Pygmalion and Three Other Plays (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (80 page)

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
]
.

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.
¹⁰
[
She caresses his arm and draws him to the port garden door.
] ]

MANGAN [
writhing but yielding
] How you can have the face—the heart—[
he breaks down and
is
heard sobbing as she takes him out
]
.

LADY UTTERWORD What an extraordinary way to behave! What is the matter with the man?

ELLIE [
in a strangely calm voice, staring into an imaginary distance
] His heart is breaking: that is all.
[The captain appears at the pantry door, listening.]
It is a curious sensation: the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace.

LADY UTTERWORD [
suddenly rising in a rage, to the astonishment of the rest
] How dare you?

HECTOR Good heavens! What’s the matter?

RANDALL [
in a warning whisper
] Tch—tch—tch! Steady.

ELLIE [
surprised and haughty
] I was not addressing you particularly, Lady Utterword. And I am not accustomed to being asked how dare I.

LADY UTTERWORD Of course not. Anyone can see how badly you have been brought up.

MAZZINI Oh, I hope not, Lady Utterword. Really!

LADY UTTERWORD I know very well what you meant. The impudence!

ELLIE What on earth do you mean?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [
advancing to the table
] She means that her heart will not break. She has been longing all her life for someone to break it. At last she has become afraid she has none to break.

LADY UTTERWORD [
flinging herself on her knees and throwing her arms round him
] Papa, don’t say you think I’ve no heart.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER
[raising her with grim tenderness]
If you had no heart how could you want to have it broken, child?

HECTOR [
rising with a bound
] Lady Utterword, you are not to be trusted. You have made a scene [
he runs out into the garden through the starboard door
]
.

LADY UTTERWORD Oh! Hector, Hector!
[she runs out after him
]
.

RANDALL Only nerves, I assure you. [
He rises and follows her, waving the poker in his agitation.
] Ariadne! Ariadne! For God’s sake, be careful. You will—[
he is gone
]
.

MAZZINI [
rising
] How distressing! Can I do anything, I wonder?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [
promptly taking his chair and setting to work at the drawing-board
] No. Go to bed. Good-night.

MAZZINI
[bewildered]
Oh! Perhaps you are right.

ELLIE Good-night, dearest. [
She kisses him.
]

MAZZINI Good-night, love. [
He makes for the door, but turns aside to the bookshelves.
] I’ll just take a book
[he takes one].
Good-night. [
He goes out, leaving ELLIE alone with the captain.
]

ELLIE Does nothing ever disturb you, Captain Shotover?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER I’ve stood on the bridge for eighteen hours in a typhoon. Life here is stormier; but I can stand it.

ELLIE Do you think I ought to marry Mr Mangan?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER
[never looking up]
One rock is as good as another to be wrecked on.

ELLIE I am not in love with him.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Who said you were?

ELLIE You are not surprised?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Surprised! At my age!

ELLIE It seems to me quite fair. He wants me for one thing: I want him for another.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Money?

ELLIE Yes.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Well, one turns the cheek: the other kisses it. One provides the cash: the other spends it.

ELLIE Who will have the best of the bargain, I wonder?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER You. These fellows live in an office all day. You will have to put up with him from dinner to breakfast; but you will both be asleep most of that time. All day you will be quit of him; and you will be shopping with his money. If that is too much for you, marry a seafaring man: you will be bothered with him only three weeks in the year, perhaps.

ELLIE That would be best of all, I suppose.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER It’s a dangerous thing to be married right up to the hilt, like my daughter’s husband. The man is at home all day, like a damned soul in hell.

ELLIE I never thought of that before.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER If you’re marrying for business, you can’t be too businesslike.

ELLIE Why do women always want other women’s husbands?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Why do horse-thieves prefer a horse that is broken-in to one that is wild?

ELLIE [
with a short laugh
] I suppose so. What a vile world it is!

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER It doesn’t concern me. I’m nearly out of it.

ELLIE And I’m only just beginning.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Yes; so look ahead.

ELLIE Well, I think I am being very prudent.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER I didn’t say prudent. I said look ahead.

ELLIE What’s the difference?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER It’s prudent to gain the whole world and lose your own soul. But don’t forget that your soul sticks to you if you stick to it; but the world has a way of slipping through your fingers.

ELLIE [
wearily, leaving him and beginning to wander restlessly about the room
] I’m sorry, Captain Shotover; but it’s no use talking like that to me. Old-fashioned people are no use to me. Old-fashioned people think you can have a soul without money. They think the less money you have, the more soul you have. Young people nowadays know better. A soul is a very expensive thing to keep: much more so than a motor car.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Is it? How much does your soul eat?

ELLIE Oh, a lot. It eats music and pictures and books and mountains and lakes and beautiful things to wear and nice people to be with. In this country you can’t have them without lots of money: that is why our souls are so horribly starved.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Mangan’s soul lives on pig’s food.

ELLIE Yes: money is thrown away on him. I suppose his soul was starved when he was young. But it will not be thrown away on me. It is just because I want to save my soul that I am marrying for money. All the women who are not fools do.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER There are other ways of getting money. Why don’t you steal it?

ELLIE Because I don’t want to go to prison.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Is that the only reason? Are you quite sure honesty has nothing to do with it?

ELLIE Oh, you are very very old-fashioned, Captain. Does any modern girl believe that the legal and illegal ways of getting money are the honest and dishonest ways? Mangan robbed my father and my father’s friends. I should rob all the money back from Mangan if the police would let me. As they won‘t, I must get it back by marrying him.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER I can’t argue: I’m too old: my mind is made up and finished. All I can tell you is that, old-fashioned or new-fashioned, if you sell yourself, you deal your soul a blow that all the books and pictures and concerts and scenery in the world won’t heal [
he gets up suddenly and makes for the pantry
]
.

ELLIE [
running after him and seizing him by the sleeve
] Then why did you sell yourself to the devil in Zanzibar?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [
stopping, startled
] What?

ELLIE You shall not run away before you answer. I have found out that trick of yours. If you sold yourself, why shouldn’t I?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER I had to deal with men so degraded that they wouldn’t obey me unless I swore at them and kicked them and beat them with my fists. Foolish people took young thieves off the streets; flung them into a training ship where they were taught to fear the cane instead of fearing God; and thought they’d made men and sailors of them by private subscription. I tricked these thieves into believing I’d sold myself to the devil. It saved my soul from the kicking and swearing that was damning me by inches.

ELLIE
[releasing him]
I shall pretend to sell myself to Boss Mangan to save my soul from the poverty that is damning me by inches.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Riches will damn you ten times deeper. Riches won’t save even your body.

ELLIE Old-fashioned again. We know now that the soul is the body, and the body the soul. They tell us they are different because they want to persuade us that we can keep our souls if we let them make slaves of our bodies. I am afraid you are no use to me, Captain.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER What did you expect? A Savior, eh? Are you old-fashioned enough to believe in that?

ELLIE No. But I thought you were very wise, and might help me. Now I have found you out. You pretend to be busy, and think of fine things to say, and run in and out to surprise people by saying them, and get away before they can answer you.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER It confuses me to be answered. It discourages me. I cannot bear men and women. I
have
to run away. I must run away now [
he tries to
]
.

ELLIE [
again seizing his arm
] You shall not run away from me. I can hypnotize you. You are the only person in the house I can say what I like to. I know you are fond of me. Sit down. [She
draws him to the sofa.]

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [
yielding
] Take care: I am in my dotage. Old men are dangerous: it doesn’t matter to them what is going to happen to the world.

ELLIE [
dreamily
] I should have thought nothing else mattered to old men. They can’t be very interested in what is going to happen to themselves.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER A man’s interest in the world is only the overflow from his interest in himself. When you are a child your vessel is not yet full; so you care for nothing but your own affairs. When you grow up, your vessel overflows; and you are a politician, a philosopher, or an explorer and adventurer. In old age the vessel dries up: there is no overflow: you are a child again. I can give you the memories of my ancient wisdom: mere scraps and leavings; but I no longer really care for anything but my own little wants and hobbies. I sit here working out my old ideas as a means of destroying my fellow-creatures. I see my daughters and their men living foolish lives of romance and sentiment and snobbery. I see you, the younger generation, turning from their romance and sentiment and snobbery to money and comfort and hard common sense. I was ten times happier on the bridge in the typhoon, or frozen into Arctic ice for months in darkness, than you or they have ever been. You are looking for a rich husband. At your age I looked for hardship, danger, horror, and death, that I might feel the life in me more intensely. I did not let the fear of death govern my life; and my reward was, I had my life. You are going to let the fear of poverty govern your life; and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live.

ELLIE [
sitting up impatiently
] But what can I do? I am not a sea captain: I can’t stand on bridges in typhoons, or go slaughtering seals and whales in Greenland’s icy mountains.
^ld
They won’t let women be captains. Do you want me to be a stewardess?