivial things gained intensity and stale things novelty. The actor, instead of having to coax his audiences out of the boredom which had driven them to the theatre in an ill humor to seek some sort of distraction, had only to exploit the bliss of smiling men who were no longer under fire and under military discipline, but actually clean and comfortable and in a mood to be pleased with anything and everything that a bevy of pretty girls and a funny man, or even a bevy of girls pretending to be pretty and a man pretending to be funny, could do for them. Then could be seen every night in the theatres oldfashioned farcical comedies, in which a bedroom, with four doors on each side and a practicable window in the middle, was understood to resemble exactly the bedroom in the flats beneath and above, all three inhabited by couples consumed with jealousy. When these people came home drunk at night; mistook their neighbor's flats for their own; and in due course got into the wrong beds, it was not only the novices who found the resulting complications and scandals exquisitely ingenious and amusing, nor their equally verdant flappers who could not help squealing in a manner that astonished the oldest performers when the gentleman who had just come in drunk through the window pretended to undress, and allowed glimpses of his naked person to be descried from time to time. Heartbreak House xlv Men who had just read the news that Charles Wyndham was dying, and were thereby sadly reminded of Pink Dominos and the torrent of farcical comedies that followed it in his heyday until every trick of that trade had become so stale that the laughter they provoked turned to loathing: these veterans also, when they returned from the field, were as much pleased by what they knew to be stale and foolish as the novices by what they thought fresh and clever. Commerce in the Theatre Wellington said that an army moves on its belly. So does a London theatre. Before a man acts he must eat. Before he performs plays he must pay rent. In London we have no theatres for the welfare of the people: they are all for the sole purpose of producing the utmost obtainable rent for the proprietor. If the twin flats and twin beds produce a guinea more than Shakespeare, out goes Shakespeare and in come the twin flats and the twin beds. If the brainless bevy of pretty girls and the funny man outbid Mozart, out goes Mozart. Unser Shakespeare Before the war an effort was made to remedy this by establishing a national theatre in celebration of the tercentenary of the death of Shakespeare. A committee was formed; and all sorts of illustrious and influential persons lent their names to a grand appeal to our national culture. My play, The Dark Lady of The Sonnets, was one of the incidents of that appeal. After some years of effort the result was a single hand xlvi Heartbreak House some subscription from a German gentleman. Like the celebrated swearer in the anecdote when the cart containing all his household goods lost its tailboard at the top of the hill and let its contents roll in ruin to the bottom, I can only say, "I cannot do justice to this situation," and let it pass without another word. The Higher Drama put out of Action The effect of the war on the London theatres may now be imagined. The beds and the bevies drove every higher form of art out of it. Rents went up to an unprecedented figure. At the same time prices doubled everywhere except at the theatre pay-boxes, and raised the expenses of management to such a degree that unless the houses were quite full every night, profit was impossible. Even bare solvency could not be attained without a very wide popularity. Now what had made serious drama possible to a limited extent before the war was that a play could pay its way even if the theatre were only half full until Saturday and three-quarters full then. A manager who was an enthusiast and a desperately hard worker, with an occasional grant-in-aid from an artistically disposed millionaire, and a due proportion of those rare and happy accidents by which plays of the higher sort turn out to be potboilers as well, could hold out for for some years, by which time a relay might arrive in the person of another enthusiast. Thus and not otherwise occurred that remarkable revival of the British drama at the beginning of the century which made my own career as a playwright possible in England. In America I had already established myself, not as part of the ordinary theatre system, but in association with the exceptional genius of Richard Mansfield. In Heartbreak House xlvii Germany and Austria I had no difficulty: the system of publicly aided theatres there, Court and Municipal, kept drama of the kind I dealt in alive; so that I was indebted to the Emperor of Austria for magnificent productions of my works at a time when the sole official attention paid me by the British Courts was the announcement to the English-speaking world that certain plays of mine were unfit for public performance, a substantial set-off against this being that the British Court, in the course of its private playgoing, paid no regard to the bad character given me by the chief officer of its household. Howbeit, the fact that my plays effected a lodgment on the London stage, and were presently followed by the plays of Granville Barker, Gilbert Murray, John Masefield, St. John Hankin, Laurence Housman, Arnold Bennett, John Galsworthy, John Drinkwater, and others which would in the nineteenth century have stood rather less chance of production at a London theatre than the Dialogues of Plato, not to mention revivals of the ancient Athenian drama and a restoration to the stage of Shakespeare's plays as he wrote them, was made economically possible solely by a supply of theatres which could hold nearly twice as much money as it cost to rent and maintain them. In such theatres work appealing to a relatively small class of cultivated persons, and therefore attracting only from half to three-quarters as many spectators as the more popular pastimes, could nevertheless keep going in the hands of young adventurers who were doing it for its own sake, and had not yet been forced by advancing age and responsibilities to consider the commercial value of their time and energy too closely. The war struck this foundation away in the manner I have just described. The expenses of running the cheapest west-end theatres rose to a sum which exceeded by xlviii Heartbreak House twenty-five per cent the utmost that the higher drama can, as an ascertained matter of fact, be depended on to draw. Thus the higher drama, which has never really been a commercially sound speculation, now became an impossible one. Accordingly, attempts are being made to provide a refuge for it in suburban theatres in London and repertory theatres in the provinces. But at the moment when the army has at last disgorged the survivors of the gallant band of dramatic pioneers whom it swallowed, they find that the economic conditions which formerly made their work no worse than precarious now put it out of the question altogether, as far as the west end of London is concerned. Church and Theatre I do not suppose many people care particularly. We are not brought up to care; and a sense of the national importance of the theatre is not born in mankind: the natural man, like so many of the soldiers at the beginning of the war, does not know what a theatre is. But please note that all these soldiers who did not know what a theatre was, knew what a church was. And they had been taught to respect churches. Nobody had ever warned them against a church as a place where frivolous women paraded in their best clothes; where stories of improper females like Potiphar's wife, and erotic poetry like the Song of Songs, were read aloud; where the sensuous and sentimental music of Schubert, Mendelssohn, Gounod, and Brahms was more popular than severe music by greater composers; where the prettiest sort of pretty pictures of pretty saints assailed the imagination and senses through stained-glass windows; and where sculp Heartbreak House xlix ture and architecture came to the help of painting. Nobody ever reminded them that these things had sometimes produced such developments of erotic idolatry that men who were not only enthusiastic amateurs of literature, painting, and music, but famous practitioners of them, had actually exulted when mobs and even regular troops under express command had mutilated church statues, smashed church windows, wrecked 'church organs, and torn up the sheets from which the church music was read and sung. When they saw broken statues in churches, they were told that this was the work of wicked, godless rioters, instead of, as it was, the work partly of zealots bent on driving the world, the flesh, and the devil out of the temple, and partly of insurgent men who had become intolerably poor because the temple had become a den of thieves. But all the sins and perversions that were so carefully hidden from them in the history of the Church were laid on the shoulders of the Theatre: that stuffy, uncomfortable place of penance in which we suffer so much inconvenience on the slenderest chance of gaining a scrap of food for our starving souls. When the Germans bombed the Cathedral of Rheims the world rang with the horror of the sacrilege. When they bombed the Little Theatre in the Adelphi, and narrowly missed bombing two writers of plays who lived within a few yards of it, the fact was not even mentioned in the papers. In point of appeal to the senses no theatre ever built could touch the fane at Rheims: no actress could rival its Virgin in beauty, nor any operatic tenor look otherwise than a fool beside its David. Its picture glass was glorious even to those who had seen the glass of Chartres. It was wonderful in its very grotesques: who would look at the Blondin Donkey after seeing its leviathans? In spite of the Adam-Adel 1 Heartbreak House phian decoration on which Miss Kingston had lavished so much taste and care, the Little Theatre was in comparison with Rheims the gloomiest of little conventicles: indeed the cathedral must, from the Puritan point of view, have debauched a million voluptuaries for every one whom the Little Theatre had sent home thoughtful to a chaste bed after Mr Chesterton's Magic or Brieux's Les Avaries. Perhaps that is the real reason why the Church is lauded and the Theatre reviled. Whether or no, the fact remains that the lady to whose public spirit and sense of the national value of the theatre I owed the first regular public performance of a play of mine had to conceal her action as if it had been a crime, whereas if she had given the money to the Church she would have worn a halo for it. And I admit, as I have always done, that this state of things may have been a very sensible one. I have asked Londoners again and again why they pay half a guinea to go to a theatre when they can go to St. Paul's or Westminster Abbey for nothing. Their only possible reply is that they want to see something new and possibly something wicked; but the theatres mostly disappoint both hopes. If ever a revolution makes me Dictator, I shall establish a heavy charge for admission to our churches. But everyone who pays at the church door shall receive a ticket entitling him or her to free admission to one performance at any theatre he or she prefers. Thus shall the sensuous charms of the church service be made to subsidize the sterner virtue of the drama. The Next Phase The present situation will not last. Although the newspaper I read at breakfast this morning before Heartbreak House h writing these words contains a calculation that no less than twenty-three wars are at present being waged to confirm the peace, England is no longer in khaki; and a violent reaction is setting in against the crude theatrical fare of the four terrible years. Soon the rents of theatres will once more be fixed on the assumption that they cannot always be full, nor even on the average half full week in and week out. Prices will change. The higher drama will be at no greater disadvantage than it was before the war; and it may benefit, first, by the fact that many of us have been torn from the fools' paradise in which the theatre formerly traded, and thrust upon the sternest realities and necessities until we have lost both faith in and patience with the theatrical pretences that had no root either in reality or necessity; second, by the startling change made by the war in the distribution of income. It seems only the other day that a millionaire was a man with ~50,000 a year. To-day, when he has paid his income tax and super tax, and insured his life for the amount of his death duties, he is lucky if his net income is ~10,000, though his nominal property remains the same. And this is the result of a Budget which is called "a respite for the rich." At the other end of the scale millions of persons have had regular incomes for the first time in their lives; and their men have been regularly clothed, fed, lodged, and taught to make up their minds that certain things have to be done, also for the first time in their lives. Hundreds of thousands of women have been taken out of their domestic cages and tasted both discipline and independence. The thoughtless and snobbish middle classes have been pulled up short by the very unpleasant experience of being ruined to an unprecedented extent. We have all had a tremendous jolt; and although the widespread notion that the shock lii Heartbreak House of the war would automatically make a new heaven and a new earth, and that the dog would never go back to his vomit nor the sow to her wallowing in the mire, is already seen to be a delusion, yet we are far more conscious of our condition than we were, and far less disposed to submit to it. Revolution, lately only a sensational chapter in history or a demagogic claptrap, is now a possibility so imminent that hardly by trying to suppress it in other countries by arms and defamation, and calling the process anti-Bolshevism, can our Government stave it off at home. Perhaps the most tragic figure of the day is the American President who was once a historian. In those days it became his task to tell us how, after that great war in America which was more clearly than any other war of our time a war for an idea, the conquerors, confronted with a heroic task of reconstruction, turned recreant, and spent fifteen years in abusing their victory under cover of pretending to accomplish the task they were doing what they could to make impossible. Alas! Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that men never learn anything from history. With what anguish of mind the President sees that we, the new conquerors, forgetting everything we professed to fight for, are sitting down with watering mouths to a good square meal of ten years revenge upon and humiliation of our prostrate foe, can only be guessed by those who know, as he does, how hopeless is remonstrance, and how happy Lincoln was in perishing from the earth before his inspired messages became scraps of paper. He knows well that from the Peace Conference will come, in spite of his utmost, no edict on which he will be able, like Lincoln, to invoke "the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God." He led his people to destroy the militarism of Zabern; Heartbreak House liii and the army they rescued is busy in Cologne imprisoning every German who does not salute a British officer; whilst the Government at home, asked whether it approves, replies that it does not propose even to discontinue this Zabernism when the Peace is concluded, but in effect looks forward to making Germans salute British officers until the end of the world. That is what war makes of men and women. It will wear off; and the worst it threatens is already proving impracticable; but before the humble and contrite heart ceases to be despised, the President and I, being of the same age, will be dotards. In the meantime there is, for him, another history to write; for me, another comedy to stage. Perhaps, after all, that is what wars are for, and what historians and playwrights are for. If men will not learn until their lessons are written in blood, why, blood they must have, their own for preference. The Ephemeral Thrones and the Eternal Theatre To the theatre it will not matter. Whatever Bastilles fall, the theatre will stand. Apostolic Hapsburg has collapsed; All Highest Hohenzollern languishes in Holland, threatened with trial on a capital charge of fighting for his country against England; Imperial Romanoff, said to have perished miserably by a more summary method of murder, is perhaps alive or perhaps dead: nobody cares more than if he had been a peasant; the lord of Hellas is level with his lackeys in republican Switzerland; Prime Ministers and Commanders-in-Chief have passed from a brief glory as Solons and Caesars into failure and obscurity as closely on one another's heels as the descendants liv Heartbreak House of Banquo; but Euripides and Aristophanes, Shakespeare and Moliere, Goethe and Ibsen remain fixed in their everlasting seats. How War muzzles the Dramatic Poet As for myself, why, it may be asked, did I not write two plays about the war instead of two pamphlets on it? The answer is significant. You cannot make war on war and on your neighbor at the same time. War cannot bear the terrible castigation of comedy, the ruthless light of laughter that glares on the stage. When men are heroically dying for their country, it is not the time to show their lovers and wives and fathers and mothers how they are being sacrificed to the blunders of boobies, the cupidity of capitalists, the ambition of conquerors, the electioneering of demagogues, the Pharisaism of patriots, the lusts and lies and rancors and bloodthirsts that love war because it opens their prison doors, and sets them in the thrones of power and popularity. For unless these things are mercilessly exposed they will hide under the mantle of the ideals on the stage just as they do in real life. And though there may be better things to reveal, it may not, and indeed cannot, be militarily expedient to reveal them whilst the issue is still in the balance. Truth telling is not compatible with the defence of the realm. We are just now reading the revelations of our generals and admirals, unmuzzled at last by the armistice. During the war, General A, in his moving despatches from the field, told how General B had covered himself with deathless glory in such and such a battle. He now tells us that General B came within Heartbreak House Iv an ace of losing us the war by disobeying his orders on that occasion, and fighting instead of running away as he ought to have done. An excellent subject for comedy now that the war is over, no doubt; but if General A had let this out at the time, what would have been the effect on General B's soldiers? And had the stage made known what the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for War who overruled General A thought of him, and what he thought of them, as now revealed in raging controversy, what would have been the effect on the nation? That is why comedy, though sorely tempted, had to be loyally silent; for the art of the dramatic poet knows no patriotism; recognizes no obligation but truth to natural history; cares not whether Germany or England perish; is ready to cry with Brynhild, "Lass'uns verderben, lachend zu grunde geh'n" sooner than deceive or be deceived; and thus becomes in time of war a greater military danger than poison, steel, or trinitrotoluene. That is why I had to withhold Heartbreak House from the footlights during the war; for the Germans might on any night have turned the last act from play into earnest, and even then might not have waited for their cues. June, 1919. HEARTBREAK HOUSE ACT I The hilly country in the middle of the north edge of Sussex, looking very pleasant on a fine evening at the end of September, is seen through the windows of a room which has been built so as to resemble the after part of an old-fashioned high-pooped ship with a stern gallery; for the windows are ship built with heavy timbering, and run right across the room as continuously as the stability of the wall allows. A row of lockers under the windows provides an unupholstered windowseat interrupted by twin glass doors, respectively halfway between the stern post and the sides. Another door strains the illusion a little by being apparently in the ship's port side, and yet leading, not to the open sea, but to the entrance hall of the house. Between this door and the stem gallery are bookshelves. There are electric light switches beside the door leading to the hall and the glass doors in the stern gallery. Against the starboard wall is a carpenter's bench. The vice has a board in its jaws; and the floor is littered with shavings, overflowing from a waste-paper basket. A couple of planes and a centrebit are on the bench. In the same wall, between the bench and the windows, is a narrow doorway with a half door, above which a glimpse of the room beyond shows that it is a shelved pantry with bottles and kitchen crockery. 1 Heartbreak House Act 1 On the starboard side, but close to the middle, is a plain oak drawing-table with drawing-board, T-square, straightedges, set squares, mathematical instruments, saucers of water color, a tumbler of discolored water, Indian ink, pencils, and brushes on it. The drawing-board is set so that the draughtsman's chair has the window on its left hand. On the floor at the end of the table, on his right, is a ship's fire bucket. On the port side of the room, near the bookshelves, is a sofa with its back to the windows. It is a sturdy mahogany article, oddly upholstered in sailcloth, including the bolster, with a couple of blankets hanging over the back. Between the sofa and the drawing-table is a big wicker chair, with broad arms and a low sloping back, with its back to the light. A small but stout table of teak, with a round top and gate legs, stands against the port wall between the door and the bookcase. It is the only article in the room that suggests (not at all convincingly) a woman's hand in the furnishing. The uncarpeted floor of narrow boards is caulked and holystoned like a deck. The garden to which the glass doors lead dips to the south before the landscape rises again to the hills. Emerging from the hollow is the cupola of an observatory. Between the observatory and the house is a flagstaff on a little esplanade, with a hammock on the east side and a long garden seat on the west. A young lady, gloved and hatted, with a dust coat on, is sitting in the window-seat with her body twisted to enable her to look out of the view. One hand props her chin: the other hangs down with a volume of the Temple Shakespeare in it, and her finger stuck in the page she has been reading. A clock strikes six. The young lady turns and looks at her watch. She rises with an air of one who waits and is almost at the end of her patience. She is a pretty girl, slender, fair, Act 1 Heartbreak House 3 and intelligent looking, nicely but not expensively dressed, evidently not a smart idler. With a sigh of weary resignation she comes to the draughtsman's chair; sits down; and begins to read Shakespeare. Presently the book sinks to her lap; her eyes close; and she dozes into a slumber. An elderly womanservant comes in from the hall with three unopened bottles of rum on a tray. She passes through and disappears in the pantry without noticing the young lady. She places the bottles on the shelf and fills her tray with empty bottles. As she returns with these, the young lady lets her book drop, awakening herself, and startling the womanservant so that she all but lets the tray fall. THI WOMANSERVANT. God bless us! [The young lady picks up the book and places it on the table.] Sorry to wake you, miss, I'm sure; but you are a stranger to me. What might you be waiting here for now? THE YOUNG LADY. Waiting for somebody to show some signs of knowing that I have been invited here. THE WOMANSERVANT. Oh, you're invited, are you? And has nobody come? Dear! dear! THE YOUNG LADY. A wild-looking old gentleman came and looked in at the window; and I heard him calling out, "Nurse, there is a young and attractive female waiting in the poop. Go and see what she wants." Are you the nurse? THE WOMANSERVANT. Yes, miss: I'm Nurse Guinness. That was old Captain Shotover, Mrs Hushabye's father. I heard him roaring; but I thought it was for something else. I suppose it was Mrs Hushabye that invited you, ducky? THE YOUNG LADY. I understood her to do so. But really I think I'd better go. NURSE GUINNESS. Oh, don't think of such a thing, 4 Heartbreak House Act 1 miss. If Mrs Hushabye has forgotten all about it, it will be a pleasant surprise for her to see you, won't it? THE YOUNG LADY. It has been a very unpleasant surprise to me to find that nobody expects me. NURSE GUINNESS. You'll get used to it, miss: this house is full of surprises for them that don't know our ways. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [looking in from the hall suddenly: an ancient but still hardy man with an immense white beard, in a reefer jacket with a whistle hanging from his neck]. Nurse, there is a hold-all and a handbag on the front steps for everybody to fall over. Also a tennis racquet. Who the devil left them there? THE YOUNG LADY. They are mine, I'm afraid. THE CAPTAIN [advancing to the drawing-table]. Nurse, who is this misguided and unfortunate young lady? NURSE GUINNESS. She says Miss Hessy invited her, sir. THE CAPTAIN. And had she no friend, no parents, to warn her against my daughter's invitations? This is a pretty sort of house, by heavens! A young and attractive lady is invited here. Her luggage is left on the steps for hours; and she herself is deposited in the poop and abandoned, tired and starving. This is our hospitality. These are our manners. No room ready. No hot water. No welcoming hostess. Our visitor is to sleep in the toolshed, and to wash in the duckpond. NURSE GUINNESS. Now it's all right, Captain: I'll get the lady some tea; and her room shall be ready before she has finished it. [To the young lady.] Take off your hat, ducky; and make yourself at home [she goes to the door leading to the hall]. THE CAPTAIN [as she passes him]. Ducky! Do you suppose, woman, that because this young lady has been insulted and neglected, you have the right to Act 1 Heartbreak House 5 address her as you address my wretched children, whom you have brought up in ignorance of the commonest decencies of social intercourse? NURSE GUINNESS. Never mind him, doty. [Quite unconcerned, she goes out into the hall on her way to the kitchen.] THE CAPTAIN. Madam, will you favor me with your name? [He sits down in the big wicker chair.] THE YOUNG LADY. My name is Ellie Dunn. THE CAPTAIN. Dunn! I had a boatswain whose name was Dunn. He was originally a pirate in China. He set up as a ship's chandler with stores which I have every reason to believe he stole from me. No doubt he became rich. Are you his daughter? ELLIE [indignant]. No, certainly not. I am proud to be able to say that though my father has not been a successful man, nobody has ever had one word to say against him. I think my father is the best man I have ever known. THE CAPTAIN. He must be greatly changed. Has he attained the seventh degree of concentration? ELLIE. I don't understand. THE CAPTAIN. But how could he, with a daughter? I, madam, have two daughters. One of them is Hesione Hushabye, who invited you here. I keep this house: she upsets it. I desire to attain the seventh degree of concentration: she invites visitors and leaves me to entertain them. [Nurse Guinness returns with the tea-tray, which she places on the teak table.] I have a second daughter who is, thank God, in a remote part of the Empire with her numskull of a husband. As a child she thought the figure-head of my ship, the Dauntless, the most beautiful thing on earth. He resembled it. He had the same expression: wooden yet enterprising. She married him, and will never set foot in this house again. 6 Heartbreak House Act 1 NURSE GUINNESS [carrying the table, with the teathings on it, to Ellie's side]. Indeed you never were more mistaken. She is in England this very moment. You have been told three times this week that she is coming home for a year for her health. And very glad you should be to see your own daughter again after all these years. THE CAPTAIN. I am not glad. The natural term of the affection of the human animal for its offspring is six years. My daughter Ariadne was born when I was forty-six. I am now eighty-eight. If she comes, I am not at home. If she wants anything, let her take it. If she asks for me, let her be informed that I am extremely old, and have totally forgotten her. NURSE GUINNESS. That's no talk to offer to a young lady. Here, ducky, have some tea; and don't listen to him [she pours out a cup of tea]. THE CAPTAIN [rising wrathfully]. Now before high heaven they have given this innocent child Indian tea: the stuff they tan their own leather insides with. [He seizes the cup and the tea-pot and empties both into the leathern bucket.] ELLIE [almost in tears]. Oh, please! I am so tired. I should have been glad of anything. NURSE GUINNESS. Oh, what a thing to do! The poor lamb is ready to drop. THE CAPTAIN. You shall have some of my tea. Do not touch that fly-blown cake: nobody eats it here except the dogs. [He disappears into the pantry.] NURSE GUINNESS. There's a man for you! They say he sold himself to the devil in Zanzibar before he was a captain; and the older he grows the more I believe them. A WOMAN'S VOICE [in the hall]. Is anyone at home? Hesione! Nurse! Papa! Do come, somebody; and take in my luggage. Act I Heartbreak House 7 Thumping heard, as of an umbrella, on the wainscot. NURSE GUINNESS. My gracious! It's Miss Addy, Lady Utterword, Mrs Hushabye's sister: the one I told the captain about. [Calling.] Coming, Miss, coming. She carries the table back to its place by the door and is hurrying out when she is intercepted by Lady Utterword, who bursts in much flustered. Lady Utterword, a blonde, is very handsome, very well dressed, and so precipitate in speech and action that the first impression (erroneous) is one of comic silliness. LADY UTTERWORD. Oh, is that you, Nurse? How are you? You don't look a day older. Is nobody at home? Where is Hesione? Doesn't she expect me? Where are the servants? Whose luggage is that on the steps? Where's papa? Is everybody asleep? [Seeing Ellie.] Oh! I beg your pardon. I suppose you are one of my nieces. [Approaching her with outstretched arms.] Come and kiss your aunt, darling. ELLIE. I'm only a visitor. It is my luggage on the steps. NURSE GUINNESS. I'll go get you some fresh tea, ducky. [She takes up the tray.] ELLIE. But the old gentleman said he would make some himself. NURSE GUINNESS. Bless you! he's forgotten what he went for already. His mind wanders from one thing to another. LADY UTTERWORD. Papa, I suppose? NURSE GUINNESS. Yes, Miss. LADY UTTERWORD [vehemently]. Don't be silly, Nurse. Don't call me Miss. NURSE GUINNESS [placidly]. No, lovey [she goes out with the tea-tray]. LADY UTTERWORD [sitting down with a flounce on the sofa]. I know what you must feel. Oh, this house, 8 Heartbreak House Act 1 this house! I come back to it after twenty-three years; and it is just the same: the luggage lying on the steps, the servants spoilt and impossible, nobody at home to receive anybody, no regular meals, nobody ever hungry because they are always gnawing bread and butter or munching apples, and, what is worse, the same disorder in ideas, in talk, in feeling. When I was a child I was used to it: I had never known anything better, though I was unhappy, and longed all the time - oh, how I longed!- to be respectable, to be a lady, to live as others did, not to have to think of everything for myself. I married at nineteen to escape from it. My husband is Sir Hastings Utterword, who has been governor of all the crown colonies in succession. I have always been the mistress of Government House. I have been so happy: I had forgotten that people could live like this. I wanted to see my father, my sister, my nephews and nieces (one ought to, you know), and I was looking forward to it. And now the state of the house! the way I'm received! the casual impudence of that woman Guinness, our old nurse! really Hesione might at least have been here: some preparation might have been made for me. You must excuse my going on in this way; but I am really very much hurt and annoyed and disillusioned: and if I had realized it was to be like this, I wouldn't have come. I have a great mind to go away without another word [she is on the point of weeping]. ELLIE [also very miserable]. Nobody has been here to receive me either. I thought I ought to go away too. But how can I, Lady Utterword? My luggage is on the steps; and the station fly has gone. The captain emerges from the pantry with a tray of Chinese lacquer and a very fine tea-set on it. He rests it provisionally on the end of the table; snatches away Act 1 Heartbreak House 9 the drawing-board, which he stands on the floor against table legs; and puts the tray in the space thus cleared. Ellie pours out a cup greedily. THE CAPTAIN. Your tea, young lady. What! another lady! I must fetch another cup [he makes for the pantry]. LADY UTTERWORD [rising from the sofa, suffused with emotion]. Papa! Don't you know me? I'm your daughter. THE CAPTAIN. Nonsense! my daughter's upstairs asleep. [He vanishes through the half door.] Lady Utterword retires to the window to conceal her tears. ELLIE [going to her with the cup]. Don't be so distressed. Have this cup of tea. He is very old and very strange: he has been just like that to me. I know how dreadful it must be: my own father is all the world to me. Oh, I'm sure he didn't mean it. The captain returns with another cup. THE CAPTAIN. Now we are complete. [He places it on the tray.] LADY UTTERWORD [hysterically]. Papa, you can't have forgotten me. I am Ariadne. I'm little Paddy Patkins. Won't you kiss me? [She goes to him and throws her arms round his neck.] THE CAPTAIN [woodenly enduring her embrace]. How can you be Ariadne? You arc a middle-aged woman: well preserved, madam, but no longer young. LADY UTTERWORD. But think of all the years and years I have been away, Papa. I have had to grow old, like other people. THE CAPTAIN [disengaging himself]. You should grow out of kissing strange men: they may be striving to attain the seventh degree of concentration. LADY UTTERWORD. But I'm your daughter. You haven't seen me for years. THE CAPTAIN. So much the worse! When our rela. 10 Heartbreak House Act 1 tives are at home, we have to think of all their good points or it would be impossible to endure them. But when they are away, we console ourselves for their absence by dwelling on their vices. That is how I have come to think my absent daughter Ariadne a perfect fiend; so do not try to ingratiate yourself here by impersonating her [he walks firmly cway to the other side of the room]. LADY UTTERWORD. Ingratiating myself indeed! [With dignity.] Very well, papa. [She sits down at the drawing-table and pours out tea for herself.] THE CAPTAIN. I am neglecting my social duties. You remember Dunn? Billy Dunn? LADY UTTERWORD. Do you mean that villainous sailor who robbed you? THE CAPTAIN [introducing Ellie]. His daughter. [He sits down on the sofa.] ELLIE [protesting]. No - Nurse Guinness returns with fresh tea. THE CAPTAIN. Take that hogwash away. Do you hear? NURSE. You've actually remembered about the tea! i...- [To Ellie.] Oh, miss, he didn't forget you after all! You have made an impression. THE CAPTAIN [gloomily]. Youth! beauty! novelty! They are badly wanted in this house. I am excessively old. Hesione is only moderately young. Her children are not youthful. LADY UTTERWORD. How can children be expected to be youthful in this house? Almost before we could speak we were filled with notions that might have been all very well for pagan philosophers of fifty, but were certainly quite unfit for respectable people of any age. NURSE. You were always for respectability, Miss Addy. Act 1 Heartbreak Hoouse 11 LADY uTTERWORD. Nurse, will you please remember that I am Lady Utterword, and not Miss Addy, nor lovey, nor darling, nor doty? Do you hear? NURSE. Yes, ducky: all right. I'll tell them all they must call you My lady. [She takes her tray out with undisturbed placidity.] LADY UTTERWORD. What comfort? what sense is there in having servants with no manners? ELLIE [rising and coming to the table to put down her empty cup]. Lady Utterword, do you think Mrs Hushabye really expects me? LADY UTTERWORD. Oh, don't ask me. You can see for yourself that I've just arrived; her only sister, after twenty-three years' absence! and it seems that I am not expected. THE CAPTAIN. What does it matter whether the young lady is expected or not? She is welcome. There are beds: there is food. I'll find a room for her myself [he makes for the door]. ELLIE [following him to stop him]. Oh, please —lie goes out.] Lady Utterword, I don't know what to do. Your father persists in believing that my father is some sailor who robbed him. LADY UTTERWORD. You had better pretend not to notice it. My father is a very clever man; but he always forgot things; and now that he is old, of course he is worse. And I must warn you that it is sometimes very hard to feel quite sure that he really forgets. Mrs Hushabye bursts into the room tempestuously and embraces Ellie. She is a couple of years older than Lady Utterword, and even better looking. She has magnificent black hair, eyes like the fishpools of Heshbon, and a nobly modelled neck, short at the back and low between her shoulders in front. Unlike her sister she is uncorseted and dressed anyhow in a rich robe of black pile that shows off her white skin and statuesque contour. Heartbreak House Act 1 MRS HUSHABYE. Ellie, my darling, my pettikins [kissing her], how long have you been here? I've been at home all the time: I was putting flowers and things in your room; and when I just sat down for a moment to try how comfortable the armchair was I went off to sleep. Papa woke me and told me you were here. Fancy your finding no one, and being neglected and abandoned. [Kissing her again.] My poor love! [She deposits Ellie on the sofa. Meanwhile Ariadne has left the table and come over to claim her share of attention.] Oh! you've brought someone with you. Introduce me. LADY UTTERWORD. Hesione, is it possible that you don't know me? MRS HUSHABYE [conventionally]. Of course I remember your face quite well. Where have we met? LADY UTTERWORD. Didn't Papa tell you I was here? Oh! this is really too much. [She throws herself sulkily into the big chair.] MRS HUSHABYE. Papa! LADY UTTERWORD. Yes, Papa. Our papa, you unfeeling wretch! [Rising angrily.] I'll go straight to a hotel. MRS HUSHABYE [seizing her by the shoulders]. My goodness gracious goodness, you don't mean to say that you're Addy! LADY UTTERWORD. I certainly am Addy; and I don't think I can be so changed that you would not have recognized me if you had any real affection for me. And Papa didn't think me even worth mentioning! MRS HUSHABYE. What a lark! Sit down [she pushes her back into the chair instead of kissing her, and posts herself behind it]. You do look a swell. You're much handsomer than you used to be. You've made the acquaintance of Ellie, of course. She is going to marry a perfect hog of a millionaire for the sake of her Act 1 Heartbreak House 13 father, who is as poor as a church mouse; and you must help me to stop her. ELLIE. Oh, please, Hesione! MRS HUSHABYE. My pettikins, the man's coming here today with your father to begin persecuting you; and everybody will see the state of the case in ten minutes; so what's the use of making a secret of it? ELLIE. He is not a hog, Hesione. You don't know how wonderfully good he was to my father, and how deeply grateful I am to him. MRS HUSHABYE [to Lady Utterword]. Her father is a very remarkable man, Addy. His name is Mazzini Dunn. Mazzini was a celebrity of some kind who knew Ellie's grandparents. They were both poets, like the Brownings; and when her father came into the world Mazzini said, "Another soldier born for freedom!" So they christened him Mazzini; and he has been fighting for freedom in his quiet way ever since. That's why he is so poor. ELLIE. I am proud of his poverty. MRS HUSHABYE. Of course you are, pettikins. Why not leave him in it, and marry someone you love? LADY UTTERWORD [rising suddenly and explosively]. Hesione, are you going to kiss me or are you not? MRS HUSHABYE. What do you want to be kissed for? LADY UTTERWORD. I don't want to be kissed; but I do want you to behave properly and decently. We are sisters. We have been separated for twenty-three years. You ought to kiss me. MRS HUSHABYE. To-morrow morning, dear, before you make up. I hate the smell of powder. LADY UTTERWOOD. Oh! you unfeeling - [she is interrupted by the return of the captain]. THE CAPTAIN [to Ellie]. Your room is ready. [Ellie rises.] The sheets were damp; but I have changed them [he makes for the garden door on the port side]. 14 Heartbreak House Act 1 LADY UTTERWORD. Oh! What about my sheets? THE CAPTAIN [halting at the door]. Take my advice: air them: or take them off and sleep in blankets. You shall sleep in Ariadne's old room. LADY UTTERWORD. Indeed I shall do nothing of the sort. That little hole! I am entitled to the best spare room. THE CAPTAIN [continuing unmoved]. She married a numskull. She told me she would marry anyone to get away from home. LADT UTTERWORD. You are pretending not to know me on purpose. I will leave the house. Mazzini Dunn enters from the hall. He is a little elderly man with bulging credulous eyes and earnest manners. He is dressed in a blue serge jacket suit with an unbuttoned mackintosh over it, and carries a soft black hat of clerical cut. ELLIE. At last! Captain Shotover, here is my father. THE CAPTAIN. This! Nonsense! not a bit like him [he goes away through the garden, shutting the door sharply behind him]. LADY UTTERWORD. I will not be ignored and pretended to be somebody else. I will have it out with Papa now, this instant. [To Mazzini.] Excuse me. [She follows the captain out, making a hasty bow to Mazzini, who returns it.] MRS HUSHABYE [hospitably shaking hands]. How good of you to come, Mr Dunn! You don't mind Papa, do you? He is as mad as a hatter, you know, but quite harmless and extremely clever. You will have some delightful talks with him. MAZZINI. I hope so. [To Ellie.] So here you are, Ellie, dear. [He draws her arm affectionately through his.] I must' thank you, Mrs Hushabye, for your kindness to my daughter. I'm afraid she would have had no holiday if you had not invited her. Act 1 Heartbreak House 15 MRS HUSHABYE. Not at all. Very nice of her to come and attract young people to the house for us. MAZZINI [smiling]. I'm afraid Ellie is not interested in young men, Mrs Hushabye. Her taste is on the graver, solider side. MRS HUSHABYE [with a sudden rather hard brightness in her manner]. Won't you take off your overcoat, Mr Dunn? You will find a cupboard for coats and hats and things in the corner of the hall. MAZZINI [hastily releasing Ellie]. Yes - thank youI had better - [he goes out]. MRS HUSHABYE [emphatically]. The old brute! ELLIE. Who? MRS HUSHABYE. Who! Him. He. It [pointing after Mazzini]. "Graver, solider tastes," indeed! ELLIE [aghast]. You don't mean that you were speaking like that of my father! MRS HUSHABYE. I was. You know I was. ELLIE [with dignity]. I will leave your house at once. [She turns to the door.] MRS HUSHABYE. If you attempt it, I'll tell your father why. ELLIE [turning again]. Oh! How can you treat a visitor like this, Mrs Hushabye? MRS HUSHABYE. I thought you were going to call me Hesione. ELLIE. Certainly not now? MRS HUSHABYE. Very well: I'll tell your father. ELLIE [distressed]. Oh! MRS HUSHABYE. If you turn a hair - if you take his part against me and against your own heart for a moment, I'll give that born soldier of freedom a piece of my mind that will stand him on his selfish old head for a week. ELLIE. Hesione! My father selfish! How little you know - 16 Heartbreak House Act 1 She is interrupted by Mazzini, who returns, excited and perspiring. MAZZINI. Ellie, Mangan has come: I thought you'd like to know. Excuse me, Mrs Hushabye, the strange old gentleman - MRS HUSHABYE. Papa. Quite so. MAZZINI. Oh, I beg your pardon, of course: I was a little confused by his manner. He is making Mangan help him with something in the garden; and he wants me too - A powerful whistle is heard. THE CAPTAIN'S VOICE. Bosun ahoy! [the whistle is repeated]. MAZZINI [flustered]. Oh dear! I believe he is whistling for me. [He hurries out.] MRS HUSHABYE. Now my father is a wonderful man if you like. ELLIE. Hesione, listen to me. You don't understand. My father and Mr Mangan were boys together. Mr MaMRS HUSHABYE. I don't care what they were: we must sit down if you are going to begin as far back as that. [She snatches at Ellie's waist, and makes her sit down on the sofa beside her.] Now, pettikins, tell me all about Mr Mangan. They call him Boss Mangan, don't they? He is a Napoleon of industry and disgustingly rich, isn't he? Why isn't your father rich? ELLIE. My poor father should never have been in business. His parents were poets; and they gave him the noblest ideas; but they could not afford to give him a profession. MRS HUSHABYE. Fancy your grandparents, with their eyes in fine frenzy rolling! And so your poor father had to go into business. Hasn't he succeeded in it? ELLIE. He always used to say he could succeed if he Act 1 Heartbreak House 17 only had some capital. He fought his way along, to keep a roof over our heads and bring us up well; but it was always a struggle: always the same difficulty of not having capital enough. I don't know how to describe it to you. MRS HUSHABYE. Poor Ellie! I know. Pulling the devil by the tail. ELLIE [hurt]. Oh, no. Not like that. It was at least dignified. MRS HUSHABYE. That made it all the harder, didn't it? I shouldn't have pulled the devil by the tail with dignity. I should have pulled hard -[between her teeth] hard. Well? Go on. ELLIE. At last it seemed that all our troubles were at an end. Mr Mangan did an extraordinarily noble thing out of pure friendship for my father and respect for his character. He asked him how much capital he wanted, and gave it to him. I don't mean that he lent it to him, or that he invested it in his business. He just simply made him a present of it. Wasn't that splendid of him? MRS HUSHABYE. On condition that you married him? ELLIE. Oh, no, no, no! This was when I was a child. He had never even seen me: he never came to our house. It was absolutely disinterested. Pure generosity. MRS HUSHABYE. Oh! I beg the gentleman's pardon. Well, what became of the money? ELLIE. We all got new clothes and moved into an other house. And I went to another school for two years. MRS HUSHABYE. Only two years? ELLIE. That was all: for at the end of two years my father was utterly ruined. MRS HUSHABYE. How? 18 Heartbreak House Act 1 ELLIE. I don't know. I never could understand. But it was dreadful. When we were poor my father had never been in debt. But when he launched out into business on a large scale, he had to incur liabilities. When the business went into liquidation he owed more money than Mr Mangan had given him. MRS HUSHABYE. Bit off more than he could chew, I suppose. ELLIE. I think you are a little unfeeling about it. MRS HUSHABYE. My pettikins, you mustn't mind my way of talking. I was quite as sensitive and particular as you once; but I have picked up so much slang from the children that I am really hardly presentable. I suppose your father had no head for business, and made a mess of it. ELLIE. Oh, that just shows how entirely you are mistaken about him. The business turned out a great success. It now pays forty-four per cent after deducting the excess profits tax. MRS HUSHABYE. Then why aren't you rolling in money? ELLIE. I don't know. It seems very unfair to me. You see, my father was made bankrupt. It nearly broke his heart, because he had persuaded several of his friends to put money into the business. He was sure it would succeed; and events proved that he was quite right. But they all lost their money. It was dreadful. I don't know what we should have done but for Mr Mangan. MRS HUSHABYE. What! Did the Boss come to the rescue again, after all his money being thrown away? ELLIE. He did indeed, and never uttered a reproach to my father. He bought what was left of the business - the buildings and the machinery and things - from the official trustee for enough money to enable my father to pay six and eightpence in the pound and get Act 1 Heartbreak House 19 his discharge. Everyone pitied papa so mucn, and saw so plainly that he was an honorable man, that they let him off at six-and-eight-pence instead of ten shillings. Then Mr Mangan started a company to take up the business, and made my father a manager in it to save us from starvation; for I wasn't earning anything then. MRS HUSHABYE. Quite a romance. And when did the Boss develop the tender passion? ELLIE. Oh, that was years after, quite lately. He took the chair one night at a sort of people's concert. I was singing there. As an amateur, you know: half a guinea for expenses and three songs with three encores. He was so pleased with my singing that he asked might he walk home with me. I never saw anyone so taken aback as he was when I took him home and introduced him to my father, his own manager. It was then that my father told me how nobly he had behaved. Of course it was considered a great chance for me, as he is so rich. And - and - we drifted into a sort of understanding - I suppose I should call it an engagement - [she is distressed and cannot go on]. MRS HUSHABYE [rising and marching about]. You may have drifted into it; but you will bounce out of it, my pettikins, if I am to have anything to do with it. ELLIE [hopelessly]. No: it's no use. I am bound in honor and gratitude. I will go through with it. MRS HUSHABYE [behind the sofa, scolding down at her]. You know, of course, that it's not honorable or grateful to marry a man you don't love. Do you love this Mangan man? ELLIE. Yes. At least - MRS HUSHABYE. I don't want to know about "at least": I want to know the worst. Girls of your age fall in love with all sorts of impossible people, especially old people. 20 H~eartbreak House Act 1 ELLIE. I like Mr Mangan very much; and I shall always beMRS HUSHABYE [impatiently completing the sentence and prancing away intolerantly to starboard]. - grateful to him for his kindness to dear father. I know. Anybody else? ELLIE. What do you mean? MRS HUSHABYE. Anybody else? Are you in love with anybody else? ELLIE. Of course not. MRS HUSHABYE. Humph! [The book on the drawingtable catches her eye. She picks it up, and evidentlyfinds the title very unexpected. She looks at Ellie, and asks, quaintly] Quite sure you're not in love with an actor? ELLIE. No, no. Why? What put such a thing into your head? MRS HUSHABYE. This is yours, isn't it? Why else should you be reading Othello? ELLIE. My father taught me to love Shakespeare. MRS HUSHABYE [flinging the book down on the table]. Really! your father does seem to be about the limit. ELLIE [naively]. Do you never read Shakespeare, Hesione? That seems to me so extraordinary. I like Othello. MRS HUSHABYE. Do you, indeed? He was jealous, wasn't he? ELLIE. Oh, not that. I think all the part about jealousy is horrible. But don't you think it must have been a wonderful experience for Desdemona, brought up so quietly at home, to meet a man who had been out in the world doing all sorts of brave things and having terrible adventures, and yet finding something in her that made him love to sit and talk with her and tell her about them? MRS HUSHABYE. That's your idea of romance, is it? Act 1 Heartbreak House 21 ELLIE. Not romance, exactly. It might really happen. Ellie's eyes show that she is not arguing, but in a daydream. Mrs Hushabye, watching her inquisitively, goes deliberately back to the sofa and resumes her seat beside her. MRS HUSHABYE. Ellie darling, have you noticed that some of those stories that Othello told Desdemona couldn't have happened? ELLIE. Oh, no. Shakespeare thought they could have happened. MRS HUSHABYE. Hm! Desdemona thought they could have happened. But they didn't. ELLIE. Why do you look so enigmatic about it? You are such a sphinx: I never know what you mean. MRS HUSHABYE. Desdemona would have found him out if she had lived, you know. I wonder was that why he strangled her! ELLIE. Othello was not telling lies. MRS HUSHABYE. How do you know? ELLIE. Shakespeare would have said if he was. Hesione, there are men who have done wonderful things: men like Othello, only, of course, white, and very handsome, and - MRS HUSHABYE. Ah! Now we're coming to it. Tell me all about him. I knew there must be somebody, or you'd never have been so miserable about Mangan: you'd have thought it quite a lark to marry him. ELLIE [blushing vividly]. Hesione, you are dreadful. But I don't want to make a secret of it, though of course I don't tell everybody. Besides, I don't know him. MRS HUSHABYE. Don't know him! What does that mean? ELLIE. Well, of course I know him to speak to. MRS HUSHABYE. But you want to know him ever so much more intimately, eh? Heartbreak House Act 1 ELLIE. No, no: I know him quite- almost intimately. MRS HUSHABYE. You don't know him; and you know him almost intimately. How lucid! ELLIE. I mean that he does not call on us. I- I got into conversation w th him by chance at a concert. MRS HUSHABYE. You seem to have rather a gay time at your concerts, Ellie. ELLIE. Not at all: we talk to everyone in the greenroom waiting for our turns. I thought he was one of the artists: he looked so splendid. But he was only one of the committee. I happened to tell him that I was copying a picture at the National Gallery. I make a little money that way. I can't paint much; but as it's always the same picture I can do it pretty quickly and get two or three pounds for it. It happened that he came to the National Gallery one day. MRS HUSHABYE. One students' day. Paid sixpence to stumble about through a crowd of easels, when he might have come in next day for nothing and found the floor clear! Quite by accident? ELLIE [triumphantly]. No. On purpose. He liked talking to me. He knows lots of the most splendid people. Fashionable women who are all in love with him. But he ran away from them to see me at the National Gallery and persuade me to come with him for a drive round Richmond Park in a taxi. MRS HUSHABYE. My pettikins, you have been going it. It's wonderful what you good girls can do without anyone saying a word. ELLIE. I am not in society, Hesione. If I didn't make acquaintances in that way I shouldn't have any at all. MRS HUSHABYE. Well, no harm if you know how to take care of yourself. May I ask his name? ELLIE [slowly and musically]. Marcus Darnley. Act 1 Heartbreak House MRS HUSHABYE [echoing the music]. Marcus Darnley! What a splendid name! ELLIE. Oh, I'm so glad you think so. I think so too; but I was afraid it was only a silly fancy of my own. MRS HUSHABYE. Hm! Is he one of the Aberdeen Darnleys? ELLIE. Nobody knows. Just fancy! He was found in an antique chest - MRS HUSHABYE. A what? ELLIE. An antique chest, one summer morning in a rose garden, after a night of the most terrible thunderstorm. MRS HUSHABYE. What on earth was he doing in the chest? Did he get into it because he was afraid of the lightning? ELLIE. Oh, no, no: he was a baby. The name Marcus Darnley was embroidered on his baby clothes. And five hundred pounds in gold. MRS HUSHABYE [looking hard at her]. Ellie! ELLIE. The garden of the Viscount MRS HUSHABYE. - de Rougemont? ELLIE [innocently]. No: de Larochejaquelin. A French family. A vicomte. His life has been one long romance. A tigerMRS EUSHABYE. Slain by his own hand? ELLIE. Oh, no: nothing vulgar like that. He saved the life of the tiger from a hunting party: one of King Edward's hunting parties in India. The King was furious: that was why he never had his military services properly recognized. But he doesn't care. He is a Socialist and despises rank, and has been in three revolutions fighting on the barricades. MRS HUSHABYE. How can you sit there telling me such lies? You, Ellie, of all people! And I thought you were a perfectly simple, straightforward, good girL 24 Heartbreak House Act 1 ELLIE rising, dignified but very angry]. Do you mean to say you don't believe me? MRS HUSHABYE. Of course I don't believe you. You're inventing every word of it. Do you take me for a fool? Ellie stares at her. Her candor is so obvious that Mrs Hushabye is puzzled. ELLIE. Goodbye, Hesione. I'm very sorry. I see now that it sounds very improbable as I tell it. But I can't stay if you think that way about me. MRS HUSHABYE [catching her dress]. You shan't go. I couldn't be so mistaken: I know too well what liars are like. Somebody has really told you all this. ELLIE fliushing]. Hesione, don't say that you don't believe him. I couldn't bear that. MRS HUSHABYE [soothing her]. Of course I believe him, dearest. But you should have broken it to me by degrees. [Drawing her back to her seat.] Now tell me all about him. Are you in love with him? ELLIE. Oh, no. I'm not so foolish. I don't fall in love with people. I'm not so silly as you think. MRS HUSHABYE. I see. Only something to think about - to give some interest and pleasure to life. ELLIE. Just so. That's all, really. MRS HUSHABYE. It makes the hours go fast, doesn't it? No tedious waiting to go to sleep at nights and wondering whether you will have a bad night. How delightful it makes waking up in the morning! How much better than the happiest dream! All life transfigured! No more wishing one had an interesting book to read, because life is so much happier than any book! No desire but to be alone and not to have to talk to anyone: to be alone and just think about it. ELLIE [embracing her]. Hesione, you are a witch. How do you know? Oh, you are the most sympathetic woman in the world! Act 1 Heartbreak House 25 MRS HUSHABYE [caressing her]. Pettikins, my pettikins, how I envy you! and how I pity you! ELLIE. Pity me! Oh, why? A very handsome man of fifty, with mousquetaire moustaches, wearing a rather dandified curly brimmed hat, and carrying an elaborate walking-stick, comes into the room from the hall, and stops short at sight of the women on the sofa. ELLIE [seeing him and rising in glad surprise]. Oh! Hesione: this is Mr Marcus Darnley. MRS HUSHABYE [rising]. What a lark! He is my husband. ELLIE. But now - she stops suddenly: then turns pale and sways]. MRS HUSHABYE [catching her and sitting down with her on the sofa]. Steady, my pettikins. THE MAN [with a mixture of confusion and effrontery, depositing his hat and stick on the teak table]. My real name, Miss Dunn, is Hector Hushabye. I leave you to judge whether that is a name any sensitive man would care to confess so. I never use it when I can possibly help it. I have been away for nearly a month; and I had no idea you knew my wife, or that you were coming here. I am none the less delighted to find you in our little house. ELLIE [in great distress]. I don't know what to do. Please, may I speak to papa? Do leave me. I can't bear it. MRS HUSHABYE. Be off, Hector. HECTOR. I - MRS HUSHABYE. Quick, quick. Get out. HECTOR. If you think it better - [he goes out, taking his hat with him but leaving the stick on the table]. MRS HUSHABYE [laying Ellie down at the end of the sofa]. Now, pettikins, he is gone. There's nobody but 26 Heartbreak House Act I me. You can let yourself go. Don't try to control yourself. Have a good cry. ELLIE [raising her head]. Damn! MRS HUSHABYE. Splendid! Oh, what a relief! I thought you were going to be broken-hearted. Never mind me. Damn him again. ELLIE. I am not damning him. I am damning myself for being such a fool. [Rising.] How could I let myself be taken in so? [She begins prowling to and fro, her bloom gone, looking curiously older and harder.] MRS HUSHABYE [cheerfully]. Why not, pettikins? Very few young women can resist Hector. I couldn't when I was your age. He is really rather splendid, you know. ELLIE [turning on her]. Splendid! Yes, splendid looking, of course. But how can you love a liar? MRS HUSHABYE. I don't know. But you can, fortunately. Otherwise there wouldn't be much love in the world. ELLIE. But to lie like that! To be a boaster! a coward! MRS HUSHABYE [rising in alarm]. Pettikins, none of that, if you please. If you hint the slightest doubt of Hector's courage, he will go straight off and do the most horribly dangerous things to convince himself that he isn't a coward. He has a dreadful trick of getting out of one third-floor window and coming in at another, just to test his nerve. He has a whole drawerful of Albert Medals for saving people's lives. ELLIE. He never told me that. MRS HUSHABYE. He never boasts of anything he really did: he can't bear it; and it makes him shy if anyone else does. All his stories are made-up stories. ELLIE [coming to her]. Do you mean that he is really brave, and really has adventures, and yet tells lies Act 1 Heartbreak House 27 about things that he never did and that never happened? MRS HUSHABYE. Yes, pettikins, I do. People don't have their virtues and vices in sets: they have them anyhow: all mixed. ELLIE [staring at her thoughtfully]. There's something odd about this house, Hesione, and even about you. I don't know why I'm talking to you so calmly. I have a horrible fear that my heart is broken, but that heartbreak is not like what I thought it must be. MRS HUSHABYE [fondling her]. It's only life educating you, pettikins. How do you feel about Boss Mangan now? ELLIE [disengaging herself with an expression of distaste]. Oh, how can you remind me of him, Hesione? MRS HUSHABYE. Sorry, dear. I think I hear Hector coming back. You don't mind now, do you, dear? ELLIE. Not in the least. I am quite cured. Mazzini Dunn and Hector come in from the hall. HECTOR [as he opens the door and allows Mazzini to pass in]. One second more, and she would have been a dead woman! MAZZINI. Dear! dear! what an escape! Ellie, my love, Mr Hushabye has just been telling me the most extraordinary - ELLIE. Yes, I've heard it [she crosses to the other side of the room]. HECTOR Efollowing her]. Not this one: I'll tell it to you after dinner. I think you'll like it. The truth is I made it up for you, and was looking forward to the pleasure of telling it to you. But in a moment of impatience at being turned out of the room, I threw it away on your father. ELLIE Eturning at bay with her back to the carpenter's bench, scornfully self-possessed]. It was not thrown away. He believes it. I should not have believed it. Heartbreak House Act 1 MAZZINI [benevolently]. Ellie is very naughty, Mr Hushabye. Of course she does not really think that. [He goes to the bookshelves, and inspects the titles of the volumes.] Boss Mangan comes in from the hall, followed by the captain. Mangan, carefully frock-coated as for church or for a directors' meeting, is about fifty-five, with a careworn, mistrustful expression, standing a little on an entirely imaginary dignity, with a dull complexion, straight, lustreless hair, and features so entirely commonplace that it is impossible to describe them. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [to Mrs Hushabye, introducing the newcomer]. Says his name is Mangan. Not ablebodied. MRS HUSHABYE [graciously]. How do you do, Mr Mangan? MANGAN [shaking hands]. Very pleased. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Dunn's lost his muscle, but recovered his nerve. Men seldom do after three attacks of delirium tremens [he goes into the pantry]. MRS HUSHABYE. I congratulate you, Mr Dunn. MAZZINI [dazed]. I am a lifelong teetotaler. MRS HUSHABYE. You will find it far less trouble to let papa have his own way than try to explain. MAZZINI. But three attacks of delirium tremens, really! MRS HUSHABYE [to Mangan]. Do you know my husband, Mr Mangan [she indicates Hector]. MANGAN [going to Hector, who meets him with outstretched hand]. Very pleased. [Turning to Ellie.] I hope, Miss Ellie, you have not found the journey down too fatiguing. [They shake hands.] MRS HUSHABYE. Hector, show Mr Dunn his room. HECTOR. Certainly. Come along, Mr Dunn. [He takes Mazzini out.] ELIE. You haven't shown me my room yet, Hesione. Act 1 Heartbreak House 29 MRS HUSHABYE. How stupid of me! Come along. Make yourself quite at home, Mr Mangan. Papa will entertain you. [She calls to the captain in the pantry.] Papa, come and explain the house to Mr Mangan. She goes out with Ellie. The captain comes from the pantry. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You're going to marry Dunn's daughter. Don't. You're too old. MANGAN [staggered]. Well! That's fairly blunt, Captain. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It's true. MANGAN. She doesn't think so. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. She does. MANGAN. Older men than I have CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [finishing the sentence for him]. - made fools of themselves. That, also, is true. MANGAN [asserting himself]. I don't see that this is any business of yours. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It is everybody's business. The stars in their courses are shaken when such things happen. MANGAN. I'm going to marry her all the same. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. How do you know? MANGAN [playing the strong man]. I intend to. I mean to. See? I never made up my mind to do a thing yet that I didn't bring it off. That's the sort of man I am; and there will be a better understanding between us when you make up your mind to that, Captain. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You frequent picture palaces. MANGAN. Perhaps I do. Who told you? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Talk like a man, not like a movy. You mean that you make a hundred thousand a year. MANGAN. I don't boast. But when I meet a man that makes a hundred thousand a year, I take off my 30 Heartbreak House Act 1 hat to that man, and stretch out my hand to him and call him brother. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Then you also make a hundred thousand a year, hey? MANGAN. No. I can't say that. Fifty thousand, perhaps. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. His half brother only [he turns away from Mangan with his usual abruptness, and collects the empty tea-cups on the Chinese tray]. MANGAN [irritated]. See here, Captain Shotover. I don't quite understand my position here. I came here on your daughter's invitation. Am I in her house or in yours? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You are beneath the dome of heaven, in the house of God. What is true within these walls is true outside them. Go out on the seas; climb the mountains; wander through the valleys. She is still too young. MANGAN [weakening]. But I'm very little over fifty. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You are still less under sixty. Boss Mangan, you will not marry the pirate's child [he carries the tray away into the pantry]. MANGAN [following him to the half door]. What pirate's child? What are you talking about? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [in the pantry]. Ellie Dunn. You will not marry her. MANGAN. Who will stop me? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [emerging]. My daughter [he makes for the door leading to the hall]. MANGAN [following him]. Mrs Hushabye! Do you mean to say she brought me down here to break i-t of? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [stopping and turning on him]. I know nothing more than I have seen in her eye. She will break it off. Take my advice: marry a West Indian negress: they make excellent wives. I was married to one myself for two years. Act 1 Heartbreak House 31 MANGAN. Well, I am damned! CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I thought so. I was, too, for many years. The negress redeemed me. MANGAN [feebly]. This is queer. I ought to walk out of this house. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Why? MANGAN. Well, many men would be offended by your style of talking. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Nonsense! It's the other sort of talking that makes quarrels. Nobody ever quarrels with me. A gentleman, whose first-rate tailoring and frictionless manners proclaim the wellbred West Ender, comes in from the hall. He has an engaging air of being young and unmarried, but on close inspection is found to be at least over forty. THE GENTLEMAN. Excuse my intruding in this fashion, but there is no knocker on the door and the bell does not seem to ring. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Why should there be a knocker? Why should the bell ring? The door is open. THE GENTLEMAN. Precisely. So I ventured to come in. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Quite right. I will see about a room for you [he makes for the door]. THE GENTLEMAN [stopping him]. But I'm afraid you don't know who I am. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Do you suppose that at my age I make distinctions between one fellowcreature and another? [He goes out. Mangan and the newcomer stare at one another.] MANGAN. Strange character, Captain Shotover, sir. THE GENTLEMAN. Very. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [shouting outside]. Hesione, another person has arrived and wants a room. Man about town, well dressed, fifty. 32 Heartbreak House Act 1 THE GENTLEMAN. Fancy Hesione's feelings! May I ask are you a member of the family? MANGAN. No. THE GENTLEMAN. I am. At least a connection. Mrs Hushabye comes back. MRS HUSHABYE. How do you do? How good of you to come! THE GENTLEMAN. I am very glad indeed to make your acquaintance, Hesione. [Instead of taking her hand he kisses her. At the same moment the captain appears in the doorway.] You will excuse my kissing your daughter, Captain, when I tell you thatCAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Stuff! Everyone kisses my daughter. Kiss her as much as you like [he makes for the pantry]. THE GENTLEMAN. Thank you. One moment, Captain. [The captain halts and turns. The gentleman goes to him affably.] Do you happen to rememberbut probably you don't, as it occurred many years ago —that your younger daughter married a numskull? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Yes. She said she'd marry anybody to get away from this house. I should not have recognized you: your head is no longer like a walnut. Your aspect is softened. You have been boiled in bread and milk for years and years, like other married men. Poor devil! [He disappears into the pantry.] MRS HUSHABYE [going past Mangan to the gentleman and scrutinizing him]. I don't believe you are Hastings Utterword. THE GENTLEMAN. I am not. MRS HUSHABYE. Then what business had you to kiss me? THE GENTLEMAN. I thought I would like to. The fact is, I am Randall Utterword, the unworthy younger Act 1 Heartbreak House 33 brother of Hastings. I was abroad diplomatizing when he was married. LADY UTTERWORD [dashing in]. Hesione, where is the key of the wardrobe in my room? My diamonds are in my dressing-bag: I must lock it up - [recognizing the stranger with a shock] Randall, how dare you? [She marches at him past Mrs Hushabye, who retreats and joins Mangan near the sofa.] RANDALL. How dare I what? I am not doing anything. LADY UTTERWORD. Who told you I was here? RANDALL. Hastings. You had just left when I called on you at Claridge's; so I followed you down here. You are looking extremely well. LADY UTTERWORD. Don't presume to tell me so. MRS HUSHABYE. What is wrong with Mr Randall, Addy? LADY UTTERWORD [recollecting herself]. Oh, nothing. But he has no right to come bothering you and papa without being invited [she goes to the window-seat and sits dawn, turning away from them ill-humoredly and looking into the garden, where Hector and Ellie are now seen strolling together]. MRS HUSHABYE. I think you have not met Mr Mangan, Addy. LADY UTTERWORD [turning her head and nodding coldly to Mangan]. I beg your pardon. Randall, you have flustered me so: I make a perfect fool of myself. MRS HUSHABYE. Lady Utterword. My sister. My younger sister. MANGAN [bowing]. Pleased to meet you, Lady Utterword. LADY UTTERWORD [with marked interest]. Who is that gentleman walking in the garden with Miss Dunn? 34 Heartbreak House Act 1 MRS HUSHABYE. I don't know. She quarrelled mortally with my husband only ten minutes ago; and I didn't know anyone else had come. It must be a visitor. [She goes to the window to look.] Oh, it is Hector. They've made it up. LADY UTTERWORD. Your husband! That handsome man? MRS HUSHABYE. Well, why shouldn't my husband be a handsome man? RANDALL [ joining them at the window]. One's husband never is, Ariadne [he sits by Lady Utterword, on her right]. MRS HUSHABYE. One's sister's husband always is, Mr Randall. LADY UTTERWORD. Don't be vulgar, Randall. And you, Hesione, are just as bad. Ellie and Hector come in from the garden by the starboard door. Randall rises. Ellie retires into the corner near the pantry. Hector comes forward; and Lady Utterword rises looking her very best. MRS. HUSHABYE. Hector, this is Addy. HECTOR [apparently surprised]. Not this lady. LADY UTTERWORD [smiling]. Why not? HECTOR [looking at her with a piercing glance of deep but respectful admiration, his moustache bristling]. I thought — [pulling himself together]. I beg your pardon, Lady Utterword. I am extremely glad to welcome you at last under our roof [he offers his hand with grave courtesy]. MRS HUSHABYE. She wants to be kissed, Hector. LADY UTTERWORD. Hesione! [But she still smiles.] MRS HUSHABYE. Call her Addy; and kiss her like a good brother-in-law; and have done with it. [She leaves them to themselves.] HECTOR. Behave yourself, Hesione. Lady Utterword is entitled not only to hospitality but to civilization. Act 1 Heartbreak House 35 LADY UTTERWORD [gratefully]. Thank you, Hector. [They shake hands cordially.] Mazzini Dunn is seen crossing the garden from starboard to port. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [coming from the pantry and addressing Ellie]. Your father has washed himself. ELLIE [quite self-possessed]. He often does, Captain Shotover. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. A strange conversion! I saw him through the pantry window. Mazzini Dunn enters through the port window door, newly washed and brushed, and stops, smiling benevolently, between Mangan and Mrs Hushabye. MRS HUSHABYE [introducing]. Mr Mazzini Dunn, Lady Ut —oh, I forgot: you've met. [Indicating Ellie] Miss Dunn. MAZZINI [walking across the room to take Ellie's hand, and beaming at his own naughty irony]. I have met Miss Dunn also. She is my daughter. [He draws her arm through his caressingly.] MRS HUSHABYE. Of course: how stupid! Mr Utterword, my sister's - er - RANDALL [shaking hands agreeably]. Her brotherin-law, Mr Dunn. How do you do? MRS HUSHABYE. This is my husband. HECTOR. We have met, dear. Don't introduce us any more. [He moves away to the big chair, and adds] Won't you sit down, Lady Utterword? [She does so very graciously.] MRS HUSHABYE. Sorry. I hate it: it's like making people show their tickets. MAZZINI [sententiously]. How little it tells us, after all! The great question is, not who we are, but what we are. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Ha! What are you? MAZZINI [taken aback]. What am I? 36 Heartbreak House Act 1 CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. A thief, a pirate, and a murderer. MAZZINI. I assure you you are mistaken. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. An adventurous life; but what does it end in? Respectability. A ladylike daughter. The language and appearance of a city missionary. Let it be a warning to all of you [he goes out through the garden]. DUNN. I hope nobody here believes that I am a thief, a pirate, or a murderer. Mrs Hushabye, will you excuse me a moment? I must really go and explain. [He follows the captain.] MRS HUSHABYE [as he goes]. It's no use. You'd really better- [but Dunn has vanished]. We had better all go out and look for some tea. We never have regular tea; but you can always get some when you want: the servants keep it stewing all day. The kitchen veranda is the best place to ask. May I show you? [She goes to the starboard door.] RANDALL [going with her]. Thank you, I don't think I'll take any tea this afternoon. But if you will show me the garden - MRS HUSHABYE. There's nothing to see in the garden except papa's observatory, and a gravel pit with a cave where he keeps dynamite and things of that sort. However, it's pleasanter out of doors; so come along. RANDALL. Dynamite! Isn't that rather risky? MRS HUSHABYE. Well, we don't sit in the gravel pit when there's a thunderstorm. LADY UTTERWORD. That's something new. What is the dynamite for? HECTOR. To blow up the human race if it goes too far. He is trying to discover a psychic ray that will explode all the explosive at the will of a Mahatma. E.LLE. The captain's tea is delicious, Mr Utterword. Act 1 Heartbreak House 37 MRS HUSHABYE [stopping in the doorway]. Do you mean to say that you've had some of my father's tea? that you got round him before you were ten minutes in the house? ELLIE. I did. MRS HUSHABYE. You little devil! [She goes out with Randall.] MANGAN. Won't you come, Miss Ellie? ELLIE. I'm too tired. I'll take a book up to my room and rest a little. [She goes to the bookshelf.] MANGAN. Right. You can't do better. But I'm disappointed. [He follows Randall and Mrs Hushabye.] Ellie, Hector, and Lady Utterword are left. Hector is close to Lady Utterword. They look at Ellie, waiting for her to go. ELLIE [looking at the title of a book]. Do you like stories of adventure, Lady Utterword? LADY UTTERWORD [patronizingly]. Of course, dear. ELLIE. Then I'll leave you to Mr Hushabye. [She goes out through the hall.] HECTOR. That girl is mad about tales of adventure. The lies I 'have to tell her! LADY UTTERWORD [not interested in Ellie]. When you saw me what did you mean by saying that you thought, and then stopping short? What did you think? HECTOR [folding his arms and looking down at her magnetically]. May I tell you? LADY UTTERWORD. Of course. HECTOR. It will not sound very civil. I was on the point of saying, "I thought you were a plain woman." LADY UTTERWORD. Oh, for shame, Hector! What right had you to notice whether I am plain or not? HECTOR. Listen to me, Ariadne. Until today I have seen only photographs of you; and no photograph can 38 Heartbreak House Act I give the strange fascination of the daughters of that supernatural old man. There is some damnable quality in them that destroys men's moral sense, and carries them beyond honor and dishonor. You know that, don't you? LADY UTTERWORD. Perhaps I do, Hector. But let me warn you once for all that I am a rigidly conventional woman. You may think because I'm a Shotover that I'm a Bohemian, because we are all so horribly Bohemian. But I'm not. I hate and loathe Bohemianism. No child brought up in a strict Puritan household ever suffered from Puritanism as I suffered from our Bohemianism. HECTOR. Our children are like that. They spend their holidays in the houses of their respectable schoolfellows. LADY UTTERWORD. I shall invite them for Christmas. HECTOR. Their absence leaves us both without our natural chaperones. LADY UTTERWORD. Children are certainly very inconvenient sometimes. But intelligent people can always manage, unless they are Bohemians. HECTOR. You are no Bohemian; but you are no Puritan either: your attraction is alive and powerful. What sort of woman do you count yourself? LADY UTTERWORD. I am a woman of the world, Hector; and I can assure you that if you will only take the trouble always to do the perfectly correct thing, and to say the perfectly correct thing, you can do just what you like. An ill-conducted, careless woman gets simply no chance. An ill-conducted, careless man is never allowed within arm's length of any woman worth knowing. HECTOR. I see. You are neither a Bohemian woman nor a Puritan woman. You are a dangerous woman. Act 1 ' Heartbreak House 39 LADY UTTERWORD. On the contrary, I am a safe woman. HECTOR. You are a most accursedly attractive woman. Mind, I am not making love to you. I do not like being attracted. But you had better know how I feel if you are going to stay here. LADY UTTERWORD. You are an exceedingly clever lady-killer, Hector. And terribly handsome. I am quite a good player, myself, at that game. Is it quite understood that we are only playing? HECTOR. Quite. I am deliberately playing the fool, out of sheer worthlessness. LADY UTTERWORD [rising brightly]. Well, you are my brother-in-law. Hesione asked you to kiss me. [He seizes her in his arms and kisses her strenuously.] Oh! that was a little more than play, brother-in-law. [She pushes him suddenly away.] You shall not do that again. HECTOR. In effect, you got your claws deeper into me than I intended. MRS HUSHABYE [coming in from the garden]. Don't let me disturb you; I only want a cap to put on daddiest. The sun is setting; and he'll catch cold [she makes for the door leading to the hall]. LADY UTTERWORD. Your husband is quite charming, darling. He has actually condescended to kiss me at last. I shall go into the garden: it's cooler now [she goes out by the port door]. MRS HUSHABYE. Take care, dear child. I don't believe any man can kiss Addy without falling in love with her. [She goes into the hall.] HECTOR [striking himself on the chest]. Fool! Goat! Mrs Hushabye comes back with the captain's cap. HECTOR. Your sister is an extremely enterprising old girl. Where's Miss Dunn! MRS HUSHABYE. Mangan says she has gone up to 40 Heartbreak House Act 1 her room for a nap. Addy won't let you talk to Ellie: she has marked you for her own. HECTOR. She has the diabolical family fascination. I began making love to her automatically. What am I to do? I can't fall in love; and I can't hurt a woman's feelings by telling her so when she falls in love with me. And as women are always falling in love with my moustache I get landed in all sorts of tedious and terrifying flirtations in which I'm not a bit in earnest. MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, neither is Addy. She has never been in love in her life, though she has always been trying to fall in head over ears. She is worse than you, because you had one real go at least, with me. HECTOR. That was a confounded madness. I can't believe that such an amazing experience is common. It has left its mark on me. I believe that is why I have never been able to repeat it. MRS HUSHABYE [laughing and caressing his arm]. We were frightfully in love with one another, Hector. It was such an enchanting dream that I have never been able to grudge it to you or anyone else since. I have invited all sorts of pretty women to the house on the chance of giving you another turn. But it has never come off. HECTOR. I don't know that I want it to come off. It was damned dangerous. You fascinated me; but I loved you; so it was heaven. This sister of yours fascinates me; but I hate her; so it is hell. I shall kill her if she persists. MRS HUSHABYE. Nothing will kill Addy; she is as strong as a horse. [Releasing him.] Now I am going off to fascinate somebody. HECTOR. The Foreign Office toff? Randall? MRS HUSHABYE. Goodness gracious, no! Why should I fascinate him? Act 1 Heartbreak. House 41 HECTOR. I presume you don't mean the bloated capitalist, Mangan? MRS HUSHABYE. Hm! I think he had better be fascinated by me than by Ellie. [She is going into the garden when the captain comes in from it with some sticks in his hand.] What have you got there, daddiest? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Dynamite. MRS HUSHABYE. You've been to the gravel pit. Don't drop it about the house, there's a dear. [She goes into the garden, where the evening light is now very red.] HECTOR. Listen, 0 sage. How long dare you concentrate on a feeling without risking having it fixed in your consciousness all the rest of your life? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Ninety minutes. An hour and a half. [He goes into the pantry.] Hector, left alone, contracts his brows, and falls into a day-dream. He does not move for some time. Then he folds his arms. Then, throwing his hands behind him, and gripping one with the other, he strides tragically once to and fro. Suddenly he snatches his walkingstick from the teak table, and draws it; for it is a swordstick. He fights a desperate duel with an imaginary antagonist, and after many vicissitudes runs him through the body up to the hilt. He sheathes his sword and throws it on the sofa, falling into another reverie as he does so. He looks straight into the eyes of an imaginary woman; seizes her by the arms; and says in a deep and thrilling tone, "Do you love me!" The captain comes out of the pantry at this moment; and Hector, caught with his arms stretched out and his fists clenched, has to account for his attitude by going through a series of gymnastic exercises. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. That sort of strength is no good. You will never be as strong as a gorilla. HECTOR. What is the dynamite for? 42 Heartbreak House Act 1 CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. To kill fellows like Mangan. HECTOR. No use. They will always be able to buy more dynamite than you. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I will make a dynamite that he cannot explode. HECTOR. And that you can, eh? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Yes: when I have attained the seventh degree of concentration. HECTOR. What's the use of that? You never do attain it. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What then is to be done? Are we to be kept forever in the mud by these hogs to whom the universe is nothing but a machine for greasing their bristles and filling their snouts? HECTOR. Are Mangan's bristles worse than Randall's lovelocks? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. We must win powers of life and death over them both. I refuse to die until I have invented the means. HECTOR. Who are we that we should judge them? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What are they that they should judge us? Yet they do, unhesitatingly. There is enmity between our seed and their seed. They know it and act on it, strangling our souls. They believe in themselves. When we believe in ourselves, we shall kill them. HECTOR. It is the same seed. You forget that your pirate has a very nice daughter. Mangan's son may be a Plato: Randall's a Shelley. What was my father? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The damnedst scoundrel I ever met. [He replaces the drawing-board; sits down at the table; and begins to mix a wash of color.] HECTOR. Precisely. Well, dare you kill his innocent grandchildren? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. They are mine also. HECTOR. Just so. We are members one of another. Act 1 Heartbreak House 43 [He throws himself carelessly on the sofa.] I tell you I have often thought of this killing of human vermin. Many men have thought of it. Decent men are like Daniel in the lion's den: their survival is a miracle; and they do not always survive. We live among the Mangans and Randalls and Billie Dunns as they, poor devils, live among the disease germs and the doctors and the lawyers and the parsons and the restaurant chefs and the tradesmen and the servants and all the rest of the parasites and blackmailers. What are our terrors to theirs? Give me the power to kill them; and I'll spare them in sheerCAPTAIN SHOTOVER [cutting in sharply]. Fellow feeling? HECTOR. No. I should kill myself if I believed that. I must believe that my spark, small as it is, is divine, and that the red light over their door is hell fire. I should spare them in simple magnanimous pity. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You can't spare them until you have the power to kill them. At present they have the power to kill you. There are millions of blacks over the water for them to train and let loose on us. They're going to do it. They're doing it already. HECTOR. They are too stupid to use their power. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [throwing down his brush and coming to the end of the sofa]. Do not deceive yourself: they do use it. We kill the better half of ourselves every day to propitiate them. The knowledge that these people are there to render all our aspirations barren prevents us having the aspirations. And when we are tempted to seek their destruction they bring forth demons to delude us, disguised as pretty daughters, and singers and&poets and the like, for whose sake we spare them. HECTOR [sitting up and leaning towards him]. May 44 Heartbreak House Act 1 not Hesione be such a demon, brought forth by you lest I should slay you? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. That is possible. She has used you up, and left you nothing but dreams, as some women do. HECTOR. Vampire women, demon women. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Men think the world well lost for them, and lose it accordingly. Who are the men that do things? The husbands of the shrew and of the drunkard, the men with the thorn in the flesh. [Walking distractedly away towards the pantry.] I must think these things out. [Turning suddenly.] But I go on with the dynamite none the less. I will discover a ray mightier than any X-ray: a mind ray that will explode the ammunition in the belt of my adversary before he can point his gun at me. And I must hurry. I am old: I have no time to waste in talk [he is about to go into the pantry, and Hector is"- making for the hall, when Hesione comes back]. MRS HUSHABYE. Daddiest, you and Hector must come and help me to entertain all these people. What on earth were you shouting about? HECTOR [stopping in the act of turning the door handle]. He is madder than usual. MRS HUSHABYE. We all are. HECTOR. I must change [he resumes his door opening]. MRS HUSHABYE. Stop, stop. Come back, both of you. Come back. [They return, reluctantly.] Money is running short. HECTOR. Money! Where are my April dividends? MRS HUSHABYE. Where is the snow that fell last year? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Where is all the money you had for that patent lifeboat I invented? Act 1 Heartbreak House 45 MRS HUSHABYE. Five hundred pounds; and I have made it last since Easter! CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Since Easter! Barely four months! Monstrous extravagance! I could live for seven years on ~500. MRS HUSHABYE. Not keeping open house as we do here, daddiest. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Only ~500 for that lifeboat! I got twelve thousand for the invention before that. MRS HUSHABYE. Yes, dear; but that was for the ship with the magnetic keel that sucked up submarines. Living at the rate we do, you cannot afford life-saving inventions. Can't you think of something that will murder half Europe at one bang? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No. I am ageing fast. My mind does not dwell on slaughter as it did when I was a boy. Why doesn't your husband invent something? He does nothing but tell lies to women. HECTOR. Well, that is a form of invention, is it not? However, you are right: I ought to support my wife. MRS HUSHABYE. Indeed you shall do nothing of the sort: I should never see you from breakfast to dinner. I want my husband. HECTOR [bitterly]. I might as well be your lapdog. MRS HUSHABYE. Do you want to be my breadwinner, like the other poor husbands? HECTOR. No, by thunder! What a damned creature a husband is anyhow! MRS HUSHABYE [to the captain]. What about that harpoon cannon? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No use. It kills whales, not men. MRS HUSRABYE. Why not? You fire the harpoon out of a cannon. It sticks in the enemy's general; you wind him in; and there you are. HECTOR. You are your father's daughter, Hesione. 46 Heartbreak House Act 1 CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. There is something in it. Not to wind in generals: they are not dangerous. But one could fire a grapnel and wind in a machine gun or even a tank. I will think it out. MRS HUSHABYE [squeezing the captain's arm affectionately]. Saved! You are a darling, daddiest. Now we must go back to these dreadful people and entertain them. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. They have had no dinner. Don't forget that. HECTOR. Neither have I. And it is dark: it must be all hours. MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, Guinness will produce some sort of dinner for them. The servants always take jolly good care that there is food in the house. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [raising a strange wail in the darkness]. What a house! What a daughter! MRS HUSHABYE [raving]. What a father! HECTOR [following suit]. What a husband! CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Is there no thunder in heaven? HECTOR. Is there no beauty, no bravery, on earth? MRS HUSHABYE. What do men want? They have their food, their firesides, their clothes mended, and our love at the end of the day. Why are they not satisfied? Why do they envy us the pain with which we bring them into the world, and make strange dangers and torments for themselves to be even with us? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [weirdly chanting]. I builded a house for my daughters, and opened the doors thereof, That men might come for their choosing, and their betters spring from their love; But one of them married a numskull; HECTOR [taking up the rhythm]. The other a liar wed; Act 1 Heartbreak House 47 MRS HUSHABYE [completing the stanza]. And now must she lie beside him, even as she made her bed. LADY UTTERWORD [calling from the garden]. Hesione! Hesione! Where are you? HECTOR. The cat is on the tiles. MRS HUSHABYE. Coming, darling, coming [she goes quickly into the garden]. The captain goes back to his place at the table. HECTOR [going out into the hall]. Shall I turn up the lights for you? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No. Give me deeper darkness. Money is not made in the light. ACT II The same room, with the lights turned up and the curtains drawn. Ellie comes in, followed by Mangan. Both are dressed for dinner. She strolls to the drawingtable. He comes between the table and the wicker chair. MANGAN. What a dinner! I don't call it a dinner: I call it a meal. ELLIE. I am accustomed to meals, Mr Mangan, and very lucky to get them. Besides, the captain cooked some maccaroni for me. MANGAN [shuddering liverishly]. Too rich: I can't eat such things. I suppose it's because I have to work so much with my brain. That's the worst of being a man of business: you are always thinking, thinking, thinking. By the way, now that we are alone, may I take the opportunity to come to a little understanding with you? ELLIE [settling into the draughtsman's seat]. Certainly. I should like to. MANGAN [taken aback]. Should you? That surprises me; for I thought I noticed this afternoon that you avoided me all you could. Not for the first time either. ELLIE. I was very tired and upset. I wasn't used to the ways of this extraordinary house. Please forgive me. MANGAN. Oh, that's all right: I don't mind. But Captain Shotover has been talking to me about you. You and me, you know. ELLIE [interested]. The captain! What did he say? 48 Act 2 Heartbreak House 49 MANGAN. Well, he noticed the difference between our ages. ELLIE. He notices everything. MANGAN. You don't mind, then? ELLIE. Of course I know quite well that our engagementMANGAN. Oh! you call it an engagement. ELLIE. Well, isn't it? MANGAN. Oh, yes, yes: no doubt it is if you hold to it. This is the first time you've used the word; and I didn't quite know where we stood: that's all. [He sits down in the wicker chair; and resigns himself to allow her to lead the conversation.] You were saying -? ELLIE. Was I? I forget. Tell me. Do you like this part of the country? I heard you ask Mr Hushabye at dinner whether there are any nice houses to let down here. MANGAN. I like the place. The air suits me. I shouldn't be surprised if I settled down here. ELLIE. Nothing would please me better. The air suits me too. And I want to be near Ilesione. MANGAN [with growing uneasiness]. The air may suit us; but the question is, should we suit one another? Have you thought about that? ELLIE. Mr Mangan, we must be sensible, mustn't we? It's no use pretending that we are Romeo and Juliet. But we can get on very well together if we choose to make the best of it. Your kindness of heart will make it easy for me. MANGAN [leaning forward, with the beginning of something like deliberate unpleasantness in his voice]. Kindness of heart, eh? I ruined your father, didn't I? ELLIE. Oh, not intentionally. MANGAN. Yes I did. Ruined him on purpose. ELLIE. On purpose! 50 Heartbreak House Act 2 MANGAN. Not out of ill-nature, you know. And you'll admit that I kept a job for him when I had finished with him. But business is business; and I ruined him as a matter of business. ELLIE. I don't understand how that can be. Are you trying to make me feel that I need not be grateful to you, so that I may choose freely? MANGAN [rising aggressively]. No. I mean what I say. ELLIE. But how could it possibly do you any good to ruin my father? The money he lost was yours.. MANGAN [with a sour laugh]. Was mine! It is mine, Miss Ellie, and all the money the other fellows lost too. [He shoves his hands into his pockets and shows his teeth. ~ I just smoked them out like a hive of bees. What do you say to that? A bit of shock, eh? ELLIE. It would have been, this morning. Now! you can't think how little it matters. But it's quite interesting. Only, you must explain it to me. I don't understand it. [Propping her elbows on the drawingboard and her chin on her hands, she composes herself to listen with a combination of conscious curiosity with unconscious contempt which provokes him to more and more unpleasantness, and an attempt at patronage of her ignorance.] MANGAN. Of course you don't understand: what do you know about business? You just listen and learn. Your father's business was a new business; and I don't start new businesses: I let other fellows start them. They put all their money and their friends' money into starting them. They wear out their souls and bodies trying to make a success of them. They're what you call enthusiasts. But the first dead lift of the thing is too much for them; and they haven't enough financial experience. In a year or so they have either to let the whole show go bust, or sell out to a new lot of fel Act 2 Heartbreak House 51 lows for a few deferred ordinary shares: that is, if they're lucky enough to get anything at all. As likely as not the very same thing happens to the new lot. They put in more money and a couple of years' more work; and then perhaps they have to sell out to a third lot. If it's really a big thing the third lot will have to sell out too, and leave their work and their money behind them. And that's where the real business man comes in: where I come in. But I'm cleverer than some: I don't mind dropping a little money to start the process. I took your father's measure. I saw that he had a sound idea, and that he would work himself silly for it if he got the chance. I saw that he was a child in business, and was dead certain to outrun his expenses and be in too great a hurry to wait for his market. I knew that the surest way to ruin a man who doesn't know how to handle money is to give him some. I explained my idea to some friends in the city, and they found the money; for I take no risks in ideas, even when they're my own. Your father and the friends that ventured their money with him were no more to me than a heap of squeezed lemons. You've been wasting your gratitude: my kind heart is all rot. I'm sick of it. When I see your father beaming at me with his moist, grateful eyes, regularly wallowing in gratitude, I sometimes feel I must tell him the truth or burst. What stops me is that I know he wouldn't believe me. He'd think it was my modesty, as you did just now. He'd think anything rather than the truth, which is that he's a blamed fool, and I am a man that knows how to take care of himself. [He throws himself back into the big chair with large selfapproval.] Now what do you think of me, Miss Ellie? ELLIE [dropping her hands]. How strange! that my mother, who knew nothing at all about business, should 52 Heartbreak House Act 2 have been quite right about you! She always saidnot before papa, of course, but to us children- that you were just that sort of man. MANGAN [sitting up, much hurt]. Oh! did she? And yet she'd have let you marry me. ELLIE. Well, you see, Mr Mangan, my mother married a very good man- for whatever you may think of my father as a man of business, he is the soul of goodness - and she is not at all keen on my doing the same. MANGAN. Anyhow, you don't want to marry me now, do you? ELLIE [very calmly]. Oh, I think so. Why not? MANGAN [rising aghast]. Why not! ELLIE I don't see why we shouldn't get on very well together. MANGAN. Well, but look here, you know- [he stops, quite at a loss]. ELLIE [patiently]. Well? MANGAN. Well, I thought you were rather particular about people's characters. ELLIE. If we women were particular about men's characters, we should never get married at all, Mr Mangan. MANGAN. A child like you talking of "we women"! What next! You're not in earnest? ELLIE. Yes, I am. Aren't you? MANGAN. You mean to hold me to it? ELLIE. Do you wish to back out of it? MANGAN. Oh, no. Not exactly back out of it. ELLIE. Well? He has nothing to say. With a long whispered whistle, he drops into the wicker chair and stares before him like a beggared gambler. But a cunning look soon comes into his face. He leans over towards her on his right elbow, and speaks in a low steady voice. Act 2 Heartbreak House 53 MANGAN. Suppose I told you I was in love with another woman! ELLIE [echoing him]. Suppose I told you I was in love with another man! MANGAN [bouncing angrily out of his chair]. I'm not joking. ELLIE. Who told you I was? MANGAN. I tell you I'm serious. You're too young to be serious; but you'll have to believe me. I want to be near your friend Mrs Hushabye. I'm in love with her. Now the murder's out. ELLIE. I want to be near your friend Mr Hushabye. I'm in love with him. [She rises and adds with a frank air] Now we are in one another's confidence, we shall be real friends. Thank you for telling me. MANGAN [almost beside himself]. Do you think I'll be made a convenience of like this? ELLIE. Come, Mr Mangan! you made a business convenience of my father. Well, a woman's business is marriage. Why shouldn't I make a domestic convenience of you? MANGAN. Because I don't choose, see? Because I'm not a silly gull like your father. That's why. ELLIE [with serene contempt]. You are not good enough to clean my father's boots, Mr Mangan; and I am paying you a great compliment in condescending to make a convenience of you, as you call it. Of course you are free to throw over our engagement if you like; but, if you do, you'll never enter Hesione's house again: I will take care of that. MANGAN [gasping]. You little devil, you've done me. [On the point of collapsing into the big chair again he recovers himself.] Wait a bit, though: you're not so cute as you think. You can't beat Boss Mangan as easy as that. Suppose I go straight to Mrs Hushabye and tell her that you're in love with her husband. 54 Heartbreak House Act 2 ELLIE. She knows it. MANGAN. You told her!!! ELLIE. She told me. MANGAN [clutching at his bursting temples]. Oh, this is a crazy house. Or else I'm going clean off my chump. Is she making a swop with you - she to have your husband and you to have hers? ELLIE. Well, you don't want us both, do you? MANGAN [throwing himself into the chair distractedly]. My brain won't stand it. My head's going to split. Help! Help me to hold it. Quick: hold it: squeeze it. Save me. [Ellie comes behind his chair; clasps his head hard for a moment; then begins to draw her hands from hisforehead back to his ears.] Thank you. [Drowsily.] That's very refreshing. [Waking a little.] Don't you hypnotize me, though. I've seen men made fools of by hypnotism. ELLIE [steadily]. Be quiet. I've seen men made fools of without hypnotism. MANGAN [humbly]. You don't dislike touching me, I hope. You never touched me before, I noticed. ELLIE. Not since you fell in love naturally with a grown-up nice woman, who will never expect you to make love to her. And I will never expect him to make love to me. MANGAN. He may, though. ELLIE [making her passes rhythmically]. Hush. Go to sleep. Do you hear? You are to go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep; be quiet, deeply deeply quiet; sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep. He falls asleep. Ellie steals away; turns the light out; and goes into the garden. Nurse Guinness opens the door and is seen in the light which comes in from the hall. GUINNESS [speaking to someone outside]. Mr Mangan's not here, duckie: there's no one here. It's all dark. Act 2 Heartbreak House 55 MRS HUSHABYE [without]. Try the garden. Mr Dunn and I will be in my boudoir. Show him the way. GUINNESS. Yes, ducky. [She makes for the garden door in the dark; stumbles over the sleeping Mangan and screams.] Ahoo! 0 Lord, sir! I beg your pardon, I'm sure: I didn't see you in the dark. Who is it? [She goes back to the door and turns on the light.] Oh, Mr Mangan, sir, I hope I haven't hurt you plumping into your lap like that. [Coming to him.] I was looking for you, sir. Mrs Hushabye says will you please - [noticing that he remains quite insensible]. Oh, my good Lord, I hope I haven't killed him. Sir! Mr Mangan! Sir! [She shakes him; and he is rolling inertly off the chair on the floor when she holds him up and props him against the cushion.] Miss Hessy! Miss Hessy! Quick, doty darling. Miss Hessy! [Mrs Hushabye comes in from the hall, followed by Mazzini Dunn.] Oh, Miss Hessy, I've been and killed him. Mazzini runs round the back of the chair to Mangan's right hand, and sees that the nurse's words are apparently only too true. MAZZINI. What tempted you to commit such a crime, woman? MRS HUSHABYE [trying not to laugh]. Do you mean you did it on purpose? GUINNESS. Now is it likely I'd kill any man on purpose? I fell over him in the dark; and I'm a pretty tidy weight. He never spoke nor moved until I shook him; and then he would have dropped dead on the floor. Isn't it tiresome? MRS HUSHABYE going past the nurse to Mangan's side, and inspecting him less credulously than Mazzini]. Nonsense! he is not dead: he is only asleep. I can see him breathing. GUINNESS. But why won't he wake? MAZZINI [speaking very politely into Mangan's ear]. 56 Heartbreak House Act 2 Mangan! My dear Mangan! [he blows into Mangan's ear]. MRS HUSHABYE. That's no good [she shakes him vigorously]. Mr Mangan, wake up. Do you hear? [He begins to roll over.] Oh! Nurse, nurse: he's falling: help me. Nurse Guinness rushes to the rescue. With Mazzini's assistance, Mangan is propped safely up again. GUINNESS [behind the chair; bending over to test the case with her nose]. Would he be drunk, do you think, pet? MRS HUSHABYE. Had he any of papa's rum? MAZZINI. It can't be that: he is most abstemious. I am afraid he drank too much formerly, and has to drink too little now. You know, Mrs Hushabye, I really think he has been hypnotized. GUINNESS. Hip no what, sir? MAZZINI. One evening at home, after we had seen a hypnotizing performance, the children began playing at it; and Ellie stroked my head. I assure you I went off dead asleep; and they had to send for a professional to wake me up after I had slept eighteen hours. They had to carry me upstairs; and as the poor children were not very strong, they let me slip; and I rolled right down the whole flight and never woke up. [Mrs Hushabye splutters.] Oh, you may laugh, Mrs Hushabye; but I might have been killed. MRS HUSHABYE. I couldn't have helped laughing even if you had been, Mr Dunn. So Ellie has hypnotized him. What fun! MAZZINI. Oh no, no, no. It was such a terrible lesson to her: nothing would induce her to try such a thing again. MRS HUSHABYE. Then who did it? I didn't. MAZZINI. I thought perhaps the captain might have done it unintentionally. He is so fearfully magnetic: I feel vibrations whenever he comes close to me. Act 2 Heartbreak House 57 GUINNESS. The captain will get him out of it anyhow, sir: I'll back him for that. I'll go fetch him [she makes for the pantry]. MRS HUSHABYE. Wait a bit. [To Mazzini.] You say he is all right for eighteen hours? MAZZINI. Well, I was asleep for eighteen hours. MRS HUSHABYE. Were you any the worse for it? MAZZINI. I don't quite remember. They had poured brandy down my throat, you see; andMRS HUSHABYE. Quite. Anyhow, you survived. Nurse, darling: go and ask Miss Dunn to come to us here. Say I want to speak to her particularly. You will find her with Mr Hushabye probably. GUINNESS. I think not, ducky: Miss Addy is with him. But I'll find her and send her to you. [She goes out into the garden.] MRS HUSHABYE [calling Mazzini's attention to the figure on the chair]. Now, Mr Dunn, look. Just look. Lood hard. Do you still intend to sacrifice your daughter to that thing? MAZZINI [troubled]. You have completely upset me, Mrs Hushabye, by all you have said to me. That anyone could imagine that I - I, a consecrated soldier of freedom, if I may say so- could sacrifice Ellie to anybody or anyone, or that I should ever have dreamed of forcing her inclinations in any way, is a most painful blow to my - well, I suppose you would say to my good opinion of myself. MRS HUSHABYE [rather stolidly]. Sorry. MAZZINI [looking forlornly at the body]. What is your objection to poor Mangan, Mrs Hushabye? He looks all right to me. But then I am so accustomed to him. MRS HUSHABYE. Have you no heart? Have you no sense? Look at the brute! Think of poor weak innocent Ellie in the clutches of this slavedriver, who spends his life making thousands of rough violent workmen 58 Heartbreak House Act 2 bend to his will and sweat for him: a man accustomed to have great masses of iron beaten into shape for him by steam-hammers! to fight with women and girls over a halfpenny an hour ruthlessly! a captain of industry, I think you call him, don't you? Are you going to fling your delicate, sweet, helpless child into such a beast's claws just because he will keep her in an expensive house and make her wear diamonds to show how rich he is? MAZZINI [staring at her in wide-eyed amazement]. Bless you, dear Mrs Hushabye, what romantic ideas of business you have! Poor dear Mangan isn't a bit like that. MRS HUSHABYE [scornfully]. Poor dear Mangan indeed! MAZZINI. But he doesn't know anything about machinery. He never goes near the men: he couldn't manage them: he is afraid of them. I never can get him to take the least interest in the works: he hardly knows more about them than you do. People are cruelly unjust to Mangan: they think he is all rugged strength just because his manners are bad. MRS HUSHABYE. Do you mean to tell me he isn't strong enough to crush poor little Ellie? MAZZINI. Of course it's very hard to say how any marriage will turn out; but speaking for myself, I should say that he won't have a dog's chance against Ellie. You know, Ellie has remarkable strength of character. I think it is because I taught her to like Shakespeare when she was very young. MRS HUSHABYE [contemptuously]. Shakespeare! The next thing you will tell me is that you could have made a great deal more money than Mangan. [She retires to the sofa, and sits down at the port end of it in the worst of humors.] MAZZINI [following her and taking the other end]. No: Act 2 Heartbreak House 59 I'm no good at making money. I don't care enough for it, somehow. I'm not ambitious! that must be it. Mangan is wonderful about money: he thinks of nothing else. He is so dreadfully afraid of being poor. I am always thinking of other things: even at the works I think of the things we are doing and not of what they cost. And the worst of it is, poor Mangan doesn't know what to do with his money when he gets it. He is such a baby that he doesn't know even what to eat and drink: he has ruined his liver eating and drinking the wrong things; and now he can hardly eat at all. Ellie will diet him splendidly. You will be surprised when you come to know him better: he is really the most helpless of mortals. You get quite a protective feeling towards him. MRS HUSHABYE. Then who manages his business, pray? MAZZINI. I do. And of course other people like me. MRS HUSHABYE. Footling people, you mean. MAZZINI. I suppose you'd think us so. MRS HUSHABYE. And pray why don't you do without him if you're all so much cleverer? MAZZINI. Oh, we couldn't: we should ruin the business in a year. I've tried; and I know. We should spend too much on everything. We should improve the quality of the goods and make them too dear. We should be sentimental about the hard cases among the workpeople. But Mangan keeps us in order. He is down on us about every extra halfpenny. We could never do without him. You see, he will sit up all night thinking of how to save sixpence. Won't Ellie make him jump, though, when she takes his house in hand! MRS HUSHABYE. Then the creature is a fraud even as a captain of industry! MAZZINI. I am afraid all the captains of industry are what you call frauds, Mrs Hushabye. Of course 60 Heartbreak House Act 2 there are some manufacturers who really do understand their own works; but they don't make as high a rate of profit as Mangan does. I assure you Mangan is quite a good fellow in his way. He means well. MRS HUSHABYE. He doesn't look well. IHe is not in his first youth, is he? MAZZINI. After all, no husband is in his first youth for very long, Mrs Hushabye. And men can't afford to marry in their first youth nowadays. 1 MRS HUSHABYE. Now if I said that, it would sound witty. Why can't you say it wittily? What on earth is the matter with you? Why don't you inspire everybody with confidence? with respect? MAZZINI [humbly]. I think that what is the matter with me is that I am poor. You don't know what that means at home. Mind: I don't say they have ever complained. They've all been wonderful: they've been proud of my poverty. They've even joked about it quite often. But my wife has had a very poor time of it. She has been quite resigned - MRS HUSHABYE [shuddering involuntarily]!! MAZZINI. There! You see, Mrs Hushabye. I don't want Ellie to live on resignation. MRS HUSHABYE. Do you want her to have to resign herself to living with a man she doesn't love? MAZZINI [wistfully]. Are you sure that would be worse than living with a man she did love, if he was a footling person? MRS HUSHABYE [relaxing her contemptuous attitude, quite interested in Mazzini now]. You know, I really think you must love Ellie very much; for you become quite clever when you talk about her. MAZZINI. I didn't know I was so very stupid on other subjects. MRS HUSHABYE. You are, sometimes. MAZZINI [turning his head away; for his eyes are wet]. Act 2 HEeartbreak House 61 I have learnt a good deal about myself from you, Mrs Hushabye; and I'm afraid I shall not be the happier for your plain speaking. But if you thought I needed it to make me think of Ellie's happiness you were very much mistaken. MRS HUSHABYE [leaning towards him kindly]. Have I been a beast? MAZZINI [pulling himself together]. It doesn't matter about me, Mrs Hushabye. I think you like Ellie; and that is enough for me. MRS HUSHABYE. I'm beginning to like you a little. I perfectly loathed you at first. I thought you the most odious, self-satisfied, boresome elderly prig I ever met. MAZZINI [resigned, and now quite cheerful]. I daresay I am all that. I never have been a favorite with gorgeous~'omen like you. They always frighten me. MRS HUSHABYE [pleased]. Am I a gorgeous woman, Mazzini? I shall fall in love with you presently. MAZZINI [with placid gallantry]. No, you won't, Hesione. But you would be quite safe. Would you believe it that quite a lot of women have flirted with me because I am quite safe? But they get tired of me - for the same reason. MRS HUSHABYE [mischievously]. Take care. You ma3A not be so safe as you think. MAZZINI. Oh yes, quite safe. You see, I have been in love really: the sort of love that only happens once. [Softly.] That's why Ellie is such a lovely girl. MRS HUSHABYE. Well, really, you are coming out. Are you quite sure you won't let me tempt you into a second grand passion? MAZZINI. Quite. It wouldn't be natural. The fact is, you don't strike on my box, Mrs Hushabye; and I certainly don't strike on yours. Heartbreak House Act 2 MRS HJSHABYE. I see. Your marriage was a safety ~ match. MAZZINI. What a very witty application of the expression I used! I should never have thought of it. Ellie comes in from the garden, looking anything but happy. MRS HUSHABYE [rising]. Oh! here is Ellie at last. [She goes behind the sofa.] ELLIE [on the threshold of the starboard door]. Guinness said you wanted me: you and papa. MRS HUSHABYE. You have kept us waiting so long that it almost came to -well, never mind. Your father is a very wonderful man [she ruffles his hair affectionately]: the only one I ever met who could resist me when I made myself really agreeable. [She comes to the big chair, on Mangan's left.] Come here. I have something to show you. [Ellie strolls listlessly to the other side of the chair.] Look. ELLIE [contemplating Mangan without interest]. I know. He is only asleep. We had a talk after dinner; and he fell asleep in the middle of it. MRS HUSHABYE. You did it, Ellie. You put him asleep. MAZZINI [rising quickly and coming to the back of the chair]. Oh, I hope not. Did you, Ellie? ELLIE [wearily]. He asked me to. MAZZINI. But it's dangerous. You know what happened to me. ELLIE [utterly indifferent]. Oh, I daresay I can wake him. If not, somebody else can.:ll} MRS HUSHABYE. It doesn't matter, anyhow, because I have at last persuaded your father that you don't want to marry him...-. ELLIE [suddenly coming out of her listlessness, much vexed]. But why did you do that, Hesione? I do want to marry him. I fully intend to marry him. Act 2 Heartbreak House 63 MAZZINI. Are you quite sure, Ellie? Mrs Hushabye has made me feel that I may have been thoughtless and selfish about it. ELLIE [very clearly and steadily]. Papa. When Mrs. Hushabye takes it on herself to explain to you what I think or don't think, shut your ears tight; and shut your eyes too. Hesione knows nothing about me: she hasn't the least notion of the sort of person I am, and never will. I promise you I won't do anything I don't want to do and mean to do for my own sake. MAZZINI. You are quite, quite sure? ELLIE. Quite, quite sure. Now you must go away and leave me to talk to Mrs Hushabye. MAZZINI. But I should like to hear. Shall I be in the way? ELLIE [inexorable]. I had rather talk to her alone. MAZZINI [affectionately]. Oh, well, I know what a nuisance parents are, dear. I will be good and go. [He goes to the garden door.] By the way, do you remember the address of that professional who woke me up? Don't you think I had better telegraph to him? MRS HUSHABYE [moving towards the sofa]. It's too late to telegraph tonight. MAZZINI. I suppose so. I do hope he'll wake up in the course of the night. [He goes out into the garden.] ELLIE Cturning vigorously on Hesione the moment her father is out of the room]. Hesione, what the devil do you mean by making mischief with my father about Mangan? MRS HUSHABYE [promptly losing her temper]. Don't you dare speak to me like that, you little minx. Remember that you are in my house. ELLIE. Stuff! Why don't you mind your own business? What is it to you whether I choose to marry Mangan or not? 64 Heartbreak House Act 2 MRS HUSHABYE. Do you suppose you can bully me, you miserable little matrimonial adventurer? ELLIE. Every woman who hasn't any money is a matrimonial adventurer. It's easy for you to talk: you have never known what it is to waut money; and you can pick up men as if they were daisies. I am poor and respectable - MRS HUSHABYE [interrupting]. Ho! respectable! How did you pick up Mangan? How did you pick up my husband? You have the audacity to tell me that I am a - a - a ELLIE. A siren. So you are. You were born to lead men by the nose: if you weren't, Marcus would have waited for me, perhaps. MRS HUSHABYE [suddenly melting and half laughing]. Oh, my poor Ellie, my pettikins, my unhappy darling! I am so sorry about Hector. But what can I do? It's not my fault: I'd give him to you if I could. ELLIE. I don't blame you for that. MRS HUSHABYE. What a brute I was to quarrel with you and call you names! Do kiss me and say you're not angry with me. ELLIE [fiercely]. Oh, don't slop and gush and be sentimental. Don't you see that unless I can be hard - as hard as nails-I shall go mad? I don't care a damn about your calling me names: do you think a woman in my situation can feel a few hard words? MRS HUSHABYE. Poor little woman! Poor little situation! ELLIE. I suppose you think you're being sympathetic. You are just foolish and stupid and selfish. You see me getting a smasher right in the face that kills a whole part of my life: the best part that can never come again; and you think you can help me over it by a little coaxing and kissing. When I want all the strength I can get to lean on: something iron, Act 2 Heartbreak House 65 something stony, I don't care how cruel it is, you go all mushy and want to slobber over me. I'm not angry; I'm not unfriendly; but for God's sake do pull yourself together; and don't think that because you're on velvet and always have been, women who are in hell can take it as easily as you. MRS HUSHABYE [shrugging her shoulders]. Very well. [She sits down on the sofa in her old place.] But I warn you that when I am neither coaxing and kissing nor laughing, I am just wondering how much longer I can stand living in this cruel, damnable world. You object to the siren: well, I drop the siren. You want to rest your wounded bosom against a grindstone. Well [folding her arms], here is the grindstone. ELLIE [sitting down beside her, appeased]. That's better: you really have the trick of falling in with everyone's mood; but you don't understand, because you are not the sort of woman for whom there is only one man and only one chance. MRS HUSHABYE. I certainly don't understand how your marrying that object [indicating Mangan] will console you for not being able to marry Hector. ELLIE. Perhaps you don't understand why I was quite a nice girl this morning, and am now neither a girl nor particularly nice. MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, yes, I do. It's because you have made up your mind to do something despicable and wicked. ELLIE. I don't think so, Hesione. I must make the best of my ruined house. MRS HUSHABYE. Pooh! You'll get over it. Your house isn't ruined. ELLIE. Of course I shall get over it. You don't suppose I'm going to sit down and die of a broken heart, I hope, or be an old maid living on a pittance from the Sick and Indigent Roomkeepers' Associa 66 Heartbreak House Act 2 tion. But my heart is broken, all the same. What I mean by that is that I know that what has happened to me with Marcus will not happen to me ever again. In the world for me there is Marcus and a lot of other men of whom one is just the same as another. Well, if I can't have love, that's no reason why I should have poverty. If Mangan has nothing else, he has money. MRS HUSHABYE. And are there no young men with money. ELLIE. Not within my reach. Besides, a young man would have the right to expect love from me, and would perhaps leave me when he found I could not give it to him. Rich young men can get rid of their wives, you know, pretty cheaply. But this object, as you call him, can expect nothing more from me than I am prepared to give him. MRS HUSHABYE. He will be your owner, remember. If he buys you, he will make the bargain pay him and not you. Ask your father. ELLIE [rising and strolling to the chair to contemplate their subject]. You need not trouble on that score, Hesione. I have more to give Boss Mangan than he has to give me: it is I who am buying him, and at a pretty good price too, I think. Women are better at that sort of bargain than men. I have taken the Boss's measure; and ten Boss Mangans shall not prevent me doing far more as I please as his wife than I have ever been able to do as a poor girl. [Stooping to the recumbent figure.] Shall they, Boss? I think not. [She passes on to the drawing-table, and leans against the end of it, facing the windows.] I shall not have to spend most of my time wondering how long my gloves will last, anyhow. MRS HUSHABYE [rising superbly]. Ellie, you are a wicked, sordid little beast. And to think that I actually condescended to fascinate that creature there to save you from him! Well, let me tell you this: if you make Act 2 Heartbreak House 67 this disgusting match, you will never see Hector again if I can help it. ELLIE [unmoved]. I nailed Mangan by telling him that if he did not marry me he should never see you again [she lifts herself on her wrists and seats herself on the end of the table]. MRS HUSHABYE [recoiling]. Oh! ELLIE. So you see I am not unprepared for your playing that trump against me. Well, you just try it: that's all. I should have made a man of Marcus, not a household pet. MRS HUSHABYE [flaming]. You dare! ELLIE [looking almost dangerous]. Set him thinking about me if you dare. MRS HUSHABYE. Well, of all the impudent little fiends I ever met! Hector says there is a certain point at which the only answer you can give to a man who breaks all the rules is to knock him down. What would you say if I were to box your ears? ELLIE [calmly]. I should pull your hair. MRS HUSHABYE [mischievously]. That wouldn't hurt me. Perhaps it comes off at night. ELLIE [so taken aback that she drops off the table and runs to her]. Oh, you don't mean to say, Hesione, that your beautiful black hair is false? MRS HUSHABYE [patting it]. Don't tell Hector. He believes in it. ELLIE [groaning]. Oh! Even the hair that ensnared him false! Everything false! MRS HUSHABYE. Pull it and try. Other women can snare men in their hair; but I can swing a baby on mine. Aha! you can't do that, Goldylocks. ELLIE [heartbroken]. No. You have stolen my babies. MRS HUSHABYE. Pettikins, don't make me cry. You know what you said about my making a house 68 Heartbreak House Act 2 hold pet of him is a little true. Perhaps he ought to have waited for you. Would any other woman on earth forgive you? ELLIE. Oh, what right had you to take him all for yourself! [Pulling herself together.] There! You couldn't help it: neither of us could help it. He couldn't help it. No, don't say anything more: I can't bear it. Let us wake the object. [She begins stroking Mangan's head, reversing the movement with which she put him to sleep.] Wake up, do you hear? You are to wake up at once. Wake up, wake up, wake - MANGAN [bouncing out of the chair in a fury and turning on them]. Wake up! So you think I've been asleep, do you? [He kicks the chair violently back out of his way, and gets between them.] You throw me into a trance so that I can't move hand or foot- I might have been buried alive! it's a mercy I wasn't — and then you think I was only asleep. If you'd let me drop the two times you rolled me about, my nose would have been flattened for life against the floor. But I've' found you all out, anyhow. I know the sort of people I'm among now. I've heard every word you've said, you and your precious father, and [to Mrs Hushabye] you too. So I'm an object, am I? I'm a thing, am I? I'm a fool that hasn't sense enough to feed myself properly, am I? I'm afraid of the men that would starve if it weren't for the wages I give them, am I? I'm nothing but a disgusting old skinflint to be made a convenience of by designing women and fool managers of my works, am I? I'm - MRS HUSHABYE [with the most elegant aplomb]. Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh! Mr Mangan, you are bound in honor to obliterate from your mind all you heard while you were pretending to be asleep. It was not meant for you to hear. MANGAN. Pretending to be asleep! Do you think Act a Heartbreak House 69 if I was only pretending that I'd have sprawled there helpless, and listened to such unfairness, such lies, such injustice and plotting and backbiting and slandering of me, if I could have up and told you what I thought of you! I wonder I didn't burst. MRS HUSHABYE [sweetly]. You dreamt it all, Mr Mangan. We were only saying how beautifully peaceful you looked in your sleep. That was all, wasn't it, Ellie? Believe me, Mr Mangan, all those unpleasant things came into your mind in the last half second before you woke. Ellie rubbed your hair the wrong way; and the disagreeable sensation suggested a disagreeable dream. MANGAN [doggedly]. I believe in dreams. MRS HUSHABYE. So do I. But they go by contraries, don't they? MANGAN [depths of emotion suddenly welling up in him]. I shan't forget, to my dying day, that when you gave me the glad eye that time in the garden, you were making a fool of me. That was a dirty low mean thing to do. You had no right to let me come near you if I disgusted you. It isn't my fault if I'm old and haven't a moustache like a bronze candlestick as your husband has. There are things no decent woman would do to a man -like a man hitting a woman in the breast. Iesione, utterly shamed, sits down on the sofa and covers her face with her hands. Mangan sits down also on his chair and begins to cry like a child. Ellie stares at them. Mrs Hushabye, at the distressing sound he makes, takes down her hands and looks at him. She rises and runs to him. MRS HUSHABYE. Don't cry: I can't bear it. Have I broken your heart? I didn't know you had one. How could I? MANGAN. I'm a man, ain't I? 70 Heartbreak House Act 2 MRS HUSHABYE [half coaxing, half rallying, altogether tenderly]. Oh no: not what I call a man. Only a Boss: just that and nothing else. What business has a Boss with a heart? MANGAN. Then you're not a bit sorry for what you did, nor ashamed? MRS HUSHABYE. I was ashamed for the first time in my life when you said that about hitting a woman in the breast, and I found out what I'd done. My very bones blushed red. You've had your revenge, Boss. Aren't you satisfied? MANGAN. Serve you right! Do you hear? Serve you right! You're just cruel. Cruel. MRS HUSHABYE. Yes: cruelty would be delicious if one could only find some sort of cruelty that didn't really hurt. By the way [sitting down beside him on the arm of the chair], what's your name? It's not really Boss, is it? MANGAN [shortly]. If you want to know, my name's Alfred. MRS HUSHABYE [springs up]. Alfred!! Ellie, he was christened after Tennyson!!! MANGAN [rising]. I was christened after my uncle, and never had a penny from him, damn him! What of it? MRS HUSHABYE. It comes to me suddenly that you are a real person: that you had a mother, like anyone else. [Putting her hands on his shoulders and surveying him.] Little Alf! MANGAN. Well, you have a nerve. MRS HUSHABYE. And you have a heart, Alfy, a whimpering little heart, but a real one. [Releasing him suddenly.] Now run and make it up with Ellie. She has had time to think what to say to you, which is more than I had [she goes out quickly into the garden by the port door]. Act 2 Heartbreak House 71 MANGAN. That woman has a pair of hands that go right through you. ELLIE. Still in love with her, in spite of all we said about you? MANGAN. Are all women like you two? Do they never think of anything about a man except what they can get out of him? You weren't even thinking that about me. You were only thinking whether your gloves would last. ELLIE. I shall not have to think about that when we are married. MANGAN. And you think I am going to marry you after what I heard there! ELLIE. You heard nothing from me that I did not tell you before. MANGAN. Perhaps you think I can't do without you. ELLIE. I think you would feel lonely without us all, now, after coming to know us so well. MANGAN [with something like a yell of despair]. Am I never to have the last word? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [appearing at the starboard garden door]. There is a soul in torment here. What is the matter? MANGAN. This girl doesn't want to spend her life wondering how long her gloves will last. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [passing through]. Don't wear any. I never do [he goes into the pantry]. LADY UTTERWORD [appearing at the port garden door, in a handsome dinner dress]. Is anything the matter? ELLIE. This gentleman wants to know is he never to have the last word? LADY UTTERWORD [coming forward to the sofa]. I should let him have it, my dear. The important thing is not to have the last word, but to have your own way. Heartbreak House Act 2 MANGAN. She wants both. LADY UTTERWORD. She won't get them, Mr Mangan. Providence always has the last word. MANGAN [desperately]. Now you are going to come religion over me. In this house a man's mind might as well be a football. I'm going. [He'makes for the hall, but is stopped by a hail from the Captain, who has just emerged from his pantry]. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Whither away, Boss Mangan? MANGAN. To hell out of this house: let that be enough for you and all here. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. YOU were welcome to come: you are free to go. The wide earth, the high seas, the spacious skies are waiting for you outside. LADY UTTERWORD. But your things, Mr Mangan. Your bag, your comb and brushes, your pyjamasHECTOR [who has just appeared in the port doorway in a handsome Arab costume]. Why should the escaping slave take his chains with him? MANGAN. That's right, Hushabye. Keep the pyjamas, my lady, and much good may they do you. HECTOR [advancing to Lady Utterword's left hand]. Let us all go out into the night and leave everything behind us. MANGAN. You stay where you are, the lot of you. I want no company, especially female company. ELLIE. Let him go. He is unhappy here. He is angry with us. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Go, Boss Mangan; and when you have found the land where there is happiness and where there are no women, send me its latitude and longitude; and I will join you there. LADY UTTERWORD. You will certainly not be comfortable without your luggage, Mr Mangan. ELLIE [impatient]. Go, go: why don't you go? It is a heavenly night: you can sleep on the heath. Act 2 H~Ieartbreak House 73 Take my waterproof to lie on: it is hanging up in the hall. HECTOR. Breakfast at nine, unless you prefer to breakfast with the captain at six. ELLIE. Good night, Alfred. HECTOR. Alfred! [He runs back to the door and calls into the garden.] Randall, Mangan's Christian name is Alfred. RANDALL [appearing in the starboard doorway in evening dress]. Then Hesione wins her bet. Mrs Hushabye appears in the port doorway. She throws her left arm round Hector's neck: draws him with her to the back of the sofa: and throws her right arm round Lady Utterword's neck. MRS HUSHABYE. They wouldn't believe me, Alf. They contemplate him. MANGAN. Is there any more of you coming in to look at me, as if I was the latest thing in a menagerie? MRS HUSHABYE. You are the latest thing in this menagerie. Before Mangan can retort, a fall of furniture is heard from upstairs: then a pistol shot, and a yell of pain. The staring group breaks up in consternation. MAZZINI'S VOICE [from above]. Help! A burglar! Help! HECTOR [his eyes blazing]. A burglar!!! MRS HUSHABYE. No, Hector: you'll be shot [but it is too late; he has dashed out past Mangan, who hastily moves towards the bookshelves out of his way]. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [blowing his whistle]. All hands aloft! [He strides out after Hector.] LADY UTTERWORD. My diamonds! [She follows the captain.] RANDALL [rushing after her]. No, Ariadne. Let me. ELLIE. Oh, is papa shot? [She runs out.] MRS HUSHABYE. Are you frightened, Alf? 74 Heartbreak I-ouse Act 2 MANGAN. No. It ain't my house, thank God. MRS HUSHABYE. If they catch a burglar, shall we have to go into court as witnesses, and be asked all sorts of questions about our private lives? MANGAN. You won't be believed if you tell the truth. Mazzini, terribly upset, with a duelling pistol in his hand, comes from the hall, and makes his way to the drawing-table. MAZZINI. Oh, my dear Mrs Hushabye, I might have killed him. [He throws the pistol on the table and staggers round to the chair.] I hope you won't believe I really intended to. Hector comes in, marching an old and villainous looking man before him by the collar. He plants him in the middle of the room and releases him. Ellie follows, and immediately runs across to the back of her father's chair and pats his shoulders. RANDALL [entering with a poker]. Keep your eye on this door, Mangan. I'll look after the other [he goes to the starboard door and stands on guard there]. Lady Utterword comes in after Randall, and goes between Mrs Hushabye and Mangan. Nurse Guinness brings up the rear, and waits near the door, on Mangan's left. MRS HUSHABYE. What has happened? MAZZINI. Your housekeeper told me there was somebody upstairs, and gave me a pistol that Mr Hushabye had been practising with. I thought it would frighten him; but it went off at a touch. THE BURGLAR. Yes, and took the skin off my ear. Precious near took the top off my head. Why don't you have a proper revolver instead of a thing like that, that goes off if you as much as blow on it? HECTOR. One of my duelling pistols. Sorry. Act 2 Heartbreak House 75 MAZZINI. He put his hands up and said it was a fair cop. THE BURGLAR. So it was. Send for the police. HECTOR. No, by thunder! It was not a fair cop. We were four to one. MRS HUSHABYE. What will they do to him? THE BURGLAR. Ten years. Beginning with solitary. Ten years off my life. I shan't serve it all: I'm too old. It will see me out. LADY UTTERWORD. You should have thought of that before you stole my diamonds. THE BURGLAR. Well, you've got them back, lady, haven't you? Can you give me back the years of my life you are going to take from me? MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, we can't bury a man alive for ten years for a few diamonds. THE BURGLAR. Ten little shining diamonds! Ten long black years! LADY UTTERWORD. Think of what it is for us to be dragged through the horrors of a criminal court, and have all our family affairs in the papers! If you were a native, and Hastings could order you a good beating and send you away, I shouldn't mind; but here in England there is no real protection for any respectable person. THE BURGLAR. I'm too old to be giv a hiding, lady. Send for the police and have done with it. It's only just and right you should. RANDALL [who has relaxed his vigilance on seeing the burglar so pacifically disposed, and comes forward swinging the poker between his fingers like a well-folded umbrella]. It is neither just nor right that we should be put to a lot of inconvenience to gratify your moral enthusiasm, my friend. You had better get out, while you have the chance. THE BURGLAR [inexorably]. No. I must work my 76 Heartbreak House Act 2 sin off my conscience. This has come as a sort of call to me. Let me spend the rest of my life repenting in a cell. I shall have my reward above. MANGAN [exasperated]. The very burglars can't behave naturally in this house. HECTOR. My good sir, you must work out your salvation at somebody else's expense. Nobody here is going to charge you. THE BURGLAR. Oh, you won't charge me, won't you? HECTOR. No. I'm sorry to be inhospitable; but will you kindly leave the house? THE BURGLAR. Right. I'll go to the police station and give myself up. [He turns resolutely to the door: but Hector stops him.] HECTOR. Oh no. You musn't do that. RANDALL. No, no. Clear out, man, can't you; and don't be a fool. MRS HUSHABYE. Don't be so silly. Can't you repent at home? LADY UTTERWORD. You will have to do as you are told. THE BURGLAR. It's compounding a felony, you know. MRS HUSHABYE. This is utterly ridiculous. Are we to be forced to prosecute this man when we don't want to? THE BURGLAR. Am I to be robbed of my salvation to save you the trouble of spending a day at the sessions? Is that justice? Is it right? Is it fair to me? MAZZINI [rising and leaning across the table persuasively as if it were a pulpit desk or a shop counter]. Come, come! let me show you how you can turn your very crimes to account. Why not set up as a locksmith? You must know more about locks than most honest men? Act 2 Heartbreak House 77 THE BURGLAR. That's true, sir. But I couldn't set up as a locksmith under twenty pounds. RANDALL. Well, you can easily steal twenty pounds. You will find it in the nearest bank. THE BURGLAR [horrified]. Oh, what a thing for a gentleman to put into the head of a poor criminal scrambling out of the bottomless pit as it were! Oh, shame on you, sir! Oh, God forgive you! [He throws himself into the big chair and covers his face as if in prayer.] LADY UTTERWORD. Really, Randall! HECTOR. It seems to me that we shall have to take up a collection for this inopportunely contrite sinner. LADY UTTERWORD. But twenty pounds is ridiculous. THE BURGLAR [looking up quickly]. I shall have to buy a lot of tools, lady. LADY UTTERWOOD. Nonsense: you have your burgling kit. THE BURGLAR. What's a jimmy and a centrebit and an acetylene welding plant and a bunch of skeleton keys? I shall want a forge, and a smithy, and a shop, and fittings. I can't hardly do it for twenty. HECTOR. My worthy friend, we haven't got twenty pounds. THE BURGLAR [now master of the situation]. You can raise it among you, can't you? MRS HUSHABYE. Give him a sovereign, Hector, and get rid of him. HECTOR [giving him a pound]. There! Off with you. THE BURGLAR [rising and taking the money very ungratefully]. I won't promise nothing. You have more on you than a quid: all the lot of you, I mean. LADY UTTERWORD [vigorously]. Oh, let us prosecute 78 Heartbreak House Act 2 him and have done with it. I have a conscience too, I hope; and I do not feel at all sure that we have any right to let him go, especially if he is going to be greedy and impertinent. THE BURGLAR [quickly]. All right, lady, all right. I've no wish to be anything but agreeable. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen; and thank you kindly. He is hurrying out when he is confronted in the doorway by Captain Shotover. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER fixing the burglar with a piercing regard]. What's this? Are there two of you? THE BURGLAR [falling on his knees before the captain in abject terror]. Oh, my good Lord, what have I done? Don't tell me it's your house I've broken into, Captain Shotover. The captain seizes him by the collar: drags him to his feet: and leads him to the middle of the group, Hector falling back beside his wife to make way for them. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [turning him towards Ellie]. Is that your daughter? [He releases him.] THE BURGLAR. Well, how do I know, Captain? You know the sort of life you and me has led. Any young lady of that age might be my daughter anywhere in the wide world, as you might say. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [to Mazzini]. You are not Billy Dunn. This is Billy Dunn. Why have you imposed on me? THE BURGLAR [indignantly to Mazzini]. Have you been giving yourself out to be me? You, that nigh blew my head off! Shooting yourself, in a manner of speaking! MAZZINI. My dear Captain Shotover, ever since I came into this house I have done hardly anything else but assure you that I am not Mr William Dunn, but Mazzini Dunn, a very different person. THE BURGLAR. He don't belong to my branch, Act 2 Heartbreak House 79 Captain. There's two sets in the family: the thinking Dunns and the drinking Dunns, each going their own ways. I'm a drinking Dunn: he's a thinking Dunn. But that didn't give him any right to shoot me. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. So you've turned burglar, have you? THE BURGLAR. No, Captain: I wouldn't disgrace our old sea calling by such a thing. I am no burglar. LADY UTTERWORD. What were you doing with my diamonds? GUINNESS. What did you break into the house for if you're no burglar? RANDALL. Mistook the house for your own and came in by the wrong window, eh? THE BURGLAR. Well, it's no use my telling you a lie: I can take in most captains, but not Captain Shotover, because he sold himself to the devil in Zanzibar, and can divine water, spot gold, explode a cartridge in your pocket with a glance of his eye, and see the truth hidden in the heart of man. But I'm no burglar. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Are you an honest man? THE BURGLAR. I don't set up to be better than my fellow-creatures, and never did, as you well know, Captain. But what I do is innocent and pious. I enquire about for houses where the right sort of people live. I work it on them same as I worked it here. I break into the house; put a few spoons or diamonds in my pocket; make a noise; get caught; and take up a collection. And you wouldn't believe how hard it is to get caught when you're actually trying to. I have knocked over all the chairs in a room without a soul paying any attention to me. In the end I have had to walk out and leave the job. RANDALL. When that happens, do you put back the spoons and diamonds? 80 Heartbreak H~ouse Act 2 THE BURGLAR. Well, I don't fly in the face of Providence, if that's what you want to know. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Guinness, you remember this man? GUINNESS. I should think I do, seeing I was married to him, the blackguard! HESIONE 1 exclaiming f Married to him! LADY UTTERWORD f together Guinness!! THE BURGLAR. It wasn't legal. I've been married to no end of women. No use coming that over me. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Take him to the forecastle [he flings him to the door with a strength beyond his years]. GUINNESS. I suppose you mean the kitchen. They won't have him there. Do you expect servants to keep company with thieves and all sorts? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Land-thieves and water-thieves are the same flesh and blood. I'll have no boatswain on my quarter-deck. Off with you both. THE BURGLAR. Yes, Captain. [He goes out humbly.] MAZZINI. Will it be safe to have him in the house like that? GUINNESS. Why didn't you shoot him, sir? If I'd known who he was, I'd have shot him myself. [She goes out.] MRS HUSHABYE. Do sit down, everybody. [She sits down on the sofa]. They all move except Ellie. Mazzini resumes his seat. Randall sits down in the window-seat near the starboard door, again making a pendulum of his poker, and studying it as Galileo might have done. Hector sits on his left, in the middle. Mangan, forgotten, sits in the port corner. Lady Utterword takes the big chair. Captain Shotover goes into the pantry in deep abstraction. They all look after him: and Lady Utterword coughs consciously. Act 2 Heartbreak House 81 MRS HUSHABYE. So Billy Dunn was poor nurse's little romance. I knew there had been somebody. RANDALL. They will fight their battles over again and enjoy themselves immensely. LADY UTTERWORD [irritably]. You are not married; and you know nothing about it, Randall. Hold your tongue. RANDALL. Tyrant! MRS HUSHABYE. Well, we have had a very exciting evening. Everything will be an anticlimax after it. We'd better all go to bed. RANDALL. Another burglar may turn up. MAZZINI. Oh, impossible! I hope not. RANDALL. Why not? There is more than one burglar in England. MRS HUSHABYE. What do you say, Alf? MANGAN [huffily]. Oh, I don't matter. I'm forgotten. The burglar has put my nose out of joint. Shove me into a corner and have done with me. MRS HUSHABYE [jumping up mischievously, and going to him]. Would you like a walk on the heath, Alfred? With me? ELLIE. Go, Mr Mangan. It will do you good. Hesione will soothe you. MRS HUSHABYE [slipping her arm under his and pulling him upright]. Come, Alfred. There is a moon: it's like the night in Tristan and Isolde. [She caresses his arm and draws him to the port garden door.] MANGAN [writhing but yielding]. How you can have the face - the heart - [he breaks down and is heard sobbing as she takes him out]. LADY UTTERWORD. What an extraordinary way to behave! What is the matter with the man? ELLIE [in a strangely calm voice, staring into an imaginary distance]. His heart is breaking: that is all. [The captain appears at the pantry door, listen 82 Heartbreak House Act 2 ing.] It is a curious sensation: the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace. LADY UTTERWORD [suddenly rising in a rage, to the astonishment of the rest]. How dare you? HECTOR. Good heavens! What's the matter? RANDALL [in a warning whisper]. Tch - tch - tch! Steady. ELLIE [surprised and haughty]. I was not addressing you particularly, Lady Utterword. And I am not accustomed to being asked how dare I. LADY UTTERWORD. Of course not. Anyone can see how badly you have been brought up. MAZZINI. Oh, I hope not, Lady Utterword. Really! LADY UTTERWORD. I know very well what you meant. The impudence! ELLIE. What on earth do you mean? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [advancing to the table]. She means that her heart will not break. She has been longing all her life for someone to break it. At last she has become afraid she has none to break. LADY UTTERWORD [flinging herself on her knees and throwing her arms round him]. Papa, don't say you think I've no heart. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [raising her with grim tenderness]. If you had no heart how could you want to have it broken, child? HECTOR [rising with a bound]. Lady Utterword, you are not to be trusted. You have made a scene [he runs out into the garden through the starboard door]. LADY UTTERWORD. Oh! Hector, Hector! [she runs out after him]. RANDALL. Only nerves, I assure you. [He rises and follows her, waving the poker in his agitation.] Act 2 Heartbreak House 83 Ariadne! Ariadne! For God's sake, be careful. You will - [he is gone]. MAZZINI [rising]. How distressing! Can I do anything, I wonder? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [promptly taking his chair and setting to work at the drawing-board]. No. Go to bed. Good-night. MAZZINI [bewildered]. Oh! Perhaps you are right. ELLIE. Good-night, dearest. [She kisses him.] MAZZINI. Good-night, love. [He makes for the door, but turns aside to the bookshelves.] I'll just take a book [he takes one]. Good-night. [He goes out, leaving Ellie alone with the captain.] The captain is intent on his drawing. Ellie, standing sentry over his chair, contemplates him for a moment. ELLIE. Does nothing ever disturb you, Captain Shotover? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I've stood on the bridge for eighteen hours in a typhoon. Life here is stormier; but I can stand it. ELLIE. Do you think I ought to marry Mr Mangan? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [never looking up]. One rock is as good as another to be wrecked on. ELLIE. I am not in love with him. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Who said you were? ELLIE. You are not surprised? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Surprised! At my age! ELLIE. It seems to me quite fair. He wants me for one thing: I want him for another. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Money? ELLIE. Yes. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Well, one turns the cheek: the other kisses it. One provides the cash: the other spends it. ELLIE. Who will have the best of the bargain, I wonder? 84 Heartbreak House Act 2 CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You. These fellows live in an office all day. You will have to put up with him from dinner to breakfast; but you will both be asleep most of that time. All day you will be quit of him; and you will be shopping with his money. If that is too much for you, marry a seafaring man: you will be bothered with him only three weeks in the year, perhaps. ELLIE. That would be best of all, I suppose. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It's a dangerous thing to be married right up to the hilt, like my daughter's husband. The man is at home all day, like a damned soul in hell. ELLIE. I never thought of that before. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. If you're marrying for business, you can't be too businesslike. ELLIE. Why do women always want other women's husbands? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Why do horse-thieves prefer a horse that is broken-in to one that is wild? ELLIE [with a short laugh]. I suppose so. What a vile world it is! CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It doesn't concern me. I'm nearly out of it. ELLIE. And I'm only just beginning. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Yes; so look ahead. ELLIE. Well, I think I am being very prudent. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I didn't say prudent. I said look ahead. ELLIE. What's the difference? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It's prudent to gain the whole world and lose your own soul. But don't forget that your soul sticks to you if you stick to it; but the world has a way of slipping through your fingers. ELLIE [wearily, leaving him and beginning to wander restlessly about the room]. I'm sorry, Captain Shot Act 2 Heartbreak House 85 over; but it's no use talking like that to me. Oldfashioned people are no use to me. Old-fashioned people think you can have a soul without money. They think the less money you have, the more soul you have. Young people nowadays know better. A soul is a very expensive thing to keep: much more so than a motor car. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Is it? How much does your soul eat? ELLIE. Oh, a lot. It eats music and pictures and books and mountains and lakes and beautiful things to wear and nice people to be with. In this country you can't have them without lots of money: that is why our souls are so horribly starved. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Mangan's soul lives on pig's food. ELLIE. Yes: money is thrown away on him. I suppose his soul was starved when he was young. But it will not be thrown away on me. It is just because I want to save my soul that I am marrying for money. All the women who are not fools do. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. There are other ways of getting money. Why don't you steal it? ELLIE. Because I don't want to go to prison. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Is that the only reason? Are you quite sure honesty has nothing to do with it? ELLIE. Oh, you are very very old-fashioned, Captain. Does any modern girl believe that the legal and illegal ways of getting money are the honest and dishonest ways? Mangan robbed my father and my father's friends. I should rob all the money back from Mangan if the police would let me. As they won't, I must get it back by marrying him. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I can't argue: I'm too old: my mind is made up and finished. All I can tell you is that, old-fashioned or new-fashioned, if you sell 86 Heartbreak House Act 2 yourself, you deal your soul a blow that all the books and pictures and concerts and scenery in the world won't heal [he gets up suddenly and makes for the pantry]. ELLIE [running after him and seizing him by the sleeve]. Then why did you sell yourself to the devil in Zanzibar? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [stopping, startled]. What? ELLIE. You shall not run away before you answer. I have found out that trick of yours. If you sold yourself, why shouldn't I? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I had to deal with men so degraded that they wouldn't obey me unless I swore at them and kicked them and beat them with my fists. Foolish people took young thieves off the streets; flung them into a training ship where they were taught to fear the cane instead of fearing God; and thought they'd made men and sailors of them by private subscription. I tricked these thieves into believing I'd sold myself to the devil. It saved my soul from the kicking and swearing that was damning me by inches. ELLIE [releasing him]. I shall pretend to sell myself to Boss Mangan to save my soul from the poverty that is damning me by inches. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Riches will damn you ten times deeper. Riches won't save even your body. ELLIE. Old-fashioned again. We know now that the soul is the body, and the body the soul. They tell us they are different because they want to persuade us that we can keep our souls if we let them make slaves of our bodies. I am afraid you are no use to me, Captain. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What did you expect? A Savior, eh? Are you old-fashioned enough to believe in that? ELLIE. No. But I thought you were very wise, and might help me. Now I have found you out. Act 2 Heartbreak House 87 You pretend to be busy, and think of fine things to say, and run in and out to surprise people by saying them, and get away before they can answer you. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It confuses me to be answered. It discourages me. I cannot bear men and women. I have to run away. I must run away now [he tries to]. ELLIE [again seizing his arm]. You shall not run away from me. I can hypnotize you. You are the only person in the house I can say what I like to. I know you are fond of me. Sit down. EShe draws him to the sofa.] CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [yielding]. Take care: I am in my dotage. Old men are dangerous: it doesn't matter to them what is going to happen to the world. They sit side by side on the sofa. She leans affectionately against him with her head on his shoulder and her eyes half closed. ELLIE [dreamily]. I should have thought nothing else mattered to old men. They can't be very interested in what is going to happen to themselves. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. A man's interest in the world is only the overflow from his interest in himself. When you are a child your vessel is not yet full; so you care for nothing but your own affairs. When you grow up, your vessel overflows; and you are a politician, a philosopher, or an explorer and adventurer. In old age the vessel dries up: there is no overflow: you are a child again. I can give you the memories of my ancient wisdom: mere scraps and leavings; but I no longer really care for anything but my own little wants and hobbies. I sit here working out my old ideas as a means of destroying my fellow-creatures. I see my daughters and their men living foolish lives of romance and sentiment and snobbery. I see you, the younger generation, turning from their romance and sentiment and snobbery to money and comfort 88 Heartbreak House Act 2 and hard common sense. I was ten times happier on the bridge in the typhoon, or frozen into Arctic ice for months in darkness, than you or they have ever been. You are looking for a rich husband. At your age I looked for hardship, danger, horror, and death, that I might feel the life in me more intensely. I did not let the fear of death govern my life; and my reward was, I had my life. You are going to let the fear of poverty govern your life; and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live. ELLIE [sitting up impatiently]. But what can I do? I am not a sea captain: I can't stand on bridges in typhoons, or go slaughtering seals and whales in Greenland's icy mountains. They won't let women be captains. Do you want me to be a stewardess? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. There are worse lives. The stewardesses could come ashore if they liked; but they sail and sail and sail. ELLIE. What could they do ashore but marry for money? I don't want to be a stewardess: I am too bad a sailor. Think of something else for me. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I can't think so long and continuously. I am too old. I must go in and out. [He tries to rise.] ELLIE [pulling him back]. You shall not. You are happy here, aren't you? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I tell you it's dangerous to keep me. I can't keep awake and alert. ELLIE. What do you run away for? To sleep? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No. To get a glass of rum. ELLIE [frightfully disillusioned]. Is that it? How disgusting! Do you like being drunk? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No: I dread being drunk more than anything in the world. To be drunk means to have dreams; to go soft; to be easily pleased and deceived; to fall into the clutches of women. Drink Act 2 Heartbreak House 89 does that for you when you are young. But when you are old: very very old, like me, the dreams come by themselves. You don't know how terrible that is: you are young: you sleep at night only, and sleep soundly. But later on you will sleep in the afternoon. Later still you will sleep even in the morning; and you will awake tired, tired of life. You will never be free from dozing and dreams; the dreams will steal upon your work every ten minutes unless you can awaken yourself with rum. I drink now to keep sober; but the dreams are conquering: rum is not what it was: I have had ten glasses since you came; and it might be so much water. Go get me another: Guinness knows where it is. You had better see for yourself the horror of an old man drinking. ELLIE. You shall not drink. Dream. I like you to dream. You must never be in the real world when we talk together. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I am too weary to resist, or too weak. I am in my second childhood. I do not see you as you really are. I can't remember what I really am. I feel nothing but the accursed happiness I have dreaded all my life long: the happiness that comes as life goes, the happiness of yielding and dreaming instead of resisting and doing, the sweetness of the fruit that is going rotten. ELLIE. You dread it almost as much as I used to dread losing my dreams and having to fight and do things. But that is all over for me: my dreams are dashed to pieces. I should like to marry a very old, very rich man. I should like to marry you. I had much rather marry you than marry Mangan. Are you very rich? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No. Living from hand to mouth. And I have a wife somewhere in Jamaica: a black one. My first wife. Unless she's dead. 90 Heartbreak House Act 2 ELLIE. What a pity! I feel so happy with you. [She takes his hand, almost unconsciously, and pats it.] I thought I should never feel happy again. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Why? ELLIE. Don't you know? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No. ELLIE. Heartbreak. I fell in love with Hector, and didn't know he was married. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Heartbreak? Are you one of those who are so sufficient to themselves that they are only happy when they are stripped of everything, even of hope? ELLIE [gripping the hand]. It seems so; for I feel now as if there was nothing I could not do, because I want nothing. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. That's the only real strength. That's genius. That's better than rum. ELLIE [throwing away his hand]. Rum! Why did you spoil it? Hector and Randall come in from the garden through the starboard door. HECTOR. I beg your pardon. We did not know there was anyone here. ELLIE [rising]. That means that you want to tell Mr Randall the story about the tiger. Come, Captain: I want to talk to my father; and you had better come with me. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [rising]. Nonsense! the man is in bed. ELLIE. Aha! I've caught you. My real father has gone to bed; but the father you gave me is in the kitchen. You knew quite well all along. Come. [She draws him out into the garden with her through the port door.] HECTOR. That's an extraordinary girl. She has the Ancient Mariner on a string like a Pekinese dog. Act 2 Heartbreak Houlse 91 RANDALL. Now that they have gone, shall we have a friendly chat? HECTOR. You are in what is supposed to be my house. I am at your disposal. Hector sits down in the draughtsman's chair, turning it to face Randall, who remains standing, leaning at his ease against the carpenter's bench. RANDALL. I take it that we may be quite frank. I mean about Lady Utterword. HECTOR. You may. I have nothing to be frank about. I never met her until this afternoon. RANDALL [straightening up]. What! But you are her sister's husband. HECTOR. Well, if you come to that, you are her husband's brother. RANDALL. But you seem to be on intimate terms with her. HECTOR. So do you. RANDALL. Yes: but I am on intimate terms with her. I have known her for years. HECTOR. It took her years to get to the same point with you that she got to with me in five minutes, it seems. RANDALL [vexed]. Really, Ariadne is the limit [he moves away huffishly towards the windows]. HECTOR [coolly]. She is, as I remarked to Hesione, a very enterprising woman. RANDALL [returning, much troubled]. You see, Hushabye, you are what women consider a goodlooking man. HECTOR. I cultivated that appearance in the days of my vanity; and Hesione insists on my keeping it up. She makes me wear these ridiculous things [indicating his Arab costume] because she thinks me absurd in evening dress. RANDALL. Still, you do keep it up, old chap. Now, 92 Heartbreak House Act 2 I assure you I have not an atom of jealousy in my disposition - HECTOR. The question would seem to be rather whether your brother has any touch of that sort. RANDALL. What! Hastings! Oh, don't trouble about Hastings. He has the gift of being able to work sixteen hours a day at the dullest detail, and actually likes it. That gets him to the top wherever he goes. As long as Ariadne takes care that he is fed regularly, he is only too thankful to anyone who will keep her in good humor for him. HECTOR. And as she has all the Shotover fascination, there is plenty of competition for the job, eh? RANDALL [angrily]. She encourages them. Her conduct is perfectly scandalous. I assure you, my dear fellow, I haven't an atom of jealousy in my composition; but she makes herself the talk of every place she goes to by her thoughtlessness. It's nothing more: she doesn't really care for the men she keeps hanging about her; but how is the world to know that? It's not fair to Hastings. It's not fair to me. HECTOR. Her theory is that her conduct is so correct - RANDALL. Correct! She does nothing but make scenes from morning till night. You be careful, old chap. She will get you into trouble: that is, she would if she really cared for you. HECTOR. Doesn't she? RANDALL. Not a scrap. She may want your scalp to add to her collection; but her true affection has been engaged years ago. You had really better be careful. HECTOR. Do you suffer much from this jealousy? RANDALL. Jealousy! I jealous! My dear fellow, haven't I told you that there is not an atom ofHECTOR. Yes. And Lady Utterword told me she never made scenes. Well, don't waste your jealousy Act 2 Heartbreak House 93 on my moustache. Never waste jealousy on a real man: it is the imaginary hero that supplants us all in the long run. Besides, jealousy does not belong to your easy man-of-the-world pose, which you carry so well in other respects. RANDALL. Really, Hushabye, I think a man may be allowed to be a gentleman without being accused of posing. HECTOR. It is a pose like any other. In this house we know all the poses: our game is to find out the man under the pose. The man under your pose is apparently Ellie's favorite, Othello. RANDALL. Some of your games in this house are damned annoying, let me tell you. HECTOR. Yes: I have been their victim for many years. I used to writhe under them at first; but I became accustomed to them. At last I learned to play them. RANDALL. If it's all the same to you I had rather you didn't play them on me. You evidently don't quite understand my character, or my notions of good form. HECTOR. Is it your notion of good form to give away Lady Utterword? RANDALL [a childishly plaintive note breaking into his huff]. I have not said a word against Lady Utterword. This is just the conspiracy over again. HECTOR. What conspiracy? RANDALL. You know very well, sir. A conspiracy to make me out to be pettish and jealous and childish and everything I am not. Everyone knows I am just the opposite. HECTOR [rising]. Something in the air of the house has upset you. It often does have that effect. [He goes to the garden door and calls Lady Utterword with commanding emphasis.] Ariadne! 94 Heartbreak House Act 2 LADY UTTERWORD [at some distance]. Yes. RANDALL. What are you calling her for? I want to speak - LADY UTTERWORD [arriving breathless]. Yes. You really are a terribly commanding person. What's the matter? HECTOR. I do not know how to manage your friend Randall. No doubt you do. LADY UTTERWORD. Randall: have you been making yourself ridiculous, as usual? I can see it in your face. Really, you are the most pettish creature. RANDALL. You know quite well, Ariadne, that I have not an ounce of pettishness in my disposition. I have made myself perfectly pleasant here. I have remained absolutely cool and imperturbable in the face of a burglar. Imperturbability is almost too strong a point of mine. But [putting his foot down with a stamp, and walking angrily up and down the room] I insist on being treated with a certain consideration. I will not allow Hushabye to take liberties with me. I will not stand your encouraging people as you do. HECTOR. The man has a rooted delusion that he is your husband. LADY UTTERWORD. I know. He is jealous. As if he had any right to be! He compromises me everywhere. He makes scenes all over the place. Randall: I will not allow it. I simply will not allow it. You had no right to discuss me with Hector. I will not be discussed by men. HECTOR. Be reasonable, Ariadne. Your fatal gift of beauty forces men to discuss you. LADY UTTERWORD. Oh indeed! what about your fatal gift of beauty? HECTOR. How can I help it? L LADY UTTERWORD. You could cut off your mous Act 2 Heartbreak House 95 tache: I can't cut off my nose. I get my whole life messed up with people falling in love with me. And then Randall says I run after men. RANDALL. I - LADY UTTERWORD. Yes you do: you said it just now. Why can't you think of something else than women? Napoleon was quite right when he said that women are the occupation of the idle man. Well, if ever there was an idle man on earth, his name is Randall Utterword. RANDALL. AriadLADY UTTERWORD [overwhelming him with a torrent of words]. Oh yes you are: it's no use denying it. What have you ever done? What good are you? You are as much trouble in the house as a child of three. You couldn't live without your valet. RANDALL. This is - LADY UTTERWORD. Laziness! You are laziness incarnate. You are selfishness itself. You are the most uninteresting man on earth. You can't even gossip about anything but yourself and your grievances and your ailments and the people who have offended you. [Turning to Hector.] Do you know what they call him, Hector? HECTOR [speaking Please don't tell me. RANDALL | together] I'll not stand it - LADY UTTERWORD. Randall the Rotter: that is his name in good society. RANDALL [shouting]. I'll not bear it, I tell you. Will you listen to me, you infernal - Ehe chokes]. LADY UTTERWORD. Well: go on. What were you going to call me? An infernal what? Which unpleasant animal is it to be this time? RANDALL [foaming]. There is no animal in the world so hateful as a woman can be. You are a maddening devil. Hushabye, you will not believe me when 96 Heartbreak House Act 2 I tell you that I have loved this demon all my life; but God knows I have paid for it [he sits down in the draughtsman's chair, weeping]. LADY UTTERWORD [standing over him with triumphant contempt]. Cry-baby! HECTOR [gravely, coming to him]. My friend, the Shotover sisters have two strange powers over men. They can make them love; and they can make them cry. Thank your stars that you are not married to one of them. LADY UTTERWORD [haughtily]. And pray, HectorHECTOR [suddenly catching her round the shoulders: swinging her right round him and away from Randall: and gripping her throat with the other hand]. Ariadne, if you attempt to start on me, I'll choke you: do you hear? The cat-and-mouse game with the other sex is a good game; but I can play your head off at it. [He throws her, not at all gently, into the big chair, and proceeds, less fiercely but firmly.] It is true that Napoleon said that woman is the occupation of the idle man. But he added that she is the relaxation of the warrior. Well, I am the warrior. So take care. LADY UTTERWORD [not in the least put out, and rather pleased by his violence]. My dear Hector, I have only done what you asked me to do. HECTOR. How do you make that out, pray? LADY UTTERWORD. You called me in to manage Randall, didn't you? You said you couldn't manage him yourself. HECTOR. Well, what if I did? I did not ask you to drive the man mad. LADY UTTERWORD. He isn't mad. That's the way to manage him. If you were a mother, you'd understand. HECTOR. Mother! What are you up to now? LADY UTTERWORD. It's quite simple. When the Act 2 Heartbreak House 97 children got nerves and were naughty, I smacked them just enough to give them a good cry and a healthy nervous shock. They went to sleep and were quite good afterwards. Well, I can't smack Randall: he is too big; so when he gets nerves and is naughty, I just rag him till he cries. He will be all right now. Look: he is half asleep already [which is quite true]. RANDALL [waking up indignantly]. I'm not. You are most cruel, Ariadne. ESentimentally.] But I suppose I must forgive you, as usual [he checks himself in the act of yawning]. LADY UTTERWORD [to Hector]. Is the explanation satisfactory, dread warrior? HECTOR. Some day I shall kill you, if you go too far. I thought you were a fool. LADY UTTERWORD [laughing]. Everybody does, at first. But I am not such a fool as I look. [She rises complacently.] Now, Randall, go to bed. You will be a good boy in the morning. RANDALL [only very faintly rebellious]. I'll go to bed when I like. It isn't ten yet. LADY UTTERWORD. It is long past ten. See that he goes to bed at once, Hector. [She goes into the garden.] HECTOR. Is there any slavery on earth viler than this slavery of men to women? RANDALL [rising resolutely]. I'll not speak to her tomorrow. I'll not speak to her for another week. I'll give her such a lesson. I'll go straight to bed without bidding her good-night. [He makes for the door leading to the hall.] HECTOR. You are under a spell, man. Old Shotover sold himself to the devil in Zanzibar. The devil gave him a black witch for a wife; and these two demon daughters are their mystical progeny. I am tied to Hesione's apron-string; but I'm her husband; 98 Heartbreak House Act 2 and if I did go stark staring mad about her, at least we became man and wife. But why should you let yourself be dragged about and beaten by Ariadne as a toy donkey is dragged about and beaten by a child? What do you get by it? Are you her lover? RANDALL. You must not misunderstand me. In a higher sense - in a Platonic sense - HECTOR. Psha! Platonic sense! She makes you her servant; and when pay-day comes round, she bilks you: that is what you mean. RANDALL [feebly]. Well, if I don't mind, I don't see what business it is of yours. Besides, I tell you I am going to punish her. You shall see: I know how to deal with women. I'm really very sleepy. Say good-night to Mrs Hushabye for me, will you, like a good chap. Good-night. [He hurries out.] HECTOR. Poor wretch! Oh women! women! women! [He lifts his fists in invocation to heaven.] Fall. Fall and crush. [He goes out into the garden.] ACT III In the garden, Hector, as he comes out through the glass door of the poop, finds Lady Utterword lying voluptuously in the hammock on the east side of the flagstaff, in the circle of light cast by the electric arc, which is like a moon in its opal globe. Beneath the head of the hammock, a campstool. On the other side of the flagstaff, on the long garden seat, Captain Shotover is asleep, with Ellie beside him, leaning affectionately against him on his right hand. On his left is a deck chair. Behind them in the gloom, Hesione is strolling about with Mangan. It is a fine still night, moonless. LADY UTTERWORD. What a lovely night! It seems made for us. HECTOR. The night takes no interest in us. What are we to the night? [He sits down moodily in the deck chair.] ELLI [dreamily, nestling against the captain]. Its beauty soaks into my nerves. In the night there is peace for the old and hope for the young. HECTOR. Is that remark your own? ELLIE. No. Only the last thing the captain said before he went to sleep. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I'm not asleep. HECTOR. Randall is. Also Mr Mazzini Dunn. Mangan, too, probably. MANGAN. No. HECTOR. Oh, you are there. I thought Hesione would have sent you to bed by this time. 99 100 Heartbreak House Act 3 MRS HUSHABYE [coming to the back of the garden seat, into the light, with Mangan]. I think I shall. He keeps telling me he has a presentiment that he is going to die. I never met a man so greedy for sympathy. MANGAN [plaintively]. But I have a presentiment. I really have. And you wouldn't listen. MRS HUSHABYE. I was listening for something else. There was a sort of splendid drumming in the sky. Did none of you hear it? It came from a distance and then died away. MANGAN. I tell you it was a train. MRS HUSHABYE. And I tell you, Alf, there is no train at this hour. The last is nine forty-five. MANGAN. But a goods train. MRS HUSHABYE. Not on our little line. They tack a truck on to the passenger train. What can it have been, Hector? HECTOR. Heaven's threatening growl of disgust at us useless futile creatures. [Fiercely.] I tell you, one of two things must happen. Either out of that darkness some new creation will come to supplant us as we have supplanted the animals, or the heavens will fall in thunder and destroy us. LADY UTTERWORD [in a cool instructive manner, wallowing comfortably in her hammock]. We have not supplanted the animals, Hector. Why do you ask heaven to destroy this house, which could be made quite comfortable if Hesione had any notion of how to live? Don't you know what is wrong with it? HECTOR. We are wrong with it. There is no sense in us. We are useless, dangerous, and ought to be abolished. LADY UTTERWORD. Nonsense! Hastings told me the very first day he came here, nearly twenty-four years ago, what is wrong with the house. Act 3 Heartbreak House 101 CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What! The numskull said there was something wrong with my house! LADY UTTERWORD. I said Hastings said it; and he is not in the least a numskull. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What's wrong with my house? LADY UTTERWORD. Just what is wrong with a ship, papa. Wasn't it clever of Hastings to see that? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The man's a fool. There's nothing wrong with a ship. LADY UTTERWORD. Yes, there is. MRS HUSHABYE. But what is it? Don't be aggravating, Addy. LADY UTTERWORD. Guess. HECTOR. Demons. Daughters of the witch of Zanzibar. Demons. LADY UTTERWORD. Not a bit. I assure you, all this house needs to make it a sensible, healthy, pleasant house, with good appetites and sound sleep in it, is horses. MRS HUSHABYE. Horses! What rubbish! LADY UTTERWORD. Yes: horses. Why have we never been able to let this house? Because there are no proper stables. Go anywhere in England where there are natural, wholesome, contented, and really nice English people; and what do you always find? That the stables are the real centre of the household; and that if any visitor wants to play the piano the whole room has to be upset before it can be opened, there are so many things piled on it. I never lived until I learned to ride; and I shall never ride really well because I didn't begin as a child. There are only two classes in good society in England: the equestrian classes and the neurotic classes. It isn't mere convention: everybody can see that the people who hunt are the right peonle and the people who don't are the wrong ones. 102 Heartbreak House Act 3 CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. There is some truth in this. My ship made a man of me; and a ship is the horse of the sea. LADY TTTERWORD. Exactly how Hastings explained your being a gentleman. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Not bad for a numskull. Bring the man here with you next time: I must talk to him. LADY UTTERWORD. Why is Randall such an obvious rotter? He is well bred; he has been at a public school and a university; he has been in the Foreign Office; he knows the best people and has lived all his life among them. Why is he so unsatisfactory, so contemptible? Why can't he get a valet to stay with him longer than a few months? Just because he is too lazy and pleasure-loving to hunt and shoot. He strums the piano, and sketches, and runs after married women, and reads literary books and poems. He actually plays the flute; but I never let him bring it into my house. If he would only -[she is interrupted by the melancholy strains of a flute coming from an open window above. She raises herself indignantly in the hammock]. Randall, you have not gone to bed. Have you been listening? [The flute replies pertly.] How vulgar! Go to bed instantly, Randall: how dare you? [The window is slammed down. She subsides.] How can anyone care for such a creature! MRS HUSHABYE. Addy: do you think Ellie ought to marry poor Alfred merely for his money? MANGAN [much alarmed]. What's that? Mrs Hush Act 3 Heartbreak House 103 abye, are my affairs to be discussed like this before everybody? LADY UTTERWORD. I don't think Randall is listening now. MANGAN. Everybody is listening. It isn't right. MRS HUSHABYE. But in the dark, what does it matter? Ellie doesn't mind. Do you, Ellie? ELLIE. Not in the least. What is your opinion, Lady Utterword? You have so much good sense. MANGAN. But it isn't right. It —[Mrs Hushabye puts her hand on his mouth.] Oh, very well. LADY UTTERWORD. How much money have you, Mr. Mangan? MANGAN. Really-No: I can't stand this. LADY UTTERWORD. Nonsense, Mr Mangan! It all turns on your income, doesn't it? MANGAN. Well, if you come to that, how much money has she? ELLIE. None. LADY UTTERWORD. You are answered, Mr Mangan. And now, as you have made Miss Dunn throw her cards on the table, you cannot refuse to show your own. MRS HUSHABYE. Come, Alf! out with it! How much? MANGAN [baited out of all prudence]. Well, if you want to know, I have no money and never had any. MRS HUSHABYE. Alfred, you mustn't tell naughty stories. MANGAN. I'm not telling you stories. I'm telling you the raw truth. LADY UTTERWORD. Then what do you live on, Mr Mangan? MANGAN. Travelling expenses. And a trifle of commission. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What more have any of us but travelling expenses for our life's journey? 104 Heartbreak Hlouse Act 3 MRS HUSHABYE. But you have factories and capital and things? MANGAN. People think I have. People think I'm an industrial Napoleon. That's why Miss Ellie wants to marry me. But I tell you I have nothing. ELLIE. Do you mean that the factories are like Marcus's tigers? That they don't exist? MANGAN. They exist all right enough. But they're not mine. They belong to syndicates and shareholders and all sorts of lazy good-for-nothing capitalists. I get money from such people to start the factories. I find people like Miss Dunn's father to work them, and keep a tight hand so as to make them pay. Of course I make them keep me going pretty well; but it's a dog's life; and I don't own anything. MRS HUSHABYE. Alfred, Alfred, you are making a poor mouth of it to get out of marrying Ellie. MANGAN. I'm telling the truth about my money for the first time in my life; and it's the first time my word has ever been doubted. LADY UTTERWORD. How sad! Why don't you go in for politics, Mr Mangan? MANGAN. Go in for politics! Where have you been living? I am in politics. LADY UTTERWORD. I'm sure I beg your pardon. I never heard of you. MANGAN. Let me tell you, Lady Utterword, that the Prime Minister of this country asked me to join the Government without even going through the nonsense of an election, as the dictator of a great public department. LADY UTTERWORD. As a Conservative or a Liberal? MANGAN. No such nonsense. As a practical business man. [They all burst out laughing.] What are you all laughing at? MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, Alfred, Alfred! Act 8 Heartbreak House 105 ELLIE. You! who have to get my father to do everything for you! MRS HUSHABYE. You! who are afraid of your own workmen! HECTOR. You! with whom three women have been playing cat and mouse all the evening! LADY UTTERWORD. You must have given an immense sum to the party funds, Mr Mangan. MANGAN. Not a penny out of my own pocket. The syndicate found the money: they knew how useful I should be to them in the Government. LADY UTTERWORD. This is most interesting and unexpected, Mr Mangan. And what have your administrative achievements been, so far? MANGAN. Achievements? Well, I don't know what you call achievements; but I've jolly well put a stop to the games of the other fellows in the other departments. Every man of them thought he was going to save the country all by himself, and do me out of the credit and out of my chance of a title. I took good care that if they wouldn't let me do it they shouldn't do it themselves either. I may not know anything about my own machinery; but I know how to stick a ' ramrod into the other fellow's. And now they all look the biggest fools going. HECTOR. And in heaven's name, what do you look like? MANGAN. I look like the fellow that was too clever for all the others, don't I? If that isn't a triumph of practical business, what is? HECTOR. Is this England, or is it a madhouse? LADY UTTERWORD. Do you expect to save the country, Mr Mangan? MANGAN. Well, who else will? Will your Mr Randall save it? LADY UTTERWORD. Randall the rotter! Certainly not. 106 Heartbreakr House Act 3 MANGAN. Will your brother-in-law save it with his moustache and his fine talk? HECTOR. Yes, if they will let me. ANGAN [sneering]. Ah! Will they let you? HECTOR. No. They prefer you. MANGAN. Very well then, as you're in a world where I'm appreciated and you're not, you'd best be civil to me, hadn't you? Who else is there but me? LADY UTTERWORD. There is Hastings. Get rid of your ridiculous sham democracy; and give Hastings the necessary powers, and a good supply of bamboo to bring the British native to his senses: he will save the country with the greatest ease. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It had better be lost. Any fool can govern with a stick in his hand. I could govern that way. It is not God's way. The man is a numskull. LADY UTTERWORD. The man is worth all of you rolled into one. What do you say, Miss Dunn? ELLIE. I think my father would do very well if people did not put upon him and cheat him and despise him because he is so good. MANGAN [contemptuously]. I think I see Mazzini Dunn getting into parliament or pushing his way into the Government. We've not come to that yet, thank God! What do you say, Mrs Hushabye? MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, I say it matters very little which of you governs the country so long as we govern you. HECTOR. We? Who is we, pray? MRS HUSHABYE. The devil's granddaughters, dear. The lovely women. HECTOR [raising his hands as before]. Fall, I say, and deliver us from the lures of Satan! ELLIE. There seems to be nothing real in the world except my father and Shakespeare. Marcus's tigers are Act 3 Heartbreak House 107 false; Mr Mangan's millions are false; there is nothing really strong and true about Hesione but her beautiful black hair; and Lady Utterword's is too pretty to be real. The one thing that was left to me was the Captain's seventh degree of concentration; and that turns out to be - CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Rum. LADY UTTERWORD [placidly]. A good deal of my hair is quite genuine. The Duchess of Dithering offered me fifty guineas for this [touching her forehead] under the impression that it was a transformation; but it is all natural except the color. MANGAN [wildly]. Look here: I'm going to take off all my clothes [he begins tearing off his coat]. LADY UTTERWORD. n. f Mr Mangan! CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. co sterna What's that? HECTOR. sterna ha! Do. Do. ELLIE. n Please don't. MRS HUSHABYE [catching his arm and stopping him]. Alfred, for shame! Are you mad? MANGAN. Shame! What shame is there in this house? Let's all strip stark naked. We may as well do the thing thoroughly when we're about it. We've stripped ourselves morally naked: well, let us strip ourselves physically naked as well, and see how we like it. I tell you I can't bear this. I was brought up to be respectable. I don't mind the women dyeing their hair and the men drinking: it's human nature. But it's not human nature to tell everybody about it. Every time one of you opens your mouth I go like this [he cowers as if to avoid a missile], afraid of what will come next. How are we to have any self-respect if we don't keep it up that we're better than we really are? LADY UTTERWORD. I quite sympathize with you, Mr Mangan. I have been through it all; and I know by 108 Heartbreak House Act 3 experience that men and women are delicate plants and must be cultivated under glass. Our family habit of throwing stones in all directions and letting the air in is not only unbearably rude, but positively dangerous. Still, there is no use catching physical colds as well as moral ones; so please keep your clothes on. MANGAN. I'll do as I like: not what you tell me. Am I a child or a grown man? I won't stand this mothering tyranny. I'll go back to the city, where I'm respected and made much of. MRS HUSHABYE. Goodbye, Alf. Think of us sometimes in the city. Think of Ellie's youth! ELLIE. Think of Hesione's eyes and hair! CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Think of this garden in which you are not a dog barking to keep the truth out! HECTOR. Think of Lady Utterword's beauty! her good sense! her style! LADY UTTERWORD. Flatterer. Think, Mr. Mangan, whether you can really do any better for yourself elsewhere: that is the essential point, isn't it? MANGAN [surrendering]. All right: all right. I'm done. Have it your own way. Only let me alone. I don't know whether I'm on my head or my heels when you all start on me like this. I'll stay. I'll marry her. I'll do anything for a quiet life. Are you satisfied now? ELLIE. No. I never really intended to make you marry me, Mr Mangan. Never in the depths of my soul. I only wanted to feel my strength: to know that you could not escape if I chose to take you. MANGAN [indignantly]. What! Do you mean to say you are going to throw me over after my acting so handsome? LADY UTTERWORD. I should not be too hasty, Miss Dunn. You can throw Mr Mangan over at any time up to the last moment. Very few men in his position Act 3 Heartbreak House 109 go bankrupt. You can live very comfortably on his reputation for immense wealth. ELLE. I cannot commit bigamy, Lady Utterword. MRS HUSHABYE. Bigamy! Whatever on earth are you talking about, Ellie? LADY UTTERWORD. Bigamy! What do [exclaim- you mean, Miss ing all Dunn? MANGAN. together] Bigamy! Do you mean to say you're married already? HECTOR. Bigamy! This is some enigma. ELLIE. Only half an hour ago I became Captain Shotover's white wife. MRS HUSHABYE. Ellie! What nonsense! Where? ELLIE. In heaven, where all true marriages are made. LADY UTTERWORD. Really, Miss Dunn! Really, papa! MANGAN. He told me I was too old! And him a mummy! HECTOR [quoting Shelley]. "Their altar the grassy earth outspread, And their priest the muttering wind." ELLIE. Yes: I, Ellie Dunn, give my broken heart and my strong sound soul to its natural captain, my spiritual husband and second father. She draws the captain's arm through hers, and pats his hand. The captain remains fast asleep. MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, that's very clever of you, pettikins. Very clever. Alfred, you could never have lived up to Ellie. You must be content with a little share of me. MANGAN [sniffing and wiping his eyes]. It isn't kind - [his emotion chokes him]. 110 Heartbreak House Act 3 LADY UTTERWORD. You are well out of it, Mr Mangan. Miss Dunn is the most conceited young woman I have met since I came back to England. MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, Ellie isn't conceited. Are you, pettikins? ELLIE. I know my strength now, Hesione. MANGAN. Brazen, I call you. Brazen. MRS HUSHABYE. Tut, tut, Alfred: don't be rude. Don't you feel how lovely this marriage night is, made in heaven? Aren't you happy, you and Hector? Open your eyes: Addy and Ellie look beautiful enough to please the most fastidious man: we live and love and have not a care in the world. We women have managed all that for you. Why in the name of common sense do you go on as if you were two miserable wretches? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I tell you happiness is no good. You can be happy when you are only half alive. I am happier now I am half dead than ever I was in my prime. But there is no blessing on my happiness. ELIE [her face lighting up]. Life with a blessing! that is what I want. Now I know the real reason why I couldn't marry Mr Mangan: there would be no blessing on our marriage. There is a blessing on my broken heart. There is a blessing on your beauty, Hesione. There is a blessing on your father's spirit. Even on the lies of Marcus there is a blessing; but on Mr Mangan's money there is none. MANGAN. I don't understand a word of that. ELLIE. Neither do I. But I know it means something. MANGAN. Don't say there was any difficulty about the blessing. I was ready to get a bishop to marry us. MRS HUSHABYE. Isn't he a fool, pettikins? HECTOR fiercely]. Do not scorn the man. We are all fools. Act 3 Heartbreak House 111 Mazzini, in pyjamas and a richly colored silk dressinggown, comes from the house, on Lady Utterword's side. MRS HUSHABYE. Oh! here comes the only man who ever resisted me. What's the matter, Mr Dunn? Is the house on fire? MAZZINI. Oh, no: nothing's the matter: but really it's impossible to go to sleep with such an interesting conversation going on under one's window, and on such a beautiful night too. I just had to come down and join you all. What has it all been about? MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, wonderful things, soldier of freedom. HECTOR. For example, Mangan, as a practical business man, has tried to undress himself and has failed ignominiously; whilst you, as an idealist, have succeeded brilliantly. MAZZINI. I hope you don't mind my being like this, Mrs Hushabye. [He sits down on the campstool.] MRS HUSHABYE. On the contrary, I could wish you always like that. LADY UTTERWORD. Your daughter's match is off, Mr Dunn. It seems that Mr Mangan, whom we all supposed to be a man of property, owns absolutely nothing. MAZZINI. Well, of course I knew that, Lady Utterword. But if people believe in him and are always giving him money, whereas they don't believe in me and never give me any, how can I ask poor Ellie to depend on what I can do for her? MANGAN. Don't you run away with this idea that I have nothing. IHECTOR. Oh, don't explain. We understand. You have a couple of thousand pounds in exchequer bills, 50,000 shares worth tenpence a dozen, and half a dozen tabloids of cyanide of potassium to poison yourself with when you are found out. That's the reality of your millions. 112 Heartbreak House Act 3 MAZZINI. Oh no, no, no. He is quite honest: the businesses are genuine and perfectly legal. HECTOR [disgusted]. Yah! Not even a great swindler! MANGAN. So you think. But I've been too many for some honest men, for all that. LADY UTTERWORD. There is no pleasing you, Mr Mangan. You are determined to be neither rich nor poor, honest nor dishonest. MANGAN. There you go again. Ever since I came into this silly house I have been made to look like a fool, though I'm as good a man in this house as in the city. ELLIE [musically]. Yes: this silly house, this strangely happy house, this agonizing house, this house without foundations. I shall call it Heartbreak House. MRS HUSHABYE. Stop, Ellie; or I shall howl like an animal. MANGAN [breaks into a low snivelling]!!! MRS HUSHABYE. There! you have set Alfred off. ELLIE. I like him best when he is howling. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Silence! [Mangan subsides into silence.] I say, let the heart break in silence. HECTOR. Do you accept that name for your house? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It is not my house: it is only my kennel. HECTOR. We have been too long here. We do not live in this house: we haunt it. LADY UTTERWORD [heart torn]. It is dreadful to think how you have been here all these years while I have gone round the world. I escaped young; but it has drawn me back. It wants to break my heart too. But it shan't. I have left you and it behind. It was silly of me to come back. I felt sentimental about papa and Hesione and the old place. I felt them calling to me. Act 3 Heartbreak House 113 MAZZINI. But what a very natural and kindly and charming human feeling, Lady Utterword! LADY UTTERWORD. So I thought, Mr Dunn. But I know now that it was only the last of my influenza. I found that I was not remembered and not wanted. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You left because you did not want us. Was there no heartbreak in that for your father? You tore yourself up by the roots; and the ground healed up and brought forth fresh plants and forgot you. What right had you to come back and probe old wounds? MRS HUSHABYE. You were a complete stranger to me at first, Addy; but now I feel as if you had never been away. LADY UTTERWORD. Thank you, Hesione; but the influenza is quite cured. The place may be Heartbreak House to you, Miss Dunn, and to this gentleman from the city who seems to have so little self-control; but to me it is only a very ill-regulated and rather untidy villa without any stables. HECTOR. Inhabited by -? ELLIE. A crazy old sea captain and a young singer who adores him. MRS HUSHABYE. A sluttish female, trying to stave off a double chin and an elderly spread, vainly wooing a born soldier of freedom. MAZZINI. Oh, really, Mrs Hushabye - MANGAN. A member of His Majesty's Government that everybody sets down as a nincompoop: don't forget him, Lady Utterword. LADY UTTERWORD. And a very fascinating gentleman whose chief occupation is to be married to my sister. HECTOR. All heartbroken imbeciles. MAzzINI. Oh no. Surely, if I may say so, rather a favorable specimen of what is best in our English cul 114 Heartbreak House Act 3 ture. You are very charming people, most advanced, unprejudiced, frank, humane, unconventional, democratic, free-thinking, and everything that is delightful to thoughtful people. MRS HUSHABYE. You do us proud, Mazzini. MAZZINI. I am not flattering, really. Where else could I feel perfectly at ease in my pyjamas? I sometimes dream that I am in very distinguished society, and suddenly I have nothing on but my pyjamas! Sometimes I haven't even pyjamas. And I always feel overwhelmed with confusion. But here, I don't mind in the least: it seems quite natural. LADY UTTERWORD. An infallible sign that you are now not in really distinguished society, Mr Dunn. If you were in my house, you would feel embarrassed. MAZZINI. I shall take particular care to keep out of your house, Lady Utterword. LADY UTTERWORD. You will be quite wrong, Mr Dunn. I should make you very comfortable; and you would not have the trouble and anxiety of wondering whether you should wear your purple and gold or your green and crimson dressing-gown at dinner. You complicate life instead of simplifying it by doing these ridiculous things. ELLIE. Your house is not Heartbreak House: is it, Lady Utterword? HECTOR. Yet she breaks hearts, easy as her house is. That poor devil upstairs with his flute howls when she twists his heart, just as Mangan howls when my wife twists his. LADY UTTERWORD. That is because Randall has nothing to do but have his heart broken. It is a change from having his head shampooed. Catch anyone breaking Hastings' heart! CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The numskull wins, after all. LADY UTTERWORD. I shall go back to my numskull Act 3 Heartbreak House 115 with the greatest satisfaction when I am tired of you all, clever as you are. MANGAN [huffily]. I never set up to be clever. LADY UTTERWORD. I forgot you, Mr Mangan. MANGAN. Well, I don't see that quite, either. LADY UTTERWORD. You may not be clever, Mr Mangan; but you are successful. MANGAN. But I don't want to be regarded merely as a successful man. I have an imagination like anyone else. I have a presentiment - MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, you are impossible, Alfred. Here I am devoting myself to you; and you think of nothiing but your ridiculous presentiment. You bore me. Come and talk poetry to me under the stars. [She drags him away into the darkness.] MANGAN [tearfully, as he disappears]. Yes: it's all very well to make fun of me; but if you only knew - HECTOR [impatiently]. How is all this going to end? MAZZINI. It won't end, Mr Hushabye. Life doesn't end: it goes on. ELLIE. Oh, it can't go on forever. I'm always expecting something. I don't know what it is; but life must come to a point sometime. LADY UTTERWORD. The point for a young woman of your age is a baby. HECTOR. Yes, but, damn it, I have the same feeling; and I can't have a baby. LADY UTTERWORD. By deputy, Hector. HECTOR. But I have children. All that is over and done with for me: and yet I too feel that this can't last. We5-sit here talking, and leave everything to Mangan and to chance and to the devil. Think of the powers of destruction that Mangan and his mutual admiration gang wield! It's madness: it's like giving a torpedo to a badly brought up child to play at earthquakes with. 116 Heartbreak House Act 3 MAZZINI. I know. I used often to think about that when I was young. HECTOR. Think! What's the good of thinking about it? Why didn't you do something? MAZZINI. But I did. I joined societies and made speeches and wrote pamphlets. That was all I could do. But, you know, though the people in the societies thought they knew more than Mangan, most of them wouldn't have joined if they had known as much. You see they had never had any money to handle or any men to manage. Every year I expected a revolution, or some frightful smash-up: it seemed impossible that we could blunder and muddle on any longer. But nothing happened, except, of course, the usual poverty and crime and drink that we are used to. Nothing ever does happen. It's amazing how well we get along, all things considered. LADY UTTERWORD. Perhaps somebody cleverer than you and Mr Mangan was at work all the time. MAZZINI. Perhaps so. Though I was brought up not to believe in anything, I often feel that there is a great deal to be said for the theory of an over-ruling Providence, after all. LADY UTTERWORD. Providence! I meant Hastings. MAZZINI. Oh, I beg your pardon, Lady Utterword. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Every drunken skipper trusts to Providence. But one of the ways of Providence with drunken skippers is to run them on the rocks. MAZZINI. Very true, no doubt, at sea. But in politics, I assure you, they only run into jellyfish. Nothing happens. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. At sea nothing happens to the sea. Nothing happens to the sky. The sun comes up from the east and goes down to the west. The moon grows from a sickle to an arc lamp, and comes later and later until she is lost in the light as other things are Act 3 Heartbreak House 117 lost in the darkness. After the typhoon, the flyingfish glitter in the sunshine like birds. It's amazing how they get along, all things considered. Nothing happens, except something not worth mentioning. ELLIE. What is that, 0 Captain, 0 my captain? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [savagely]. Nothing but the smash of the drunken skipper's ship on the rocks, the splintering of her rotten timbers, the tearing of her rusty plates, the drowning of the crew like rats in a trap. ELLIE. Moral: don't take rum. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [vehemently]. That is a lie, child. Let a man drink ten barrels of rum a day, he is not a drunken skipper until he is a drifting skipper. Whilst he can lay his course and stand on his bridge and steer it, he is no drunkard. It is the man who lies drinking in his bunk and trusts to Providence that I call the drunken skipper, though he drank nothing but the waters of the River Jordan. ELLIE. Splendid! And you haven't had a drop for an hour. You see you don't need it: your own spirit is not dead. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Echoes: nothing but echoes. The last shot was fired years ago. HECTOR. And this ship that we are all in? This soul's prison we call England? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The captain is in his bunk, drinking bottled ditch-water; and the crew is gambling in the forecastle. She will strike and sink and split. Do you think the laws of God will be suspended in favor of England because you were born in it? HECTOR. Well, I don't mean to be drowned like a rat in a trap. I still have the will to live. What am I to do? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Do? Nothing simpler. Learn your business as an Englishman. 118 Heartbreak House Act 3 HECTOR. And what may my business as an Englishman be, pray? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Navigation. Learn it and live; or leave it and be damned. ELLIE. Quiet, quiet: you'll tire yourself. MAZZINI. I thought all that once, Captain; but I assure you nothing will happen. A dull distant explosion is heard. HECTOR [starting up]. What was that? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Something happening [he blows his whistle]. Breakers ahead! The light goes out. HECTOR [furiously]. Who put that light out? Who dared put that light out? NURSE GUINNESS [running in from the house to the middle of the esplanade]. I did, sir. The police have telephoned to say we'll be summoned if we don't put that light out: it can be seen for miles. HECTOR. It shall be seen for a hundred miles [he dashes into the house]. NURSE GUINNESS. The rectory is nothing but a heap of bricks, they say. Unless we can give the rector a bed he has nowhere to lay his head this night. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The Church is on the rocks, breaking up. I told him it would unless it headed for God's open sea. NURSE GUINNESS. And you are all to go down to the cellars. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Go there yourself, you and all the crew. Batten down the hatches. NURSE GUINNESS. And hide beside the coward I married! I'll go on the roof first. [The lamp lights up again.] There! Mr Hushabye's turned it on again. THE BURGLAR [hurrying in and appealing to Nurse Guinness]. Here: where's the way to that gravel pit? The boot-boy says there's a cave in the gravel pit. Act 3 Heartbreak House 119 Them cellars is no use. Where's the gravel pit, Captain? NURSE GUINNESS. Go straight on past the flagstaff until you fall into it and break your dirty neck. [She pushes him contemptuously towards the flagstaff, and herself goes to the foot of the hammock and waits there, as it were by Ariadne's cradle.] Another and louder explosion is heard. The burglar stops and stands trembling. ELLIE [rising]. That was nearer. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The next one will get us. [He rises.] Stand by, all hands, for judgment. THE BURGLAR. Oh my Lordy God! [He rushes away frantically past the flagstaff into the gloom.] MRS HUSHABYE [emerging panting from the darkness]. Who was that running away? [She comes to Ellie.] Did you hear the explosions? And the sound in the sky: it's splendid: it's like an orchestra: it's like Beethoven. ELLIE. By thunder, Hesione: it is Beethoven. She and Hesione throw themselves into one another's arms in wild excitement. The light increases. MAZZINI [anxiously]. The light is -getting brighter. NURSE GUINNESS [looking up at the house]. It's Mr Hushabye turning on all the lights in the house and tearing down the curtains. RANDALL [rushing in in his pyjamas, distractedly waving a flute]. Ariadne, my soul, my precious, go down to the cellars: I beg and implore you, go down to the cellars! LADY UTTERWORD [quite composed in her hammock]. The governor's wife in the cellars with the servants! Really, Randall! RANDALL. But what shall I do if you are killed? LADY UTTERWORD. You will probably be killed, too, Randall. Now play your flute to show that you are 120 Heartbreak House Act 3 not afraid; and be good. Play us "Keep the home fires burning." NURSE GUINNESS [grimly]. They'll keep the home fires burning for us: them up there. RANDALL [having tried to play]. My lips are trembling. I can't get a sound. MAZZINI. I hope poor Mangan is safe. MRS HUSHABYE. He is hiding in the cave in the gravel pit. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. My dynamite drew him there. It is the hand of God. HECTOR [returning from the house and striding across to his former place]. There is not half light enough. We should be blazing to the skies. ELLIE [tense with excitement]. Set fire to the house, Marcus. MRS HUSHABYE. My house! No. HECTOR. I thought of that; but it would not be ready in time. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The judgment has come. Courage will not save you; but it will show that your souls are still live. MRS HUSHABYE. Sh-sh! Listen: do you hear it now? It's magnificent. They all turn away from the house and look up, listening. HECTOR [gravely]. Miss Dunn, you can do no good here. We of this house are only moths flying into the candle. You had better go down to the cellar. ELLIE [scornfully]. I don't think. MAZZINI. Ellie, dear, there is no disgrace in going to the cellar. An officer would order his soldiers to take cover. Mr Hushabye is behaving like an amateur. Mangan and the burglar are acting very sensibly; and it is they who will survive. Act 3 Heartbreak House 121 ELLIE. Let them. I shall behave like an amateur. But why should you run any risk? MAZZINI. Think of the risk those poor fellows up there are running! NURSE GUINNESS. Think of them, indeed, the murdering blackguards! What next? A terrific explosion shakes the earth. They reel back into their seats, or clutch the nearest support. They hear the falling of the shattered glass from the windows. MAZZINI. Is anyone hurt? HECTOR. Where did it fall? NURSE GUINNESS [in hideous triumph]. Right in the gravel pit: I seen it. Serve un right! I seen it [she runs away towards the gravel pit, laughing harshly]. HECTOR. One husband gone. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Thirty pounds of good dynamite wasted. MAZZINI. Oh, poor Mangan! HECTOR. Are you immortal that you need pity him? Our turn next. They wait in silence and intense expectation. Hesione and Ellie hold each other's hand tight. A distant explosion is heard. MRS HUSHABYE [relaxing her grip]. Oh! they have passed us. LADY UTTERWORD. The danger is over, Randall. Go to bed. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Turn in, all hands. The ship is safe. [He sits down and goes asleep.] ELLIE [disappointedly]. Safe! HECTOR [disgustedly]. Yes, safe. And how damnably dull the world has become again suddenly! [He sits down.] MAZZINI [sitting down]. I was quite wrong, after all. It is we who have survived; and Mangan and the burglar - 122 Heartbreak House Act 3 HECTOR. - the two burglars LADY UTTERWORD. -the two practical men of business - MAZZINI.- both gone. And the poor clergyman will have to get a new house. MRS HUSHABYE. But what a glorious experience! I hope they'll come again tomorrow night. ELLIE [radiant at the prospect]. Oh, I hope so. Randall at last succeeds in keeping the home fires burning on his flute. GREAT CATHERINE "In Catherine's reign, whom Glory still adores" BYRON. XXVII I THE AUTHOR'S APOLOGY FOR GREAT CATHERINE EXCEPTION has been taken to the title of this seeming tomfoolery on the ground that the Catherine it represents is not Great Catherine, but the Catherine whose gallantries provide some of the lightest pages of modern history. Great Catherine, it is said, was the Catherine whose diplomacy, whose campaigns and conquests, whose plans of Liberal reform, whose correspondence with Grimm and Voltaire enabled her to cut such a magnificent figure in the eighteenth century. In reply, I can only confess that Catherine's diplomacy and her conquests do not interest me. It is clear to me that neither she nor the statesmen with whom she played this mischievous kind of political chess had any notion of the real history of their own times, or of the real forces that were moulding Europe. The French Revolution, which made such short work of Catherine's Voltairean principles, surprised and scandalized her as much as it surprised and scandalized any provincial governess in the French chateaux. The main difference between her and our modern Liberal Governments was that whereas she talked and wrote quite intelligently about Liberal principles before she was frightened into making such talking and writing a flogging matter, our Liberal ministers take the name of Liberalism in vain without knowing or caring enough about its meaning even to talk and 125 126 Great Catherine scribble about it, and pass their flogging Bills, and institute their prosecutions for sedition and blasphemy and so forth, without the faintest suspicion that such proceedings need any apology from the Liberal point of view. It was quite easy for Patiomkin to humbug Catherine as to the condition of Russia by conducting her through sham cities run up for the occasion by scenic artists; but in the little world of European court intrigue and dynastic diplomacy which was the only world she knew she was more than a match for him and for all the rest of her contemporaries. In such intrigue and diplomacy, however, there was no romance, no scientific political interest, nothing that a sane mind can now retain even if it can be persuaded to waste time in reading it up. But Catherine as a woman, with plenty of character and (as we should say) no morals, still fascinates and amuses us as she fascinated and amused her contemporaries. They were great sentimental comedians, these Peters, Elizabeths, and Catherines who played their Tsarships as eccentric character parts, and produced scene after scene of furious harlequinade with the monarch as clown, and of tragic relief in the torture chamber with the monarch as pantomime demon committing real atrocities, not forgetting the indispensable love interest on an enormous and utterly indecorous scale. Catherine kept this vast Guignol Theatre open for nearly half a century, not as a Russian, but as a highly domesticated German lady whose household routine was not at all so unlike that of Queen Victoria as might be expected from the difference in their notions of propriety in sexual relations. In short, if Byron leaves you with an impression that he said very little about Catherine, and that little not what was best worth saying, I beg to correct your Great Catherine 127 impression by assuring you that what Byron said was all there really is to say that is worth saying. His Catherine is my Catherine and everybody's Catherine. The young man who gains her favor is a Spanish nobleman in his version. I have made him an English country gentleman, who gets out of his rather dangerous scrape by simplicity, sincerity, and the courage of these qualities. By this I have given some offence to the many Britons who see themselves as heroes: what they mean by heroes being theatrical snobs of superhuman pretensions which, though quite groundless, are admitted with awe by the rest of the human race. They say I think an Englishman a fool. When I do, they have themselves to thank. I must not, however, pretend that historical portraiture was the motive of a play that will leave the reader as ignorant of Russian history as he may be now before he has turned the page. Nor is the sketch of Catherine complete even idiosyncratically, leaving her politics out of the question. For example, she wrote bushels of plays. I confess I have not yet read any of them. The truth is, this play grew out of the relations which inevitably exist in the theatre between authors and actors. If the actors have sometimes to use their skill as the author's puppets rather than in full self-expression, the author has sometimes to use his skill as the actors' tailor, fitting them with parts written to display the virtuosity of the performer rather than to solve problems of life, character, or history. Feats of this kind may tickle an author's technical vanity; but he is bound on such occasions to admit that the performer for whom he writes is "the onlie begetter" of his work, which must be regarded critically as an addition to the debt dramatic literature owes to the art of acting and its exponents. Those who have seen Miss Gertrude Kingston play the part 128 Great Catherine of Catherine will have no difficulty in believing that it was her talent rather than mine that brought the play into existence. I once recommended Miss Kingston professionally to play queens. Now in the modern drama there were no queens for her to play; and as to the older literature of our stage, did it not provoke the veteran actress in Sir Arthur Pinero's Trelawny of the Wells to declare that, as parts, queens are not worth a tinker's oath? Miss Kingston's comment on my suggestion, though more elegantly worded, was to the same effect; and it ended in my having to make good my advice by writing Great Catherine. History provided no other queen capable of standing up to our joint talents. In composing such bravura pieces, the author limits himself only by the range of the virtuoso, which by definition far transcends the modesty of nature. If my Russians seem more Muscovite than any Russian, and my English people more insular than any Briton, I will not plead, as I honestly might, that the fiction has yet to be written that can exaggerate the reality of such subjects; that the apparently outrageous Patiomkin is but a timidly bowdlerized ghost of the original; and that Captain Edstaston is no more than a miniature that might hang appropriately on the walls of nineteen out of twenty English country houses to this day. An artistic presentment must not condescend to justify itself by a comparison with crude nature; and I prefer to admit that in this kind my dramatis personce are, as they should be, of the stage stagey, challenging the actor to act up to them or beyond them, if he can. The more heroic the overcharging, the better for the performance. In dragging the reader thus for a moment behind the scenes, I am departing from a rule which I have hitherto imposed on myself so rigidly that I never per Great Catherine 129 mit myself, even in a stage direction, to let slip a word that could bludgeon the imagination of the reader by reminding him of the boards and the footlights and the sky borders and the rest of the theatrical scaffolding for which nevertheless I have to plan as carefully as if I were the head carpenter as well as the author. But even at the risk of talking shop, an honest playwright should take at least one opportunity of acknowledging that his art is not only limited by the art of the actor, but often stimulated and developed by it. No sane and skilled author writes plays that present impossibilities to the actor or to the stage engineer. If, as occasionally happens, he asks them to do things that they have never done before and cannot conceive as presentable or possible (as Wagner and Thomas Hardy have done, for example), it is always found that the difficulties are not really insuperable, the author having foreseen unsuspected possibilities both in the actor and in the audience, whose will-to-make-believe can perform the quaintest miracles. Thus may authors advance the arts of acting and of staging plays. But the actor also may enlarge the scope of the drama by displaying powers not previously discovered by the author. If the best available actors are only Horatios, the authors will have to leave Hamlet out, and be content with Horatios for heroes. Some of the difference between Shakespeare's Orlandos and Bassanios and Bertrams and his Hamlets and Macbeths must have been due not only to his development as a dramatic poet, but to the development of Burbage as an actor. Playwrights do not write for ideal actors when their livelihood is at stake: if they did, they would write parts for heroes with twenty arms like an Indian god. Indeed the actor often influences the author too much; for I can remember a time(I am not implying that it is yet wholly past) when the art of writing a fashionable 130 Great Catherine play had become very largely the art of writing it "round" the personalities of a group of fashionable performers of whom Burbage would certainly have said that their parts needed no acting. Everything has its abuse as well as its use. It is also to be considered that great plays live longer than great actors, though little plays do not live nearly so long as the worst of their exponents. The consequence is that the great actor, instead of putting pressure on contemporary authors to supply him with heroic parts, falls back on the Shakespearean repertory, and takes what he needs from a dead hand. In the nineteenth century, the careers of Kean, Macready, Barry Sullivan, and Irving, ought to have produced a group of heroic plays comparable in intensity to those of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides; but nothing of the kind happened: these actors played the works of dead authors, or, very occasionally, of live poets who were hardly regular professional playwrights. Sheridan Knowles, Bulwer Lytton, Wills, and Tennyson produced a few glaringly artificial high horses for the great actors of their time; but the playwrights proper, who really kept the theatre going, and were kept going by the theatre, did not cater for the great actors: they could not afford to compete with a bard who was not for an age but for all time, and who had, moreover, the overwhelming attraction for the actor-managers of not charging author's fees. The result was that the playwrights and the great actors ceased to think of themselves as having any concern with one another: Tom Robertson, Ibsen, Pinero, and Barrie might as well have belonged to a different solar system as far as Irving was concerned; and the same was true of their respective predecessors. Thus was established an evil tradition; but I at least can plead that it does not always hold good. If Great Catherine 131 Forbes Robertson had not been there to play Caesar, I should not have written Caesar and Cleopatra. If Ellen Terry had never been born, Captain Brassbound's conversion would never have been effected. The Devil's Disciple, with which I won my cordon bleu in America as a potboiler, would have had a different sort of hero if Richard Mansfield had been a different sort of actor, though the actual commission to write it came from an English actor, William Terriss, who was assassinated before he recovered from the dismay into which the result of his rash proposal threw him. For it must be said that the actor or actress who inspires or commissions a play as often as not regards it as a Frankenstein's monster, and will none of it. That does not make him or her any the less parental in the fecundity of the playwright. To an author who has any feeling of his business there is a keen and whimsical joy in divining and revealing a side of an actor's genius overlooked before, and unsuspected even by the actor himself. When I snatched Mr Louis Calvert from Shakespeare, and made him wear a frock coat and silk hat on the stage for perhaps the first time in his life, I do not think he expected in the least that his performance would enable me to boast of his Tom Broadbent as a genuine stage classic. Mrs Patrick Campbell was!amous before I wrote for her, but not for playing illiterate cockney flower-maidens. And in the case which is provoking me to all these impertinences, I am quite sure that Miss Gertrude Kingston, who first made her reputation as an impersonator of the most delightfully feather-headed and inconsequent ingenues, thought me more than usually mad when I persuaded her to play the Helen of Euripides, and then launched her on a queenly career as Catherine of Russia. It is not the whole truth that if we take care of the 132 Great Catherine actors the plays will take care of themselves; nor is it any truer that if we take care of the plays the actors will take care of themselves. There is both give and take in the business. I have seen plays written for actors that made me exclaim, "How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds makes deeds ill done!" But Burbage may have flourished the prompt copy of Hamlet under Shakespeare's nose at the tenth rehearsal and cried, "How oft the sight of means to do great deeds makes playwrights great!" I say the tenth because I am convinced that at the first he denounced his part as a rotten one; thought the ghost's speech ridiculously long; and wanted to play the king. Anyhow, whether he had the wit to utter it or not, the boast would have been a valid one. The best conclusion is that every actor should say, "If I create the hero in myself, God will send an author to write his part." For in the long run the actors will get the authors, and the authors the actors, they deserve. W- Great Catherine was performed for the first time at the Vaudeville Theatre in London on the 18th November 1913, with Gertrude Kingston as Catherine, Miriam Lewes as Varinka, Dorothy Massingham as Claire, Norman McKinnell as Patiomkin, Edmond Breon as Edstaston, Annie Hill as the Princess Dashkoff, and Eugene Mayeur and F. Cooke Beresford as Naryshkin and the Sergeant. GREAT CATHERINE THE FIRST SCENE 1776. Patiomkin in his bureau in the Winter Palace, St. Petersburgh. Huge palatial apartment: style, Russia in the eighteenth century imitating the Versailles du Roi Soleil. Extravagant luxury. Also dirt and disorder. Patiomkin, gigantic in stature and build, his face marred by the loss of one eye and a marked squint in the other, sits at the end of a table littered with papers and the remains of three or four successive breakfasts. He has supplies of coffee and brandy at hand sufficient for a party of ten. His coat, encrusted with diamonds, is on the floor. It has fallen off a chair placed near the other end of the table for the convenience of visitors. His court sword, with its attachments, is on the chair. His three-cornered hat, also bejewelled, is on the table. He himself is half dressed in an unfastened shirt and an immense dressinggown, once gorgeous, now food-splashed and dirty, as it serves him for towel, handkerchief, duster, and every other use to which a textile fabric can be put by a slovenly man. It does not conceal his huge hairy chest, nor his halfbuttoned knee breeches, nor his legs. These are partly clad in silk stockings, which he occasionally hitches up to his knees, and presently shakes down to his shins, by his restless movement. His feet are thrust into enormous slippers, worth, with their crust of jewels, several thousand roubles apiece. Superficially Patiomkin is a violent, brutal barbarian, 133 134 Great Catherine Scene 1 an upstart despot of the most intolerable and dangerous type, ugly, lazy, and disgusting in his personal habits. Yet ambassadors report him the ablest man in Russia, and the one who can do most with the still abler Empress Catherine II, who is not a Russian but a German, by no means barbarous or intemperate in her personal habits. She not only disputes with Frederick the Great the reputation of being the cleverest monarch in Europe, but may even put in a very plausible claim to be the cleverest and most attractive individual alive. Now she not only tolerates Patiomkin long after she has got over her first romantic attachment to him, but esteems him highly as a counsellor and a good friend. His love letters are among the best on record. He has a wild sense of humor, which enables him to laugh at himself as well as at everybody else. In the eyes of the English visitor now about to be admitted to his presence he may be an outrageous ruffan. In fact he actually is an outrageous ruffian, in no matter whose eyes; but the visitor will find out, as everyone else sooner or later finds out, that he is a man to be reckoned with even by those who are not intimidated by his temper, bodily strength, and exalted rank. A pretty young lady, Varinka, his favorite niece, is lounging on an ottoman between his end of the table and the door, very sulky and dissatisfied, perhaps because he is preoccupied with his papers and his brandy bottle, and she can see nothing of him but his broad back. There is a screen behind the ottoman. An old soldier, a Cossack sergeant, enters. THE SERGEANT [softly to the lady, holding the door handle]. Little darling honey, is his Highness the prince very busy? VARINKA. His Highness the prince is very busy. He is singing out of tune; he is biting his nails; he is scratching his head; he is hitching up his untidy Scene 1 Great Catherine 135 stockings; he is making himself disgusting and odious to everybody; and he is pretending to read state papers that he does not understand because he is too lazy and selfish to talk and be companionable. PATIOMKIN [growls; then wipes his nose with his dressing-gown]!! VARINKA. Pig. Ugh! [She curls herself up with a shiver of disgust and retires from the conversation.] THE SERGEANT [stealing across to the coat, and picking it up to replace it on the back of the chair]. Little Father, the English captain, so highly recommended to you by old Fritz of Prussia, by the English ambassador, and by Monsieur Voltaire (whom [crossing himself] may God in his infinite mercy damn eternally!), is in the antechamber and desires audience. PATIOMKIN [deliberately]. To hell with the English captain; and to hell with old Fritz of Prussia; and to hell with the English ambassador; and to hell with Monsieur Voltaire; and to hell with you too! THE SERGEANT. Have mercy on me, Little Father. Your head is bad this morning. You drink too much French brandy and too little good Russian kvass. PATIOMKIN [with sudden fury]. Why are visitors of consequence announced by a sergeant? [Springing at him and seizing him by the throat.] What do you mean by this, you hound? Do you want five thousand blows of the stick? Where is General Volkonsky? THE SERGEANT [on his knees]. Little Father, you kicked his Highness downstairs. PATIOMKIN [flinging him down and kicking him]. You lie, you dog. You lie. THE SERGEANT. Little Father, life is hard for the poor. If you say it is a lie, it is a lie. He fell downstairs. I picked him up; and he kicked me. They all kick me when you kick them. God knows that is not just, Little Father! 136 Great Catherine Scene 1 PATIOMKIN [laughs ogreishly; then returns to his place at the table, chuckling]!! VARINKA. Savage! Boot! It is a disgrace. No wonder the French sneer at us as barbarians. THE SERGEANT [who has crept round the table to the screen, and insinuated himself between Patiomkin's back and Varinka]. Do you think the Prince will see the captain, little darling? PATIOMKIN. He will not see any captain. Go to the devil! THE SERGEANT. Be merciful, Little Father. God knows it is your duty to see him! [To Varinka.] Intercede for him and for me, beautiful little darling. He has given me a rouble. PATIOMKIN. Oh, send him in, send him in; and stop pestering me. Am I never to have a moment's peace? The Sergeant salutes joyfully and hurries out, divining that Patiomkin has intended to see the English captain all along, and has played this comedy of fury and exhausted impatience to conceal his interest in the visitor. VARINKA. Have you no shame? You refuse to see the most exalted persons. You kick princes and generals downstairs. And then you see an English captain merely because he has given a rouble to that common soldier. It is scandalous. PATIOMKIN. Darling beloved, I am drunk; but I know what I am doing. I wish to stand well with the English. VARINA. And you think you will impress an Englishman by receiving him as you are now, half drunk? PATIOMKIN [gravely]. It is true: the English despise men who cannot drink. I must make myself wholly drunk [he takes a huge draught of brandy]. VARINKA. Sot! The Sergeant returns ushering a handsome strongly built young English officer in the uniform of a Light Scene 1 Grea~t Ca~therine 137 Dragoon. He is evidently on fairly good terms with himself, and very sure of his social position. He crosses the room to the end of the table opposite Patiomkin's, and awaits the civilities of that statesman with confidence. The Sergeant remains prudently at the door. THE SERGEANT [paternally]. Little Father, this is the English captain, so well recommended to her sacred Majesty the Empress. God knows, he needs your countenance and protec- [he vanishes precipitately, seeing that Patiomkin is about to throw a bottle at him. The Captain contemplates these preliminaries with astonishment, and with some displeasure, which is not allayed when Patiomkin, hardly condescending to look at his visitor, of whom he nevertheless takes stock with the corner of his one eye, says gruffly]. Well? EDSTASTON. My name is Edstaston: Captain Edstaston of the Light Dragoons. I have the honor to present to your Highness this letter from the British ambassador, which will give you all necessary particulars. [He hands Patiomkin the letter.] PATIOMKIN [tearing it open and glancing at it for about a second]. What do you want? EDSTASTON. The letter will explain to your Highness who I am. PATIOMKIN. I don't want to know who you are. What do you want? EDSTASTON. An audience of the Empress. [Patiomkin contemptuously throws the letter aside. Edstaston adds hotly.] Also some civility, if you please. PATIOMKIN [with derision]. Ho! VARINKA. My uncle is receiving you with unusual civility, Captain. He has just kicked a general downstairs. EDSTASTON. A Russian general, madam? VARINKA. Of course. EDSTASTON. I must allow myself to say, madam, A 138 Great Catherine Scene 1 that your uncle had better not attempt to kick an English officer downstairs. PATIOMKIN. You want me to kick you upstairs, eh? You want an audience of the Empress. EDSTASTON. I have said nothing about kicking, sir. If it comes to that, my boots shall speak for me. Her Majesty has signified a desire to have news of the rebellion in America. I have served against the rebels; and I am instructed to place myself at the disposal of her Majesty, and to describe the events of the war to her as an eye-witness, in a discreet and agreeable manner. PATIOMKIN. Psha! I know. You think if she once sets eyes on your face and your uniform your fortune is made. You think that if she could stand a man like me, with only one eye, and a cross eye at that, she must fall down at your feet at first sight, eh? EDSTASTON [shocked and indignant]. I think nothing of the sort; and I'll trouble you not to repeat it. If I were a Russian subject and you made such a boast about my queen, I'd strike you across the face with my sword. [Patiomkin, with a yell of fury, rushes at him.] Hands off, you swine! [As Patiomkin, towering over him, attempts to seize him by the throat, Edstaston, who is a bit of a wrestler, adroitly backheels him. He falls, amazed, on his back.] VARINKA [rushing out]. Help! Call the guard! The Englishman is murdering my uncle! Help! Help! The guard and the Sergeant rush in. Edstaston draws a pair of small pistols from his boots, and points one at the Sergeant and the other at Patiomkin, who is sitting on the floor, somewhat sobered. The soldiers stand irresolute. EDSTASTON. Stand off. [To Patiomkin.] Order them off, if you don't want a bullet through your silly head. THE SERGEANT. Little Father, tell us what to do. Scene 1 Great Catherine 139 Our lives are yours; but God knows you are not fit to die. PATIOMKIN [absurdly self-possessed]. Get out. THE SERGEANT. Little Father - PATIOMKIN [roaring]. Get out. Get out, all of you. [They withdraw, much relieved at their escape from the pistol. Patiomkin attempts to rise, and rolls over.] Here! help me up, will you? Don't you see that I'm drunk and can't get up? EDSTASTON [suspiciously]. You want to get hold of me. PATIOMKIN [squatting resignedly against the chair on which his clothes hang]. Very well, then: I shall stay where I am, because I'm drunk and you're afraid of me. EDSTASTON. I'm not afraid of you, damn you! PATIOMKIN [ecstatically]. Darling, your lips are the gates of truth. Now listen to me. [He marks off the items of his statement with ridiculous stiff gestures of his head and arms, imitating a puppet.] You are Captain Whatshisname; and your uncle is the Earl of Whatdyecallum; and your father is Bishop of Thingummybob; and you are a young man of the highest spr-promise (I told you I was drunk), educated at Cambridge, and got your step as captain in the field at the GLORIOUS battle of Bunker's Hill. Invalided home from America at the request of Aunt Fanny, Lady-in-Waiting to the Queen. All right, eh? EDSTASTON. How do you know all this? PATIOMKIN [crowing fantastically]. In er lerrer, darling, darling, darling, darling. Lerrer you showed me. EDSTASTON. But you didn't read it. PATIOMKIN [flapping his fingers at him grotesquely]. Only one eye, darling. Cross eye. Sees everything. Read lerrer inceince-istastaneously. Kindly give me vinegar borle. Green borle. On'y to sober me. Too 140 Great Catherine Scene 1 drunk to speak porply. If you would be so kind, darling. Green borle. [Edstaston, still suspicious, shakes his head and keeps his pistols ready.] Reach it myself. [He reaches behind him up to the table, and snatches at the green bottle, from which he takes a copious draught. Its effect is appalling. His wry faces and agonized belchings are so heartrending that they almost upset Edstaston. When the victim at last staggers to his feet, he is a pale fragile nobleman, aged and quite sober, extremely dignified in manner and address, though shaken by his recent convulsions.] Young man, it is not better to be drunk than sober; but it is happier. Goodness is not happiness. That is an epigram. But I have overdone this. I am too sober to be good company. Let me redress the balance. [He takes a generous draught of brandy, and recovers his geniality.] Aha! That's better. And now listen, darling. You must not come to Court with pistols in your boots. EDSTASTON. I have found them useful. PATIOMKIN. Nonsense. I'm your friend. You mistook my intention because I was drunk. Now that I am sober-in moderation- I will prove that I am your friend. Have some diamonds. [Roaring.] Hullo there! Dogs, pigs: hullo! The Sergeant comes in. THE SERGEANT. God be praised, Little Father: you are still spared to us. PATIOMKIN. Tell them to bring some diamonds. Plenty of diamonds. And rubies. Get out. [He aims a kick at the Sergeant, who flees.] Put up your pistols, darling. I'll give you a pair with gold handgrips. I am your friend. EDSTASTON [replacing the pistols in his boots rather unwillingly]. Your Highness understands that if I am missing, or if anything happens to me, there will be trouble. Scene 1 Great Catherine 141 PATIOMKIN [enthusiastically]. Call me darling. EDSTASTON. It is not the English custom. PATIOMKIN. You have no hearts, you English! [Slapping his right breast.] Heart! Heart! EDSTASTON. Pardon, your Highness: your heart is on the other side. PATIOMKIN [surprised and impressed]. Is it? You are learned! You are a doctor! You English are wonderful! We are barbarians, drunken pigs. Catherine does not know it; but we are. Catherine's a German. But I have given her a Russian heart [he is about to slap himself again]. EDSTASTON [delicately]. The other side, your Highness. PATIOMKIN [maudlin]. Darling, a true Russian has a heart on both sides. The Sergeant enters carrying a goblet filled with precious stones. PATIOMKIN. Get out. [He snatches the goblet and kicks the Sergeant out, not maliciously but from habit, indeed not noticing that he does it.] Darling, have some diamonds. Have a fistful. [He takes up a handful and lets them slip back through his fingers into the goblet, which he then offers to Edstaston.] EDSTASTON. Thank you, I don't take presents. PATIOMKIN [amazed]. You refuse! I1DSTASTON. I thank your Highness; but it is not the custom for English gentlemen to take presents of that kind. PATIOMKIN. Are you really an Englishman? EDSTASTON [bows]! PATIOMKIN. You are the first Englishman I ever saw refuse anything he could get. [He puts the goblet on the table; then turns again to Edstaston.] Listen, darling. You are a wrestler: a splendid wrestler. You threw me on my back like magic, though I could lift 142 Great Catherine Scene 1 you with one hand. Darling, you are a giant, a paladin. EDSTASTON [complacently]. We wrestle rather well in my part of England. PATIOMKIN. I have a Turk who is a wrestler: a prisoner of war. You shall wrestle with him for me. I'll stake a million roubles on you. EDSTASTON [incensed]. Damn you! do you take me for a prize-fighter? How dare you make me such a proposal? PATIOMKIN [with wounded feeling]. Darling, there is no pleasing you. Don't you like me? EDSTASTON [mollified]. Well, in a sort of way I do; though I don't know why I should. But my instructions are that I am to see the Empress; and - PATIOMKIN. Darling, you shall see the Empress. A glorious woman, the greatest woman in the world. But lemme give you piece 'vice-pah! still drunk. They water my vinegar. [He shakes himself; clears his throat; and resumes soberly.] If Catherine takes a fancy to you, you may ask for roubles, diamonds, palaces, titles, orders, anything! and you may aspire to everything: field-marshal, admiral, minister, what you please - except Tsar. EDSTASTON. I tell you I don't want to ask for anything. Do you suppose I am an adventurer and a beggar? PATIOMKIN [plaintively]. Why not, darling? I was an adventurer. I was a beggar. EDSTASTON. Oh, you! PATIOMKIN. Well: what's wrong with me? EDSTASTON. You are a Russian. That's different. PATIOMKIN [effusively]. Darling, I am a man; and you are a man; and Catherine is a woman. Woman reduces us all to the common denominator. [Chuckling.] Again an epigram! [Gravely.] You understand Scene 1 Great Catherine 143 it, I hope. Have you had a college education, darling? I have. EDSTASTON. Certainly. I am a Bachelor of Arts. PATIOMKIN. It is enough that you are a bachelor, darling: Catherine will supply the arts. Aha! Another epigram! I am in the vein today. EDSTASTON [embarrassed and a little offended]. I must ask your Highness to change the subject. As a visitor in Russia, I am the guest of the Empress; and I must tell you plainly that I have neither the right nor the disposition to speak lightly of her Majesty. PATIOMKIN. You have conscientious scruples? EDSTASTON. I have the scruples of a gentleman. PATIOMKIN. In Russia a gentleman has no scruples. In Russia we face facts. EDSTASTON. In England, sir, a gentleman never faces any facts if they are unpleasant facts. PATIOMKIN. In real life, darling, all facts are unpleasant. [Greatly pleased with himself.] Another epigram! Where is my accursed chancellor? these gems should be written down and recorded for posterity. [He rushes to the table: sits down: and snatches up a pen. Then, recollecting himself.] But I have not asked you to sit down. [He rises and goes to the other chair.] I am a savage: a barbarian. [He throws the shirt and coat over the table on to the floor and puts his sword on the table.] Be seated, Captain. EDSTASTON. Thank you. They bow to one another ceremoniously. Patiomkin's tendency to grotesque exaggeration costs him his balance; he nearly falls over Edstaston, who rescues him and takes the proffered chair. PATIOMKIN [resuming his seat]. By the way, what was the piece of advice I was going to give you? EDBTASTON. As you did not give it, I don't know. Allow me to add that I have not asked for your advice. 144 Greatt Catherine Scene 1 PATIOMKIN. I give it to you unasked, delightful Englishman. I remember it now. It was this. Don't try to become Tsar of Russia. EDSTASTON [in astonishment]. I haven't the slightest intention - PATIOMKIN. Not now; but you will have: take my words for it. It will strike you as a splendid idea to have conscientious scruples - to desire the blessing of the Church on your union with Catherine. EDSTASTON [rising in utter amazement]. My union with Catherine! You're mad. PATIOMKIN [unmoved]. The day you hint at such a thing will be the day of your downfall. Besides, it is not lucky to be Catherine's husband. You know what happened to Peter? EDSTASTON [shortly; sitting down again]. I do not wish to discuss it. PATIOMEIN. You think she murdered him? EDSTASTON. I know that people have said so. PATIOMKIN [thunderously; springing to his feet]. It is a lie: Orloff murdered him. [Subsiding a little.] He also knocked my eye out; but [sitting down placidly] I succeeded him for all that. And [patting Edstaston's hand very affectionately] I'm sorry to say, darling, that if you become Tsar, I shall murder you. EDSTASTON [ironically returning the caress]. Thank you. The occasion will not arise. [Rising.] I have the honor to wish your Highness good morning. PATIOMKIN [jumping up and stopping him on his way to the door]. Tut tut! I'm going to take you to the Empress now, this very instant. EDSTASTON. In these boots? Impossible! I must change. PATIOMKIN. Nonsense! You shall come just as you are. You shall show her your calves later on. 11. Scene 1 Gre,. t. Catherine 145 EDSTASTON. But it will take me only half an hour to - PATIOMKIN. In half an hour it will be too late for the petit lever. Come along. Damn it, man, I must oblige the British ambassador, and the French ambassador, and old Fritz, and Monsieur Voltaire and the rest of them. [He shouts rudely to the door.] Varinka! [To Edstaston, with tears in his voice.] Varinka shall persuade you: nobody can refuse Varinka anything. My niece. A treasure, I assure you. Beautiful! devoted! fascinating! [Shouting again.] Varinka, where the devil are you? VARINKA [returning]. I'll not be shouted for. You have the voice of a bear, and the manners of a tinker. PATIOMKIN. Tsh-sh-sh. Little angel Mother: you must behave yourself before the English captain. [He takes off his dressing-gown and throws it over the papers and the breakfasts: picks up his coat: and disappears behind the screen to complete his toilette.] EDSTASTON. Madam! [He bows.] VARINKA [courtseying]. Monsieur le Capitaine! EDSTASTON. I must apologize for the disturbance I made, madam. PATIOMKIN [behind the screen]. You must not call her madam. You must call her Little Mother, and beautiful darling. EDSTASTON. My respect for the lady will not permit it. VARINKA. Respect! How can you respect the niece of a savage? EDSTASTON [deprecatingly]. Oh, madam! VARINKA. Heaven is my witness, Little English Father, we need someone who is not afraid of him. He is so strong! I hope you will throw him down on the floor many, many, many times. PATIOMKIN [behind the screen]. Varinka! 146 Great Catherine Scene 1 VARIsNA. Yes? PATIOMKIN. Go and look through the keyhole of the Imperial bed-chamber; and bring me word whether the Empress is awake yet. VARINKA. Fi done! I do not look through keyholes. PATIOMKIN [emerging, having arranged his shirt and put on his diamonded coat]. You have been badly brought up, little darling. Would any lady or gentleman walk unannounced into a room without first looking through the keyhole? [Taking his sword from the table and putting it on.] The great thing in life is to be simple; and the perfectly simple thing is to look through keyholes. Another epigram: the fifth this morning! Where is my fool of a chancellor? Where is Popof? EDSTASTON [choking with suppressed laughter]!!!! PATIOMKIN [gratified]. Darling, you appreciate my epigram. EDSTASTON. Excuse me. Pop off! Ha! ha! I can't help laughing. What's his real name, by the way, in case I meet him? VARINKA [surprised]. His real name? Popof, of course. Why do you laugh, Little Father? EDSTASTON. How can anyone with a sense of humor help laughing? Pop off! [He is convulsed.] VARINKA [looking at her uncle, taps her forehead significantly]!! PATIOMKIN [aside to Varinka]. No: only English. He will amuse Catherine. [To Edstaston.] Come! you shall tell the joke to the Empress: she is by way of being a humorist [he takes him by the arm, and leads him towards the door]. EDSTASTON [resisting]. No, really. I am not fit - PATIOMKIN. Persuade him, Little angel Mother. VAINKA [taking his other arm]. Yes, yes, yes. Little Scene 1 Great Catherine 147 English Father: God knows it is your duty to be brave and wait on the Empress. Come. EDSTASTON. No. I had rather - PATIOMKIN [hauling him along]. Come. VARINKA [pulling him and coaxing him]. Come, little love: you can't refuse me. EDSTASTON. But how can I? PATIOMKIN. Why not? She won't eat you. VARINKA. She will; but you must come. EDSTASTON. I assure you- it is quite out of the question - my clothes - VARINKA. You look perfect. PATIOMKIN. Come along, darling. EDSTASTON [struggling]. Impossible — VARINKA. Come, come, come. EDSTASTON. No. Believe me - I don't wish - IVARINKA. Carry him, uncle. PATIOMKIN [lifting him in his arms like a father carrying a little boy]. Yes: I'll carry you. EDSTASTON. Dash it all, this is ridiculous! VARINKA [seizing his ankles and dancing as he is carried out]. You must come. If you kick you will blacken my eyes. PATIOMKIN. Come, baby, come. By this time they have made their way through the door and are out of hearing. THIE SECOND SCENE The Empress's petit lever. The central doors are closed. Those who enter through them find on their left, on a dais of two broad steps, a magnificent curtained bed. Beyond it a door in the panelling leads to the Empress's cabinet. Near the foot of the bed, in the middle of the room, stands a gilt chair, with the Imperial arms carved and the Imperial monogram embroidered. The Court is in attendance, standing in two melancholy rows down the side of the room opposite to the bed, solemn, bored, waiting for the Empress to awaken. The Princess Dashkoff, with two ladies, stands a little in front of the line of courtiers, by the Imperial chair. Silence, broken only by the yawns and whispers of the courtiers. Naryshkin, the Chamberlain, stands by the head of the bed. A loud yawn is heard from behind the curtains. NARYSHKIN [holding up a warning hand]. Ssh! The courtiers hastily cease whispering: dress up their lines: and stiffen. Dead silence. A bell tinkles within the curtains. Naryshkin and the Princess solemnly draw them and reveal the Empress. Catherine turns over on her back, and stretches herself. CATHERINE [yawning]. Heigho - ah - yah - ah - ow - what o'clock is it? [Her accent is German.] NARYSHKIN [formally]. Her Imperial Majesty is awake. [The Court falls on its knees.] ALL. Good morning to your Majesty. 148 Scene 2 Great~t Catherine 149 NARYSHKIN. Half-past ten, Little Mother. CATHERINE [sitting up abruptly]. Potztausend! [Contemplating the kneeling courtiers.] Oh, get up, get up. [All rise.] Your etiquette bores me. I am hardly awake in the morning before it begins. [Yawning again, and relapsing sleepily against her pillows.] Why do they do it, Naryshkin? NARYSHKIN. God knows it is not for your sake, Little Mother. But you see if you were not a great queen they would all be nobodies. CATHERINE [sitting up]. They make me do it to keep up their own little dignities? So? NARYSHKIN. Exactly. Also because if they didn't you might have them flogged, dear Little Mother. CATHERINE [springing energetically out of bed and seating herself on the edge of it]. Flogged! I! A Liberal Empress! A philosopher! You are a barbarian, Naryshkin. [She rises and turns to the courtiers.l And then, as if I cared! [She turns again to Naryshkin.] You should know by this time that I am frank and original in character, like an Englishman. [She walks about restlessly.] No: what maddens me about all this ceremony is that I am the only person in Russia who gets no fun out of my being Empress. You all glory in me: you bask in my smiles: you get titles and honors and favors from me: you are dazzled by my crown and my robes: you feel splendid when you have been admitted to my presence; and when I say a gracious word to you, you talk about it to everyone you meet for a week afterwards. But what do I get out of it? Nothing. [She throws herself into the chair. Naryshkin deprecates with a gesture; she hurls an emphatic repetition at him.] Nothing!! I wear a crown until my neck aches: I stand looking majestic until I am ready to drop: I have to smile at ugly old ambassadors and frown and turn my back on young and 150 Great Catherine Scene 2 handsome ones. Nobody gives me anything. When I was only an Archduchess, the English ambassador used to give me money whenever I wanted it - or rather whenever he wanted to get anything out of my sacred predecessor Elizabeth [the Court bows to the ground]; but now that I am Empress he never gives me a kopek. When I have headaches and colics I envy the scullerymaids. And you are not a bit grateful to me for all my care of you, my work, my thought, my fatigue, my sufferings. THE PRINCESS DASHKOFF. God knows, Little Mother, we all implore you to give your wonderful brain a rest. That is why you get headaches. Monsieur Voltaire also has headaches. His brain is just like yours. CATHERINE. Dashkoff, what a liar you are! [Dashkojf curtsies with impressive dignity.] And you think you are flattering me! Let me tell you I would not give a rouble to have the brains of all the philosophers, in France. What is our business for today? NARYSHKIN. The new museum, Little Mother. But the model will not be ready until tonight. CATHERINE [rising eagerly]. Yes, the museum. An enlightened capital should have a museum. [She paces the chamber with a deep sense of the importance of the museum.] It shall be one of the wonders of the world. I must have specimens: specimens, specimens, specimens. NARYSHKIN. You are in high spirits this morning, Little Mother. CATHERINE [with sudden levity]. I am always in high spirits, even when people do not bring me my slippers. [She runs to the chair and sits down, thrusting her feet out.] The two ladies rush to herfeet, each carrying a slipper. Catherine, about to put her feet into them, is checked by a disturbance in the antechamber. PATIOMKIN [carrying Edstaston through the ante Scene 2 Great Catherine 151 chamber]. Useless to struggle. Come along, beautiful baby darling. Come' to Little Mother. [He sings.] March him baby, Baby, baby, Lit-tle ba-by bumpkins. VARINKA [joining in to the same doggerel in canon, a third above]. March him, baby, etc., etc. EDSTASTON [trying to make himself heard]. No, no. This is carrying a joke too far. I must insist. Let me down! Hang it, will you let me down! Confound it! No, no. Stop playing the fool, will you? We don't understand this sort of thing in England. I shall be disgraced. Let me down. CATHERINE [meanwhile]. What a horrible noise! Naryshkin, see what it is. Naryshkin goes to the door. CATHERINE [listening]. That is Prince Patiomkin. NARYSHMIN [calling from the door]. Little Mother, a stranger. Catherine plunges into bed again and covers herself up. Patiomkin, followed by Varinka, carries Edstaston in: dumps him down on the foot of the bed: and staggers past it to the cabinet door. Varinka joins the courtiers at the opposite side of the room. Catherine, blazing with wrath, pushes Edstaston off her bed on to the floor: gets out of bed: and turns on Patiomkin with so terrible an expression that all kneel down hastily except Edstaston, who is sprawling on the carpet in angry confusion. CATHERINE. Patiomkin, how dare you? [Looking at Edstaston.] What is this? PATIOMKIN [on his knees, tearfully]. I don't know. I am drunk. What is this, Varinka? EDSTASTON [scrambling to his feet]. Madam, this drunken ruffian - 152 Great Catherine Scene 2 PATIOMKIN. Thas true. Drungn ruffian. Took dvantage of my being drunk. Said: take me to Lil angel Mother. Take me to beaufl Empress. Take me to the grea'st woman on earth. Thas whas he he said. I took him. I was wrong. I am not sober. CATHERINE. Men have grown sober in Siberia for less, Prince. PATIOMKIN. Serve em right! Sgusting habit. Ask Varinka. Catherine turns her face from him to the Court. The courtiers see that she is trying not to laugh, and know by experience that she will not succeed. They rise, relieved and grinning. VARINKA. It is true. He drinks like a pig. PATIOMIN Eplaintively]. No: not like pig. Like prince. Lil Mother made poor Patiomkin prince. Whas use being prince if I mayn't drink? CATHERINE [biting her lips]. Go. I am offended. PATIOMKIN. Don't scold, Lil Mother. CATHERINE [imperiously]. Go. PATIOMKIN [rising unsteadily]. Yes: go. Go bye bye. Very sleepy. Berr go bye bye than go Siberia. Go bye bye in Lil Mother's bed [he pretends to make an attempt to get into the bed]. CATHERINE [energetically pulling him back]. No, no! Patiomkin! What are you thinking of? [He falls like a log on the floor, apparently dead drunk.] THE PRINCESS DASHKOFF. Scandalous! An insult to your Imperial Majesty! CATHERINE. Dashkoff: you have no sense of humor. [She steps down to the floor level and looks indulgently at Patiomkin. He gurgles brutishly. She has an impulse of disgust.] Hog. [She kicks him as hard as she can.] Oh! You have broken my toe. Brute. Beast. Dashkoff is quite right. Do you hear? PATIOMKIN. If you ask my pi-pinion of Dashkoff, my Scene 2 Great Catherine 153 pipinion is that Dashkoff is drunk. Scanlous. Poor Patiomkin go bye bye. [He relapses into drunken slumbers.] Some of the courtiers move to carry him away. CATHERINE [stopping them]. Let him lie. Let him sleep it off. If he goes out it will be to a tavern and low company for the rest of the day. [Indulgently.] There! [She takes a pillow from the bed and puts it under his head: then turns to Edstaston: surveys him with perfect dignity: and asks, in her queenliest manner.] Varinka, who is this gentleman? VARINKA. A foreign captain: I cannot pronounce his name. I think he is mad. He came to the Prince and said he must see your Majesty. He can talk of nothing else. We could not prevent him. ESDTASTON [overwhelmed by this apparent betrayal]. Oh! Madam: I am perfectly sane: I am actually an Englishman. I should never have dreamt of approaching your Majesty without the fullest credentials. I have letters from the English ambassador, from the Prussian ambassador. [Naively.] But everybody assured me that Prince Patiomkin is all-powerful with your Majesty; so I naturally applied to him. PATIOMKIN [interrupts the conversation by an agonized wheezing groan as of a donkey beginning to bray]!!! CATHERINE [like a fishfag]. Schweig, du Hund. [Resuming her impressive royal manner.] Have you never been taught, sir, how a gentleman should enter the presence of a sovereign? EDSTASTON. Yes, Madam; but I did not enter your presence: I was carried. CATHERINE. But you say you asked the Prince to carry you. EDSTASTON. Certainly not, Madam. I protested against it with all my might. I appeal to this lady to confirm me. 154 Great Catherine Scene 2 VARINKA [pretending to be indignant]. Yes, you protested. But, all the same, you were very very very anxious to see her Imperial Majesty. You blushed when the Prince spoke of her. You threatened to strike him across the face with your sword because you thought he did not speak enthusiastically enough of her. [To Catherine.] Trust me: he has seen your Imperial Majesty before. CATHERINE Eto Edstaston]. You have seen us before? EDSTASTON. At the review, Madam. VARINKA [triumphantly]. Aha! I knew it. Your Majesty wore the hussar uniform. He saw how radiant! how splendid! your Majesty looked. Oh! he has dared to admire your Majesty. Such insolence is not to be endured. EDSTASTON. All Europe is a party to that insolence, Madam. THE PRINCESS DASHKOFF. All Europe is content to do so at a respectful distance. It is possible to admire her Majesty's policy and her eminence in literature and philosophy without performing acrobatic feats in the Imperial bed. EDSTASTON. I know nothing about her Majesty's eminence in policy or philosophy: I don't pretend to understand such things. I speak as a practical man. And I never knew that foreigners had any policy: I always thought that policy was Mr. Pitt's business. CATHERINE [lifting her eyebrows]. So? VARINKA. What else did you presume to admire her Majesty tor, pray? EDSTASTON [addled]. Well, I - I - I - that is, I - [He stammers himself dumb.] CATHERINE [after a pitiless silence]. We are waiting for your answer. EDSTASTON. But I never said I admired your Majesty. The lady has twisted my words. Scene 2 Great Catherine 155 VARINA. You don't admire her, then? EDSTASTON. Well, I - naturally - of course, I can't deny that the uniform was very becoming - perhaps a little unfeminine - still Dead silence. Catherine and the Court watch him stonily. He is wretchedly embarrassed. CATHERINE [with cold majesty]. Well, sir: is that all you have to say? EDSTASTON. Surely there is no harm in noticing that er - that er - [He stops again.] CATHERINE. Noticing that er -? [He gazes at her, speechless, like a fascinated rabbit. She repeats fiercely.] That er -? EDSTASTON [startled into speech]. Well, that your Majesty was - was - [soothingly] Well, let me put it this way: that it was rather natural for a man to admire your Majesty without being a philosopher. CATHERINE [suddenly smiling and extending her hand to him to be kissed]. Courtier! EDSTASTON [kissing it]. Not at all. Your Majesty is very good. I have been very awkward; but I did not intend it. I am rather stupid, I am afraid. CATHERINE. Stupid! By no means. Courage, Captain: we are pleased. [Hefalls on his knee. She takes his cheeks in her hands: turns up his face: and adds] We are greatly pleased. [She slaps his cheek coquettishly: he bows almost to hzs knee.] The petit lever is over. [She turns to go into the cabinet, and stumbles against the supine Patiomkin.] Ach! [Edstaston springs to her assistance, seizing Patiomkin's heels and shifting him out of the Empress's path.] We thank you, Captain. He bows gallantly and is rewarded by a very gracious smile. Then Catherine goes into her cabinet, followed by 156 Great Catherine Scene 2 the princess Dashkoff, who turns at the door to make a deep courtsey to Edstaston. VARINKA. Happy Little Father! Remember: I did this for you. [She runs out after the Empress.] Edstaston, somewhat dazed, crosses the room to the courtiers, and is received with marked deference, each courtier making him a profound bow or curtsey before withdrawing through the central doors. He returns each obeisance with a nervous jerk, and turns away from it, only to find another courtier bowing at the other side. The process finally reduced him to distraction, as he bumps into one in the act of bowing to another and then has to bow his apologies. But at last they are all gone except Naryshkin. EDSTASTON. OUf! PATIOMKIN [jumping up vigorously]. You have done it, darling. Superbly! Beautifully! EDSTASTON [astonished]. Do you mean to say you are not drunk? PATIOMKIN. Not dead drunk, darling. Only diplomatically drunk. As a drunken hog, I have done for you in five minutes what I could not have done in five months as a sober man. Your fortune is made. She likes you. EDSTASTON. The devil she does! PATIOMKIN. Why? Aren't you delighted? EDSTASTON. Delighted! Gracious heavens, man, I am engaged to be married. PATIOMKIN. What matter? She is in England, isn't she? EDSTASTON. No. She has just arrived in St. Petersburg. THE PRINCESS DASHKOFF [returning]. Captain Edstaston, the Empress is robed, and commands your presence. EDSTASTON. Say I was gone before you arrived Scene 2 Great Catherine 157 with the message. [He hurries out. The other three, too taken aback to stop him, stare after him in the utmost astonishment.] NARYSHKIN [turning from the door]. She will have him knouted. He is a dead man. THE PRINCESS DASHKOFF. But what am I to do? I cannot take such an answer to the Empress. PATIOMKIN. P-P-P-P-P-P-W-W-W-W-W-rrrrrr [a long puff, turning into a growl! [He spits.] I must kick somebody. NARYSHKIN [flying precipitately through the central doors]. No, no. Please. THE PRINCESS DASHKOFF [throwing herself recklessly in front of Patiomkin as he starts in pursuit of the Chamberlain]. Kick me. Disable me. It will be an excuse for not going back to her. Kick me hard. PATIOMKIN. Yah! [He flings her on the bed and dashes after Naryshkin.] THE THIRD SCENE In a terrace garden overlooking the Neva. Claire, a robust young English lady, is leaning on the river wall. She turns expectantly on hearing the garden gate opened and closed. Edstaston hurries in. With a cry of delight she throws her arms round his neck. CLAIRE. Darling! EDSTASTON [making a wry face]. Don't call me darling. CLAIRE [amazed and chiled]. Why? EDSTASTON. I have been called darling all the morning. CLAIRE [with a flash of jealousy]. By whom? EDSTASTON. By everybody. By the most unutterable swine. And if we do not leave this abominable city now: do you hear? now; I shall be called darling by the Empress. CLAIRE [with magnificent snobbery]. She would not dare. Did you tell her you were engaged to me? EDSTASTON. Of course not. CLAIRE. Why? EDSTASTON. Because I didn't particularly want to have you knouted, and to be hanged or sent to Siberia myself. CLAIRE. What on earth do you mean? EDSTASTON. Well, the long and short of it is — don't think me a coxcomb, Claire: it is too serious to mince matters - I have seen the Empress; and - CLAIRE. Well, you wanted to see her. 158 Scene 3 Great Catherine 159 EDSTASTON. Yes; but the Empress has seen me. CLAIRE. She has fallen in love with you! EDSTASTON. How did you know? CLAIRE. Dearest: as if anyone could help it. EDSTASTON. Oh, don't make me feel like a fool. But, though it does sound conceited to say it, I flatter myself I'm better looking than Patiomkin and the other hogs she is accustomed to. Anyhow, I daren't risk staying. CLAIRE. What a nuisance! Mamma will be furious at having to pack, and at missing the Court ball this evening. EDSTASTON. I can't help that. We haven't a moment to lose. CLAIRE. May I tell her she will be knouted if we stay? EDSTASTON. Do, dearest. He kisses her and lets her go, expecting her to run into the house. CLAIRE pausing thoughtfully]. Is she - is she goodlooking when you see her close? EDSTASTON. Not a patch on you, dearest. CLAIRE [jealous]. Then you did see her close? EDSTASTON. Fairly close. CLAIRE. Indeed! How close? No: that's silly of me: I will tell mamma. [She is going out when Naryshkin enters with the Sergeant and a squad of soldiers.] What do you want here? The Sergeant goes to Edstaston: plumps down on his knees: and takes out a magnificent pair of pistols with gold grips. He proffers them to Edstaston, holding them by the barrels. NARYSHKIN. Captain Edstaston: his Highness Prince Patiomkin sends you the pistols he promised you. THE SERGEANT. Take them, Little Father; and do 160 Great Catherine Scene 3 not forget us poor soldiers who have brought them to you; for God knows we get but little to drink. EDSTASTON [irresolutely]. But I can't take these valuable things. By Jiminy, though, they're beautiful! Look at them, Claire. As he is taking the pistols the kneeling Sergeant suddenly drops them; flings himself forward; and embraces Edstaston's hips to prevent him from drawing his own pistols from his boots. THE SERGEANT. Lay hold of him there. Pin his arms. I have his pistols. [The soldiers seize Edstaston.] EDSTASTON. Ah, would you, damn you! [He drives his knee into the Sergeant's epigastrium, and struggles furiously with his captors.] THE SERGEANT [rolling on the ground, gasping and groaning]. Owgh! Murder! Holy Nicholas! Owwwgh! CLAIRE. Help! help! They are killing Charles. Help! NARYSHKIN [seizing her and clapping his hand over her mouth]. Tie him neck and crop. Ten thousand blows of the stick if you let him go. [Claire twists herself loose: turns on him: and cuffs him furiously.] Yow-ow! Have mercy, Little Mother. CLAIRE. You wretch! Help! Help! Police! We are being murdered. Help! The Sergeant, who has risen, comes to Naryshkin's rescue, and grasps Claire's hands, enabling Naryshkin to gag her again. By this time Edstaston and his captors are all rolling on the ground together. They get Edstaston on his back and fasten his wrists together behind his knees. Next they put a broad strap round his ribs. Finally they pass a pole through this breast strap and through the wrist strap and lift him by it, helplessly trussed up, to carry him off. Meanwhile he is by no means suffering in silence. Scene 3 Great Catherine 161 EDSTASTON [gasping]. You shall hear more of this. Damn you, will you untie me? I will complain to the ambassador. I will write to the Gazette. England will blow your trumpery little fleet out of the water and sweep your tinpot army into Siberia for this. Will you let me go? Damn you! Curse you! What the devil do you mean by it? I'll - I'll - I'll- [he is carried out of hearing]. NARYSHKIN [snatching his hands from Claire's face with a scream, and shaking his finger frantically]. Agh! [The Sergeant, amazed, lets go her hands.] She has bitten me, the little vixen. CLAIRE [spitting and wiping her mouth disgustedly]. How dare you put your dirty paws on my mouth? Ugh! Psha! THE SERGEANT. Be merciful, Little angel Mother. CLAIRE. Do not presume to call me your little angel mother. Where are the police? NARYSHKIN. We are the police in St Petersburg, little spitfire. THE SERGEANT. God knows we have no orders to harm you, Little Mother. Our duty is done. You are well and strong; but I shall never be the same man again. He is a mighty and terrible fighter, as stout as a bear. He has broken my sweetbread with his strong knees. God knows poor folk should not be set upon such dangerous adversaries! CLAIRE. Serve you right! Where have they taken Captain Edstaston to? NARYSHKIN [spitefully]. To the Empress, little beauty. He has insulted the Empress. He will receive a hundred and one blows of the knout. [He laughs and goes out, nursing his bitten finger.] THE SERGEANT. He will feel only the first twenty and he will be mercifully dead long before the end, little darling. 162 Great Catherine Scene 3 CLAIRE [sustained by an invincible snobbery]. They dare not touch an English officer. I will go to the Empress myself: she cannot know who Captain Edstaston is - who we are. THE SERGEANT. Do so in the name of the Holy Nicholas, little beauty. CLAIRE. Don't be impertinent. How can I get admission to the palace? THE SERGEANT. Everybody goes in and out of the palace, little love. CLAIRE. But I must get into the Empress's presence. I must speak to her. THE SERGEANT. You shall, dear Little Mother. You shall give the poor old Sergeant a rouble; and the blessed Nicholas will make your salvation his charge. CLAIRE [impetuously]. I will give you [she is about to say fifty roubles, but checks herself cautiously]Well: I don't mind giving you two roubles if I can speak to the Empress. THE SERGEANT joyfuUlly]. I praise Heaven for you, Little Mother. Come. [He leads the way out.] It was the temptation of the devil that led your young man to bruise my vitals and deprive me of breath. We must be merciful to one another's faults. THE FOURTH SCENE A triangular recess communicating by a heavily curtained arch with the huge ballroom of the palace. The light is subdued by red shades on the candles. In the wall adjoining that pierced by the arch is a door. The only piece of furniture is a very handsome chair on the arch side. In the ballroom they are dancing a polonaise to the music of a brass band. Naryshkin enters through the door, followed by the soldiers carrying Edstaston, still trussed to the pole. Exhausted and dogged, he makes no sound. NARYSHKIN. Halt. Get that pole clear' of the prisoner. [They dump Edstaston on the floor and detach the pole. Naryshkin stoops over him and addresses him insultingly.] Well! are you ready to be tortured? This is the Empress's private torture chamber. Can I do anything to make you quite comfortable? You have only to mention it. EDSTASTON. Have you any back teeth? NARYSHKIN [surprised]. Why? EDSTASTON. His Majesty King George the Third will send for six of them when the news of this reaches London; so look out, damn your eyes! NARYSIKIN [frightened]. Oh, I assure you I am only obeying my orders. Personally I abhor torture, and would save you if I could. But the Empress is proud; and what woman would forgive the slight you put upon her? EDSTASTON. As I said before: Damn your eyes! 163 164 Great Catherine Scene 4 NARYSHKIN [almost in tears]. Well, it isn't my fault. [To the soldiers, insolently.] You know your orders? You remember what you have to do when the Empress gives you the word? [The soldiers salute in assent.] Naryshkin passes through the curtains, admitting a blare of music and a strip of the brilliant white candlelight from the chandeliers in the ballroom as he does so. The white light vanishes and the music is muffled as the curtains fall together behind him. Presently the band stops abruptly: and Naryshkin comes back through the curtains. He makes a warning gesture to the soldiers, who stand at attention. Then he moves the curtain to allow Catherine to enter. She is in full Imperial regalia, and stops sternly just where she has entered. The soldiers fall on their knees. CATHERINE. Obey your orders. The soldiers seize Edstaston, and throw him roughly at the feet of the Empress. CATHERINE [looking down coldly on him]. Also [the German word], you have put me to the trouble of sending for you twice. You had better have come the first time. EDSTASTON [exsufflicate, and pettishly angry]. I haven't come either time. I've been carried. I call it infernal impudence. CATHERINE. Take care what you say. EDSTASTON. No use. I daresay you look very majestic and very handsome; but I can't see you; and I am not intimidated. I am an Englishman; and you can kidnap me; but you can't bully me. NARYSHKIN. Remember to whom you are speaking. CATHERINE [violently, furious at his intrusion]. Remember that dogs should be dumb. [He shrivels.] And do you, Captain, remember that famous as I am for my clemency, there are limits to the patience even of an Empress. Scene 4 Great Catherine 165 EDSTASTON. How is a man to remember anything when he is trussed up in this ridiculous fashion? I can hardly breathe. [He makes a futile struggle to free himself.] Here: don't be unkind, your Majesty: tell these fellows to unstrap me. You know you really owe me an apology. CATHERINE. You think you can escape by appealing, like Prince Patiomkin, to my sense of humor? EDSTASTON. Sense of humor! Ho! Ha, ha! I like that. Would anybody with a sense of humor make a guy of a man like this, and then expect him to take it seriously? I say: do tell them to loosen these straps. CATHERINE [seating herself]. Why should I, pray? EDSTASTON. Why! Why! Why, because they're hurting me. CATHERINE. People sometimes learn through suffering. Manners, for instance. EDSTASTON. Oh, well, of course, if you're an illnatured woman, hurting me on purpose, I have nothing more to say. CATHERINE. A monarch, sir, has sometimes to employ a necessary and salutary severityEDSTASTON [interrupting her petulantly]. Quack! quack! quack! CATHERINE. Donnerwetter! EDSTASTON [continuing recklessly]. This isn't severity: it's tomfoolery. And if you think it's reforming my character or teaching me anything, you're mistaken. It may be a satisfaction to you; but if it is, all I can say is that it's not an amiable satisfaction. CATHERINE [turning suddenly and balefully on Naryshkin]. What are you grinning at? NARYSHKIN [falling on his knees in terror]. Be merciful, Little Mother. My heart is in my mouth. CATHERINE. Your heart and your mouth will be in 166 Great Catherine Scene 4 two separate parts of your body if you again forget in whose presence you stand. Go. And take your men with you. [Naryshkin crawls to the door. The soldiers rise.] Stop. Roll that [indicating Edstaston] nearer. [The soldiers obey.] Not so close. Did I ask you for a footstool? [She pushes Edstaston away with her foot.] EDSTASTON [with a sudden squeal]. Agh!!! I must really ask your Majesty not to put the point of your Imperial toe between my ribs. I am ticklesome. CATHERINE. Indeed? All the m6re reason for you to treat me with respect, Captain. [To the others.] Begone. How many times must I give an order before it is obeyed? NARYSHKIN. Little Mother: they have brought some instruments of torture. Will they be needed? CATHERINE [indignantly]. How dare you name such abominations to a Liberal Empress? You will always be a savage and a fool, Naryshkin. These relics of barbarism are buried, thank God, in the grave of Peter the Great. My methods are more civilized. [She extends her toe towards Edstaston's ribs.] EDSTASTON [shrieking hysterically]. Yagh! Ah! [Furiously.] If your Majesty does that again I will write to the London Gazette. CATHERINE [to the soldiers]. Leave us. Quick! do you hear? Five thousand blows of the stick for the soldier who is in the room when I speak next. [The soldiers rush out.] Naryshkin: are you waiting to be knouted? [Naryshkin backs out hastily.] Catherine and Edstaston are now alone. Catherine has in her hand a sceptre or baton of gold. Wrapped round it is a new pamphlet, in French, entitled L'Homme aux Quarante 1~cus. She calmly unrolls this and begins to read it at her ease as if she were quite alone. Several seconds elapse in dead silence. She becomes more and Scene 4 Great C atherine 167 more absorbed in the pamphlet, and more and more amused by it. CATHERINE [greatly pleased by a passage, and turning over the leaf]. Ausgezeichnet! EDSTASTON. Ahem! Silence. Catherine reads on. CATHERINE. Wie komisch! EDSTASTON. Ahem! ahem! Silence. CATHERINE [soliloquizing enthusiastically]. What a wonderful author is Monsieur Voltaire! How lucidly he exposes the folly of this crazy plan for raising the entire revenue of the country from a single tax on land! how he withers it with his irony! how he makes you laugh whilst he is convincing you! how sure one feels that the proposal is killed by his wit and economic penetration: killed never to be mentioned again among educated people! EDSTASTON. For Heaven's sake, Madam, do you intend to leave me tied up like this while you discuss the blasphemies of that abominable infidel? Agh!! [She has again applied her toe.] Oh! Oo! CATHERINE [calmly]. Do I understand you to say that Monsieur Voltaire is a great philanthropist and a great philosopher as well as the wittiest man in Europe? EDSTASTON. Certainly not. I say that his books ought to be burnt by the common hangman [her toe touches his ribs]. Yagh! Oh don't. I shall faint. I can't bear it. CATHERINE. Have you changed your opinion of Monsieur Voltaire? EDSTASTON. But you can't expect me as a member of the Church of England [she tickles him] - Agh! Ow! Oh Lord! he is anything you like. He is a philanthropist, a philosopher, a beauty: he ought to 168 Great Catherine Scene 4 have a statue, damn him! [she tickles him]. No! bless him! save him victorious, happy and glorious! Oh, let eternal honors crown his name: Voltaire thrice worthy on the rolls of fame! [Exhausted.] Now will you let me up? And look here! I can see your ankles when you tickle me: it's not ladylike. CATHERINE [sticking out her toe and admiring it critically]. Is the spectacle so disagreeable? EDSTASTON. It's agreeable enough; only [with intense expression] for heaven's sake don't touch me in the ribs. CATHERINE [putting aside the pamphlet]. Captain Edstaston, why did you refuse to come when I sent for you? EDSTASTON. Madam, I cannot talk tied up like this. CATHERINE. Do you still admire me as much as you did this morning? EDSTASTON. How can I possibly tell when I can't see you? Let me get up and look. I can't see anything now except my toes and yours. CATHERINE. Do you still intend to write to the London Gazette about me? EDSTASTON. Not if you will loosen these straps. Quick: loosen me. I'm fainting. CATHERINE. I don't think you are [tickling him]. EDSTASTON. Akgh! Cat! CATHERINE. What [she tickles him again]. EDSTASTON [with a shriek]. No: angel, angel! CATHERINE [tenderly]. Geliebter! EDSTASTON. I don't know a word of German; but that sounded kind. [Becoming hysterical.] Little Mother, beautiful little darling angel mother: don't be cruel: untie me. Oh, I beg and implore you. Don't be unkind. I shall go mad. CATHERINE. You are expected to go mad with love when an Empress deigns to interest herself in you. Secne 4 Great Catherine 169 When an Empress allows you to see her foot you should kiss it. Captain Edstaston, you are a booby. EDSTASTON [indignantly]. I am nothing of the kind. I have been mentioned in dispatches as a highly intelligent officer. And let me warn your Majesty that I am not so helpless as you think. The English Ambassador is in that ballroom. A shout from me will bring him to my side; and then where will your Majesty be? CATHERINE. I should like to see the English Ambassador or anyone else pass through that curtain against my orders. It might be a stone wall ten feet thick. Shout your loudest. Sob. Curse. Scream. Yell [she tickles him unmercifully]. EDSTASTON [frantically]. Ahowyou!!!! Agh! oh! Stop! Oh Lord! Ya-a-a-ah! [A tumult in the ballroom responds to his cries.] VOICES itLOM THE BALLROOM. Stand back. You cannot pass. Hold her back there. The Empress's orders. It is out of the question. No, little darling, not in there. Nobody is allowed in there. You will be sent to Siberia. Don't let her through there, on your life. Drag her back. You will be knouted. It is hopeless, Mademoiselle: you must obey orders. Guard there! Send some men to hold her. CLAIRE'S VOICE. Let me go. They are torturing Charles in there. I will go. How can you all dance as if nothing was happening? Let me go, I tell you. Let - me - go. [She dashes through the curtain. No one dares follow her.] CATHERINE [rising in wrath]. How dare you? CLAIRE [recklessly]. Oh, dare your grandmother! Where is my Charles? What are they doing to him? EDSTASTON [shouting]. Claire, loosen these straps, in Heaven's name. Quick. CLAIRE [seeing him and throwing herself on her knees at his side]. Oh, how dare they tie you up like that! 170 Great Catherine Scene 4 [To Catherine.] You wicked wretch! You Russian savage! [She pounces on the straps, and begins unbuckling them.] CATHERINE [conquering herself with a mighty effort]. Now self-control. Self-control, Catherine. Philosophy. Europe is looking on. [She forces herself to sit down.] EDSTASTON. Steady, dearest: it is the Empress. Call her your Imperial Majesty. Call her Star of the North, Little Mother, Little Darling: that's what she likes; but get the straps off. CLAIRE. Keep quiet, dear: I cannot get them off if you move. CATHERINE [calmly]. Keep quite still, Captain [she tickles him.] EDSTASTON. OW! Agh! Ahowyow! CLAIRE [stopping dead in the act of unbuckling the straps and turning sick with jealousy as she grasps the situation]. Was that what I thought was your being tortured? CATHERINE [urbanely]. That is the favorite torture of Catherine the Second, Mademoiselle. I think the Captain enjoys it very much. CLAIRE. Then he can have as much more of it as he wants. I am sorry I intruded. [She rises to go.] EDSTASTON [catching her train in his teeth and holding on like a bull-dog]. Don't go. Don't leave me in this horrible state. Loosen me. [This is what he is saying: but as he says it with the train in his mouth it is not very intelligible.] CLAIRE. Let go. You are undignified and ridiculous enough yourself without making me ridiculous. [She snatches her train away.] EDSTASTON. Ow! You've nearly pulled my teeth out: you're worse than the Star of the North. [To Catherine.] Darling Little Mother: you have a kind heart, the kindest in Europe. Have pity. Have Scene 4 Great Catherine 171 mercy. I love you. [Claire bursts into tears.] Release me. CATHERINE. Well, just to show you how much kinder a Russian savage can be than an English one (though I am sorry to say I am a German) here goes! [She stoops to loosen the straps.] CLAIRE [jealously]. You needn't trouble, thank you. [She pounces on the straps: and the two set Edstaston free between them.] Now get up, please; and conduct yourself with some dignity if you are not utterly demoralized. EDSTASTON. Dignity! Ow! I can't. I'm stiff all over. I shall never be able to stand up again. Oh Lord! how it hurts! [They seize him by the shoulders and drag him up.] Yah! Agh! Wow! Oh! Mmmmmm! Oh, Little Angel Mother, don't ever do this to a man again. Knout him; kill him; roast him; baste him; head, hang, and quarter him; but don't tie him up like that and tickle him. CATHERINE. Your young lady still seems to think that you enjoyed it. CLAIRE. I know what I think. I will never speak to him again. Your Majesty can keep him, as far as I am concerned. CATHERINE. I would not deprive you of him for worlds; though really I think he's rather a darling [she pats his cheek]. CLAIRE [snorting]. So I see, indeed. EDSTASTON. Don't be angry, dearest: in this country everybody's a darling. I'll prove it to you. [To Catherine.] Will your Majesty be good enough to call Prince Patiomkin? CATHERINE [surprised into haughtiness]. Why? EDSTASTON. To oblige me. Catherine laughs good-humoredly and goes to the curtains and opens them. The band strikes up a Redowa. 172 Great Catherine Scene 4 CATHERINE [calling imperiously]. Patiomkin! [The music stops suddenly.] Here! To me! Go on with your music there, you fools. [The Redowa is resumed.] The sergeant rushes from the ballroom to relieve the Empress of the curtain. Patiomkin comes in dancing with Varinka. CATHERINE [to Patiomkin]. The English captain wants you, little darling. Catherine resumes her seat as Patiomkin intimates by a grotesque bow that he is at Edstaston's service. Varinka passes behind Edstaston and Claire, and posts herself on Claire's right. EDSTASTON. Precisely. [To Claire. ] You observe, my love: "little darling." Well, if her Majesty calls him a darling, is it my fault that she calls me one too? CLAIRE. I don't care: I don't think you ought to have done it. I am very angry and offended. EDSTASTON. They tied me up, dear. I couldn't help it. I fought for all I was worth. THE SERGEANT [at the curtains]. He fought with the strength of lions and bears. God knows I shall carry a broken sweetbread to my grave. EDSTASTON. You can't mean to throw me over, Claire. [Urgently.] Claire. Claire. VARINKA [in a transport of sympathetic emotion, pleading with clasped hands to Claire]. Oh, sweet little angel lamb, he loves you: it shines in his darling eyes. Pardon him, pardon him. PATIOMKIN [rushing from the Empress's side to Claire and falling on his knees to her]. Pardon him, pardon him, little cherub! little wild duck! little star! little glory! little jewel in the crown of heaven! CLAIRE. This is perfectly ridiculous. VARINKA [kneeling to her]. Pardon him, pardon him, little delight, little sleeper in a rosy cradle. Scene 4 Great Catherine 173 CLAIRE. I'll do anything if you'll only let me alone. THE SERGEANT [kneeling to her]. Pardon him, pardon him, lest the mighty man bring his whip to you. God knows we all need pardon! CLAIRE [at the top of her voice]. I pardon him! I pardon him! PATIOMKIN [springing up joyfully and going behind Claire, whom he raises in his arms]. Embrace her, victor of Bunker's Hill. Kiss her till she swoons. THE SERGEANT. Receive her in the name of the holy Nicholas. VARINKA. She begs you for a thousand dear little kisses all over her body. CLAIRE [vehemently]. I do not. [Patiomkin throws her into Edstaston's arms.] Oh! [The pair, awkward and shamefaced, recoil from one another, and remain utterly inexpressive.] CATHERINE [pushing Edstaston towards Claire]. There is no help for it, Captain. This is Russia, not England. EDSTASTON [plucking up some geniality, and kissing Claire ceremoniously on the brow]. I have no objection. VARINKA [disgusted]. Only one kiss! and on the forehead! Fish. See how I kiss, though it is only my horribly ugly old uncle [she throws her arms round Patiomkin's neck and covers his face with kisses]. THE SERGEANT [moved to tears]. Sainted Nicholas: bless your lambs! CATHERINE. Do you wonder now that I love Russia as I love no other place on earth? NARYSHKIN [appearing at the door]. Majesty: the model for the new museum has arrived. CATHERINE [rising eagerly and making for the curtains]. Let us go. I can think of nothing but my museum. [In the archway she stops and turns to Edstaston, who has hurried to lift the curtain for her.] Captain, I wish you every happiness that your little angel 174 Great Catherine Scene 4 can bring you. [For his ear alone.] I could have brought you more; but you did not think so. Farewell. EDSTASTON [kissing her hand, which, instead of releasing, he holds caressingly and rather patronizingly in his own]. I feel your Majesty's kindness so much that I really cannot leave you without a word of plain wholesome English advice. CATHERINE [snatching her hand away and bounding forward as if he had touched her with a spur]. Advice!!! PATIOMKIN. Madman: take care! [exclaiming simulNARYSHKIN. Advise the Em- taneously]. press!! THE SERGEANT. Sainted Nicholas! VARINKA. Hoo hoo! [a stifled splutter of laughter]. EDSTASTON [following the Empress and resuming kindly but judicially]. After all, though your Majesty is of course a great queen, yet when all is said, I am a man; and your Majesty is only a woman. CATHERINE. Only a wo- [she chokes]. EDSTASTON [continuing]. Believe me, this Russian extravagance will not do. I appreciate as much as any man the warmth of heart that prompts it; but it is overdone: it is hardly in the best taste: it isreally I must say it - it is not proper. CATHERINE [ironically, in German]. So! EDSTASTON. Not that I cannot make allowances. Your Majesty has, I know, been unfortunate in your experience as a married woman - CATHERINE [ furious]. Alle Wetter!!! EDSTASTON [sentimentally]. Don't say that. Don't think of him in that way. After all, he was your hus Scene 4 Great Catherine 175 band; and whatever his faults may have been, it is not for you to think unkindly of him. CATHERINE [almost bursting]. I shall forget myself. EDSTASTON. Come! I am sure he really loved you; and you truly loved him. CATHERINE [controlling herself with a supreme effort]. No, Catherine. What would Voltaire say? EDSTASTON. Oh, never mind that vile scoffer. Set an example to Europe, Madam, by doing what I am going to do. Marry again. Marry some good man who will be a strength and support to your old age. CATHERINE. My old - [she again becomes speechless]. EDSTASTON. Yes: we must all grow old, even the handsomest of us. CATHERINE [sinking into her chair with a gasp]. Thank you. EDSTASTON. You will thank me more when you see your little ones round your knee, and your man there by the fireside in the winter evenings - by the way, I forgot that you have no fireside here in spite of the coldness of the climate; so shall I say by the stove? CATHERINE. Certainly, if you wish. The stove by all means. EDSTASTON [impulsively]. Ah, Madam, abolish the stove: believe me, there is nothing like the good old open grate. Home! duty! happiness! they all mean the same thing; and they all flourish best on the drawingroom hearthrug. [Turning to Claire.] And now, my love, we must not detain the Queen: she is anxious to inspect the model of her museum, to which I am sure we wish every success. CLAIRE [coldly]. I am not detaining her. EDSTASTON. Well, goodbye [wringing Patiomkin's hand], goo-oo-oodbye, Prince: come and see us if ever you visit England. Spire View, Deepdene, Little 176 Great Catherine Scene 4 Mugford, Devon, will always find me. [To Varinka, kissing her hand.] Goodbye, Mademoiselle: goodbye, Little Mother, if I may call you that just once. [Varinka puts up her face to be kissed.] Eh? No, no, no, no: you don't mean that, you know. Naughty! [To the Sergeant.] Goodbye, my friend. You will drink our healths with this [tipping him]. THE SERGEANT. The blessed Nicholas will multiply your fruits, Little Father. EDSTASTON. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. He goes out backwards, bowing, with Claire curtseying, having been listened to in utter dumbfoundedness by Patiomkin and Naryshkin, in childlike awe by Varinka, and with quite inexpressible feelings by Catherine. When he is out of sight she rises with clinched fists and raises her arms and her closed eyes to Heaven. Patiomkin, rousing himself from his stupor of amazement, springs to her like a tiger, and throws himself at her feet. PATIOMKIN. What shall I do to him for you? Skin him alive? Cut off his eyelids and stand him in the sun? Tear his tongue out? What shall it be? CATHERINE [opening her eyes]. Nothing. But oh, if I could only have had him for my - for my - for myPATIOMKIN [in a growl of jealousy]. For your lover? CATHERINE [with an ineffable smile]. No: for my museum. O'FLAHERTY V. C. XXVII' 177 I IT may surprise some people to learn that in 1915 this little play was a recruiting poster in disguise. The British officer seldom likes Irish soldiers; but he always tries to have a certain proportion of them in his battalion, because, partly from a want of common sense which leads them to value their lives less than Englishmen do (lives are really less worth living in a poor country), and partly because even the most cowardly Irishman feels obliged to outdo an Englishman in bravery if possible, and at least to set a perilous pace for him, Irish soldiers give impetus to those military operations which require for their spirited execution more devilment than prudence. Unfortunately, Irish recruiting was badly bungled in 1915. The Irish were for the most part Roman Catholics and loyal Irishmen, which means that from the English point of view they were heretics and rebels. But they were willing enough to go soldiering on the side of France and see the world outside Ireland, which is a dull place to live in. It was quite easy to enlist them by approaching them from their own point of view. But the War Office insisted on approaching them from the point of view of Dublin Castle. They were discouraged and repulsed by refusals to give commissions to Roman Catholic officers, or to allow distinct Irish units to be formed. To attract them, the walls were covered with placards headed REMEMBER BELGIUM. The folly of asking an Irishman to remember anything when you want him to fight for England was apparent to everyone outside the Castle: FORGET AND FORGIVE would have been more to the point. Remembering Belgium and its broken treaty led Irishmen to remember Limerick and its broken treaty; and the recruiting ended in a rebellion, in 179 180 O'Flaherty V. C. suppressing which the British artillery quite unnecessarily reduced the centre of Dublin to ruins, and the British commanders killed their leading prisoners of war in cold blood morning after morning with an effect of long-drawn-out ferocity. Really it was only the usual childish petulance in which John Bull does things in a week that disgrace him for a century, though he soon recovers his good humor, and cannot understand why the survivors of his wrath do not feel as jolly with him as he does with them. On the smouldering ruins of Dublin the appeals to remember Louvain were presently supplemented by a fresh appeal. IRISHMEN, DO YOU WISH TO HAVE THE HORRORS OF WAR BROUGHT TO YOUR OWN HEARTHS AND HOMES? Dublin laughed sourly. As for me I addressed myself quite simply to the business of obtaining recruits. I knew by personal experience and observation what anyone might have inferred from the records of Irish emigration, that all an Irishman's hopes and ambitions turn on his opportunities of getting out of Ireland. Stimulate his loyalty, and he will stay in Ireland and die for her; for, incomprehensible as it seems to an Englishman, Irish patriotism does not take the form of devotion to England and England's king. Appeal to his discontent, his deadly boredom, his thwarted curiosity and desire for change and adventure, and, to escape from Ireland, he will go abroad to risk his life for France, for the Papal States, for secession in America, and even, if no better may be, for England. Knowing that the ignorance and insularity of the Irishman is a danger to himself and to his neighbors, I had no scruple in making that appeal when there was something for him to fight which the whole world had to fight unless it meant to come under the jack boot of the German version of Dublin Castle. O'Flaherty V. C. 181 There was another consideration, unmentionable by the recruiting sergeants and war orators, which must nevertheless have helped them powerfully in procuring soldiers by voluntary enlistment. The happy home of the idealist may become common under millennial conditions. It is not common at present. No one will ever know how many men joined the army in 1914 and 1915 to escape from tyrants and taskmasters, termagants and shrews, none of whom are any the less irksome when they happen by ill-luck to be also our fathers, our mothers, our wives and our children. Even at their amiablest, a holiday from them may be a tempting change for all parties. That is why I did not endow O'Flaherty V.C. with an ideal Irish colleen for his sweetheart, and gave him for his mother a Volumnia of the potato patch rather than a affectionate parent from whom he could not so easily have torn himself away. I need hardly say that a play thus carefully adapted to its purpose was voted utterly inadmissible; and in due course the British Government, frightened out of its wits for the moment by the rout of the Fifth Army, ordained Irish Conscription, and then did not dare to go through with it. I still think my own line was the more businesslike. But during the war everyone except the soldiers at the front imagined that nothing but an extreme assertion of our most passionate prejudices, without the smallest regard to their effect on others, could win the war. Finally the British blockade won the war; but the wonder is that the British blockhead did not lose it. I suppose the enemy was no wiser. War is not a sharpener of wits; and I am afraid I gave great offence by keeping my head in this matter of Irish recruiting. What can I do but apologize, and publish the play now that it can no longer do any good? O'FLAHERTY V. C. At the door of an Irish country house in a park. Fine, summer weather; the summer of 1915. The porch, painted white, projects into the drive: but the door is at the side and the front has a window. The porch faces east: and the door is in the north side of it. On the south side is a tree in which a thrush is singing. Under the window is a garden seat with an iron chair at each end of it. The last four bars of God Save the King are heard in the distance, followed by three cheers. Then the band strikes up It's a Long Way to Tipperary and recedes until it is out of hearing. Private O'Flaherty V.C. comes wearily southward along the drive, and falls exhausted into the garden seat. The thrush utters a note of alarm and flies away. The tramp of a horse is heard. A GENTLEMAN'S VOICE. Tim! Hi! Tim! [He is heard dismounting.] A LABORER'S VOICE. Yes, your honor. THE GENTLEMAN's VOICE. Take this horse to the stables, will you? A LABORER'S VOICE. Right, your honor. Yup there. Gwan now. Gwan. [The horse is led away.] General Sir Pearce Madigan, an elderly baronet in khaki, beaming with enthusiasm, arrives. O'Flaherty rises and stands at attention. SIR PERCE. No, no, O'Flaherty: none of that now. 183 184 O'Flaherty V. C. You're off duty. Remember that though I am a general of forty years service, that little Cross of yours gives you a higher rank in the roll of glory than I can pretend to. O'FLAHERTY [relaxing]. I'm thankful to you, Sir Pearce; but I wouldn't have anyone think that the baronet of my native place would let a common soldier like me sit down in his presence without leave. SIR PEARCE. Well, you're not a common soldier, O'Flaherty: you're a very uncommon one; and I'm proud to have you for my guest here today. O'FLAHERTY. Sure I know, sir. You have to put up with a lot from the like of me for the sake of the recruiting. All the quality shakes hands with me and says they're proud to know me, just the way the king said when he pinned the Cross on me. And it's as true as I'm standing here, sir, the queen said to me, "I hear you were born on the estate of General Madigan," she says; "and the General himself tells me you were always a fine young fellow." "Bedad, Mai," I says to her, "if the General knew all the rabbits I snared on him, and all the salmon I snatched on him, and all the cows I milked on him, he'd think me the finest ornament for the county jail he ever sent there for poaching." SIR PEARCE [laughing]. You're welcome to them all, my lad. Come [he makes him sit down again on the garden seat]! sit down and enjoy your holiday [he sits down on one of the iron chairs; the one at the doorless side of the porch]. O'FLAHERTY. Holiday, is it? I'd give five shillings to be back in the trenches for the sake of a little rest and quiet. I never knew what hard work was till I took to recruiting. What with the standing on my legs all day, and the shaking hands, and the making speeches, and - what's worse - the listening to them O'Flaherty V. C. 185 and the calling for cheers for king and country, and the saluting the flag till I'm stiff with it, and the listening to them playing God Save the King and Tipperary, and the trying to make my eyes look moist like a man in a picture book, I'm that bet that I hardly get a wink of sleep. I give you my word, Sir Pearce, that I never heard the tune of Tipperary in my life till I came back from Flanders; and already it's drove me to that pitch of tiredness of it that when a poor little innocent slip of a boy in the street the other night drew himself up and saluted and began whistling it at me, I clouted his head for him, God forgive me. SIR PEARCE [soothingly]. Yes, yes: I know. I know. One does get fed up with it: I've been dog tired myself on parade many a time. But still, you know, there's a gratifying side to it, too. After all, he is our king; and it's our own country, isn't it? O'FLAHERTY. Well, sir, to you that have an estate in it, it would feel like your country. But the divil a perch of it ever I owned. And as to the king, God help him, my mother would have taken the skin off my back if I'd ever let on to have any other king than Parnell. SIR PEARCE [rising, painfully shocked]. Your mother! What are you dreaming about, O'Flaherty? A most loyal woman. Always most loyal. Whenever there is an illness in the Royal Family, she asks me every time we meet about the health of the patient as anxiously as if it were yourself, her only son. O'FLAHERTY. Well, she's my mother; and I won't utter a word agen her. But I'm not saying a word of lie when I tell you that that old woman is the biggest kanatt from here to the cross of Monasterboice. Sure she's the wildest Fenian and rebel, and always has been, that ever taught a poor innocent lad like myself to pray night and morning to St Patrick 186 O'Flaherty V. C. to clear the English out of Ireland the same as he cleared the snakes. You'll be surprised at my telling you that now, maybe, Sir Pearce? SIR PEARCE [unable to keep still, walking away from O'Flaherty]. Surprised! I'm more than surprised, O'Flaherty. I'm overwhelmed. [Turning and facing him.] Are you - are you joking? O'FLAHERTY. If you'd been brought up by my mother, sir, you'd know better than to joke about her. What I'm telling you is the truth; and I wouldn't tell it to you if I could see my way to get out of the fix I'll be in when my mother comes here this day to see her boy in his glory, and she after thinking all the time it was against the English I was fighting. SIR PEARCE. Do you mean to say you told her such a monstrous falsehood as that you were fighting in the German army? O'FLAHERTY. I never told her one word that wasn't the truth and nothing but the truth. I told her I was going to fight for the French and for the Russians; and sure who ever heard of the French or the Russians doing anything to the English but fighting them? That was how it was, sir. And sure the poor woman kissed me and went about the house singing in her old cracky voice that the French was on the sea, and they'd be here without delay, and the Orange will decay, says the Shan Van Vocht. SIR PEARCE [sitting down again, exhausted by his feelings]. Well, I never could have believed this. Never. What do you suppose will happen when she finds out? O'FLAHERTY. She mustn't find out. It's not that she'd half kill me, as big as I am and as brave as I am. It's that I'm fond of her, and can't bring myself to break the heart in her. You may think it queer that a man should be fond of his mother, sir, and she O'Flaherty V. C. 187 having bet him from the time he could feel to the time she was too slow to ketch him; but I'm fond of her; and I'm not ashamed of it. Besides, didn't she win the Cross for me? SIR PEARCE. Your mother! How? O'FLAHERTY. By bringing me up to be more afraid of running away than of fighting. I was timid by nature; and when the other boys hurted me, I'd want to run away and cry. But she whaled me for disgracing the blood of the O'Flahertys until I'd have fought the divil himself sooner than face her after funking a fight. That was how I got to know that fighting was easier than it looked, and that the others was as much afeard of me as I was of them, and that if I only held out long enough they'd lose heart and give up. That's the way I came to be so courageous. I tell you, Sir Pearce, if the German army had been brought up by my mother, the Kaiser would be dining in the banqueting hall at Buckingham Palace this day, and King George polishing his jack boots for him in the scullery. SIR PEARCE. But I don't like this, O'Flaherty. You can't go on deceiving your mother, you know. It's not right. O'FLAHERTY. Can't go on deceiving her, can't I? It's little you know what a son's love can do, sir. Did you ever notice what a ready liar I am? SIR PEARCE. Well, in recruiting a man gets carried away. I stretch it a bit occasionally myself. After all, it's for king and country. But if you won't mind my saying it, O'Flaherty, I think that story about your fighting the Kaiser and the twelve giants of the Prussian guard singlehanded would be the better for a little toning down. I don't ask you to drop it, you know; for it's popular, undoubtedly; but still, the truth is the truth. Don't you think it would fetch 188 O'Flaherty V. C. in almost as many recruits if you reduced the number of guardsmen to six? O'FLAHERTY. You're not used to telling lies like I am, sir. I got great practice at home with my mother. What with saving my skin when I was young and thoughtless, and sparing her feelings when I was old enough to understand them, I've hardly told my mother the truth twice a year since I was born; and would you have me turn round on her and tell it now, when she's looking to have some peace and quiet in her old age? SIR PEARCE [troubled in his conscience]. Well, it's not my affair, of course, O'Flaherty. But hadn't you better talk to Father Quinlan about it? O'FLAHERTY. Talk to Father Quinlan, is it! Do you know what Father Quinlan says to me this very morning? SIR PEARCE. Oh, you've seen him already, have you? What did he say? O'FLAHERTY. He says "You know, don't you," he says, "that it's your duty, as a Christian and a good son of the Holy Church, to love your enemies?" he says. "I know it's my juty as a soldier to kill them," I says. "That's right, Dinny," he says: "quite right. But," says he, "you can kill them and do them a good turn afterward to show your love for them" he says; "and it's your duty to have a mass said for the souls of the hundreds of Germans you say you killed," says he; "for many and many of them were Bavarians and good Catholics," he says. "Is it me that must pay for masses for the souls of the Boshes?" I says. "Let the King of England pay for them," I says; "for it was his quarrel and not mine." SIR PEARCE [warmly]. It is the quarrel of every honest man and true patriot, O'Flaherty. Your mother must see that as clearly as I do. After all, she is a reasonable, well disposed woman, quite capable O'Flaherty V. C. 189 of understanding the right and the wrong of the war. Why can't you explain to her what the war is about? O'FLAHERTY. Arra, sir, how the divil do I know what the war is about? SIR PEARCE [rising again and standing over him]. What! O'Flaherty: do you know what you are saying? You sit there wearing the Victoria Cross for having killed God knows how many Germans; and you tell me you don't know why you did it! O'FLAHERTY. Asking your pardon, Sir Pearce, I tell you no such thing. I know quite well why I kilt them, because I was afeard that, if I didn't, they'd kill me. SIR PEARCE [giving it up, and sitting down again]. Yes, yes, of course; but have you no knowledge of the causes of the war? of the interests at stake? of the importance - I may almost say - in fact I will say -the sacred right for which we are fighting? Don't you read the papers? O'FLAHERTY. I do when I can get them. There's not many newsboys crying the evening paper in the trenches. They do say, Sir Pearce, that we shall never beat the Boshes until we make Horatio Bottomley Lord Leftnant of England. Do you think that's true, sir? SIR PEARCE. Rubbish, man! there's no Lord Lieutenant in England: the king is Lord Lieutenant. It's a simple question of patriotism. Does patriotism mean nothing to you? O'FLAHERTY. It means different to me than what it would to you, sir. It means England and England's king to you. To me and the like of me, it means talking about the English just the way the English papers talk about the Boshes. And what good has it ever done here in Ireland? It's kept me ignorant because it filled up my mother's mind, and she thought 190 O'Flaherty V. C. it ought to fill up mine too. It's kept Ireland poor, because instead of trying to better ourselves we thought we was the fine fellows of patriots when we were speaking evil of Englishmen that was as poor as ourselves and maybe as good as ourselves. The Boshes I kilt was more knowledgable men than me; and what better am I now that I've kilt them? What better is anybody? SIR PEARCE [huffed, turning a cold shoulder to him]. I am sorry the terrible experience of this war - the greatest war ever fought - has taught you no better, O'Flaherty. O'FLAHERTY [preserving his dignity]. I don't know about it's being a great war, sir. It's a big war; but that's not the same thing. Father Quinlan's new church is a big church: you might take the little old chapel out of the middle of it and not miss it. But my mother says there was more true religion in the old chapel. And the war has taught me that maybe she was right. SIR PEARCE [grunts sulkily]!! O'FLAHERTY [respectfully but doggedly]. And there's another thing it's taught me too, sir, that concerns you and me, if I may make bold to tell it to you. SIR PEARCE [still sulky]. I hope it's nothing you oughtn't to say to me, O'Flaherty. O'FLAHERTY. It's this, sir: that I'm able to sit here now and talk to you without humbugging you; and that's what not one of your tenants or your tenants' childer ever did to you before in all your long life. It's a true respect I'm showing you at last, sir. Maybe you'd rather have me humbug you and tell you lies as I used, just as the boys here, God help them, would rather have me tell them how I fought the Kaiser, that all the world knows I never saw in my life, than tell them the truth. But I can't take advantage of O'Flaherty V. C. 191 you the way I used, not even if I seem to be wanting in respect to you and cocked up by winning the Cross. SIR PEARCE [touched]. Not at all, O'Flaherty. Not at all. O'FLAHERTY. Sure what's the Cross to me, barring the little pension it carries? Do you think I don't know that there's hundreds of men as brave as me that never had the luck to get anything for their bravery but a curse from the sergeant, and the blame for the faults of them that ought to have been their betters? I've learnt more than you'd think, sir; for how would a gentleman like you know what a poor ignorant conceited creature I was when I went from here into the wide world as a soldier? What use is all the lying, and pretending, and humbugging, and letting on, when the day comes to you that your comrade is killed in the trench beside you, and you don't as much as look round at him until you trip over his poor body, and then all you say is to ask why the hell the stretcher-bearers don't take it out of the way. Why should I read the papers to be humbugged and lied to by them that had the cunning to stay at home and send me to fight for them? Don't talk to me or to any soldier of the war being right. No war is right; and all the holy water that Father Quinlan ever blessed couldn't make one right. There, sir! Now you know what O'Flaherty V.C. thinks; and you're wiser so than the others that only knows what he done. SIR PEARCE [making the best of it, and turning goodhumoredly to him again]. Well, what you did was brave and manly, anyhow. O'FLAHERTY. God knows whether it was or not, better than you nor me, General. I hope He won't be too hard on me for it, anyhow. SIR PEARCE [sympathetically]. Oh yes: we all have 192 O'Flaherty V. C. to think seriously sometimes, especially when we're a little run down. I'm afraid we've been overworking you a bit over these recruiting meetings. However, we can knock off for the rest of the day; and tomorrow's Sunday. I've had about as much as I can stand myself. [He looks at his watch.] It's teatime. I wonder what's keeping your mother. O'FLAHERTY. It's nicely cocked up the old woman will be having tea at the same table as you, sir, instead of in the kitchen. She'll be after dressing in the heighth of grandeur; and stop she will at every house on the way to show herself off and tell them where she's going, and fill the whole parish with spite and envy. But sure, she shouldn't keep you waiting, sir. SIR PEARCE. Oh, that's all right: she must be indulged on an occasion like this. I'm sorry my wife is in London: she'd have been glad to welcome your mother. O'FLAHERTY. Sure, I know she would, sir. She was always a kind friend to the poor. Little her ladyship knew, God help her, the depth of divilment that was in us: we were like a play to her. You see, sir, she was English: that was how it was. 'We was to her what the Pathans and Senegalese was to me when I first seen them: I couldn't think, somehow, that they were liars, and thieves, and backbiters, and drunkards, just like ourselves or any other Christians. Oh, her ladyship never knew all that was going on behind her back: how would she? When I was a weeshy child, she gave me the first penny I ever had in my hand; and I wanted to pray for her conversion that night the same as my mother made me pray for yours; and - SIR PEARCE [scandalized]. Do you mean to say that your mother made you pray for my conversion? O'Flaherty V. C. 193 O'FLAHERTY. Sure and she wouldn't want to see a gentleman like you going to hell after she nursing your own son and bringing up my sister Annie on the bottle. That was how it was, sir. She'd rob you; and she'd lie to you; and she'd call down all the blessings of God on your head when she was selling you your own three geese that you thought had been ate by the fox the day after you'd finished fattening them, sir; and all the time you were like a bit of her own flesh and blood to her. Often has she said she'd live to see you a good Catholic yet, leading victorious armies against the English and wearing the collar of gold that Malachi won from the proud invader. Oh, she's the romantic woman is my mother, and no mistake. SIR PEARCE [in great perturbation]. I really can't believe this, O'Flaherty. I could have sworn your mother was as honest a woman as ever breathed. o'FLAHERTY. And so she is, sir. She's as honest as the day. SIR PEARCE. Do you call it honest to steal my geese? O'FLAHERTY. She didn't steal them, sir. It was me that stole them. SIR PEARCE. Oh! And why the devil did you steal them? O'FLAHERTY. Sure we needed them, sir. Often and often we had to sell our own geese to pay you the rent to satisfy your needs; and why shouldn't we sell your geese to satisfy ours? SIR PEARCE. Well, damn me! O'FLAHERTY [sweetly]. Sure you had to get what you could out of us; and we had to get what we could out of you. God forgive us both! SIR PEARCE. Really, O'Flaherty, the war seems to have upset you a little. O'FLAHERTY. It's set me thinking, sir; and I'm 194 O'Flaherty V. C. not used to it. It's like the patriotism of the English. They never thought of being patriotic until the war broke out; and now the patriotism has took them so sudden and come so strange to them that they run about like frightened chickens, uttering all manner of nonsense. But please God they'll forget all about it when the war's over. They're getting tired of it already. SIR PEARCE. No, no: it has uplifted us all in a wonderful way. The world will never be the same again, O'Flaherty. Not after a war like this. O'FLAHERTY. So they all say, sir. I see no great differ myself. It's all the fright and the excitement; and when that quiets down they'll go back to their natural divilment and be the same as ever. It's like the vermin: it'll wash off after a while. SIR PEARCE [rising and planting himself firmly behind the garden seat]. Well, the long and the short of it is, O'Flaherty, I must decline to be a party to any attempt to deceive your mother. I thoroughly disapprove of this feeling against the English, especially at a moment like the present. Even if your mother's political sympatheis are really what you represent them to be, I should think that her gratitude to Gladstone ought to cure her of such disloyal prejudices. O'FLAHERTY [over his shoulder]. She says Gladstone was an Irishman, sir. What call would he have to meddle with Ireland as he did if he wasn't? SIR PEARCE. What nonsense! Does she suppose Mr Asquith is an Irishman? O'FLAHERTY. She won't give him any credit for Home Rule, sir. She says Redmond made him do it. She says you told her so. SIR PEARCE [convicted out of his own mouth]. Well, I never meant her to take it up in that ridiculous way. [He moves to the end of the garden seat on O'Flaherty's O'Flaherty V. C. 195 left.] I'll give her a good talking to when she comes. I'm not going to stand any of her nonsense. O'FLAHERTY. It's not a bit of use, sir. She says all the English generals is Irish. She says all the English poets and great men was Irish. She says the English never knew how to read their own books until we taught them. She says we're the lost tribes of the house of Israel and the chosen people of God. She says that the goddess Venus, that was born out of the foam of the sea, came up out of the water in Killiney Bay off Bray Head. She says that Moses built the seven churches, and that Lazarus was buried in Glasnevin. SIR PEARCE. Bosh! How does she know he was? Did you ever ask her? O'FLAHERTY. I did, sir, often. SIR PEARCE. And what did she say? O'FLAHERTY. She asked me how did I know he wasn't, and fetched me a clout on the side of my head. SIR PEARCE. But have you never mentioned any famous Englishman to her, and asked her what she had to say about him? O'FLAHERTY. The only one I could think of was Shakespeare, sir; and she says he was born in Cork. SIR PEARCE [exhausted]. Well, I give it up [he throws himself into the nearest chair]. The woman is - Oh, well! No matter. O'FLAHERTY [sympathetically]. Yes, sir: she's pigheaded and obstinate: there's no doubt about it. She's like the English: they think there's no one like themselves. It's the same with the Germans, though they're educated and ought to know better. You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race. SIR PEARCE. Still, we 196 O'Flaherty V. C. O'FLAHERTY. Whisht, sir, for God's sake: here she is. The General jumps up. Mrs. O'Flaherty arrives and comes between the two men. She is very clean, and carefully dressed in the old fashioned peasant costume; black stlk sunbonnet with a tiara of trimmings, and black cloak. O'FLAHERTY [rising shyly]. Good evening, mother. MRS O FLAHERTY [severely]. You hold your whisht, and learn behavior while I pay my juty to his honor. [To Sir Pearce, heartily.] And how is your honor's good self? And how is her ladyship and all the young ladies? Oh, it's right glad we are to see your honor back again and looking the picture of health. SIR PEARCE [forcing a note of extreme geniality]. Thank you, Mrs O'Flaherty. Well, you see we've brought you back your son safe and sound. I hope you're proud of him. MRS O'FLAHERTY. And indeed and I am, your honor. It's the brave boy he is; and why wouldn't he be, brought up onL your honor's estate and with you before his eyes for a pattern of the finest soldier in Ireland. Come and kiss your old mother, Dinny darlint. [O'Flaherty does so sheepishly.] That's my own darling boy. And look at your fine new uniform stained already with the eggs you've been eating and the porter you've been drinking. [She takes out her handkerchief: spits on it: and scrubs his lapel with it.] Oh, it's the untidy slovenly one you always were. There! It won't be seen on the khaki: it's not like the old red coat that would show up everything that dribbled down on it. [To Sir Pearce.] And they tell me down at the lodge that her ladyship is staying in London, and that Miss Agnes is to be married to a fine young nobleman. Oh, it's your honor that is the lucky and happy father! It will be bad news for many of the young gentlemen of the quality round O'Flaherty V. C. 197 here, sir. There's lots thought she was going to marry young Master Lawless - SIR PEARCE. What! That - that - that bosthoon! MRS O'FLAHERTY [hilariously]. Let your honor alone for finding the right word! A big bosthoon he is indeed, your honor. Oh, to think of the times and times I have said that Miss Agnes would be my lady as her mother was before her! Didn't I, Dinny? SIR PEARCE. And now, Mrs. O'Flaherty, I daresay you have a great deal to say to Dennis that doesn't concern me. I'll just go in and order tea. MRS O'FLAHERTY. Oh, why would your honor disturb yourself? Sure I can take the boy into the yard. SIR PEARCE. Not at all. It won't disturb me in the least. And he's too big a boy to be taken into the yard now. He has made a front seat for himself. Eh? [He goes into the house.] MRS O FLAHERTY. Sure he has that, your honor. God bless your honor! [The General being now out of hearing, she turns threateningly to her son with one of those sudden Irish changes of manner which amaze and scandalize less flexible nations, and exclaims.] And what do you mean, you lying young scald, by telling me you were going to fight agen the English? Did you take me for a fool that couldn't find out, and the papers all full of you shaking hands with the English king at Buckingham Palace? O'FLAHERTY. I didn't shake hands with him: he shook hands with me. Could I turn on the man in his own house, before his own wife, with his money in my pocket and in yours, and throw his civility back in his face? MRS 0 FLAHERTY. You would take the hand of a tyrant red with the blood of IrelandO'FLAHERTY. Arra hold your nonsense, mother: 198 O'Flaherty V. C. he's not half the tyrant you are, God help him. His hand was cleaner than mine that had the blood of his own relations on it, maybe. MRS O'FLAHERTY [threateningly]. Is that a way to speak to your mother, you young spalpeen? O'FLAHERTY [stoutly]. It is so, if you won't talk sense to me. It's a nice thing for a poor boy to be made much of by kings and queens, and shook hands with by the heighth of his country's nobility in the capital cities of the world, and then to come home and be scolded and insulted by his own mother. I'll fight for who I like; and I'll shake hands with what kings I like; and if your own son is not good enough for you, you can go and look for another., Do you mind me now? MRS O'FLAHERTY. And was it the Belgians learned you such brazen impudence? O'FLAHERTY. The Belgians is good men; and the French ought to be more civil to them, let alone their being half murdered by the Boshes. MRS O'FLAHERTY. Good men is it! Good men! to come over here when they were wounded because it was a Catholic country, and then to go to the Protestant Church because it didn't cost them anything, and some of them to never go near a church at all. That's what you call good men! O'FLAHERTY. Oh, you're the mighty fine politician, aren't you? Much you know about Belgians or foreign parts or the world you're living in, God help you! MRS O'FLAHERTY. Why wouldn't I know better than you? Amment I your mother? O'FLAHERTY. And if you are itself, how can you know what you never seen as well as me that was dug into the continent of Europe for six months, and was buried in the earth of it three times with the shells bursting on the top of me? I tell you I know what O'Flaherty V. C. 199 I'm about. I have my own reasons for taking part in this great conflict. I'd be ashamed to stay at home and not fight when everybody else is fighting. MRS O'FLAHERTY. If you wanted to fight, why couldn't you fight in the German army? O'FLAHERTY. Because they only get a penny a day. MRS O'FLAHERTY. Well, and if they do itself, isn't there the French army? O'FLAHERTY. They only get a hapenny a day. MRS O'FLAHERTY [much dashed]. Oh murder! They must be a mean lot, Dinny. O'FLAHERTY [sarcastic]. Maybe you'd have me join the Turkish army, and worship the heathen Mahomet that put a corn in his ear and pretended it was a message from the heavens when the pigeon come to pick it out and eat it. I went where I could get the biggest allowance for you; and little thanks I get for it! MRS O'FLAHERTY. Allowance, is it! Do you know what the thieving blackguards did on me? They came to me and they says, "Was your son a big eater?" they says. "Oh, he was that," says I: "ten shillings a week wouldn't keep him." Sure I thought the more I said the more they'd give me. "Then," says they, "that's ten shillings a week off your allowance," they says, "because you save that by the king feeding him." "Indeed!" says I: "I suppose if I'd six sons, you'd stop three pound a week from me, and make out that I ought to pay you money instead of you paying me." "There's a fallacy in your argument," they says. O'FLAHERTY. A what? MRS O'FLAHERTY. A fallacy: that's the word he said. I says to him, "It's a Pharisee I'm thinking you mean, sir; but you can keep your dirty money that your king grudges a poor old widow; and please o00 O'Flaherty V. C. God the English will be bet yet for the deadly sin of oppressing the poor"; and with that I shut the door in his face. O'FLAHERTY [furious]. Do you tell me they knocked ten shillings off you for my keep? MRS O'FLAHERTY [soothing him]. No, darlint: they only knocked off half a crown. I put up with it because I've got the old age pension; and they know very well I'm only sixty-two; so I've the better of them by half a crown a week anyhow. O'FLAHERTY. It's a queer way of doing business. If they'd tell you straight out what they was going to give you, you wouldn't mind; but if there was twenty ways of telling the truth and only one way of telling a lie, the Government would find it out. It's in the nature of governments to tell lies. Teresa Driscoll, a parlor maid, comes from the house, TERESA. You're to come up to the drawingroom to have your tea, Mrs. O'Flaherty. MRS 'FLAHERTY. Mind you have a sup of good black tea for me in the kitchen afterwards, acushla. That washy drawingroom tea will give me the wind if I leave it on my stomach. [She goes into the house, leaving the two young people alone together.] O'FLAHERTY. Is that yourself, Tessie? And how are you? TERESA. Nicely, thank you. And how's yourself? O FLAHERTY. Finely, thank God. [He produces a gold chain.] Look what I've brought you, Tessie. TERESA [shrinking]. Sure I don't like to touch it, Denny. Did you take it off a dead man? O'FLAHERTY. No: I took it off a live one; and thankful he was to me to be alive and kept a prisoner in ease and comfort, and me left fighting in peril of my life. O'Flaherty V. C. 201 TERESA [taking it]. Do you think it's real gold, Denny? O'FLAHERTY. It's real German gold, anyhow. TERESA. But German silver isn't real, Denny. O'FLAHERTY [his face darkening]. Well, it's the best the Bosh could do for me, anyhow. TERESA. Do you think I might take it to the jeweller next market day and ask him? O'FLAHERTY [sulkily]. You may take it to the divil if you like. TERESA. You needn't lose your temper about it. I only thought I'd like to know. The nice fool I'd look if I went about showing off a chain that turned out to be only brass! O FLAHERTY. I think you might say Thank you. TERESA. Do you? I think you might have said something more to me than "Is that yourself?" You couldn't say less to the postman. O'FLAHERTY [his brow clearing]. Oh, is that what's the matter? Here! come and take the taste of ther brass out of my mouth. [He seizes her and kisses her.] Teresa, without losing her Irish dignity, takes the kiss as appreciatively as a connoisseur might take a glass of wine, and sits down with him on the garden seat, TERESA [as he squeezes her waist]. Thank God the priest can't see us here! O'FLAHERTY. It's little they care for priests in France, alanna. TERESA. And what had the queen on her, Denny, when she spoke to you in the palace? O FLAHERTY. She had a bonnet on without any strings to it. And she had a plakeen of embroidery down her bosom. And she had her waist where it used to be, and not where the other ladies had it. And she had little brooches in her ears, though she hadn't half the jewelry of Mrs Sullivan that keeps 202 O'Flaherty V. C. the popshop in Drumpogue. And she dresses her hair down over her forehead, in a fringe like. And she has an Irish look about her eyebrows. And she didn't know what to say to me, poor woman! and I didn't know what to say to her, God help me! TERESA. You'll have a pension now with the Cross, won't you, Denny? O'FLAHERTY. Sixpence three farthings a day. TERESA. That isn't much. O'FLAHERTY. I take out the rest in glory. TERESA. And if you're wounded, you'll have a wound pension, won't you? O'FLAHERTY. I will, please God. TERESA. You're going out again, aren't you, Denny? O'FLAHERTY. I can't help myself. I'd be shot for a deserter if I didn't go; and maybe I'll be shot by the Boshes if I do go; so between the two of them I'm nicely fixed up. MRS O'FLAHERTY [caling from within the house]. Tessie! Tessie darlint! TERESA [disengaging herself from his arm and rising]. I'm wanted for the tea table. You'll have a pension anyhow, Denny, won't you, whether you're wounded or not? MRS O'FLAHERTY. Come, child, come. TERESA [impatiently]. Oh, sure I'm coming. [She tries to smile at Denny, not very convincingly, and hurries into the house.] O'FLAHERTY [alone]. And if I do get a pension itself, the divil a penny of it you'll ever have the spending of. MRS O'FLAHERTY [as she comes from the porch]. Oh, it's a shame for you to keep the girl from her juties, Dinny. You might get her into trouble. O'FLAHERTY. Much I care whether she gets into O'Flaherty V. C. 203 trouble or not! I pity the man that gets her into trouble. He'll get himself into worse. MRS O'FLAHERTY. What's that you tell me? Have you been falling out with her, and she a girl with a fortune of ten pounds? O'FLAHERTY. Let her keep her fortune. I wouldn't touch her with the tongs if she had thousands and millions. MRS O'FLAHERTY. Oh fie for shame, Dinny! why would you say the like of that of a decent honest girl, and one of the Driscolls too? O'FLAHERTY. Why wouldn't I say it? She's thinking of nothing but to get me out there again to be wounded so that she may spend my pension, bad scran to her! MRS O'FLAHERTY. Why, what's come over you, child, at all at all? O'FLAHERTY. Knowledge and wisdom has come over me with pain and fear and trouble. I've been made a fool of and imposed upon all my life. I thought that covetious sthreal in there was a walking angel; and now if ever I marry at all I'll marry a Frenchwoman. MRS O'FLAHERTY [fiercely]. You'll not, so; and don't you dar repeat such a thing to me. O'FLAHERTY. Won't I, faith! I've been as good as married to a couple of them already. MRS O FLAHERTY. The Lord be praised, what wickedness have you been up to, you young blackguard? O'FLAHERTY. One of them Frenchwomen would cook you a meal twice in the day and all days and every day that Sir Pearce himself might go begging through Ireland for, and never see the like of. I'll have a French wife, I tell you; and when I settle down to be a farmer I'll have a French farm, with a 204 O'Flaherty V. C. field as big as the continent of Europe that ten of your dirty little fields here wouldn't so much as fill the ditch of. MRS O'FLAHERTY [furious]. Then it's a French mother you may go look for; for I'm done with you. O'FLAHERTY. And it's no great loss you'd be if it wasn't for my natural feelings for you; for it's only a silly ignorant old countrywoman you are with all your fine talk about Ireland: you that never stepped beyond the few acres of it you were born on! MRS O'FLAHERTY [tottering to the garden seat and showing signs of breaking down]. Dinny darlint, why are you like this to me? What's happened to you? O'FLAHERTY [gloomily]. What's happened to everybody? that's what I want to know. What's happened to you that I thought all the world of and was afeard of? What's happened to Sir Pearce, that I thought was a great general, and that I now see to be no more fit to command an army than an old hen? What's happened to Tessie, that I was mad to marry a year ago, and that I wouldn't take now with all Ireland for her fortune? I tell you the world's creation is crumbling in ruins about me; and then you come and ask what's happened to me? MRS O'FLAHERTY [giving way to wild grief]. Ochone! ochone! my son's turned agen me. Oh, what'll I do at all at all? Oh! oh! oh! oh! SIR PEARCE [running out of the house]. What's this infernal noise? What on earth is the matter? O'FLAHERTY. Arra hold your whisht, mother. Don't you see his honor? MRS O'FLAHERTY. Oh, sir, I'm ruined and destroyed. Oh, won't you speak to Dinny, sir: I'm heart scalded with him. He wants to marry a Frenchwoman on me, and to go away and be a foreigner and O'Flaherty V. C. 205 desert his mother and betray his country. It's mad he is with the roaring of the cannons and he killing the Germans and the Germans killing him, bad cess to them! My boy is taken from me and turned agen me; and who is to take care of me in my old age after all I've done for him, ochone! ochone! O'FLAHERTY. Hold your noise, I tell you. Who's going to leave you? I'm going to take you with me. There now: does that satisfy you? MRS O'FLAHERTY. Is it take me into a strange land among heathens and pagans and savages, and me not knowing a word of their language nor them of mine? O'FLAHERTY. A good job they don't: maybe they'll think you're talking sense. MRS O'FLAHERTY. Ask me to die out of Ireland, is it? and the angels not to find me when they come for me! O'FLAHERTY. And would you ask me to live in Ireland where I've been imposed on and kept in ignorance, and to die where the divil himself wouldn't take me as a gift, let alone the blessed angels? You can come or stay. You can take your old way or take my young way. But stick in this place I will not among a lot of good-for-nothing divils that'll not do a hand's turn but watch the grass growing and build up the stone wall where the cow walked through it. And Sir Horace Plunkett breaking his heart all the time telling them how they might put the land into decent tillage like the French and Belgians. SIR PEARCE. Yes, he's quite right, you know, Mrs O'Flaherty: quite right there. MRS O'FLAHERTY. Well, sir, please God the war will last a long time yet; and maybe I'll die before it's over and the separation allowance stops. 206 O'Flaherty V. C. O'FLAHERTY. That's all you care about. It's nothing but milch cows we men are for the women, with their separation allowances, ever since the war began, bad luck to them that made it! TERESA [coming from the porch between the General and Mrs O'Flaherty]. Hannah sent me out for to tell you, sir, that the tea will be black and the cake not fit to eat with the cold if yous all don't come at wanst. MRS O'FLAHERTY [breaking out again]. Oh, Tessie darlint, what have you been saying to Dinny at all at all? Oh! ohSIR PEARCE [OUt of patience]. You can't discuss that here. We shall have Tessie beginning now. O FLAHERTY. That's right, sir: drive them in. TERESA. I haven't said a word to him. He SIR PEARCE. Hold your tongue; and go in and attend to your business at the tea table. TERESA. But amment I telling your honor that I never said a word to him? He gave me a beautiful gold chain. Here it is to show your honor that it's no lie I'm telling you. SIR PEARCE. What's this, O'Flaherty? You've been looting some unfortunate officer. O'FLAHERTY. No, sir: I stole it from him of his own accord. MRS O'FLAHERTY. Wouldn't your honor tell him that his mother has the first call on it? What would a slip of a girl like that be doing with a gold chain round her neck? TERESA [venomously]. Anyhow, I have a neck to put it round and not a hank of wrinkles. At this unfortunate remark, Mrs O'Flaherty bounds from her seat: and an appalling tempest of wordy wrath breaks out. The remonstrances and commands of the General, and the protests and menaces of O'Flaherty, O'Flaherty V. C. 207 only increase the hubbub. They are soon al speaking at once at the top of their voices. MRS O'FLAHERTY [solo]. You impudent young heifer, how dar you say such a thing to me? [Teresa retorts furiously: the men interfere: and the solo becomes a quartet, fortissimo.] I've a good mind to clout your ears for you to teach you manners. Be ashamed of yourself, do; and learn to know who you're speaking to. That I maytn't sin! but I don't know what the good God was thinking about when he made the like of you. Let me not see you casting sheep's eyes at my son again. There never was an O'Flaherty yet that would demean himself by keeping company with a dirty Driscoll; and if I see you next or nigh my house I'll put you in the ditch with a flea in your ear: mind that now. TERESA. Is it me you offer such a name to, you fou-mouthed, dirty-minded, lying, sloothering old sow, you? I wouldn't soil my tongue by calling you in your right name and telling Sir Pearce what's the common talk of the town about you. You and your O'Flahertys! setting yourself up agen the Driscolls that would never lower themselves to be seen in conversation with you at the fair. You can keep your ugly stingy lump of a son; for what is he but a common soldier? and God hetp the girl that gets him, say I! So the back of my hand to you, Mrs O'Flaherty; and that the cat may tear your ugly old face! SIR PEABCE. Silence. Tessie, did you hear me ordering you to go into the house? Mrs O'Flaherty! [Louder.] Mrs O'Flaherty!! Will you just listen to me one moment? Please. [Furiously.] Do you hear me speaking to you, woman? Are you human beings or are you wild beasts? Stop that noise immediately: do you hear? [Yelling.] Are you 208 O'Flaherty V. C. going to do what I order you, or are you not? Scandalous! Disgraceful! This comes of being too familiar with you. O'Flaherty, shove them into the house. Out with the whole damned pack of you. O'FLAHERTY [to the women]. Here now: none of that, none of that. Go easy, I tell you. Hold your whisht, mother, will you, or you'll be sorry for it after. ITo Teresa.] Is that the way for a decent young girl to speak? [Despairingly.] Oh, for the Lord's sake, shut up, will yous? Have yous no respect for yourselves or your betters? [Peremptorily.] Let me have no more of it, I tell you. Och! the divil's in the whole crew of you. In with you into the house this very minute and tear one another's eyes out in the kitchen if you like. In with you. The two men seize the two women, and push them, still violently abusing one another, into the house. Sir Pearce slams the door upon them savagely. Immediately a heavenly silence falls on the summer afternoon. The two sit down out of breath: and for a long time nothing is said. Sir Pearce sits on an iron chair. O'Flaherty sits on the garden seat. The thrush begins to sing melodiously. O'Flaherty cocks his ears, and looks up at it. A smile spreads over his troubled features. Sir Pearce, with a long sigh, takes out his pipe and begins to fill it. O'FLAHERTY [idyllically]. What a discontented sort of an animal a man is, sir! Only a month ago, I was in the quiet of the country out at the front, with not a sound except the birds and the bellow of a cow in the distance as it might be, and the shrapnel making little clouds in the heavens, and the shells whistling, and maybe a yell or two when one of us was hit; and would you believe it, sir, I complained O'Flaherty V. C. 209 of the noise and wanted to have a peaceful hour at home. Well: them two has taught me a lesson. This morning, sir, when I was telling the boys here how I was longing to be back taking my part for king and country with the others, I was lying, as you well knew, sir. Now I can go and say it with a clear conscience. Some likes war's alarums; and some likes home life. I've tried both, sir; and I'm for war's alarums now. I always was a quiet lad by natural disposition. SIR PEARCE. Strictly between ourselves, O'Flaherty, and as one soldier to another [O'Flaherty salutes, but without stiffening], do you think we should have got an army without conscription if domestic life had been as happy as people say it is? O'FLAHERTY. Well, between you and me and the wall, Sir Pearce, I think the less we say about that until the war's over, the better. He winks at the General. The General strikes a match. The thrush sings. A jay laughs. The conversation drops. THE INCA OF PERUSALEM XXIX I MUST remind the reader that this playlet was written when its principal character, far from being a fallen foe and virtually a prisoner in our victorious hands, was still the Caesar whose legions we were resisting with our hearts in our mouths. Many were so horribly afraid of him that they could not forgive me for not being afraid of him: I seemed to be trifling heartlessly with a deadly peril. I knew better; and I have represented Caesar as knowing better himself. But it was one of the quaintnesses of popular feeling during the war that anyone who breathed the slightest doubt of the absolute perfection of German organization, the Machiavellian depth of German diplomacy, the omniscience of German science, the equipment of every German with a complete philosophy of history, and the consequent hopelessness of overcoming so magnificently accomplished an enemy except by the sacrifice of every recreative activity to incessant and vehement war work, including a heartbreaking mass of fussing and cadging and bluffing that did nothing but waste our energies and tire our resolution, was called a pro-German. Now that this is all over, and the upshot of the fighting has shown that we could quite well have afforded to laugh at the doomed Inca, I am in another difficulty. I may be supposed to be hitting Caesar when he is down. That is why I preface the play with this reminder that when it was written he was not down. To make quite sure, I have gone through the proof sheets very carefully, and deleted everything that could possibly be mistaken for a foul blow. I have of course maintained the ancient privilege of comedy to chasten Caesar's foibles by laughing at them, whilst introducing enough obvious and out213 rageous fiction to relieve both myself and my model from the obligations and responsibilities of sober history and biography. But I should certainly put the play in the fire instead of publishing it if it contained a word against our defeated enemy that I would not have written in 1913. waThe Inca of Perusalem was performed for the first time in England by the Pioneer Players at the Criterion Theatre, London, on 16th December, 1917, with Gertrude Kingston as Ermyntrude, Helen Morris as the Princess, Nigel Playfair as the waiter, Alfred Drayton as the hotel manager, C. Wordley Hulse as the Archdeacon, and Randle Ayrton as the Inca. 214 PROLOGUE The tableau curtains are closed. An English archdeacon comes through them in a condition of extreme irritation. He speaks through the curtains to someone behind them. THE ARCHDEACON. Once for all, Ermyntrude, I cannot afford to maintain you in your present extravagance. [He goes to a flight of steps leading to the stalls and sits down disconsolately on the top step. A fashionably dressed lady comes through the curtains and contemplates him with patient obstinacy. He continues, grumbling.] An English clergyman's daughter should be able to live quite respectably and comfortably on an allowance of ~150 a year, wrung with great difficulty from the domestic budget. ERMYNTRUDE. You are not a common clergyman: you are an archdeacon. THE ARCHDEACON [angrily]. That does not affect my emoluments to the extent of enabling me to support a daughter whose extravagance would disgrace a royal personage. [Scrambling to his feet and scolding at her.] What do you mean by it, Miss? ERMYNTRUDE. Oh really, father! Miss! Is that the way to talk to a widow? THE ARCHDEACON. Is that the way to talk to a father? Your marriage was a most disastrous imprudence. It gave you habits that are absolutely beyond your means-I mean beyond my means: 215 1 216 The Inca of Perusalem you have no means. Why did you not marry Matthews: the best curate I ever had? ERMYNTRUDE. I wanted to; and you wouldn't let me. You insisted on my marrying RoosenhonkersPipstein. THE ARCHDEACON. I had to do the best for you, my child. Roosenhonkers-Pipstein was a millionaire. ERMYNTRUDE. How did you know he was a millionaire? THE ARCHDEACON. He came from America. Of course he was a millionaire. Besides, he proved to my solicitors that he had fifteen million dollars when you married him. ERMYNTRUDE. His solicitors proved to me that he had sixteen millions when he died. He was a millionaire to the last. THE ARCHDEACON. 0 Mammon, Mammon! I am punished now for bowing the knee to him. Is there nothing left of your settlement? Fifty thousand dollars a year it secured to you, as we all thought. Only half the securities could be called speculative. The other half were gilt-edged. What has become of it all? ERMYNTRUDE. The speculative ones were not paid up; and the gilt-edged ones just paid the calls on them until the whole show burst up. THE ARCHDEACON. Ermyntrude: what expressions! ERMYNTRUDE. Oh bother! If you had lost ten thousand a year what expressions would you use, do you think? The long and the short of it is that I can't live in the squalid way you are accustomed to. THE ARCHDEACON. Squalid! ERMYNTRUDE. I have formed habits of comfort. THE ARCHDEACON. Comfort!! ERMYNTRUDE. Well, elegance if you like. Luxury, The Inca of Perusalem 217 if you insist. Call it what you please. A house that costs less than a hundred thousand dollars a year to run is intolerable to me. THE ARCHDEACON. Then, my dear, you had better become lady's maid to a princess until you can find another millionaire to marry you. ERMYNTRUDE. That's an idea. I will. [She vanishes through the curtains.] THE ARCHDEACON. What! Come back, Miss. Come back this instant. [The lights are lowered.] Oh, very well: I have nothing more to say. [He descends the steps tnto the auditorium and makes for the door, grumbling all the time.] Insane, senseless extravagance! [Barking.] Worthlessness!! [Muttering.] I will not bear it any longer. Dresses, hats, furs, gloves, motor rides: one bill after another: money going like water. No restraint, no self-control, no decency. [Shrieking.] I say, no decency! [Muttering again.] Nice state of things we are coming to! A pretty world! But I simply will not bear it. She can do as she likes. I wash my hands of her: I am not going to die in the workhouse for any good-for-nothing, undutiful, spendthrift daughter; and the sooner that is understood by everybody the better for all par- [He is by this time out of hearing in the corridor.] THE PLAY A hotel sitting room. A table in the centre. On it a telephone. Two chairs at it, opposite one another. Behind it, the door. The fireplace has a mirror in the mantelpiece. A spinster Princess, hatted and gloved, is ushered in by the hotel manager, spruce and artifically bland by professional habit, but treating his customer with a condescending affability which sails very close to the east wind of insolence. THE MANAGER. I am sorry I am unable to accommodate Your Highness on the first floor. THE PRINCESS [very shy and nervous]. Oh, please don't mention it. This is quite nice. Very nice. Thank you very much. THE MANAGER. We could prepare a room in the annexe - THE PRINCESS. Oh no. This will do very well. She takes off her gloves and hat: puts them on the table; and sits down. THE MANAGER. The rooms are quite as good up here. There is less noise; and there is the lift. If Your Highness desires anything, there is the telephone THE PRINCESS. Oh, thank you, I don't want anything. The telephone is so difficult: I am not accustomed to it. THE MANAGER. Can I take any order? Some tea? 218 The Inca of Perusalem 219 THE PRINCESS. Oh, thank you. Yes: I should like some tea, if I might - if it would not be too much trouble. He goes out. The telephone rings. The Princess starts out of her chair, terrified, and recoils as far as possible from the instrument. THE PRINCESS. Oh dear! [It rings again. She looks scared. It rings again. She approaches it timidly. It rings again. She retreats hastily. It rings repeatedly. She runs to it in desperation and puts the receiver to her ear.] Who is there? What do I do? I am not used to the telephone: I don't know how -What! Oh, I can hear you speaking quite distinctly. [She sits down, delighted, and settles herself for a conversation]. How wonderful! What! A lady? Oh! a person. Oh, yes: I know. Yes, please, send her up. Have my servants finished their lunch yet? Oh no: please don't disturb them: I'd rather not. It doesn't matter. Thank you. What? Oh yes, it's quite easy. I had no idea - am I to hang it up just as it was? Thank you. [She hangs it up.] Ermyntrude enters, presenting a plain and staid appearance in a long straight waterproof with a hood over her head gear. She comes to the end of the table opposite to that at which the Princess is seated. THE PRINCESS. Excuse me. I have been talking through the telephone: and I heard quite well, though I have never ventured before. Won't you sit down? ERMYNTRUDE. No, thank you, Your Highness. I am only a lady's maid. I understood you wanted one. THE PRINCESS. Oh no: you mustn't think I want one. It's so unpatriotic to want anything now, on account of the war, you know. I sent my maid away as a public duty; and now she has married a soldier and is expecting a war baby. But I don't know how 220 The Inca of Perusalem to do without her. I've tried my very best; but somehow it doesn't answer: everybody cheats me; and in the end it isn't any saving. So I've made up my mind to sell my piano and have a maid. That will be a real saving, because I really don't care a bit for music, though of course one has to pretend to. Don't you think so? ERMYNTRUDE. Certainly I do, Your Highness. Nothing could be more correct. Saving and selfdenial both at once; and an act of kindness to me, as I am out of place. THE PRINCESS. I'm so glad you see it in that way. Er — you won't mind my asking, will you? —how did you lose your place? ERMYNTRUDE. The war, Your Highness, the war. THE PRINCESS. Oh yes, of course. But how - ERMYNTRUDE [taking out her handkerchief and showing signs of grief]. My poor mistressTHE PRINCESS. Oh please say no more. Don't think about it. So tactless of me to mention it. ERMYNTRUDE [mastering her emotion and smiling through her tears]. Your Highness is too good. THE PRINCESS. Do you think you could be happy with me? I attach such importance to that. ERMYNTRUDE [gushing]. Oh, I know I shall. THE PRINCESS. You must not expect too much. There is my uncle. He is very severe and hasty; and he is my guardian. I once had a maid I liked very much; but he sent her away the very first time. ERMYNTRUDE. The first time of what, Your Highness? THE PRINCESS. Oh, something she did. I am sure she had never done it before; and I know she would never have done it again, she was so truly contrite and nice about it. ERMYNTRUDE. About what, Your Highness? The Inca of Perusalem V1 THE PRINCESS. Well, she wore my jewels and one of my dresses at a rather improper ball with her young man; and my uncle saw her. ERYMNTRUDE. Then he was at the ball too, Your Highness? THE PRINCESS [struck by the inference]. I suppose he must have been. I wonder! You know, it's very sharp of you to find that out. I hope you are not too sharp. ERMYNTRUDE. A lady's maid has to be, Your Highness. [She produces some letters.] Your Highness wishes to see my testimonials, no doubt. I have one from an Archdeacon. [She proffers the letters.] THE PRINCESS [taking them]. Do archdeacons have maids? How curious! ERMYNTRUDE. No, Your Highness. They have daughters. I have first-rate testimonials from the Archdeacon and from his daughter. THE PRINCESS [reading them]. The daughter says you are in every respect a treasure. The Archdeacon says he would have kept you if he could possibly have afforded it. Most satisfactory, I'm sure. ERMYNTRUDE. May I regard myself as engaged then, Your Highness? THE PRINCESS [alarmed]. Oh, I'm sure I don't know. If you like, of course; but do you think I ought to? ERMYNTRUDE. Naturally I think Your Highness ought to, most decidedly. THE PRINCESS. Oh well, if you think that, I daresay you're quite right. You'll excuse my mentioning it, I hope; but what wages - er -? ERMYNTRUDE. The same as the maid who went to the ball. Your Highness need not make any change. THE PRINCESS. M'yes. Of course she began with less. But she had such a number of relatives to keep! 222 The Inca of Perusalem It was quite heartbreaking: I had to raise her wages again and again. ERMYNTRUDE. I shall be quite content with what she began on; and I have no relatives dependent on me. And I am willing to wear my own dresses at balls. THE PRINCESS. I am sure nothing could be fairer than that. My uncle can't object to that, can he? ERMYNTRUDE. If he does, Your Highness, ask him to speak to me about it. I shall regard it as part of my duties to speak to your uncle about matters of business. THE PRINCESS. Would you? You must be frightfully courageous. ERMYNTRUDE. May I regard myself as engaged, Your Highness? I should like to set about my duties immediately. THE PRINCESS. Oh yes, I think so. Oh certainly. IA waiter comes in with the tea. He places the tray on the table. THE PRINCESS. Oh, thank you. ERMYNTRUDE [raising the cover from the tea cake and looking at it]. How long has that been standing at the top of the stairs? THE PRINCESS [terrified]. Oh please! It doesn't matter THE WAITER. It has not been waiting. Straight from the kitchen, madam, believe me. ERMYNTRUDE. Send the manager here. THE WAITER. The manager! What do you want with the manager? ERMYNTRUDE. He will tell you when I have done with him. How dare you treat Her Highness in this disgraceful manner? What sort of pothouse is this? Where did you learn to speak to persons of quality? Take away your cold tea and cold cake instantly. Give them to the chambermaid you were flirting with The Inca of Perusalem 223 whilst Her Highness was waiting. Order some fresh tea at once; and do not presume to bring it yourself: have it brought by a civil waiter who is accustomed to wait on ladies, and not, like you, on commercial travellers. THE WAITER. Alas, madam, I am not accustomed to wait on naybody. Two years ago I was an eminent medical man. My waiting-room was crowded with the flower of the aristocracy and the higher bourgeoisie from nine to six every day. But the war came; and my patients were ordered to give up their luxuries. They gave up their doctors, but kept their week-end hotels, closing every career to me except the career of a waiter. [He puts his fingers on the teapot to test its temperature, and automatically takes out his watch with the other hand as if to count the teapot's pulse.] You are right: the tea is cold: it was made by the wife of a once fashionable architect. The cake is only half toasted: what can you expect from a ruined west-end tailor whose attempt to establish a second-hand business failed last Tuesday week? Have you the heart to complain to the manager? Have we not suffered enough? Are our miseries nev- [the manager enters]. Oh Lord! here he is. [The waiter withdraws abjectly, taking the tea tray with him.] THE MANAGER. Pardon, Your Highness; but I have received an urgent inquiry for rooms from an English family of importance; and I venture to ask you to let me know how long you intend to honor us with your presence. THE PRINCESS [rising anxiously]. Oh! am I in the way? ERMYNTRUDE [sternly]. Sit down, madam. [The Princess sits down forlornly. Ermyntrude turns imperiously to the Manager]. Her Highness will require this room for twenty minutes. 224 The Inca of Perusalem THE MANAGER. Twenty minutes! ERMYNTRUDE. Yes: it will take fully that time to find a proper apartment in a respectable hotel. THE MANAGER. I do not understand. ERMYNTRUDE. You understand perfectly. How dare you offer Her Highness a room on the second floor? THE MANAGER. But I have explained. The first floor is occupied. At least — ERMYNTRUDE. Well? at least? THE MANAGER. It is occupied. ERMYNTRUDE. Don't you dare tell Her Highness a falsehood. It is not occupied. You are saving it up for the arrival of the five-fifteen express, from which you hope to pick up some fat armaments contractor who will drink all the bad champagne in your cellar at 25 francs a bottle, and pay twice over for everything because he is in the same hotel with Her Highness, and can boast of having turned her out of the best rooms. THE MANAGER. But Her Highness was so gracious. I did not know that Her Highness was at all particular. ERMYNTRUDE. And you take advantage of Her Highness's graciousness. You impose on her with your stories. You give her a room not fit for a dog. You send cold tea to her by a decayed professional person disguised as a waiter. But don't think you can trifle with me. I am a lady's maid; and I know the ladies' maids and valets of all the aristocracies of Europe and all the millionaires of America. When I expose your hotel as the second-rate little hole it is, not a soul above the rank of a curate with a large family will be seen entering it. I shake its dust off my feet. Order the luggage to be taken down at once. THE MANAGER [appealing to the Princess]. Can Your The Inca of Perusalem 225 Highness believe this of me? Have I had the misfortune to offend Your Highness? THE PRINCESS. Oh no. I am quite satisfied. Please - ERMYNTRUDE. Is Your Highness dissatisfied with me? THE PRINCESS [intimidated]. Oh no: please don't think that. I only meantERMYNTRUDE [to the manager]. You hear. Perhaps you think Her Highness is going to do the work of teaching you your place herself, instead of leaving it to her maid. THE MANAGER. Oh please, mademoiselle. Believe me: our only wish is to make you perfectly comfortable. But in consequence of the war, all royal personages now practise a rigid economy, and desire us to treat them like their poorest subjects. THE PRINCESS. Oh yes. You are quite right - ERMYNTRUDE Einterrupting]. There! Her Highness forgives you; but don't do it again. Now go downstairs, my good man, and get that suite on the first floor ready for us. And send some proper tea. And turn on the heating apparatus until the temperature in the rooms is comfortably warm. And have hot water put in all the bedrooms - THE MANAGER. There are basins with hot and cold taps. ERMYNTRUDE [scornfully]. Yes: there would be. suppose we must put up with that: sinks in our rooms, and pipes that rattle and bang and guggle allover the house whenever anyone washes his hands. I know. THE MANAGER [gallant]. You are hard to please, mademoiselle. ERMYNTRUDE. No harder than other people. But when I'm not pleased I'm not too ladylike to say so. That's all the difference. There is nothing more, thank you. 226 The Inca of Perusalem The Manager shrugs his shoulders resignedly; makes a deep bow to the Princess; goes to the door; wafts a kiss surreptitiously to Ermyntrude; and goes out. THE PRINCESS. It's wonderful! How have you the courage? ERMYNTRUDE. In Your Highness's service I know no fear. Your Highness can leave all unpleasant people to me. THE PRINCESS. How I wish I could! The most dreadful thing of all I have to go through myself. ERMYNTRUDE. Dare I ask what it is, Your Highness? THE PRINCESS. I'm going to be married. I'm to be met here and married to a man I never saw. A boy! A boy who never saw me! One of the sons of the Inca of Perusalem. ERMYNTRUDE. Indeed? Which son? THE PRINCESS. I don't know. They haven't settled which. It's a dreadful thing to be a princess: they just marry you to anyone they like. The Inca is to come and look at me, and pick out whichever of his sons he thinks will suit. And then I shall be an alien enemy everywhere except in Perusalem, because the Inca has made war on everybody. And I shall have to pretend that everybody has made war on him. It's too bad. ERMYNTRUDE. Still, a husband is a husband. I wish I had one. THE PRINCESS. Oh, how can you say that! I'm afraid you're not a nice woman. ERMYNTRUDE. Your Highness is provided for. I'm not. THE PRINCESS. Even if you could bear to let a man touch you, you shouldn't say so. ERMYNTRUDE. I shall not say so again, Your Highness, except perhaps to the man. The Inca of Perusalem 227 THE PRINCESS. It's too dreadful to think of. I wonder you can be so coarse. I really don't think you'll suit. I feel sure now that you know more about men than you should. ERMYNTRUDE. I am a widow, Your Highness. THE PRINCESS [overwhelmed]. Oh, I BEG your pardon. Of course I ought to have known you would not have spoken like that if you were not married. That makes it all right, doesn't it? I'm so sorry. The Manager returns, white, scared, hardly able to speak. THE MANAGER. Your Highness, an officer asks to see you on behalf of the Inca of Perusalem. THE PRINCESS [rising distractedly]. Oh, I can't, really. Oh, what shall I do? THE MANAGER. On important business, he says, Your Highness. Captain Duval. ERMYNTRUDE. Duval! Nonsense! The usual thing. It is the Inca himself, incognito. THE PRINCESS. Oh, send him away. Oh, I'm so afraid of the Inca. I'm not properly dressed to receive him; and he is so particular: he would order me to stay in my room for a week. Tell him to call tomorrow: say I'm ill in bed. I can't: I won't: I daren't: you must get rid of him somehow. ERMYNTRUDE. Leave him to me, Your Highness. THE PRINCESS. You'd never dare! ERMYNTRUDE. I am an Englishwoman, Your Highness, and perfectly capable of tackling ten Incas if necessary. I will arrange the matter. [To the Manager.] Show Her Highness to her bedroom; and then shew Captain Duval in here. THE PRINCESS. Oh, thank you so much. [She goes to the door. Ermyntrude, noticing that she has left her hat and gloves on the table, runs after her with them.] Oh, thank you. And oh, please, if I must have one of 228 The Inca of Perusalem his sons, I should like a fair one that doesn't shave, with soft hair and a beard. I couldn't bear being kissed by a bristly person. [She runs out, the Manager bowing as she passes. He follows her.] Ermyntrude whips off her waterproof; hides it; and gets herself swiftly into perfect trim at the mirror, before the Manager, with a large jewel case in his hand, returns, ushering in the Inca. THE MANAGER. Captain Duval. The Inca, in military uniform, advances with a marked and imposing stage walk; stops; orders the trembling Manager by a gesture to place the jewel case on the table; dismisses him with a frown; touches his helmet graciously to Ermyntrude; and takes off his cloak. THE INCA. I beg you, madam, to be quite at your ease, and to speak to me without ceremony. ERMYNTRUDE [moving haughtily and carelessly to the table]. I hadn't the slightest intention of treating you with ceremony. [She sits down: a liberty which gives him a perceptible shock.] I am quite at a loss to imagine why I should treat a perfect stranger named Duval: a captain! almost a subaltern! with the smallest ceremony. THE INCA. That is true. I had for the moment forgotten my position. ERMYNTRUDE. It doesn't matter. You may sit down. THE INCA [frowning]. What! ERMYNTRUDE. I said, you... may... sit. down. THE INCA. Oh. [His moustache droops. He sits down.] ERMYNTRUDE. What is your business? THE INCA. I come on behalf of the Inca of Perusalem. ERMYNTRUDE. The Allerhochst? The Inca of Perusalem 229 THE INCA. Precisely. ERMYNTRUDE. I wonder does he feel ridiculous when people call him the Allerhochst. THE INCA [surprised]. Why should he? He is the Allerhochst. ERMYNTRUDE. Is he nice looking? THE INCA. I - er. Er -I. I -er. I am not a good judge. ERMYNTRUDE. They say he takes himself very seriously. THE INCA. Why should he not, madam? Providence has entrusted to his family the care of a mighty empire. He is in a position of half divine, half paternal responsibility towards sixty millions of people, whose duty it is to die for him at the word of command. To take himself otherwise than seriously would be blasphemous. It is a punishable offence - severely punishable - in Perusalem. It is called Incadisparagement. ERMYNTRUDE. How cheerful! Can he laugh? THE INCA. Certainly, madam. [He laughs, harshly and mirthlessly.] Ha ha! Ha ha ha! ERMYNTRUDE [frigidly]. I asked could the Inca laugh. I did not ask could you laugh. THE INCA. That is true, madam. [Chuckling.] Devilish amusing, that! [He laughs, genially and sincerely, and becomes a much more agreeable person.] Pardon me: I am now laughing because I cannot help it. I am amused. The other was merely an imitation: a failure, I admit. ERMYNTRUDE. You intimated that you had some business? THE INCA [producing a very large jewel case, and relapsing into solemnity]. I am instructed by the Allerhochst to take a careful note of your features and figure, and, if I consider them satisfactory, to present you with this trifling token of His Imperial Majesty's 230 The Inca of Perusalem regard. I do consider them satisfactory. Allow me [he opens the jewel case and presents it]. ERMYNTRUDE [staring at the contents]. What awful taste he must have! I can't wear that. THE INCA [reddening]. Take care, madam! This brooch was designed by the Inca himself. Allow me to explain the design. In the centre, the shield of Arminius. The ten surrounding medallions represent the ten castles of His Majesty. The rim is a piece of the telephone cable laid by His Majesty across the Shipskeel canal. The pin is a model in miniature of the sword of Henry the Birdcatcher. ERMYNTRUDE. Miniature! It must be bigger than the original. My good man, you don't expect me to wear this round my neck: it's as big as a turtle. [He shuts the case with an angry snap.] How much did it cost? THE INCA. For materials and manufacture alone, half a million Perusalem dollars, madam. The Inca's design constitutes it a work of art. As such, it is now worth probably ten million dollars. ERMYNTRUDE. Give it to me [she snatches it]. I'll pawn it and buy something nice with the money. THE INCA. Impossible, madam. A design by the Inca must not be exhibited for sale in the shop window of a pawnbroker. [He flings himself into his chair, fuming.] ERMYNTRUDE. So much the better. The Inca will have to redeem it to save himself from that disgrace; and the poor pawnbroker will get his money back. Nobody would buy it, you know. THE INCA. May I ask why? ERMYNTRUDE. Well, look at it! Just look at it! I ask you! THE INCA [his moustache drooping ominously]. I am sorry to have to report to the Inca that you have no The Inca of Perusalem 231 soul for fine art. [He rises sulkily.] The position of daughter-in-law to the Inca is not compatible with the tastes of a pig. [He attempts to take back the brooch.] ERMYNTRUDE [rising and retreating behind her chair with the brooch]. Here! you let that brooch alone. You presented it to me on behalf of the Inca. It is mine. You said my appearance was satisfactory. THE INCA. Your appearance is not satisfactory. The Inca would not allow his son to marry you if the boy were on a desert island and you were the only other human being on it [he strides up the room]. ERMYNTRUDE [calmly sitting down and replacing the case on the table]. How could he? There would be no clergyman to marry us. It would have to be quite morganatic. THE INCA [returning]. Such an expression is out of place in the mouth of a princess aspiring to the highest destiny on earth. You have the morals of a dragoon. [She receives this with a shriek of laughter. He struggles with his sense of humor.] At the same time [he sits down] there is a certain coarse fun in the idea which compels me to smile [he turns up his moustache and smiles]. ERMYNTRUDE. When I marry the Inca's son, Captain, I shall make the Inca order you to cut off that moustache. It is too irresistible. Doesn't it fascinate everyone in Perusalem? THE INCA [leaning forward to her energetically]. By all the thunders of Thor, madam, it fascinates the whole world. ERMYNTRUDE. What I like about you, Captain Duval, is your modesty. THE INCA [straightening up suddenly]. Woman, do not be a fool. ERMYNTRUDE [indignant]. Well! THE INCA. You must look facts in the face. This 232 The Inca of Perusalem moustache is an exact copy of the Inca's moustache. Well, does the world occupy itself with the Inca's moustache or does it not? Does it ever occupy itself with anything else? If that is the truth, does its recognition constitute the Inca a coxcomb? Other potentates have moustaches: even beards and moustaches. Does the world occupy itself with those beards and moustaches? Do the hawkers in the streets of every capital on the civilized globe sell ingenious cardboard representations of their faces on which, at the pulling of a simple string, the moustaches turn up and down, so - [he makes his moustache turn up and down several times]? No! I say No. The Inca's moustache is so watched and studied that it has made his face the political barometer of the whole continent. When that moustache goes up, culture rises with it. Not what you call culture; but Kultur, a word so much more significant that I hardly understand it myself except when I am in specially good form. When it goes down, millions of men perish. ERMYNTRUDE. You know, if I had a moustache like that, it would turn my head. I should go mad. Are you quite sure the Inca isn't mad? THE INCA. How can he be mad, madam? What is sanity? The condition of the Inca's mind. What is madness? The condition of the people who disagree with the Inca. ERMYNTRUDE. Then I am a lunatic because I don't like that ridiculous brooch. THE INCA. No, madam: you are only an idiot. ERMYNTRUDE. Thank you. THE INCA. Mark you: it is not to be expected that you should see eye to eye with the Inca. That would be presumption. It is for you to accept without question or demur the assurance of your Inca that the brooch is a masterpiece. The Inca of Perusalem 283 ERMYNTRUDE. My Inca! Oh, come! I like that. He is not my Inca yet. THE INCA. He is everybody's Inca, madam. His realm will yet extend to the confines of the habitable earth. It is his divine right; and let those who dispute it look to themselves. Properly speaking, all those who are now trying to shake his world predominance are not at war with him, but in rebellion against him. ERMYNTRUDE. Well, he started it, you know. THE INCA. Madam, be just. When the hunters surround the lion, the lion will spring. The Inca had kept the peace of years. Those who attacked him were steeped in blood, black blood, white blood, brown blood, yellow blood, blue blood. The Inca had never shed a drop. ERMYNTRUDE. He had only talked. THE INCA. Only talkedl Only talked! What is more glorious than talk? Can anyone in the world talk like him? Madam, when he signed the declaration of war, he said to his foolish generals and admirals, 'Gentlemen, you will all be sorry for this.' And they are. They know now that they had better have relied on the sword of the spirit: in other words, on their Inca's talk, than on their murderous cannons. The world will one day do justice to the Inca as the man who kept the peace with nothing but his tongue and his moustache. While he talked: talked just as I am talking now to you, simply, quietly, sensibly, but GREATLY, there was peace; there was prosperity; Perusalem went from success to success. He has been silenced for a year by the roar of trinitrotoluene and the bluster of fools; and the world is in ruins. What a tragedy! [He is convulsed with grief.] ERMYNTRUDE. Captain Duval, I don't want to be unsympathetic; but suppose we get back to business. THE INCA. Business! What business? 234 The Inca of Perusalem ERMYNTRUDE. Well, my business. You want me to marry one of the Inca's sons: I forget which. THE INCA. As far as I can recollect the name, it is His Imperial Highness Prince Eitel William Frederick George Franz Josef Alexander Nicholas Victor Emmanuel Albert Theodore WilsonERMYNTRUDE [interrupting]. Oh, please, please, mayn't I have one with a shorter name? What is he called at home? THE INCA. He is usually called Sonny, madam. [With great charm of manner.] But you will please understand that the Inca has no desire to pin you to any particular son. There is Chips and Spots and Lulu and Pongo and the Corsair and the Piffler and Jack Johnson the Second, all unmarried. At least not seriously married: nothing, in short, that cannot be arranged. They are all at your service. ERMYNTRUDE. Are they all as clever and charming as their father? THE INCA [lifts his eyebrows pityingly; shrugs his shoulders; then, with indulgent paternal contempt]. Excellent lads, madam. Very honest affectionate creatures. I have nothing against them. Pongo imitates farmyard sounds - cock crowing and that sort of thing - extremely well. Lulu plays Strauss's Sinfonia Domestica on the mouth organ really screamingly. Chips keeps owls and rabbits. Spots motor bicycles. The Corsair commands canal barges and steers them himself. The Piffler writes plays, and paints most abominably. Jack Johnson trims ladies' hats, and boxes with professionals hired for that purpose. He is invariably victorious. Yes: they all have their different little talents. And also, of course, their family resemblances. For example, they all smoke; they all quarrel with one another; and they none of them appreciate their father, who, by the way, is no The Inca of Perusalem 235 mean painter, though the Piffler pretends to ridicule his efforts. ERMYNTRUDE. Quite a large choice, eh? THE INCA. But very little to choose, believe me. I should not recommend Pongo, because he snores so frightfully that it has been necessary to build him a sound-proof bedroom: otherwise the royal family would get no sleep. But any of the others would suit equally well - if you are really bent on marrying one of them. ERMYNTRUDE. If! What is this? I never wanted to marry one of them. I thought you wanted me to. THE INCA. I did, madam; but [confidentially, flattering her] you are not quite the sort of person I expected you to be; and I doubt whether any of these young degenerates would make you happy. I trust I am not showing any want of natural feeling when I say that from the point of view of a lively, accomplished, and beautiful woman [Ermyntrude bows] they might pall after a time. I suggest that you might prefer the Inca himself. ERMYNTRUDE. Oh, Captain, how could a humble person like myself be of any interest to a prince who is surrounded with the ablest and most far-reaching intellects in the world? THE INCA [explosively]. What on earth are you talking about, madam? Can you name a single man in the entourage of the Inca who is not a born fool? ERMYNTRUDE. Oh, how can you say that! There is Admiral von CockpitsTHE INCA [rising intolerantly and striding about the room]. Von Cockpits! Madam, if Von Cockpits ever goes to heaven, before three weeks are over the Angel Gabriel will be at war with the man in the moon. ERMYNTRUDE. But General Von Schinkenburg - THE INCA. Schinkenburg! I grant you, Schinken 236 The Inca of Perusalem burg has a genius for defending market gardens. Among market gardens he is invincible. But what is the good of that? The world does not consist of market gardens. Turn him loose in pasture and he is lost. The Inca has defeated all these generals again and again at manoeuvres; and yet he has to give place to them in the field because he would be blamed for every disaster - accused of sacrificing the country to his vanity. Vanity! Why do they call him vain? Just because he is one of the few men who are not afraid to live. Why do they call themselves brave? Because they have not sense enough to be afraid to die. Within the last year the world has produced millions of heroes. Has it produced more than one Inca? [He resumes his seat.] ERMYNTRUDE. Fortunately not, Captain. I'd rather marry Chips. THE INCA [making a wry face]. Chips! Oh no: I wouldn't marry Chips. ERMYNTRUDE. Why? THE INCA [whispering the secret]. Chips talks too much about himself. ERMYNTRUDE. Well, what about Snooks? THE INCA. Snooks? Who is he? Have I a son named Snooks? There are so many — [wearily] so many-that I often forget. [Casually.] But I wouldn't marry him, anyhow, if I were you. ERMYNTRUDE. But hasn't any of them inherited the family genius? Surely, if Providence has entrusted them with the care of Perusalem-if they are all descended from Bedrock the GreatTHE INCA [interrupting her impatiently]. Madam, if you ask me, I consider Bedrock a grossly overrated monarch. ERMYNTRUDE [shocked]. Oh, Captain! Take care! Incadisparagement. The Inca of Perusalem 237 THE INCA. I repeat, grossly overrated. Strictly between ourselves, I do not believe all this about Providence entrusting the care of sixty million human beings to the abilities of Chips and the Piffler and Jack Johnson. I believe in individual genius. That is the Inca's secret. It must be. Why, hang it all, madam, if it were a mere family matter, the Inca's uncle would have been as great a man as the Inca. And - well, everybody knows what the Inca's uncle was. ERMYNTRUDE. My experience is that the relatives of men of genius are always the greatest duffers imaginable. THE INCA. Precisely. That is what proves that the Inca is a man of genius. His relatives are duffers. ERMYNTRUDE. But bless my soul, Captain, if all the Inca's generals are incapables, and all his relatives duffers, Perusalem will be beaten in the war; and then it will become a republic, like France after 1871, and the Inca will be sent to St Helena. THE INCA [triumphantly]. That is just what the Inca is playing for, madam. It is why he consented to the war. ERMYNTRUDE. What! THE INCA. Aha! The fools talk of crushing the Inca; but they little know their man. Tell me this. Why did St Helena extinguish Napoleon? ERMYNTRUDE. I give it up. THE INCA. Because, madam, with certain rather remarkable qualities, which I should be the last to deny, Napoleon lacked versatility. After all, any fool can be a soldier: we know that only too well in Perusalem, where every fool is a soldier. But the Inca has a thousand other resources. He is an architect. Well, St Helena presents an unlimited field to the architect. He is a painter: need I remind you that St Helena is still without a National Gallery? He is a composer: 238 The Inca of Perusalem Napoleon left no symphonies in St Helena. Send the Inca to St Helena, madam, and the world will crowd thither to see his works as they crowd now to Athens to see the Acropolis, to Madrid to see the pictures of Velasquez, to Bayreuth to see the music dramas of that egotistical old rebel Richard Wagner, who ought to have been shot before he was forty, as indeed he very nearly was. Take this from me: hereditary monarchs are played out: the age for men of genius has come: the career is open to the talents: before ten years have elapsed every civilized country from the Carpathians to the Rocky Mountains will be a Republic. ERMYNTRUDE. Then goodbye to the Inca. THE INCA. On the contrary, madam, the Inca will then have his first real chance. He will be unanimously invited by those Republics to return from his exile and act as Superpresident of all the republics. ERMYNTRUDE. But won't that be a come-down for him? Think of it! after being Inca, to be a mere President! THE INCA. Well, why not! An Inca can do nothing. He is tied hand and foot. A constitutional monarch is openly called an india-rubber stamp. An emperor is a puppet. The Inca is not allowed to make a speech: he is compelled to take up a screed of flatulent twaddle written by some noodle of a minister and read it aloud. But look at the American President! He is the Allerhochst, if you like. No, madam, believe me, there is nothing like Democracy, American Democracy. Give the people voting papers: good long voting papers, American fashion; and while the people are reading the voting papers the Government does what it likes. ERMYNTRUDE. What! You too worship before the statue of Liberty, like the Americans? The Inca of Perusalem 239 THE INCA. Not at all, madam. The Americans do not worship the statue of Liberty. They have erected it in the proper place for a statue of Liberty: on its tomb [he turns down his moustaches]. ERMYNTRUDE [laughing]. Oh! You'd better not let them hear you say that, Captain. THE INCA. Quite safe, madam: they would take it as a joke. [He rises.] And now, prepare yourself for a surprise. [She rises.] A shock. Brace yourself. Steel yourself. And do not be afraid. ERMYNTRUDE. Whatever on earth can you be going to tell me, Captain? THE INCA. Madam, I am no captain. IERMYNTRUDE. You are the Inca in disguise. THE INCA. Good heavens! how do you know that? Who has betrayed me? ERMYNTRUDE. How could I help divining it, Sir? Who is there in the world like you? Your magnetism THE INCA. True: I had forgotten my magnetism. But you know now that beneath the trappings of Imperial Majesty there is a Man: simple, frank, modest, unaffected, colloquial: a sincere friend, a natural human being, a genial comrade, one eminently calculated to make a woman happy. You, on the other hand, are the most charming woman I have ever met. Your conversation is wonderful. I have sat here almost in silence, listening to your shrewd and penetrating account of my character, my motives, if I may say so, my talents. Never has such justice been done me: never have I experienced such perfect sympathy. Will you - I hardly know how to put this - will you be mine? ERMYNTRUDE. Oh, Sir, you are married. THE INCA. I am prepared to embrace the Mahometan faith, which allows a man four wives, if you will consent. It will please the Turks. But I had rather 240 The Inca of Perusalem you did not mention it to the Inca-ess. if you don't mind. ERMYNTRUDE. This is really charming of you. But the time has come for me to make a revelation. It is your Imperial Majesty's turn now to brace yourself. To steel yourself. I am not the princess. I amTHE INCA. The daughter of my old friend Archdeacon Daffodil Donkin, whose sermons are read to me every evening after dinner. I never forget a face. ERMYNTRUDE. You knew all along! THE INCA [bitterly, throwing himself into his chair]. And you supposed that I, who have been condemned to the society of princesses all my wretched life, believed for a moment that any princess that ever walked could have your intelligence! ERMYNTRUDE. How clever of you, Sir! But you cannot afford to marry me. THE INCA [springing up]. Why not? ERMYNTRUDE. You are too poor. You have to eat war bread. Kings nowadays belong to the poorer classes. The King of England does not even allow himself wine at dinner. THE INCA [delighted]. Haw! Ha ha! Haw! haw! [He is convulsed with laughter, and finally has to relieve his feelings by waltzing half round the room.] ERMYNTRUDE. You may laugh, Sir; but I really could not live in that style. I am the widow of a millionaire, ruined by your little war. THE INCA. A millionaire! What are millionaires now, with the world crumbling? ERMYNTRUDE. Excuse me: mine was a hyphenated millionaire. THE INCA. A highfalutin millionaire, you mean. [Chuckling]. Haw! ha ha! really very nearly a pun, that. [He sits down in her chair.] The Inca of Perusalem 241 ERMYNTRUDE [revolted, sinking into his chair]. I think it quite the worst pun I ever heard. THE INCA. The best puns have all been made years ago: nothing remained but to achieve the worst. However, madam [he rises majestically; and she is about to rise also]. No: I prefer a seated audience [she falls back into her seat at the imperious wave of his hand]. So [he clicks his heels]. Madam, I recognize my presumption in having sought the honor of your hand. As you say, I cannot afford it. Victorious as I am, I am hopelessly bankrupt; and the worst of it is, I am intelligent enough to know it. And I shall be beaten in consequence, because my most implacable enemy, though only a few months further away from bankruptcy than myself, has not a ray of intelligence, and will go on fighting until civilization is destroyed, unless I, out of sheer pity for the world, condescend to capitulate. ERMYNTRUDBE. The sooner the better, Sir. Many fine young men are dying while you wait. THE INCA [flinching painfully]. Why? Why do they do it? ERMYNTRUVD. Because you make them. THE INCA. Stuff! How can I? I am only one man; and they are millions. Do you suppose they would really kill each other if they didn't want to, merely for the sake of my beautiful eyes? Do not be deceived by newspaper claptrap, madam. I was swept away by a passion not my own, which imposed itself on me. By myself I am nothing. I dare not walk down the principal street of my own capital in a coat two years old, though the sweeper of that street can wear one ten years old. You talk of death as an unpopular thing. You are wrong: for years I gave them art, literature, science, prosperity, that they might live more abundantly; and they hated me, ridiculed me, caricatured 242 The Inca of Perusalem me. Now that I give them death in its frightfullest forms, they are devoted to me. If you doubt me, ask those who for years have begged our taxpayers in vain for a few paltry thousands to spend on Life: on the bodies and minds of the nation's children, on the beauty and healthfulness of its cities, on the honor and comfort of its worn-out workers. They refused: and because they refused, death is let loose on them. They grudged a few hundreds a year for their salvation: they now pay millions a day for their own destruction and damnation. And this they call my doing! Let them say it, if they dare, before the judgment-seat at which they and I shall answer at last for what we have left undone no less than for what we have done. [Pulling himself together suddenly.] Madam, I have the honor to be your most obedient [he clicks his heels and bows]. ERMYNTRUDE. Sir! [She curtsies.] THE INCA [turning at the door]. Oh, by the way, there is a princess, isn't there, somewhere on the premises? ERMYNTRUDE. There is. Shall I fetch her? THE INCA [dubious]. Pretty awful, I suppose, eh? ERMYNTRUDE. About the usual thing. THE INCA [sighing]. Ah well! What can one expect? I don't think I need trouble her personally. Will you explain to her about the boys? ERMYNTRUDE. I am afraid the explanation will fall rather flat without your magnetism. THE INCA [returning to her and speaking very humanly]. You are making fun of me. Why does everybody make fun of me? Is it fair? ERMYNTRUDE [seriously]. Yes, it is fair. What other defence have we poor common people against your shining armor, your mailed fist, your pomp and parade, your terrible power over us? Are these things fair? The Inca of Perusalem 243 THE INCA. Ah, well, perhaps, perhaps. [He looks at his watch.] By the way, there is time for a drive round the town and a cup of tea at the Zoo. Quite a bearable band there: it does not play any patriotic airs. I am sorry you will not listen to any more permanent arrangement; but if you would care to comeERMYNTRUDE [eagerly]. Ratherrrrrr. I shall be delighted. THE INCA [cautiously]. In the strictest honor, you understand. ERMYNTRUDE. Don't be afraid. I promise to refuse any incorrect proposals. THE INCA [enchanted]. Oh! Charming woman: how well you understand men! He offers her his arm: they go out together. AUGUSTUS DOES HIS BIT XXX I WISH to express, my gratitude for certain good offices which Augustus secured for me in January, 1917. I had been invited to visit the theatre of war in Flanders by the Commander-in-Chief: an invitation which was, under the circumstances, a summons to duty. Thus I had occasion to spend some days in procuring the necessary passports and other official facilities for my journey. It happened just then that the Stage Society gave a performance of this little play. It opened the heart of every official to me. I have always been treated with distinguished consideration in my contracts with bureaucracy during the war; but on this occasion I found myself persona grata in the highest degree. There was only one word when the formalities were disposed of; and that was "We are up against Augustus all day." The showing-up of Augustus scandalized one or two innocent and patriotic critics who regarded the prowess of the British army as inextricably bound up with Highcastle prestige. But our Government departments knew better: their problem was how to win the war with Augustus on their backs, well-meaning, brave, patriotic, but obstructively fussy, self-important, imbecile, and disastrous. Save for the satisfaction of being able to laugh at Augustus in the theatre, nothing, as far as I know, came of my dramatic reduction of him to absurdity. Generals, admirals, Prime Ministers and Controllers, not to mention Emperors, Kaisers and Tsars, were scrapped remorselessly at home and abroad, for their sins or services, as the case might be. But Augustus stood like the Eddystone in a storm, and stands so to this day. He gave us his word that he was indispensable and we took it. 247 S Augustus Does His Bit was performed for the first time at the Court Theatre in London by the Stage Society on the 21st January, 1917, with LaUa Vandervelde as The Lady, F. B. J. Sharp as Lord Augustus Highcastle, and Charles Rock as Horatio Floyd Beamish. 4g8 AUGUSTUS DOES HIS BIT The Mayor's parlor in the Town Hall of Little Piffington. Lord Augustus Highcastle, a distinguished member of the governing class, in the uniform of a colonel, and very well preserved at forty-five, is comfortably seated at a writing-table with his heels on it, reading The Morning Post. The door faces him, a little to his left, at the other side of the room. The window is behind him. In the fireplace, a gas stove. On the table a bell button and a telephone. Portraits of past Mayors, in robes and gold chains, adorn the walls. An elderly clerk with a short white beard and whiskers, and a very red nose, shuffles in. AUGUSTUS [hastily putting aside his paper and replacing his feet on the floor]. Hullo! Who are you? THE CLERK. The staff [a slight impediment in his speech adds to the impression of incompetence produced by his age and appearance]. AUGUSTUS. You the staff! What do you mean, man? THE CLERK. What I say. There ain't anybody else. AUGUSTUS. Tush! Where are the others? THE CLERK. At the front. AUGUSTUS. Quite right. Most proper. Why aren't you at the front? THE CLERK. Over age. Fifty-seven. AUGUSTUS. But you can still do your bit. Many an older man is in the G.R.'s, or volunteering for home defence. 249 250 Augustus Does His Bit THE CLERK. I have volunteered. AUGUSTUS. Then why are you not in uniform? THE CLERK. They said they wouldn't have me if I was given away with a pound of tea. Told me to go home and not be an old silly. [A sense of unbearable wrong, till now only smouldering in him, bursts into flame.] Young Bill Knight, that I took with me, got two and sevenpence. I got nothing. Is it justice? This country is going to the dogs, if you ask me. AUGUSTUS [rising indignantly]. I do not ask you, sir; and I will not allow you to say such things in my presence. Our statesmen are the greatest known to history. Our generals are invincible. Our arny is the admiration of the world. [Furiously.] How dare you tell me that the country is going to the dogs! THE CLERK. Why did they give young Bill Knight two and sevenpence, and not give me even my tram fare? Do you call that being great statesmen? As good as robbing me, I call it. AUGUSTUS. That's enough. Leave the room. [He sits down and takes up his pen, settling himself to work. The clerk shuffles to the door. Augustus adds, with cold politeness.] Send me the Secretary. THE CLERK. I'm the Secretary. I can't leave the room and send myself to you at the same time, can I? AUGUSTUS, Don't be insolent. Where is the gentleman I have been corresponding with: Mr Horatio Floyd Beamish? THE CLERK [returning and bowing]. Here. Me. AUGUSTUS. You! Ridiculous. What right have you to call yourself by a pretentious name of that sort? THE CLERK. You may drop the Horatio Floyd. Beamish is good enough for me. AUGUSTUS. Is there nobody else to take my instructions? THE CLERK. It's me or nobody. And for two pins Augustus Does His Bit 251 I'd chuck it. Don't you drive me too far. Old uns like me is up in the world now. AUGUSTUS. If we were not at war, I should discharge you on the spot for disrespectful behavior. But England is in danger; and I cannot think of my personal dignity at such a moment. [Shouting at him.] Don't you think of yours, either, worm that you are; or I'll have you arrested under the Defence of the Realm Act, double quick. THE CLERK. What do I care about the realm? They done me out of two and seven - AUGUSTUS. Oh, damn your two and seven! Did you receive my letters? THE CLERK. Yes. AUGUSTUS. I addressed a meeting here last night - went straight to the platform from the train. I wrote to you that I should expect you to be present and report yourself. Why did you not do so? THE CLERK. The police wouldn't let me on the platform. AUGUSTUS. Did you tell them who you were? THE CLERK. They knew who I was. That's why they wouldn't let me up. AUGUSTUS. This is too silly for anything. This town wants waking up. I made the best recruiting speech I ever made in my life; and not a man joined. THE CLERK. What did you expect? You told them our gallant fellows is falling at the rate of a thousand a day in the big push. Dying for Little Pifflington, you says. Come and take their places, you says. That ain't the way to recruit. AUGUSTUS. But I expressly told them their widows would have pensions. THE CLERK. I heard you. Would have been all right if it had been the widows you wanted to get round. z252 Augustus Does His Bit AUGUSTUS [rising angrily]. This town is inhabited by dastards. I say it with a full sense of responsibility, dastardsl They call themselves Englishmen; and they are afraid to fight. THE CLERK. Afraid to fight! You should see them on a Saturday night. AUGUSTUS. Yes, they fight one another; but they won't fight the Germans. THE CLERK. They got grudges again one another: how can they have grudges again the Huns that they never saw? They've no imagination: that's what it is. Bring the Huns here; and they'll quarrel with them fast enough. AUGUSTUS [returning to his seat with a grunt of disgust]. Mf! They'll have them here if they're not careful. [Seated.] Have you carried out my orders about the war saving? THE CLERK. Yes. AUGUSTUS. The allowance of petrol has been reduced by three quarters? THE CLERK. It has. AUGUSTUS. And you have told the motor-car people to come here and arrange to start munition work now that their motor business is stopped? THE CLERK. It ain't stopped. They're busier than ever. AUGUSTUS. Busy at what? THE CLERK. Making small cars. AUGUSTUS. New cars! THE CLERK. The old cars only do twelve miles to the gallon. Everybody has to have a car that will do thirty-five now. AUGUSTUS. Can't they take the train? THE CLERK. There ain't no trains now. They've tore up the rails and sent them to the front. AUGUSTUS. Psha! Augustus Does His Bit 253 THE CLERK. Well, we have to get about somehow. AUGUSTUS. This is perfectly monstrous. Not in the least what I intended. THE CLERK. Hell — AUGUSTUS. Sir! THE CLERK [explaining]. Hell, they says, is paved with good intentions. AUGUSTUS [springing to his feet]. Do you mean to insinuate that hell is paved with my good intentions - with the good intentions of His Majesty's Government? THE CLERK. I don't mean to insinuate anything until the Defence of the Realm Act is repealed. It ain't safe. AUGUSTUS. They told me that this town had set an example to all England in the matter of economy. I came down here to promise the Mayor a knighthood for his exertions. THE CLERK. The Mayor! Where do I come in? AUGUSTUS. You don't come in. You go out. This is a fool of a place. I'm greatly disappointed. Deeply disappointed. [Flinging himself back into his chair.] Disgusted. THE CLERK. What more can we do? We've shut up everything. The picture gallery is shut. The museum is shut. The theatres and picture shows is shut: I haven't seen a movy picture for six months. AUGUSTUS. Man, man: do you want to see picture shows when the Hun is at the gate? THE CLERK [mournfully]. I don't now, though it drove me melancholy mad at first. I was on the point of taking a pennorth of rat poison - AUGUSTUS. Why didn't you? THE CLERK. Because a friend advised me to take to drink instead. That saved my life, though it makes me very poor company in the mornings, as [hiccuping] perhaps you've noticed. AUGUSTUS. Well, upon my soul! You are not 254 Augustus Does His Bit ashamed to stand there and confess yourself a disgusting drunkard. THE CLERK. Well, what of it? We're at war now; and everything's changed. Besides, I should lose my job here if I stood drinking at the bar. I'm a respectable man and must buy my drink and take it home with me. And they won't serve me with less than a quart. If you'd told me before the war that I could get through a quart of whisky in a day, I shouldn't have believed you. That's the good of war: it brings out powers in a man that he never suspected himself capable of. You said so yourself in your speech last night. AUGUSTUS. I did not know that I was talking to an imbecile. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. There must be an end of this drunken slacking. I'm going to establish a new order of things here. I shall come down every morning before breakfast until things are properly in train. Have a cup of coffee and two rolls for me here every morning at half-past ten. THE CLERK. You can't have no rolls. The only baker that baked rolls was a Hun; and he's been interned. AUGUSTUS. Quite right, too. And was there no Englishman to take his place? THE CLERK. There was. But he was caught spying; and they took him up to London and shot him. AUGUSTUS. Shot an Englishman! THE CLERK. Well, it stands to reason if the Germans wanted to spy they wouldn't employ a German that everybody would suspect, don't it? AUGUSTUS [rising again]. Do you mean to say, you scoundrel, that an Englishman is capable of selling his country to the enemy for gold? THE CLERK. Not as a general thing I wouldn't say Augustus Does His Bit 255 it; but there's men here would sell their own mothers for two coppers if they got the chance. AUGUSTUS. Beamish, it's an ill bird that fouls its own nest. THE CLERK. It wasn't me that let Little Pifflington get foul. I don't belong to the governing classes. I only tell you why you can't have no rolls. AUGUSTUS [intensely irritated]. Can you tell me where I can find an intelligent being to take my orders? THE CLERK. One of the street sweepers used to teach in the school until it was shut up for the sake of economy. Will he do? AUGUSTUS. What! You mean to tell me that when the lives of the gallant fellows in our trenches, and the fate of the British Empire, depend on our keeping up the supply of shells, you are wasting money on sweeping the streets? THE CLERK. We have to. We dropped it for a while; but the infant death rate went up something frightful. AUGUSTUS. What matters the death rate of Little Pifflington in a moment like this? Think of our gallant soldiers, not of your squalling infants. THE CLERK. If you want soldiers you must have children. You can't buy em in boxes, like toy soldiers. AUGUSTUS. Beamish, the long and the short of it is, you are no patriot. Go downstairs to your office; and have that gas stove taken away and replaced by an ordinary grate. The Board of Trade has urged on me the necessity for economizing gas. THE CLERK. Our orders from the Minister of Munitions is to use gas instead of coal, because it saves material. Which is it to be? AUGUSTUS [bawling furiously at him]. Both! Don't criticize your orders: obey them. Your's not to reason 256 Augustus Does His Bit why: yours but to do and die. That's war. [Cooling down.] Have you anything else to say? THE CLERK. Yes: I want a rise. AUGUSTUS [reeling against the table in his horror]. A rise! Horatio Floyd Beamish, do you know that we are at war? THE CLERK [feebly ironical]. I have noticed something about it in the papers. Heard you mention it once or twice, now I come to think of it. AUGUSTUS. Our gallant fellows are dying in the trenches; and you want a rise! THE CLERK. What are they dying for? To keep me alive, ain't it? Well, what's the good of that if I'm dead of hunger by the time they come back? AUGUSTUS. Everybody else is making sacrifices without a thought of self; and you - THE CLERK. Not half, they ain't. Where's the baker's sacrifice? Where's the coal merchant's? Where's the butcher's? Charging me double: that's how they sacrifice themselves. Well, I want to sacrifice myself that way too. Just double next Saturday: double and not a penny less; or no secretary for you [he stiffens himself shakily, and makes resolutely for the door]. AUGUSTUS [looking after him contemptuously]. Go, miserable pro-German. THE CLERK [rushing back and facing him]. Who are you calling a pro-German? AUGUSTUS. Another word, and I charge you under the Act with discouraging me. Go. The clerk blenches and goes out, cowed. The telephone rings. AUGUSTUS [taking up the telephone receiver]. Halo.. Yes: who are you?... oh, Blueloo, is it?... Yes: there's nobody in the room: fire away... What?... A spy!... A woman!... Yes: I Augustus Does His Bit 257 brought it down with me. Do you suppose I'm such a fool as to let it out of my hands? Why, it gives a list of all our anti-aircraft emplacements from Ramsgate to Skegness. The Germans would give a million for it- what?... But how could she possibly know about it? I haven't mentioned it to a soul, except, of course, dear Lucy.... Oh, Toto and Lady Popham and that lot: they don't count: they're all right. I mean that I haven't mentioned it to any Germans.... Pooh! Don't you be nervous, old chap. I know you think me a fool; but I'm not such a fool as all that. If she tries to get it out of me I'll have her in the Tower before you ring up again. [The clerk returns]. Sh-sh! Somebody's just come in: ring off. Goodbye. [He hangs up the receiver]. THE CLERK. Are you engaged? [His manner is strangely softened]. AUGUSTUS. What business is that of yours? However, if you will take the trouble to read the society papers for this week, you will see that I am engaged to the Honorable Lucy Popham, youngest daughter of - THE CLERK. That ain't what I mean. Can you see a female? AUGUSTUS. Of course I can see a female as easily as a male. Do you suppose I'm blind? THE CLERK. You don't seem to follow me, somehow. There's a female downstairs: what you might call a lady. She wants to know can you see her if I let her up. AUGUSTUS. Oh, you mean am I disengaged. Tell the lady I have just received news of the greatest importance which will occupy my entire attention for the rest of the day, and that she must write for an appointment. THE CLERK. I'll ask her to explain her business to me. I ain't above talking to a handsome young female when I get the chance [going]. 258 Augustus Does His Bit AUGUSTUS. Stop. Does she seem to be a person of consequence? THE CLERK. A regular marchioness, if you ask me. AUGUSTUS. Hm! Beautiful, did you say? THE CLERK. A human chrysanthemum, sir, believe me. AUGUSTUS. It will be extremely inconvenient for me to see her; but the country is in danger; and we must not consider our own comfort. Think how our gallant fellows are suffering in the trenches! Show her up. [The clerk makes for the door, whistling the latest popular love ballad]. Stop whistling instantly, sir. This is not a casino. THE CLERK. Ain't it? You just wait till you see her. [He goes out.] Augustus produces a mirror, a comb, and a pot of moustache pomade from the drawer of the writing-table, and sits down before the mirror to put some touches to his toilet. The clerk returns, devotedly ushering a very attractive lady, brilliantly dressed. She has a dainty wallet hanging from her wrist. Augustus hastily covers up his toilet apparatus with The Morning Post, and rises in an attitude of pompous condescension. THE CLERK [to Augustus]. Here she is. [To the lady.] May I offer you a chair, lady? [He places a chair at the writing-table opposite Augustus, and steals out on tiptoe.] AUGUSTUS. Be seated, madam. THE LADY [sitting down]. Are you Lord Augustus Highcastle? AUGUSTUS [sitting also]. Madam, I am. THE LADY [with awe]. The great Lord Augustus? AUGUSTUS. I should not dream of describing myself so, madam; but no doubt I have impressed my countrymen - and [bowing gallantly] may I say my coun Augustus Does His Bit 259 trywomen-as having some exceptional claims to their consideration. THE LADY [emotionally]. What a beautiful voice you have! AUGUSTUS. What you hear, madam, is the voice of my country, which now takes a sweet and noble tone even in the harsh mouth of high officialism. THE LADY. Please go on. You express yourself so wonderfully! AUGUSTUS. It would be strange indeed if, after sitting on thirty-seven Royal Commissions, mostly as chairman, I had not mastered the art of public expression. Even the Radical papers have paid me the high compliment of declaring that I am never more impressive than when I have nothing to say. THE LADY. I never read the Radical papers. All I can tell you is that what we women admire in you is not the politician, but the man of action, the heroic warrior, the beau sabreur. AUGUSTUS [gloomily]. Madam, I beg! Please! My military exploits are not a pleasant subject, unhappily. THE LADY. Oh, I know, I know. How shamefully you have been treated! What ingratitude! But the country is with you. The women are with you. Oh, do you think all our hearts did not throb and all our nerves thrill when we heard how, when you were ordered to occupy that terrible quarry in Hulluch, and you swept into it at the head of your men like a sea-god riding on a tidal wave, you suddenly sprang over the top shouting "To Berlin! Forward!"; dashed at the German army single-handed; and were cut off and made prisoner by the Huns. AUGUSTUS. Yes, madam; and what was my reward? They said I had disobeyed orders, and sent me home. Have they forgotten Nelson in the Baltic? Has any British battle ever been won except by a bold 260 Augustus Does His Bit individual initiative? I say nothing of professional jealousy: it exists in the army as elsewhere; but it is a bitter thought to me that the recognition denied me by my own country - or rather by the Radical cabal in the Cabinet which pursues my family with rancorous class hatred- that this recognition, I say, came to me at the hands of an enemy - of a rank Prussian. THE LADY. You don't say so! AUGUSTUS. How else should I be here instead of starving to death in Ruhleben? Yes, madam: the Colonel of the Pomeranian regiment which captured me, after learning what I had done, and conversing for an hour with me on European politics and military strategy, declared that nothing would induce him to deprive my country of my services, and set me free. I offered, of course, to procure the release in exchange of a German officer of equal quality; but he would not hear of it. He was kind enough to say he could not believe that a German officer answering to that description existed. [With emotion.] I had my first taste of the ingratitude of my own country as I made my way back to our lines. A shot from our front trench struck me in the head. I still carry the flattened projectile as a trophy [he throws it on the table; the noise it makes testifies to its weight]. Had it penetrated to the brain I might never have sat on another Royal Commission. Fortunately we have strong heads, we Highcastles. Nothing has ever penetrated to our brains. THE LADY. How thrilling! How simple! And how tragic! But you will forgive England? Remember: England! Forgive her. AUGUSTUS [with gloomy magnanimity]. It will make no difference whatever to my services to my country. Though she slay me, yet will I, if not exactly trust in her, at least take my part in her government. I am Augustus Does His Bit 261 ever at my country's call. Whether it be the embassy in a leading European capital, a governor-generalship in the tropics, or my humble mission here to make Little Pifflington do its bit, I am always ready for the sacrifice. Whilst England remains England, wherever there is a public job to be done you will find a Highcastle sticking to it. And now, madam, enough of my tragic personal history. You have called on business. What can I do for you? THE LADY. You have relatives at the Foreign Office, have you not? AUGUSTUS [haughtily]. Madam, the Foreign Office is staffed by my relatives exclusively. THE LADY. Has the Foreign Office warned you that you are being pursued by a female spy who is determined to obtain possession of a certain list of gun emplacements - AUGUSTUS [interrupting her somewhat loftily]. All that is perfectly well known to this department, madam. THE LADY [surprised and rather indignant]. Is it? Who told you? Was it one of your German brothersin-law? AUGUSTUS [injured, remonstrating]. I have only three German brothers-in-law, madam. Really, from your tone, one would suppose that I had several. Pardon my sensitiveness on that subject; but reports are continually being circulated that I have been shot as a traitor in the courtyard of the Ritz Hotel simply because I have German brothers-in-law. [With feeling.] If you had a German brother-in-law, madam, you would know that nothing else in the world produces so strong an anti-German feeling. Life affords no keener pleasure than finding a brother-in-law's name in the German casualty list. THE LADY. Nobody knows that better than I. 262 Augustus Does His Bit Wait until you hear what I have come to tell you: you will understand me as no one else could. Listen. This spy, this woman - AUGUSTUS [all attention]. Yes? THE LADY. She is a German. A Hun. AUGUSTUS. Yes, yes. She would be. Continue. THE LADY. She is my sister-in-law. AUGUSTUS [deferentially]. I see you are well connected, madam. Proceed. THE LADY. Need I add that she is my bitterest enemy? AUGUSTUS. May I —[he proffers his hand. They shake, fervently. From this moment onward Augustus becomes more and more confidential, gallant, and charming]. THE LADY. Quite so. Well, she is an intimate friend of your bother at the War Office, Hungerford Highcastle, Bluelou as you call him, I don't know why. AUGUSTUS [explaining]. He was originally called The Singing Oyster, because he sang drawing-room ballads with such an extraordinary absence of expression. He was then called the Blue Point for a season or two. Finally he became Blueloo. THE LADY. Oh, indeed: I didn't know. Well, Blueloo is simply infatuated with my sister-in-law; and he has rashly let out to her that this list is in your possession. He forgot himself because he was in a towering rage at its being entrusted to you: his language was terrible. He ordered all the guns to be shifted at once. AUGUSTUS. What on earth did he do that for? THE LADY. I can't imagine. But this I know. She made a bet with him that she would come down here and obtain possession of that list and get clean away into the street with it. He took the bet on condition that she brought it straight back to him at the War Office. ~ Augustus Does His Bit 263 AUGUSTUS. Good heavens! And you mean to tell me that Blueloo was such a dolt as to believe that she could succeed? Does he take me for a fool? THE LADY. Oh, impossible! He is jealous of your intellect. The bet is an insult to you: don't you feel that? After what you have done for our country - AUGUSTUS. Oh, never mind that. It is the idiocy of the thing I look at. He'll lose his bet; and serve him right! THE LADY. You feel sure you will be able to resist the siren? I warn you, she is very fascinating. AUGUSTUS. You need have no fear, madam. I hope she will come and try it on. Fascination is a game that two can play at. For centuries the younger sons of the Highcastles have had nothing to do but fascinate attractive females when they were not sitting on Royal Commissions or on duty at Knightsbridge barracks. By Gad, madam, if the siren comes here she will meet her match. THE LADY. I feel that. But if she fails to seduce youAUGUSTUS [blushing]. Madam! THE LADY [continuing] - from your allegiance - AUGUSTUS. Oh, that! THE LADY. —she will resort to fraud, to force, to anything. She will burgle your office: she will have you attacked and garotted at night in the street. AUGUSTUS. Pooh! I'm not afraid. THE LADY. Oh, your courage will only tempt you into danger. She may get the list after all. It is true that the guns are moved. But she would win her bet. AUGUSTUS [cautiously]. You did not say that the guns were moved. You said that Blueloo had ordered them to be moved. THE LADY. Well, that is the same thing, isn't it? AUGUSTUS. Not quite-at the War Office. No 264 Augustus Does His Bit doubt those guns will be moved: possibly even before the end of the war. THE LADY. Then you think they are there still! But if the German War Office gets the list - and she will copy it before she gives it back to Blueloo, you may depend on it- all is lost. AUGUSTUS [lazily]. Well, I should not go as far as that. [Lowering his voice.] Will you swear to me not to repeat what I am going to say to you; for if the British public knew that I had said it, I should be at once hounded down as a pro-German. THE LADY. I will be silent as the grave. I swear it. AUGUSTUS [again taking it easily]. Well, our people have for some reason made up their minds that the German War Office is everything that our War Office is not —that it carries promptitude, efficiency, and organization to a pitch of completeness and perfection that must be, in my opinion, destructive to the happiness of the staff. My own view —which you are pledged, remember, not to betray-is that the German War Office is no better than any other War Office. I found that opinion on my observation of the characters of my brothers-in-law: one of whom, by the way, is on the German generalstaff. I am not at all sure that this list of gun emplacements would receive the smallest attention. You see, there are always so many more important things to be attended to. Family matters, and so on, you understand. THE LADY. Still, if a question were asked in the House of Commons - AUGUSTUS. The great advantage of being at war, madam, is that nobody takes the slightest notice of the House of Commons. No doubt it is sometimes necessary for a Minister to soothe the more seditious members of that assembly by giving a pledge or two; but the War Office takes no notice of such things. Augustus Does His Bit 265 THE LADY [staring at him]. Then you think this list of gun emplacements doesn't matter!! AUGUSTUS. By no means, madam. It matters very much indeed. If this spy were to obtain possession of the list, Blueloo would tell the story at every dinner-table in London; and - THE LADY. And you might lose your post. Of course. AUGUSTUS [amazed and indignant]. I lose my post! What are you dreaming about, madam? How could I possibly be spared? There are hardly Highcastles enough at present to fill half the posts created by this war. No: Blueloo would not go that far. He is at least a gentleman. But I should be chaffed; and, frankly, I don't like being chaffed. THE LADY. Of course not. Who does? It would never do. Oh never, never. AUGUSTUS. I'm glad you see it in that light. And now, as a measure of security, I shal put that list in my pocket. [He begins searching vainly from drawer to drawer in the writing-table.] Where on earth-? What the dickens did I-? That's very odd: I — Where the deuce -? I thought I had put it in the - Oh, here it is! No: this is Lucy's last letter. THE LADY [elegiacally]. Lucy's Last Letter! What a title for a picture play! AUGUSTUS [delighted]. Yes: it is, isn't it? Lucy appeals to the imagination like no other woman. By the way [handing over the letter], I wonder could you read it for me? Lucy is a darling girl; but I really can't read her writing. In London I get the office typist to decipher it and make me a typed copy; but here there is nobody. THE LADY [puzzling over it]. It is really almost illegible. I think the beginning is meant for "Dearest Gus." 266 Augustus Does His Bit AUGUSTUS [eagerly]. Yes: that is what she usually calls me. Please go on. THE LADY [trying to decipher it]. "What a""what a"-oh yes: "what a forgetful old"something - "you are!" I can't make out the word. AUGUSTUS [greatly interested]. Is it blighter? That is a favorite expression of hers. THE LADY. I think so. At all events it begins with a B. [Reading.] "What a forgetful old" —[she is interrupted by a knock at the door.] AUGUSTUS [impatiently]. Come in. [The clerk enters, clean shaven and in khaki, uwth an official paper and an envelope in his hand.] What is this ridiculous mummery sir? THE CLERK [coming to the table and exhibiting his uniform to both.] They've passed me. The recruiting officer come for me. I've had my two and seven. AUGUSTUS [rising wrathfully]. I shall not permit it. What do they mean by taking my office staff? Good God! they will be taking our hunt servants next. [Confronting the clerk.] What did the man mean? What did he say? THE CLERK. He said that now you was on the job we'd want another million men, and he was going to take the old-age pensioners or anyone he could get. AUGUSTUS. And did you dare to knock at my door and interrupt my business with this lady to repeat this man's ineptitudes? THE CLERK. No. I come because the waiter from the hotel brought this paper. You left it on the coffeeroom breakfast-table this morning. THE LADY [intercepting it]. It is the list. Good heavens! THE CLERK [proffering the envelope]. He says he thinks this is the envelope belonging to it. THE LADY [snatching the envelope also]. Yes! Ad Augustus Does His Bit 267 dressed to you, Lord Augustus! [Augustus comes back to the table to look at it.] Oh, how imprudent! Everybody would guess its importance with your name on it. Fortunately I have some letters of my own here [opening her wallet]. Why not hide it in one of my envelopes? then no one will dream that the enclosure is of any political value. [Taking out a letter, she crosses the room towards the window, whispering to Augustus as she passes hzm.] Get rid of that man. AUGUSTUS [haughtily approaching the clerk, who humorously makes a paralytic attempt to stand at attention]. Have you any further business here, pray? THE CLERK. Am I to give the waiter anything; or will you do it yourself? AUGUSTUS. Which waiter is it? The English one? THE CLERK. No: the one that calls hisself a Swiss. Shouldn't wonder if he'd made a copy of that paper. AUGUSTUS. Keep your impertinent surmises to yourself, sir. Remember that you are in the army now; and let me have no more of your civilian insubordination. Attention! Left turn! Quick march! THE CLERK [stolidly]. I dunno what you mean. AUGUSTUS. Go to the guard-room and report yourself for disobeying orders. Now do you know what I mean? THE CLERK. Now look here. I ain't going to argue with you - AUGUSTUS. Nor I with you. Out with you. He seizes the clerk: and rushes him through the door. The moment the lady is left alone, she snatches a sheet of official paper from the stationery rack: folds it so that it resembles the list; compares the two to see that they look exactly alike: whips the list into her wallet: and substitutes the facsimile for it. Then she listens for the return of Augustus. A crash is heard, as of the clerk falling downstairs. 268 Augustus Does His Bit Augustus returns and is about to close the door when the voice of the clerk is heard from below. THE CLERK. I'll have the law of you for this, I will. AUGUSTUS [shouting down to him]. There's no more law for you, you scoundrel. You're a soldier now. [He shuts the door and comes to the lady.] Thank heaven, the war has given us the upper hand of these fellows at last. Excuse my violence; but discipline is absolutely necessary in dealing with the lower middle classes. THE LADY. Serve the insolent creature right! Look! I have found you a beautiful envelope for the list, an unmistakable lady's envelope. [She puts the sham list into her envelope and hands it to him.] AUGUSTUS. Excellent. Really very clever of you. [Slyly.] Come: would you like to have a peep at the list [beginning to take the blank paper from the envelope]? THE LADY [on the brink of detection]. No no. Oh, please, no. AUGUSTUS. Why? It won't bite you [drawing it out further]. THE LADY [snatching at his hand]. Stop. Remember: if there should be an inquiry, you must be able to swear that you never shewed that list to a mortal soul. AUGUSTUS. Oh, that is a mere form. If you are really curious - THE LADY. I am not. I couldn't bear to look at it. One of my dearest friends was blown to pieces by an aircraft gun; and since then I have never been able to think of one without horror. AUGUSTUS. You mean it was a real gun, and actually went off. How sad! how sad! [He pushes the sham list back into the envelope, and pockets it.] Augustus Does His Bit 269 THE LADY. Ah! [Great sigh of relief.] And now, Lord Augustus, I have taken up too much of your valuable time. Goodbye. AUGUSTUS. What! Must you go? THE LADY. You are so busy. AUGUSTUS. Yes; but not before lunch, you know. I never can do much before lunch. And I'm no good at all in the afternoon. From five to six is my real working time. Must you really go? THE LADY. I must, really. I have done my business very satisfactorily. Thank you ever so much [she proffers her hand]. AUGUSTUS [shaking it affectionately as he leads her to the door, but first pressing the bell button with his left hand]. Goodbye. Goodbye. So sorry to lose you. Kind of you to come; but there was no real danger. You see, my dear little lady, all this talk about war saving, and secrecy, and keeping the blinds down at night, and so forth, is all very well; but unless it's carried out with intelligence, believe me, you may waste a pound to save a penny; you may let out all sorts of secrets to the enemy; you may guide the Zeppelins right on to your own chimneys. That's where the ability of the governing class comes in. Shall the fellow call a taxi for you? THE LADY. No, thanks: I prefer walking. Goodbye. Again, many, many thanks. She goes out. Augustus returns to the writing-table smiling, and takes another look at himself in the mirror. The clerk returns, with his head bandaged, carrying a poker. THE CLERK. What did you ring for? [Augustus hastily drops the mirror.] Don't you come nigh me or I'll split your head with this poker, thick as it is. AUGUSTUS. It does not seem to me an exceptionally thick poker. I rang for you to show the lady out. 270 Augustus Does His Bit THE CLERK. She's gone. She run out like a rabbit. I ask myself why was she in such a hurry? THE LADY'S VOICE [from the street]. Lord Augustus. Lord Augustus. THE CLERK. She's calling you. AUGUSTUS [running to the window and throwing it up]. What is it? Won't you come up? THE LADY. Is the clerk there? AUGUSTUS. Yes. Do you want him? THE LADY. Yes. AUGUSTUS. The lady wants you at the window. THE CLERK [rushing to the window and putting down the poker]. Yes, ma'am? Here I am, ma'am. What is it, ma'am? THE LADY. I want you to witness that I got clean away into the street. I am coming up now. The two men stare at one another. THE CLERK. Wants me to witness that she got clean away into the street! AUGUSTUS. What on earth does she mean? The lady returns. THE LADY. May I use your telephone? AUGUSTUS. Certainly. Certainly. [Taking the receiver down.] What number shall I get you? THE LADY. The War Office, please. AUGUSTUS. The War Office!? THE LADY. If you will be so good. AUGUSTUS. But - Oh, very well. [Into the receiver.] Hallo. This is the Town Hall Recruiting Office. Give me Colonel Bogey, sharp. A pause. v THE CLERK [breaking the painful silence]. I don't think I'm awake. This is a dream of a movy picture, this is. AUGUSTUS [his ear at the receiver]. Shut up, will you? [Into the telephone.] hat?... [To the lady.] Whom do you want to get on to? Augustus Does His Bit 271 THE LADY. Blueloo. AUGUSTUS [into the telephone]. Put me through to Lord Hungerford Highcastle.... I'm his brother, idiot.... That you, Blueloo? Lady here at Little Pifflington wants to speak to you. Hold the line. [To the lady.] Now, madam [he hands her the receiver]. THE LADY [sitting down in Augustus's chair to speak into the telephone]. Is that Blueloo?... Do you recognize my voice?... I've won our bet..... AUGUSTUS. Your bet! THE LADY [into the telephone]. Yes: I have the list in my wallet.... AUGUSTUS. Nothing of the kind, madam. I have it here in my pocket. [He takes the envelope from his pocket: draws out the paper: and uvblds it.] THE LADY [continuing]. Yes: I got clean into the street with it. I have a witness. I could have got to London with it. Augustus won't deny it.... AUGUSTUS [contemplating the blank paper]. There's nothing written on this. Where is the list of guns? THE LADY [continuing]. Oh, it was quite easy. I said I was my sister-in-law and that I was a Hun. He lapped it up like a kitten.... AUGUSTUS. You don't mean to say that - THE LADY [continuing]. I got hold of the list for a moment and changed it for a piece of paper out of his stationery rack: it was quite easy [she laughs: and it is clear that Blueloo is laughing too]. AUGUSTUS. What! THE CLERK [laughing slowly and laboriousy, with intense enjoyment]. Ha ha! Ha ha ha! Ha! [Augustus rushes at him; he snatches up the poker and stands on guard.] No you don't. THE LADY [stil at the telephone, waving her disengaged hand behind her impatinly at them to stop making a 272 Augustus Does His Bit noise]. Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh!!! [Augustus, with a shrug, goes up the middle of the room. The lady resumes her conversation with the telephone.] What?... Oh yes: I'm coming up by the 12.35: why not have tea with me at Rumpelmeister's?... Rum-pel-meister's. You know: they call it Robinson's now.... Right. Ta ta. [She hangs up the receiver, and is passing round the table on her way towards the door when she is confronted by Augustus.] AUGUSTUS. Madam, I consider your conduct most unpatriotic. You make bets and abuse the confidence of the hardworked officials who are doing their bit for their country whilst our gallant fellows are perishing in the trenchesTHE LADY. Oh, the gallant fellows are not all in the trenches, Augustus. Some of them have come home for a few days, hard-earned leave; and I am sure you won't grudge them a little fun at your expense. THE CLERK. Hear! hear! AUGUSTUS [amiably] Ab, well! For my country's sake -! ANNAJANSKA, THE BOLSHEVIK EMPRESS XXXI ANNAJANSKA is frankly a bravura piece. The modern variety theatre demands for its "turns" little plays called sketches, to last twenty minutes or so, and to enable some favorite performer to make a brief but dazzling appearance on some barely passable dramatic pretext. Miss Lillah McCarthy and I, as author and actress, have helped to make one another famous on many serious occasions, from Man and Superman to Androcles; and Mr Charles Ricketts has not disdained to snatch moments from his painting and sculpture to design some wonderful dresses for us. We three unbent as Mrs Siddons, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Dr Johnson might have unbent, to devise a "turn" for the Coliseum variety theatre. Not that we would set down the art of the variety theatre as something to be condescended to, or our own art as elephantine. We should rather crave indulgence as three novices fresh from the awful legitimacy of the highbrow theatre. Well, Miss McCarthy and Mr Ricketts justified themselves easily in the glamor of the footlights, to the strains of Tchaikovsky's 1812. I fear I did not. I have received only one compliment on my share; and that was from a friend who said, "It is the only one of your works that is not too long." So I have made it a page or two longer, according to my own precept: EMBRACE YOUR REPROACHES: THEY ARE OFTEN GLORIES IN DISGUISE. 275 1s Annajanska was first performed at the Coliseum Theatre in London on the 21st January, 1918, with Lillah McCarthy as the Grand Duchess, Henry Miller as Schneidekind, and Randle Ayrton as General Strammfest. 276 I ANNAJANSKA, THE BOLSHEVIK EMPRESS The General's office in a military station on the east front in Beotia. An office table with a telephone, writing materials, official papers, etc., is set across the room. At the end of the table, a comfortable chair for the General. Behind the chair, a window. Facing it at the other end of the table, a plain wooden bench. At the side of the table, with its back to the door, a common chair, with a typewriter before it. Beside the door, which is opposite the end of the bench, a rack for caps and coats. There is nobody in the room. General Strammfest enters, followed by Lieutenant Schneidekind. They hang up their cloaks and caps. Schneidekind takes a little longer than Strammfest, who comes to the table. STRAMMFEST. Schneidekind. SCHNEIDEKIND. Yes, sir. STRAMMFEST. Have you sent my report yet to the government [he sits down]. SCHNEIDEKIND [coming to the table]. Not yet, sir. Which government do youwish it sent to? [He sits down.] STRAMMFEST. That depends. What's the latest? Which of them do you think is most likely to be in power tomorrow morning? SCHNEIDEKIND. Well, the provisional government was going strong yesterday. But today they say that 277 278 ainaanska the Prime minister has shot himself, and that the extreme left fellow has shot all the others. STRAMMFEST. Yes: that's all very well; but these fellows always shoot themselves with blank cartridge. SCHNEIDEKIND. Still, even the blank cartridge means backing down. I should send the report to the Maximilianists. STRAMMFEST. They're no stronger than the Oppidoshavians; and in my own opinion the Moderate Red Revolutionaries are as likely to come out on top as either of them. SCHNEIDEKIND. I can easily put a few carbon sheets in the typewriter and send a copy each to the lot. STRAMMFEST. Waste of paper. You might as well send reports to an infant school. [He throws his head on the table with a groan.] SCHNEIDEKIND. Tired out, sir? STRAMMFEST. 0 Schneidekind, Schneidekind, how can you bear to live? SCHNEIDEKIND. At my age, sir, I ask myself how can I bear to die? STRAMMFEST. You are young, young and heartless. You are excited by the revolution: you are attached to abstract things like liberty. But my family has served the Panjandrums of Beotia faithfully for seven centuries. The Panjandrums have kept our place for us at their courts, honored us, promoted us, shed their glory on us, made us what we are. When I hear you young men declaring that you are fighting for civilization, for democracy, for the overthrow of militarism, I ask myself how can a man shed his blood for empty words used by vulgar tradesmen and common laborers: mere wind and stink. [He rises, exalted by his theme.] A king is a splendid reality, a man raised above us like a god. You can see him; you can kiss his hand; you can be cheered by his smile 1 The Bolshevik Empress 279 and terrified by his frown. I would have died for my Panjandrum as my father died for his father. Your toiling millions were only too honored to receive the toes of our boots in the proper spot for them when they displeased their betters. And now what is left in life for me? [He relapses into his chair discouraged.] My Panjandrum is deposed and transported to herd with convicts. The army, his pride and glory, is paraded to hear seditious speeches from penniless rebels, with the colonel actually forced to take the chair and introduce the speaker. I myself am made Commander-in-Chief by my own solicitor: a Jew, Schneidekind! a Hebrew Jew! It seems only yesterday that these things would have been the ravings of a madman: today they are the commonplaces of the gutter press. I live now for three objects only: to defeat the enemy, to restore the Panjandrum, and to hang my solicitor. SCHNEIDEKIND. Be careful, sir: these are dangerous views to utter nowadays. What if I were to betray you? 8TRAMMFEST. What! SCHNEIDEKIND. I won't, of course: my own father goes on just like that; but suppose I did? STRAMMFEST [chuckling]. I should accuse you of treason to the Revolution, my lad; and they would immediately shoot you, unless you cried and asked to see your mother before you died, when they would -cobably change their minds and make you a brigadier. Enough. [He rises and expands his chest.] I feel the better for letting myself go. To business. [He takes up a telegram: opens it: and is thunderstruck by its contents.] Great heaven! [He collapses into his chair.] This is the worst blow of all. SCHNEIDEKIND. What has happened? Are we beaten? 280 Annajanska STRAMMFEST. Man, do you think that a mere defeat could strike me down as this news does: I, who have been defeated thirteen times since the war began? 0, my master, my master, my Panjandrum! [he is convulsed with sobs]. SCHNEIDEKIND. They have killed him? STRAMMFEST. A dagger has been struck through his heart - SCHNEIDEKIND. Good God! STRAMMFEST. - and through mine, through mine. SCHNEIDEKIND [relieved]. Oh, a metaphorical dagger! I thought you meant a real one. What has happened? STRAMMFEST. His daughter the Grand Duchess Annajanska, she whom the Panjandrina loved beyond all her other children, has - has - [he cannot finish]. SCHNEIDEKIND. Committed suicide? STRAMMFEST. No. Better if she had. Oh, far far better. SCHNEIDEKIND [in hushed tones]. Left the Church? STRAMMFEST [shocked]. Certainly not. Do not blaspheme, young man. SCHNEIDEKIND. Asked for the vote? STRAMMFEST. I would have given it to her with both hands to save her from this. SCHNEIDEKIND. Save her from what? Dash it, sir, out with it. STRAMMFEST. She has joined the Revolution. SCHNEIDEKIND. But so have you, sir. We've all joined the Revolution. She doesn't mean it any more than we do. STRAMMFEST. Heaven grant you may be right! But that is not the worst. She had eloped with a young officer. Eloped, Schneidekind, eloped! SCHNEIDEKIND [not particularly impressed]. Yes, sir. The Bolshevik Empress 281 STRAMMFEST. Annajanska, the beautiful, the innocent, my master's daughter! [He buries his face in his hands.] The telephone rings. SCHNEIDEKIND [taking the receiver]. Yes: G.H.Q. Yes.... Don't bawl: I'm not a general. Who is it speaking?... Why didn't you say so? don't you know your duty? Next time you will lose your stripe.... Oh, they've made you a colonel, have they? Well, they've made me a field-marshal: now what have you to say?... Look here: what did you ring up for? I can't spend the day here listening to your cheek.... What! the Grand Duchess [Strammfest starts.] Where did you catch her? STRAMMFEST [snatching the telephone and listening for the answer]. Speak louder, will you: I am a General.. I know that, you dolt. Have you captured the officer that was with her?.... Damnation! You shall answer for this: you let him go: he bribed you.... You must have seen him: the fellow is in the full dress court uniform of the Panderobajensky Hussars. I give you twelve hours to catch him or... what's that you say about the devil? Are you swearing at me, you.... Thousand thunders! [To Schneidekind.] The swine says that the Grand Duchess is a devil incarnate. [Into the telephone.] Filthy traitor: is that the way you dare speak of the daughter of our anointed Panjandrum? I'll - SCHNEIDEKIND [pulling the telephone from his lips]. Take care, sir. STRAMMFEST. I won't take care: I'll have him shot. Let go that telephone. SCHNEIDEKIND. But for her own sake, sirSTRAMMFEST. Eh? SCHNEIDEKIND. For her own sake they had better send her here. She will be safe in your hands. 282 Annajanska STRAMMFEST [yielding the receiver]. You are right. Be civil to him. I should choke [he sits down]. SCHNEIDEKIND [into the telephone]. Hullo. Never mind all that: it's only a fellow here who has been fooling with the telephone. I had to leave the room for a moment. Wash out: and send the girl along. We'll jolly soon teach her to behave herself here.... Oh, you've sent her already. Then why the devil didn't you say so, you- [he hangs up the telephone angrily]. Just fancy: they started her off this morning: and all this is because the fellow likes to get on the telephone and hear himself talk now that he is a colonel. [The telephone rings again. He snatches the receiver furiously.] What's the matter now?... [To the General.] It's our own people downstairs. [Into the receiver.] Here! do you suppose I've nothing else to do than to hang on to the telephone all day?... What's that? Not men enough to hold her! What do you mean? [To the General.] She is there, sir. STBAMMFEST. Tell them to send her up. I shall have to receive her without even rising, without kissing her hand, to keep up appearances before the escort. It will break my heart. SCHNEIDEKIND [into the receiver]. Send her up.. Tcha! [He hangs up the receiver.] He says she is halfway up already: they couldn't hold her. The Grand Duchess bursts into the room, dragging with her two exhausted soldiers hanging on desperately to her arms. She is enveloped from head to foot by a fur-lined cloak, and wears a fur cap. SCHNEIDEKIND [pointing to the bench]. At the word Go, place your prisoner on the bench in a sitting posture; and take your seats right and left of her. Go. The two soldiers make a supreme effort to force her to sit down. She flings them back so that they are forced The Bolshevik Empress 283 to sit on the bench to save themselves from falling backwards over it, and is herself dragged into sitting between them. The second soldier, holding on tight to the Grand Duchess with one hand, produces papers with the other, and waves them towards Schneidekind, who takes them from him and passes them on to the General. He opens them and reads them with a grave expression. SCHNEIDEKIND. Be good enough to wait, prisoner, until the General has read the papers on your case. THE GRAND DUCHESS [to the soldiers]. Let go. [To Strammfest]. Tell them to let go, or I'll upset the bench backwards and bash our three heads on the floor. FIRST SOLDIER. No, little mother. Have mercy on the poor. STRAMMFEST [growling over the edge of the paper he is reading]. Hold your tongue. THE GRAND DUCHESS [blazing]. Me, or the soldier? STRAMMFEST [horrified]. The soldier, madam. THE GRAND DUCHESS. Tell him to let go. STRAMMFEST. Release the lady. The soldiers take their hands off her. One of them wipes his fevered brow. The other sucks his wrist. SCHNEIDEKIND [fiercely]. 'ttention! The two soldiers sit up stiffly. THE GRAND DUCHESS. Oh, let the poor man suck his wrist. It may be poisoned. I bit it. STRAMMFEST [shocked]. You bit a common soldier! GRAND DUCHESS. Well, I offered to cauterize it with the poker in the office stove. But he was afraid. What more could I do? SCHNEIDEKIND. Why did you bite him, prisoner? THE GRAND DUCHESS. He would not let go. STRAMMFEST. Did he let go when you bit him? THE GRAND DUCHESS. No. [Patting the soldier on the back]. You should give the man a cross for his 984 Annajanska devotion. I could not go on eating him; so I brought him along with me. STRAMMFEST. PrisonerTHE GRAND DUCHESS. Don't call me prisoner, General Strammfest. My grandmother dandled you on her knee. STRAMMFEST [bursting into tears]. 0 God, yes. Believe me, my heart is what it was then. THE GRAND DUCHESS. Your brain also is what it was then. I will not be addressed by you as prisoner. STRAMMFEST. I may not, for your own sake, call you by your rightful and most sacred titles. What am I to call you? THE GRAND DUCHESS. The Revolution has made us comrades. Call me comrade. STRAMMFEST. I had rather die. THE GRAND DUCHESS. Then call me Annajanska; and I will call you Peter Piper, as grandmamma did. STRAMMFEST [painfully agitated]. Schneidekind, you must speak to her: I cannot - [he breaks down]. SCHNEIDEKIND officially]. The Republic of Beotia has been compelled to confine the Panjandrum and his family, for their own safety, within certain bounds. You have broken those bounds. STRAMMFEST [taking the word from him]. You areI must say it - a prisoner. What am I to do with you? THE GRAND DUCHESS. You should have thought of that before you arrested me. STRAMMFEST. Come, come, prisoner! do you know what will happen to you if you compel me to take a sterner tone with you? THE GRAND DUCHESS. No. But I know what will happen to you. STRAMMFEST. Pray what, prisoner? THE GRAND DUCHESS. Clergyman's sore throat. The Bolshevik Empress 285 Schneidekind splutters; drops a paper: and conceals his laughter under the table. STRAMMFEST [thunderously]. Lieutenant Schneidekind. SCHNEIDEKIND [in a stifled voice]. Yes, sir. [The table vibrates visibly.] STRAMMFEST. Come out of it, you fool: you're upsetting the ink. Schneidekind emerges, red zn the face with suppressed mirth. STRAMMFEST. Why don't you laugh? Don't you appreciate Her Imperial Highness's joke? SCHNEIDEKIND [suddenly becoming solemn]. I don't want to, sir. STRAMMFEST. Laugh at once, sir. I order you to laugh. SCHNEIDEKIND [with a touch of temper]. I really can't, sir. [He sits down decisively.] STRAMMFEST [growling at him]. Yah! [He turns impressively to the Grand Duchess.] Your Imperial Highness desires me to address you as comrade? THE GRAND DUCHESS [rising and waving a red handkerchief]. Long live the Revolution, comrade! STRAMMFEST [rising and saluting]. Proletarians of all lands, unite. Lieutenant Schneidekind, you will rise and sing the Marseillaise. SCHNEIDEKIND [rising]. But I cannot, sir. I have no voice, no ear. STRAMMFEST. Then sit down; and bury your shame in your typewriter. ESchneidekind szts down.] Comrade Annajanska, you have eloped with a young officer. THE GRAND DUCHESS [astounded]. General Strammfest, you lie. STRAMMFEST. Denial, comrade, is useless. It is through that officer that your movements have been 286 Annajanska traced. [The Grand Duchess is suddenly enlightened, and seems amused. Strammfest continues in a forensic manner.] He joined you at the Golden Anchor in Hakonsburg. You gave us the slip there; but the officer was traced to Potterdam, where you rejoined him and went alone to Premsylople. What have you done with that unhappy young man? Where is he? THE GRAND DUCHESS [pretending to whisper an important secret]. Where he has always been. STRAMMFEST [eagerly]. Where is that? THE GRAND DUCHESS [impetuously]. In your imagination. I came alone. I am alone. Hundreds of officers travel every day from Hakonsburg to Potterdam. What do I know about them? STRAMMFEST. They travel in khaki. They do not travel in full dress court uniform as this man did. SCHNEIDEKIND. Only officers who are eloping with grand duchesses wear court uniform: otherwise the grand duchesses could not be seen with them. STRAMMFEST. Hold your tongue. [Schneidekind, in high dudgeon, folds his arms and retires from the conversation. The General returns to his paper and to his examination of the Grand Duchess.] This officer travelled with your passport. What have you to say to that? THE GRAND DUCHESS. Bosh! How could a man travel with a woman's passport? STRAMMFEST. It is quite simple, as you very well know. A dozen travellers arrive at the boundary. The official collects their passports. He counts twelve persons; then counts the passports. If there are twelve, he is satisfied. THE GRAND DUCHESS. Then how do you know that one of the passports was mine? STRAMMFEST. A waiter at the Potterdam Hotel The Bolshevik Empress 287 looked at the officer's passport when he was in his bath. It was your passport. THE GRAND DUCHESS. Stuff! Why did he not have me arrested? STRAMMFEST. When the waiter returned to the hotel with the police the officer had vanished; and you were there with your own passport. They knouted him. THE GRAND DUCHESS. Oh! Strammfest, send these men away. I must speak to you alone. STRAMMFEST [rising in horror]. No: this is the last straw: I cannot consent. It is impossible, utterly, eternally impossible, that a daughter of the Imperial House should speak to any one alone, were it even her own husband. THE GRAND DUCHESS. You forget that there is an exception. She may speak to a child alone. [She rises.] Strammfest, you have been dandled on my grandmother's knee. By that gracious action the dowager Panjandrina made you a child forever. So did Nature, by the way. I order you to speak to me alone. Do you hear? I order you. For seven hundred years no member of your family has ever disobeyed an order from a member of mine. Will you disobey me? STRAMMFEST. There is an alternative to obedience. The dead cannot disobey. [He takes out his pistol and places the muzzle against his temple.] SCHNEIDEKIND [snatching the pistol from him]. For God's sake, General - STRAMMFEST [attacking him furiously to recover the weapon]. Dog of a subaltern, restore that pistol and my honor. SCHNEIDEKIND [reaching out with the pistol to the Grand Duchess]. Take it: quick: he is as strong as a bull. 288 Annajanska THE GRAND DUCHESS [snatching it]. Aha! Leave the room, all of you except the General. At the double! lightning! electricity! [She fires shot after shot, spattering the bullets about the ankles of the soldiers. They fly precipitately. She turns to Schneidekind, who has by this time been flung on the floor by the General.] You too. [He scrambles up.] March. [He flies to the door.] SCHNEIDEKIND [turning at the door]. For your own sake, comrade - THE GRAND DUCHESS [indignantly]. Comrade! You!!! Go. [Shefires two more shots. He vanishes.] STRAMMFEST [making an impulsive movement towards her]. My Imperial Mistress - THE GRAND DUCHESS. Stop. I have one bullet left, if you attempt to take this from me [putting the pistol to her temple]. STRAMMFEST [recoiling, and covering his eyes with his hands]. No no: put it down: put it down. I promise everything: I swear anything; but put it down, I implore you. THE GRAND DUCHESS [throwing it on the table]. There! STRAMMFEST [uncovering his eyes]. Thank God! THE GRAND DUCHESS [gently]. Strammfest: I am your comrade. Am I nothing more to you? STRAMMFEST [falling on his knee]. You are, God help me, all that is left to me of the only power I recognize on earth [he kisses her hand]. THE GRAND DUCHESS [indulgently]. Idolater! When will you learn that our strength has never been in ourselves, but in your illusions about us? [She shakes off her kindliness, and sits down in his chair.] Now tell me, what are your orders? And do you mean to obey them? STRAMMFEST [starting like a goaded ox, and blundering fretfully about the room]. How can I obey six The Bolshevik Empress 289 different dictators, and not one gentleman among the lot of them? One of them orders me to make peace with the foreign enemy. Another orders me to offer all the neutral countries 48 hours to choose between adopting his views on the single tax and being instantly invaded and annihilated. A third orders me to go to a damned Socialist Conference and explain that Beotia will allow no annexations and no indemnities, and merely wishes to establish the Kindgom of Heaven on Earth throughout the universe. [He finishes behind Schneidekind's chair.] THE GRAND DUCHESS. Damn their trifling! STRAMMFEST. I thank Your Imperial Highness from the bottom of my heart for that expression. Europe thanks you. THE GRAND DUCHESS. M'yes; but - [rising]. Strammfest, you know that your cause - the cause of the dynasty - is lost. STRAMMFEST. You must not say so. It is treason, even from you. [He sinks, discouraged, into the chair, and covers his face with his hand.] THE GRAND DUCHESS. Do not deceive yourself, General: never again will a Panjandrum reign in Beotia. [She walks slowly across the room, brooding bitterly, and thinking aloud.] We are so decayed, so out of date, so feeble, so wicked in our own despite, that we have come at last to will our own destruction. STRAMMFEST. You are uttering blasphemy. THE GRAND DUCHESS. All great truths begin as blasphemies. All the king's horses and all the king's men cannot set up my father's throne again. If they could, you would have done it, would you not? STRAMMFEST. God knows I would! THE GRAND DUCHESS. You really mean that? You would keep the people in their hopeless squalid misery? you would fill those infamous prisons again with the 290 Annajanska noblest spirits in the land? you would thrust the rising sun of liberty back into the sea of blood from which it has risen? And all because there was in the middle of the dirt and ugliness and horror a little patch of court splendor in which you could stand with a few orders on your uniform, and yawn day after day and night after night in unspeakable boredom until your grave yawned wider still, and you fell into it because you had nothing better to do. How can you be so stupid, so heartless? STRAMMFEST. You must be mad to think of royalty in such a way. I never yawned at court. The dogs yawned; but that was because they were dogs: they had no imagination, no ideals, no sense of honor and dignity to sustain them. THE GRAND DUCHESS. My poor Strammfest: you were not often enough at court to tire of it. You were mostly soldiering; and when you came home to have a new order pinned on your breast, your happiness came through looking at my father and mother and at me, and adoring us. Was that not so? STRAMMFEST. Do you reproach me with it? I am not ashamed of it. THE GRAND DUCHESS. Oh, it was all very well for you, Strammfest. But think of me, of me! standing there for you to gape at, and knowing that I was no goddess, but only a girl like any other girl! It was cruelty to animals: you could have stuck up a wax doll or a golden calf to worship; it would not have been bored. STRAMMFEST. Stop; or I shall renounce my allegiance to you. I have had women flogged for such seditious chatter as this. THE GRAND DUCHESS. Do not provoke me to send a bullet through your head for reminding me of it. The Bolshevik Empress 291 STRAMMFEST. You always had low tastes. You are no true daughter of the Panjandrums: you are a changeling, thrust into the Panjandrina's bed by some profligate nurse. I have heard stories of your childhood: of howTHE GRAND DUCHESS. Ha, ha! Yes: they took me to the circus when I was a child. It was my first moment of happiness, my first glimpse of heaven. I ran away and joined the troupe. They caught me and dragged me back to my gilded cage; but I had tasted freedom; and they never could make me forget it. STRAMMFEST. Freedofn! To be the slave of an acrobat! to be exhibted to the public! to - THE GRAND DUCHESS. Oh, I was trained to that. I had learnt that part of the business at court. STRAMMFEST. You had not been taught to strip yourself half naked and turn head over heels - THE GRAND DUCHESS. Man, I wanted to get rid of my swaddling clothes and turn head over heels. I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to. I can do it still. Shall I do it now? STRAMMFEST. If you do, I swear I will throw myself from the window so that I may meet your parents in heaven without having my medals torn from my breast by them. THE GRAND DUCHESS. Oh, you are incorrigible. You are mad, infatuated. You will not believe that we royal divinities are mere common flesh and blood even when we step down from our pedestals and tell you ourselves what a fool you are. I will argue no more with you: I will use my power. At a word from me your men will turn against you: already half of them do not salute you; and you dare not punish them: you have to pretend not to notice it. STRAMMFEST. It is not for you to taunt me with that if it is so. 292 Annaianska THE GRAND DUCHESS. [haughtily]. Taunt! I condescend to taunt! To taunt a common General! You forget yourself, sir. STRAMMFEST [dropping on his knee submissively]. Now at last you speak like your royal self. THE GRAND DUCHESS. Oh, Strammfest, Strammfest, they have driven your slavery into your very bones. Why did you not spit in my face?. STRAMMFEST [rising with a shudder]. God forbid! THE GRAND DUCHESS. Well, since you will be my slave, take your orders from me. I have not come here to save our wretched family and our bloodstained crown. I am come to save the Revolution. STRAMMFEST. Stupid as I am, I have come to think that I had better save that than save nothing. But what will the Revolution do for the people? Do not be deceived by the fine speeches of the revolutionary leaders and the pamphlets of the revolutionary writers. How much liberty is there where they have gained the upper hand? Are they not hanging, shooting, imprisoning as much as ever we did? Do they ever tell the people the truth? No: if the truth does not suit them they spread lies instead, and make it a crime to tell the truth. THE GRAND DUCHESS. Of course they do. Why should they not? STRAMMFEST [hardly able to believe his ears]. Why should they not? THE GRAND DUCHESS. Yes: why should they not? We did it. You did it, whip in hand: you flogged women for teaching children to read. STRAMMFEST. To read sedition. To read Karl Marx. THE GRAND DUCHESS. Pshaw! How could they learn to read the Bible without learning to read Karl Marx? Why do you not stand to your guns and The Bolshevik Empress 293 justify what you did, instead of making silly excuses? Do you suppose I think flogging a woman worse than flogging a man? I, who am a woman myself! STRAMMFEST. I am at a loss to understand your Imperial Highness. You seem to me to contradict yourself. THE GRAND DUCHESS. Nonsense! I say that if the people cannot govern themselves, they must be governed by somebody. If they will not do their duty without being half forced and half humbugged, somebody must force them and humbug them. Some energetic and capable minority must always be in power. Well, I am on the side of the energetic minority whose principles I agree with. The Revolution is as cruel as we were; but its aims are my aims. Therefore I stand for the Revolution. STRAMMFEST. You do not know what you are saying. This is pure Bolshevism. Are you, the daughter of a Panjandrum, a Bolshevist? THE GRAND DUCHESS. I am anything that will make the world less like a prison and more like a circus. STRAMMFEST. Ah! You still want to be a circus star. THE GRAND DUCHESS. Yes, and be billed as the Bolshevik Empress. Nothing shall stop me. You have your orders, General Strammfest: save the Revolution. STRAMMFEST. What Revolution? Which Revolution? No two of your rabble of revolutionists mean the same thing by the Revolution What can save a mob in which every man is rushing in a different direction? THE GRAND DUCHESS. I will tell you. The war can save it. STRAMMFEST. The war? 294 Annajanska THE GRAND DUCHESS. Yes, the war. Only a great common danger and a great common duty can unite us and weld these wrangling factions into a solid commonwealth. STRAMMFEST. Bravo! War sets everything right: I have always said so. But what is a united people without a united army? And what can I do? I am only a soldier. I cannot make speeches: I have won no victories: they will not rally to my call [again he sinks into his chatr with his former gesture of discouragement]. THE GRAND DUCHESS. Are you sure they will not rally to mine? STRAMMFEST. Oh, if only you were a man and a soldier! THE GRAND DUCHESS. Suppose I find you a man and a soldier? STRAMMFEST [rising in a fury]. Ah! the scoundrel you eloped with! You think you will shove this fellow into an army command, over my head. Never. THE GRAND DUCHESS. You promised everything. You swore anything. [She marches as if in front of a regiment.] I know that this man alone can rouse the army to enthusiasm. STRAMMFEST. Delusion! Folly! He is some circus acrobat; and you are in love with him. THE GRAND DUCHESS. I swear I am not in love with him. I swear I will never marry him. STRAMMFEST. Then who is he? THE GRAND DUCHESS. Anybody in the w6rld but you would have guessed long ago. He is under you very eyes. STRAMMFEST Estaring past her right and left]. Where? THE GRAND DUCHESS. Look out of the window. He rushes to the window, looking for the officer. The The Bolshevik Empress 295 Grand Duchess takes off her cloak and appears in the uniform of the Panderobajensky Hussars. STRAMMFEST [peering through the window]. Where is he? I can see no one. THE GRAND DUCHESS. Here, silly. STRAMMFEST [turning]. You! Great Heavens! The Bolshevik Empress! - - II I -0 I ii;o I: 39015 00827 7538 DO NOT REMOVE OR MUTILATE CARD V, i — II. I