MAN AND SUPERMAN

A COMEDY AND A PHILOSOPHY

By Bernard Shaw

EPISTLE DEDICATORY TO ARTHUR BINGHAM WALKLEY

My dear Walkley:

You once asked me why I did not write a Don Juan play. The levity withwhich you assumed this frightful responsibility has probably by thistime enabled you to forget it; but the day of reckoning has arrived:here is your play! I say your play, because qui facit per alium facitper se. Its profits, like its labor, belong to me: its morals, itsmanners, its philosophy, its influence on the young, are for you tojustify. You were of mature age when you made the suggestion; and youknew your man. It is hardly fifteen years since, as twin pioneers ofthe New Journalism of that time, we two, cradled in the same new sheets, made an epoch in the criticism of the theatre and the opera house bymaking it a pretext for a propaganda of our own views of life. So youcannot plead ignorance of the character of the force you set in motion. You meant me to epater le bourgeois; and if he protests, I hereby referhim to you as the accountable party. 

I warn you that if you attempt to repudiate your responsibility, I shallsuspect you of finding the play too decorous for your taste. Thefifteen years have made me older and graver. In you I can detect no suchbecoming change. Your levities and audacities are like the loves andcomforts prayed for by Desdemona: they increase, even as your days dogrow. No mere pioneering journal dares meddle with them now: the statelyTimes itself is alone sufficiently above suspicion to act as yourchaperone; and even the Times must sometimes thank its stars thatnew plays are not produced every day, since after each such eventits gravity is compromised, its platitude turned to epigram, itsportentousness to wit, its propriety to elegance, and even its decoruminto naughtiness by criticisms which the traditions of the paper do notallow you to sign at the end, but which you take care to sign with themost extravagant flourishes between the lines. I am not sure that thisis not a portent of Revolution. In eighteenth century France the end wasat hand when men bought the Encyclopedia and found Diderot there. WhenI buy the Times and find you there, my prophetic ear catches a rattle oftwentieth century tumbrils. 

However, that is not my present anxiety. The question is, will you notbe disappointed with a Don Juan play in which not one of that hero'smille e tre adventures is brought upon the stage? To propitiate you, letme explain myself. You will retort that I never do anything else: itis your favorite jibe at me that what I call drama is nothing butexplanation. But you must not expect me to adopt your inexplicable, fantastic, petulant, fastidious ways: you must take me as I am, areasonable, patient, consistent, apologetic, laborious person, with thetemperament of a schoolmaster and the pursuits of a vestryman. No doubtthat literary knack of mine which happens to amuse the British publicdistracts attention from my character; but the character is there nonethe less, solid as bricks. I have a conscience; and conscience isalways anxiously explanatory. You, on the contrary, feel that a man whodiscusses his conscience is much like a woman who discusses her modesty. The only moral force you condescend to parade is the force of yourwit: the only demand you make in public is the demand of your artistictemperament for symmetry, elegance, style, grace, refinement, and thecleanliness which comes next to godliness if not before it. But myconscience is the genuine pulpit article: it annoys me to see peoplecomfortable when they ought to be uncomfortable; and I insist on makingthem think in order to bring them to conviction of sin. If you don'tlike my preaching you must lump it. I really cannot help it. 

In the preface to my Plays for Puritans I explained the predicament ofour contemporary English drama, forced to deal almost exclusively withcases of sexual attraction, and yet forbidden to exhibit the incidentsof that attraction or even to discuss its nature. Your suggestion thatI should write a Don Juan play was virtually a challenge to me to treatthis subject myself dramatically. The challenge was difficult enoughto be worth accepting, because, when you come to think of it, though wehave plenty of dramas with heroes and heroines who are in love and mustaccordingly marry or perish at the end of the play, or about peoplewhose relations with one another have been complicated by the marriagelaws, not to mention the looser sort of plays which trade on thetradition that illicit love affairs are at once vicious and delightful, we have no modern English plays in which the natural attraction of thesexes for one another is made the mainspring of the action. That iswhy we insist on beauty in our performers, differing herein from thecountries our friend William Archer holds up as examples of seriousnessto our childish theatres. There the Juliets and Isoldes, the Romeos andTristans, might be our mothers and fathers. Not so the English actress. The heroine she impersonates is not allowed to discuss the elementalrelations of men and women: all her romantic twaddle about novelet-madelove, all her purely legal dilemmas as to whether she was marriedor "betrayed, " quite miss our hearts and worry our minds. To consoleourselves we must just look at her. We do so; and her beauty feeds ourstarving emotions. Sometimes we grumble ungallantly at the lady becauseshe does not act as well as she looks. But in a drama which, with allits preoccupation with sex, is really void of sexual interest, goodlooks are more desired than histrionic skill. 

Let me press this point on you, since you are too clever to raise thefool's cry of paradox whenever I take hold of a stick by the rightinstead of the wrong end. Why are our occasional attempts to deal withthe sex problem on the stage so repulsive and dreary that even thosewho are most determined that sex questions shall be held open and theirdiscussion kept free, cannot pretend to relish these joyless attempts atsocial sanitation? Is it not because at bottom they are utterly sexless?What is the usual formula for such plays? A woman has, on some pastoccasion, been brought into conflict with the law which regulates therelations of the sexes. A man, by falling in love with her, ormarrying her, is brought into conflict with the social convention whichdiscountenances the woman. Now the conflicts of individuals with law andconvention can be dramatized like all other human conflicts; but theyare purely judicial; and the fact that we are much more curious aboutthe suppressed relations between the man and the woman than about therelations between both and our courts of law and private juries ofmatrons, produces that sensation of evasion, of dissatisfaction, offundamental irrelevance, of shallowness, of useless disagreeableness, of total failure to edify and partial failure to interest, which is asfamiliar to you in the theatres as it was to me when I, too, frequentedthose uncomfortable buildings, and found our popular playwrights in themind to (as they thought) emulate Ibsen. 

I take it that when you asked me for a Don Juan play you did not wantthat sort of thing. Nobody does: the successes such plays sometimesobtain are due to the incidental conventional melodrama with which theexperienced popular author instinctively saves himself from failure. But what did you want? Owing to your unfortunate habit--you now, Ihope, feel its inconvenience--of not explaining yourself, I have had todiscover this for myself. First, then, I have had to ask myself, whatis a Don Juan? Vulgarly, a libertine. But your dislike of vulgarityis pushed to the length of a defect (universality of character isimpossible without a share of vulgarity); and even if you could acquirethe taste, you would find yourself overfed from ordinary sourceswithout troubling me. So I took it that you demanded a Don Juan in thephilosophic sense. 

Philosophically, Don Juan is a man who, though gifted enough to beexceptionally capable of distinguishing between good and evil, followshis own instincts without regard to the common statute, or canon law;and therefore, whilst gaining the ardent sympathy of our rebelliousinstincts (which are flattered by the brilliancies with which DonJuan associates them) finds himself in mortal conflict with existinginstitutions, and defends himself by fraud and farce as unscrupulouslyas a farmer defends his crops by the same means against vermin. Theprototypic Don Juan, invented early in the XVI century by a Spanishmonk, was presented, according to the ideas of that time, as the enemyof God, the approach of whose vengeance is felt throughout the drama, growing in menace from minute to minute. No anxiety is caused on DonJuan's account by any minor antagonist: he easily eludes the police, temporal and spiritual; and when an indignant father seeks privateredress with the sword, Don Juan kills him without an effort. Not untilthe slain father returns from heaven as the agent of God, in the formof his own statue, does he prevail against his slayer and cast him intohell. The moral is a monkish one: repent and reform now; for to-morrowit may be too late. This is really the only point on which Don Juan issceptical; for he is a devout believer in an ultimate hell, and risksdamnation only because, as he is young, it seems so far off thatrepentance can be postponed until he has amused himself to his heart'scontent. 

But the lesson intended by an author is hardly ever the lesson the worldchooses to learn from his book. What attracts and impresses us in ElBurlador de Sevilla is not the immediate urgency of repentance, butthe heroism of daring to be the enemy of God. From Prometheus to my ownDevil's Disciple, such enemies have always been popular. Don Juan becamesuch a pet that the world could not bear his damnation. It reconciledhim sentimentally to God in a second version, and clamored forhis canonization for a whole century, thus treating him as Englishjournalism has treated that comic foe of the gods, Punch. Moliere's DonJuan casts back to the original in point of impenitence; but in piety hefalls off greatly. True, he also proposes to repent; but in what terms?"Oui, ma foi! il faut s'amender. Encore vingt ou trente ans de cettevie-ci, et puis nous songerons a nous. " After Moliere comes theartist-enchanter, the master of masters, Mozart, who reveals the hero'sspirit in magical harmonies, elfin tones, and elate darting rhythms asof summer lightning made audible. Here you have freedom in love and inmorality mocking exquisitely at slavery to them, and interesting you, attracting you, tempting you, inexplicably forcing you to range the herowith his enemy the statue on a transcendant plane, leaving the prudishdaughter and her priggish lover on a crockery shelf below to livepiously ever after. 

After these completed works Byron's fragment does not count for muchphilosophically. Our vagabond libertines are no more interesting fromthat point of view than the sailor who has a wife in every port, andByron's hero is, after all, only a vagabond libertine. And he is dumb:he does not discuss himself with a Sganarelle-Leporello or with thefathers or brothers of his mistresses: he does not even, like Casanova, tell his own story. In fact he is not a true Don Juan at all; for he isno more an enemy of God than any romantic and adventurous young sower ofwild oats. Had you and I been in his place at his age, who knows whetherwe might not have done as he did, unless indeed your fastidiousnesshad saved you from the empress Catherine. Byron was as little of aphilosopher as Peter the Great: both were instances of that rare anduseful, but unedifying variation, an energetic genius born withoutthe prejudices or superstitions of his contemporaries. The resultantunscrupulous freedom of thought made Byron a greater poet thanWordsworth just as it made Peter a greater king than George III; butas it was, after all, only a negative qualification, it did not preventPeter from being an appalling blackguard and an arrant poltroon, nor didit enable Byron to become a religious force like Shelley. Let us, then, leave Byron's Don Juan out of account. Mozart's is the last of the trueDon Juans; for by the time he was of age, his cousin Faust had, in thehands of Goethe, taken his place and carried both his warfare and hisreconciliation with the gods far beyond mere lovemaking into politics, high art, schemes for reclaiming new continents from the ocean, andrecognition of an eternal womanly principle in the universe. Goethe'sFaust and Mozart's Don Juan were the last words of the XVIII centuryon the subject; and by the time the polite critics of the XIX century, ignoring William Blake as superficially as the XVIII had ignored Hogarthor the XVII Bunyan, had got past the Dickens-Macaulay Dumas-Guizot stageand the Stendhal-Meredith-Turgenieff stage, and were confronted withphilosophic fiction by such pens as Ibsen's and Tolstoy's, Don Juan hadchanged his sex and become Dona Juana, breaking out of the Doll's Houseand asserting herself as an individual instead of a mere item in a moralpageant. 

Now it is all very well for you at the beginning of the XX century toask me for a Don Juan play; but you will see from the foregoing surveythat Don Juan is a full century out of date for you and for me; andif there are millions of less literate people who are still in theeighteenth century, have they not Moliere and Mozart, upon whose art nohuman hand can improve? You would laugh at me if at this time of day Idealt in duels and ghosts and "womanly" women. As to mere libertinism, you would be the first to remind me that the Festin de Pierre ofMoliere is not a play for amorists, and that one bar of the voluptuoussentimentality of Gounod or Bizet would appear as a licentious stain onthe score of Don Giovanni. Even the more abstract parts of the Don Juanplay are dilapidated past use: for instance, Don Juan's supernaturalantagonist hurled those who refuse to repent into lakes of burningbrimstone, there to be tormented by devils with horns and tails. Of thatantagonist, and of that conception of repentance, how much is left thatcould be used in a play by me dedicated to you? On the other hand, thoseforces of middle class public opinion which hardly existed for aSpanish nobleman in the days of the first Don Juan, are now triumphanteverywhere. Civilized society is one huge bourgeoisie: no noblemandares now shock his greengrocer. The women, "marchesane, principesse, cameriere, cittadine" and all, are become equally dangerous: the sexis aggressive, powerful: when women are wronged they do not groupthemselves pathetically to sing "Protegga il giusto cielo": they graspformidable legal and social weapons, and retaliate. Political partiesare wrecked and public careers undone by a single indiscretion. A manhad better have all the statues in London to supper with him, ugly asthey are, than be brought to the bar of the Nonconformist Conscience byDonna Elvira. Excommunication has become almost as serious a business asit was in the X century. 

As a result, Man is no longer, like Don Juan, victor in the duel ofsex. Whether he has ever really been may be doubted: at all eventsthe enormous superiority of Woman's natural position in this matter istelling with greater and greater force. As to pulling the NonconformistConscience by the beard as Don Juan plucked the beard of theCommandant's statue in the convent of San Francisco, that is out of thequestion nowadays: prudence and good manners alike forbid it to a herowith any mind. Besides, it is Don Juan's own beard that is in danger ofplucking. Far from relapsing into hypocrisy, as Sganarelle feared, he has unexpectedly discovered a moral in his immorality. The growingrecognition of his new point of view is heaping responsibility on him. His former jests he has had to take as seriously as I have had to takesome of the jests of Mr W. S. Gilbert. His scepticism, once his leasttolerated quality, has now triumphed so completely that he can nolonger assert himself by witty negations, and must, to save himself fromcipherdom, find an affirmative position. His thousand and three affairsof gallantry, after becoming, at most, two immature intrigues leading tosordid and prolonged complications and humiliations, have been discardedaltogether as unworthy of his philosophic dignity and compromising tohis newly acknowledged position as the founder of a school. Instead ofpretending to read Ovid he does actually read Schopenhaur and Nietzsche, studies Westermarck, and is concerned for the future of the race insteadof for the freedom of his own instincts. Thus his profligacy and hisdare-devil airs have gone the way of his sword and mandoline into therag shop of anachronisms and superstitions. In fact, he is now moreHamlet than Don Juan; for though the lines put into the actor's mouth toindicate to the pit that Hamlet is a philosopher are for the mostpart mere harmonious platitude which, with a little debasement of theword-music, would be properer to Pecksniff, yet if you separate the realhero, inarticulate and unintelligible to himself except in flashes ofinspiration, from the performer who has to talk at any cost throughfive acts; and if you also do what you must always do in Shakespear'stragedies: that is, dissect out the absurd sensational incidents andphysical violences of the borrowed story from the genuine Shakespeariantissue, you will get a true Promethean foe of the gods, whoseinstinctive attitude towards women much resembles that to which Don Juanis now driven. From this point of view Hamlet was a developed Don Juanwhom Shakespear palmed off as a reputable man just as he palmed poorMacbeth off as a murderer. To-day the palming off is no longer necessary(at least on your plane and mine) because Don Juanism is no longermisunderstood as mere Casanovism. Don Juan himself is almost ascetic inhis desire to avoid that misunderstanding; and so my attempt to bringhim up to date by launching him as a modern Englishman into a modernEnglish environment has produced a figure superficially quite unlike thehero of Mozart. 

And yet I have not the heart to disappoint you wholly of another glimpseof the Mozartian dissoluto punito and his antagonist the statue. I feelsure you would like to know more of that statue--to draw him out when heis off duty, so to speak. To gratify you, I have resorted to the trickof the strolling theatrical manager who advertizes the pantomime ofSinbad the Sailor with a stock of second-hand picture posters designedfor Ali Baba. He simply thrusts a few oil jars into the valley ofdiamonds, and so fulfils the promise held out by the hoardings tothe public eye. I have adapted this simple device to our occasion bythrusting into my perfectly modern three-act play a totally extraneousact in which my hero, enchanted by the air of the Sierra, has a dream inwhich his Mozartian ancestor appears and philosophizes at great lengthin a Shavio-Socratic dialogue with the lady, the statue, and the devil. 

But this pleasantry is not the essence of the play. Over this essenceI have no control. You propound a certain social substance, sexualattraction to wit, for dramatic distillation; and I distil it for you. I do not adulterate the product with aphrodisiacs nor dilute it withromance and water; for I am merely executing your commission, notproducing a popular play for the market. You must therefore (unless, like most wise men, you read the play first and the preface afterwards)prepare yourself to face a trumpery story of modern London life, a lifein which, as you know, the ordinary man's main business is to get meansto keep up the position and habits of a gentleman, and the ordinarywoman's business is to get married. In 9, 999 cases out of 10, 000, youcan count on their doing nothing, whether noble or base, that conflictswith these ends; and that assurance is what you rely on as theirreligion, their morality, their principles, their patriotism, theirreputation, their honor and so forth. 

On the whole, this is a sensible and satisfactory foundation forsociety. Money means nourishment and marriage means children; and thatmen should put nourishment first and women children first is, broadlyspeaking, the law of Nature and not the dictate of personal ambition. The secret of the prosaic man's success, such as it is, is thesimplicity with which he pursues these ends: the secret of the artisticman's failure, such as that is, is the versatility with which he straysin all directions after secondary ideals. The artist is either a poetor a scallawag: as poet, he cannot see, as the prosaic man does, thatchivalry is at bottom only romantic suicide: as scallawag, he cannot seethat it does not pay to spunge and beg and lie and brag and neglecthis person. Therefore do not misunderstand my plain statement of thefundamental constitution of London society as an Irishman's reproach toyour nation. From the day I first set foot on this foreign soil I knewthe value of the prosaic qualities of which Irishmen teach Englishmen tobe ashamed as well as I knew the vanity of the poetic qualities of whichEnglishmen teach Irishmen to be proud. For the Irishman instinctivelydisparages the quality which makes the Englishman dangerous to him; andthe Englishman instinctively flatters the fault that makes the Irishmanharmless and amusing to him. What is wrong with the prosaic Englishmanis what is wrong with the prosaic men of all countries: stupidity. Thevitality which places nourishment and children first, heaven and hella somewhat remote second, and the health of society as an organic wholenowhere, may muddle successfully through the comparatively tribal stagesof gregariousness; but in nineteenth century nations and twentiethcentury empires the determination of every man to be rich at all costs, and of every woman to be married at all costs, must, without a highlyscientific social organization, produce a ruinous development ofpoverty, celibacy, prostitution, infant mortality, adult degeneracy, andeverything that wise men most dread. In short, there is no future formen, however brimming with crude vitality, who are neither intelligentnor politically educated enough to be Socialists. So do notmisunderstand me in the other direction either: if I appreciate thevital qualities of the Englishman as I appreciate the vital qualities ofthe bee, I do not guarantee the Englishman against being, like thebee (or the Canaanite) smoked out and unloaded of his honey by beingsinferior to himself in simple acquisitiveness, combativeness, andfecundity, but superior to him in imagination and cunning. 

The Don Juan play, however, is to deal with sexual attraction, and notwith nutrition, and to deal with it in a society in which the seriousbusiness of sex is left by men to women, as the serious business ofnutrition is left by women to men. That the men, to protect themselvesagainst a too aggressive prosecution of the women's business, have setup a feeble romantic convention that the initiative in sex business mustalways come from the man, is true; but the pretence is so shallow thateven in the theatre, that last sanctuary of unreality, it imposes onlyon the inexperienced. In Shakespear's plays the woman always takes theinitiative. In his problem plays and his popular plays alike the loveinterest is the interest of seeing the woman hunt the man down. She maydo it by blandishment, like Rosalind, or by stratagem, like Mariana; butin every case the relation between the woman and the man is the same:she is the pursuer and contriver, he the pursued and disposed of. Whenshe is baffled, like Ophelia, she goes mad and commits suicide; and theman goes straight from her funeral to a fencing match. No doubt Nature, with very young creatures, may save the woman the trouble of scheming:Prospero knows that he has only to throw Ferdinand and Miranda togetherand they will mate like a pair of doves; and there is no need forPerdita to capture Florizel as the lady doctor in All's Well That EndsWell (an early Ibsenite heroine) captures Bertram. But the maturecases all illustrate the Shakespearian law. The one apparent exception, Petruchio, is not a real one: he is most carefully characterized asa purely commercial matrimonial adventurer. Once he is assured thatKatharine has money, he undertakes to marry her before he has seen her. In real life we find not only Petruchios, but Mantalinis and Dobbins whopursue women with appeals to their pity or jealousy or vanity, or clingto them in a romantically infatuated way. Such effeminates do not countin the world scheme: even Bunsby dropping like a fascinated bird intothe jaws of Mrs MacStinger is by comparison a true tragic object ofpity and terror. I find in my own plays that Woman, projecting herselfdramatically by my hands (a process over which I assure you I have nomore real control than I have over my wife), behaves just as Woman didin the plays of Shakespear. 

And so your Don Juan has come to birth as a stage projection of thetragi-comic love chase of the man by the woman; and my Don Juan is thequarry instead of the huntsman. Yet he is a true Don Juan, with a senseof reality that disables convention, defying to the last the fate whichfinally overtakes him. The woman's need of him to enable her to carryon Nature's most urgent work, does not prevail against him until hisresistance gathers her energy to a climax at which she dares to throwaway her customary exploitations of the conventional affectionate anddutiful poses, and claim him by natural right for a purpose that fartranscends their mortal personal purposes. 

Among the friends to whom I have read this play in manuscript are someof our own sex who are shocked at the "unscrupulousness, " meaningthe total disregard of masculine fastidiousness, with which the womanpursues her purpose. It does not occur to them that if women were asfastidious as men, morally or physically, there would be an end of therace. Is there anything meaner then to throw necessary work upon otherpeople and then disparage it as unworthy and indelicate. We laugh at thehaughty American nation because it makes the negro clean its boots andthen proves the moral and physical inferiority of the negro by the factthat he is a shoeblack; but we ourselves throw the whole drudgery ofcreation on one sex, and then imply that no female of any womanlinessor delicacy would initiate any effort in that direction. There are nolimits to male hypocrisy in this matter. No doubt there are moments whenman's sexual immunities are made acutely humiliating to him. Whenthe terrible moment of birth arrives, its supreme importance and itssuperhuman effort and peril, in which the father has no part, dwarfhim into the meanest insignificance: he slinks out of the way of thehumblest petticoat, happy if he be poor enough to be pushed out of thehouse to outface his ignominy by drunken rejoicings. But when thecrisis is over he takes his revenge, swaggering as the breadwinner, andspeaking of Woman's "sphere" with condescension, even with chivalry, asif the kitchen and the nursery were less important than the office inthe city. When his swagger is exhausted he drivels into erotic poetryor sentimental uxoriousness; and the Tennysonian King Arthur posing asGuinevere becomes Don Quixote grovelling before Dulcinea. You must admitthat here Nature beats Comedy out of the field: the wildest hominist orfeminist farce is insipid after the most commonplace "slice of life. "The pretence that women do not take the initiative is part of the farce. Why, the whole world is strewn with snares, traps, gins and pitfallsfor the capture of men by women. Give women the vote, and in five yearsthere will be a crushing tax on bachelors. Men, on the other hand, attach penalties to marriage, depriving women of property, of thefranchise, of the free use of their limbs, of that ancient symbol ofimmortality, the right to make oneself at home in the house of God bytaking off the hat, of everything that he can force Woman to dispensewith without compelling himself to dispense with her. All in vain. Womanmust marry because the race must perish without her travail: if the riskof death and the certainty of pain, danger and unutterable discomfortscannot deter her, slavery and swaddled ankles will not. And yet weassume that the force that carries women through all these perils andhardships, stops abashed before the primnesses of our behavior for youngladies. It is assumed that the woman must wait, motionless, until she iswooed. Nay, she often does wait motionless. That is how the spider waitsfor the fly. But the spider spins her web. And if the fly, like my hero, shows a strength that promises to extricate him, how swiftly does sheabandon her pretence of passiveness, and openly fling coil after coilabout him until he is secured for ever!

If the really impressive books and other art-works of the world wereproduced by ordinary men, they would express more fear of women'spursuit than love of their illusory beauty. But ordinary men cannotproduce really impressive art-works. Those who can are men of genius:that is, men selected by Nature to carry on the work of building up anintellectual consciousness of her own instinctive purpose. Accordingly, we observe in the man of genius all the unscrupulousness and all the"self-sacrifice" (the two things are the same) of Woman. He will riskthe stake and the cross; starve, when necessary, in a garret all hislife; study women and live on their work and care as Darwin studiedworms and lived upon sheep; work his nerves into rags without payment, a sublime altruist in his disregard of himself, an atrocious egotist inhis disregard of others. Here Woman meets a purpose as impersonal, asirresistible as her own; and the clash is sometimes tragic. When it iscomplicated by the genius being a woman, then the game is one for a kingof critics: your George Sand becomes a mother to gain experience forthe novelist and to develop her, and gobbles up men of genius, Chopins, Mussets and the like, as mere hors d'oeuvres. 

I state the extreme case, of course; but what is true of the great manwho incarnates the philosophic consciousness of Life and the woman whoincarnates its fecundity, is true in some degree of all geniuses andall women. Hence it is that the world's books get written, its picturespainted, its statues modelled, its symphonies composed, by people whoare free of the otherwise universal dominion of the tyranny of sex. Which leads us to the conclusion, astonishing to the vulgar, that art, instead of being before all things the expression of the normal sexualsituation, is really the only department in which sex is a supersededand secondary power, with its consciousness so confused and its purposeso perverted, that its ideas are mere fantasy to common men. Whether theartist becomes poet or philosopher, moralist or founder of a religion, his sexual doctrine is nothing but a barren special pleading forpleasure, excitement, and knowledge when he is young, and forcontemplative tranquillity when he is old and satiated. Romance andAsceticism, Amorism and Puritanism are equally unreal in the greatPhilistine world. The world shown us in books, whether the books beconfessed epics or professed gospels, or in codes, or in politicalorations, or in philosophic systems, is not the main world at all: itis only the self-consciousness of certain abnormal people who have thespecific artistic talent and temperament. A serious matter this for youand me, because the man whose consciousness does not correspond to thatof the majority is a madman; and the old habit of worshipping madmen isgiving way to the new habit of locking them up. And since what we calleducation and culture is for the most part nothing but the substitutionof reading for experience, of literature for life, of the obsoletefictitious for the contemporary real, education, as you no doubtobserved at Oxford, destroys, by supplantation, every mind that is notstrong enough to see through the imposture and to use the great Mastersof Arts as what they really are and no more: that is, patentees ofhighly questionable methods of thinking, and manufacturers of highlyquestionable, and for the majority but half valid representations oflife. The schoolboy who uses his Homer to throw at his fellow's headmakes perhaps the safest and most rational use of him; and I observewith reassurance that you occasionally do the same, in your prime, withyour Aristotle. 

Fortunately for us, whose minds have been so overwhelminglysophisticated by literature, what produces all these treatises and poemsand scriptures of one sort or another is the struggle of Life to becomedivinely conscious of itself instead of blindly stumbling hither andthither in the line of least resistance. Hence there is a drivingtowards truth in all books on matters where the writer, thoughexceptionally gifted is normally constituted, and has no private axe togrind. Copernicus had no motive for misleading his fellowmen as to theplace of the sun in the solar system: he looked for it as honestly as ashepherd seeks his path in a mist. But Copernicus would not have writtenlove stories scientifically. When it comes to sex relations, the man ofgenius does not share the common man's danger of capture, nor the womanof genius the common woman's overwhelming specialization. And that iswhy our scriptures and other art works, when they deal with love, turnfrom honest attempts at science in physics to romantic nonsense, eroticecstasy, or the stern asceticism of satiety ("the road of excess leadsto the palace of wisdom" said William Blake; for "you never know what isenough unless you know what is more than enough"). 

There is a political aspect of this sex question which is too big for mycomedy, and too momentous to be passed over without culpable frivolity. It is impossible to demonstrate that the initiative in sex transactionsremains with Woman, and has been confirmed to her, so far, more and moreby the suppression of rapine and discouragement of importunity, without being driven to very serious reflections on the fact that thisinitiative is politically the most important of all the initiatives, because our political experiment of democracy, the last refuge of cheapmisgovernment, will ruin us if our citizens are ill bred. 

When we two were born, this country was still dominated by a selectedclass bred by political marriages. The commercial class had not thencompleted the first twenty-five years of its new share of politicalpower; and it was itself selected by money qualification, and bred, ifnot by political marriage, at least by a pretty rigorous class marriage. Aristocracy and plutocracy still furnish the figureheads of politics;but they are now dependent on the votes of the promiscuously bredmasses. And this, if you please, at the very moment when the politicalproblem, having suddenly ceased to mean a very limited and occasionalinterference, mostly by way of jobbing public appointments, in themismanagement of a tight but parochial little island, with occasionalmeaningless prosecution of dynastic wars, has become the industrialreorganization of Britain, the construction of a practicallyinternational Commonwealth, and the partition of the whole of Africa andperhaps the whole of Asia by the civilized Powers. Can you believe thatthe people whose conceptions of society and conduct, whose power ofattention and scope of interest, are measured by the British theatre asyou know it to-day, can either handle this colossal task themselves, orunderstand and support the sort of mind and character that is (at leastcomparatively) capable of handling it? For remember: what our voters arein the pit and gallery they are also in the polling booth. We areall now under what Burke called "the hoofs of the swinish multitude. "Burke's language gave great offence because the implied exceptions toits universal application made it a class insult; and it certainly wasnot for the pot to call the kettle black. The aristocracy he defended, in spite of the political marriages by which it tried to secure breedingfor itself, had its mind undertrained by silly schoolmasters andgovernesses, its character corrupted by gratuitous luxury, itsself-respect adulterated to complete spuriousness by flattery andflunkeyism. It is no better to-day and never will be any better: ourvery peasants have something morally hardier in them that culminatesoccasionally in a Bunyan, a Burns, or a Carlyle. But observe, thisaristocracy, which was overpowered from 1832 to 1885 by the middleclass, has come back to power by the votes of "the swinish multitude. "Tom Paine has triumphed over Edmund Burke; and the swine are now courtedelectors. How many of their own class have these electors sent toparliament? Hardly a dozen out of 670, and these only under thepersuasion of conspicuous personal qualifications and popular eloquence. The multitude thus pronounces judgment on its own units: it admitsitself unfit to govern, and will vote only for a man morphologicallyand generically transfigured by palatial residence and equipage, bytranscendent tailoring, by the glamor of aristocratic kinship. Well, wetwo know these transfigured persons, these college passmen, these wellgroomed monocular Algys and Bobbies, these cricketers to whom age bringsgolf instead of wisdom, these plutocratic products of "the nail andsarspan business as he got his money by. " Do you know whether to laughor cry at the notion that they, poor devils! will drive a team ofcontinents as they drive a four-in-hand; turn a jostling anarchy ofcasual trade and speculation into an ordered productivity; and federateour colonies into a world-Power of the first magnitude? Give thesepeople the most perfect political constitution and the soundestpolitical program that benevolent omniscience can devise for them, andthey will interpret it into mere fashionable folly or canting charity asinfallibly as a savage converts the philosophical theology of a Scotchmissionary into crude African idolatry. 

I do not know whether you have any illusions left on the subject ofeducation, progress, and so forth. I have none. Any pamphleteer can showthe way to better things; but when there is no will there is no way. Mynurse was fond of remarking that you cannot make a silk purse out ofa sow's ear, and the more I see of the efforts of our churches anduniversities and literary sages to raise the mass above its own level, the more convinced I am that my nurse was right. Progress can do nothingbut make the most of us all as we are, and that most would clearly notbe enough even if those who are already raised out of the lowestabysses would allow the others a chance. The bubble of Heredity has beenpricked: the certainty that acquirements are negligible as elements inpractical heredity has demolished the hopes of the educationists as wellas the terrors of the degeneracy mongers; and we know now that there isno hereditary "governing class" any more than a hereditary hooliganism. We must either breed political capacity or be ruined by Democracy, which was forced on us by the failure of the older alternatives. Yetif Despotism failed only for want of a capable benevolent despot, whatchance has Democracy, which requires a whole population of capablevoters: that is, of political critics who, if they cannot govern inperson for lack of spare energy or specific talent for administration, can at least recognize and appreciate capacity and benevolence inothers, and so govern through capably benevolent representatives? Whereare such voters to be found to-day? Nowhere. Promiscuous breeding hasproduced a weakness of character that is too timid to face the fullstringency of a thoroughly competitive struggle for existence andtoo lazy and petty to organize the commonwealth co-operatively. Beingcowards, we defeat natural selection under cover of philanthropy: beingsluggards, we neglect artificial selection under cover of delicacy andmorality. 

Yet we must get an electorate of capable critics or collapse as Romeand Egypt collapsed. At this moment the Roman decadent phase of panemet circenses is being inaugurated under our eyes. Our newspapers andmelodramas are blustering about our imperial destiny; but our eyes andhearts turn eagerly to the American millionaire. As his hand goes downto his pocket, our fingers go up to the brims of our hats by instinct. Our ideal prosperity is not the prosperity of the industrial north, butthe prosperity of the Isle of Wight, of Folkestone and Ramsgate, of Niceand Monte Carlo. That is the only prosperity you see on the stage, wherethe workers are all footmen, parlourmaids, comic lodging-lettersand fashionable professional men, whilst the heroes and heroines aremiraculously provided with unlimited dividends, and eat gratuitously, like the knights in Don Quixote's books of chivalry. 

The city papers prate of the competition of Bombay with Manchester andthe like. The real competition is the competition of Regent Street withthe Rue de Rivoli, of Brighton and the south coast with the Riviera, forthe spending money of the American Trusts. What is all this growinglove of pageantry, this effusive loyalty, this officious risingand uncovering at a wave from a flag or a blast from a brass band?Imperialism: Not a bit of it. Obsequiousness, servility, cupidity rousedby the prevailing smell of money. When Mr Carnegie rattled his millionsin his pockets all England became one rapacious cringe. Only, whenRhodes (who had probably been reading my Socialism for Millionaires)left word that no idler was to inherit his estate, the bent backsstraightened mistrustfully for a moment. Could it be that the DiamondKing was no gentleman after all? However, it was easy to ignore a richman's solecism. The ungentlemanly clause was not mentioned again; andthe backs soon bowed themselves back into their natural shape. 

But I hear you asking me in alarm whether I have actually put all thistub thumping into a Don Juan comedy. I have not. I have only made my DonJuan a political pamphleteer, and given you his pamphlet in full by wayof appendix. You will find it at the end of the book. I am sorry to saythat it is a common practice with romancers to announce their hero asa man of extraordinary genius, and to leave his works entirely to thereader's imagination; so that at the end of the book you whisper toyourself ruefully that but for the author's solemn preliminary assuranceyou should hardly have given the gentleman credit for ordinary goodsense. You cannot accuse me of this pitiable barrenness, this feebleevasion. I not only tell you that my hero wrote a revolutionists'handbook: I give you the handbook at full length for your edification ifyou care to read it. And in that handbook you will find the politics ofthe sex question as I conceive Don Juan's descendant to understand them. Not that I disclaim the fullest responsibility for his opinions and forthose of all my characters, pleasant and unpleasant. They are all rightfrom their several points of view; and their points of view are, for thedramatic moment, mine also. This may puzzle the people who believe thatthere is such a thing as an absolutely right point of view, usuallytheir own. It may seem to them that nobody who doubts this can be in astate of grace. However that may be, it is certainly true that nobodywho agrees with them can possibly be a dramatist, or indeed anythingelse that turns upon a knowledge of mankind. Hence it has been pointedout that Shakespear had no conscience. Neither have I, in that sense. 

You may, however, remind me that this digression of mine into politicswas preceded by a very convincing demonstration that the artist nevercatches the point of view of the common man on the question of sex, because he is not in the same predicament. I first prove that anything Iwrite on the relation of the sexes is sure to be misleading; and then Iproceed to write a Don Juan play. Well, if you insist on asking me whyI behave in this absurd way, I can only reply that you asked me to, and that in any case my treatment of the subject may be valid for theartist, amusing to the amateur, and at least intelligible and thereforepossibly suggestive to the Philistine. Every man who records hisillusions is providing data for the genuinely scientific psychologywhich the world still waits for. I plank down my view of the existingrelations of men to women in the most highly civilized society for whatit is worth. It is a view like any other view and no more, neither truenor false, but, I hope, a way of looking at the subject which throwsinto the familiar order of cause and effect a sufficient body of factand experience to be interesting to you, if not to the play-going publicof London. I have certainly shown little consideration for that publicin this enterprise; but I know that it has the friendliest dispositiontowards you and me as far as it has any consciousness of our existence, and quite understands that what I write for you must pass at aconsiderable height over its simple romantic head. It will take my booksas read and my genius for granted, trusting me to put forth work of suchquality as shall bear out its verdict. So we may disport ourselves onour own plane to the top of our bent; and if any gentleman points outthat neither this epistle dedicatory nor the dream of Don Juan in thethird act of the ensuing comedy is suitable for immediate production ata popular theatre we need not contradict him. Napoleon provided Talmawith a pit of kings, with what effect on Talma's acting is not recorded. As for me, what I have always wanted is a pit of philosophers; and thisis a play for such a pit. 

I should make formal acknowledgment to the authors whom I have pillagedin the following pages if I could recollect them all. The theft of thebrigand-poetaster from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is deliberate; and themetamorphosis of Leporello into Enry Straker, motor engineer and NewMan, is an intentional dramatic sketch for the contemporary embryo ofMr H. G. Wells's anticipation of the efficient engineering classwhich will, he hopes, finally sweep the jabberers out of the way ofcivilization. Mr Barrio has also, whilst I am correcting my proofs, delighted London with a servant who knows more than his masters. Theconception of Mendoza Limited I trace back to a certain West Indiancolonial secretary, who, at a period when he and I and Mr SidneyWebb were sowing our political wild oats as a sort of Fabian ThreeMusketeers, without any prevision of the surprising respectabilityof the crop that followed, recommended Webb, the encyclopedic andinexhaustible, to form himself into a company for the benefit of theshareholders. Octavius I take over unaltered from Mozart; and I herebyauthorize any actor who impersonates him, to sing "Dalla sua pace" (ifhe can) at any convenient moment during the representation. Ann wassuggested to me by the fifteenth century Dutch morality called Everyman, which Mr William Poel has lately resuscitated so triumphantly. Itrust he will work that vein further, and recognize that ElizabethanRenascence fustian is no more bearable after medieval poesy than Scribeafter Ibsen. As I sat watching Everyman at the Charterhouse, I said tomyself Why not Everywoman? Ann was the result: every woman is not Ann;but Ann is Everywoman. 

That the author of Everyman was no mere artist, but anartist-philosopher, and that the artist-philosophers are the only sortof artists I take quite seriously, will be no news to you. Even Platoand Boswell, as the dramatists who invented Socrates and Dr Johnson, impress me more deeply than the romantic playwrights. Ever since, asa boy, I first breathed the air of the transcendental regions at aperformance of Mozart's Zauberflote, I have been proof against thegarish splendors and alcoholic excitements of the ordinary stagecombinations of Tappertitian romance with the police intelligence. Bunyan, Blake, Hogarth and Turner (these four apart and above all theEnglish Classics), Goethe, Shelley, Schopenhaur, Wagner, Ibsen, Morris, Tolstoy, and Nietzsche are among the writers whose peculiar sense ofthe world I recognize as more or less akin to my own. Mark the wordpeculiar. I read Dickens and Shakespear without shame or stint;but their pregnant observations and demonstrations of life are notco-ordinated into any philosophy or religion: on the contrary, Dickens'ssentimental assumptions are violently contradicted by his observations;and Shakespear's pessimism is only his wounded humanity. Both have thespecific genius of the fictionist and the common sympathies of humanfeeling and thought in pre-eminent degree. They are often saner andshrewder than the philosophers just as Sancho-Panza was often saner andshrewder than Don Quixote. They clear away vast masses of oppressivegravity by their sense of the ridiculous, which is at bottom acombination of sound moral judgment with lighthearted good humor. Butthey are concerned with the diversities of the world instead of with itsunities: they are so irreligious that they exploit popular religion forprofessional purposes without delicacy or scruple (for example, SydneyCarton and the ghost in Hamlet!): they are anarchical, and cannotbalance their exposures of Angelo and Dogberry, Sir Leicester Dedlockand Mr Tite Barnacle, with any portrait of a prophet or a worthy leader:they have no constructive ideas: they regard those who have them asdangerous fanatics: in all their fictions there is no leading thought orinspiration for which any man could conceivably risk the spoiling ofhis hat in a shower, much less his life. Both are alike forced to borrowmotives for the more strenuous actions of their personages fromthe common stockpot of melodramatic plots; so that Hamlet has tobe stimulated by the prejudices of a policeman and Macbeth by thecupidities of a bushranger. Dickens, without the excuse of having tomanufacture motives for Hamlets and Macbeths, superfluously punt hiscrew down the stream of his monthly parts by mechanical devices which Ileave you to describe, my own memory being quite baffled by the simplestquestion as to Monks in Oliver Twist, or the long lost parentage ofSmike, or the relations between the Dorrit and Clennam families soinopportunely discovered by Monsieur Rigaud Blandois. The truth is, theworld was to Shakespear a great "stage of fools" on which he was utterlybewildered. He could see no sort of sense in living at all; and Dickenssaved himself from the despair of the dream in The Chimes by taking theworld for granted and busying himself with its details. Neither of themcould do anything with a serious positive character: they could place ahuman figure before you with perfect verisimilitude; but when the momentcame for making it live and move, they found, unless it made them laugh, that they had a puppet on their hands, and had to invent some artificialexternal stimulus to make it work. This is what is the matter withHamlet all through: he has no will except in his bursts of temper. Foolish Bardolaters make a virtue of this after their fashion:they declare that the play is the tragedy of irresolution; but allShakespear's projections of the deepest humanity he knew have the samedefect: their characters and manners are lifelike; but their actionsare forced on them from without, and the external force is grotesquelyinappropriate except when it is quite conventional, as in the case ofHenry V. Falstaff is more vivid than any of these serious reflectivecharacters, because he is self-acting: his motives are his own appetitesand instincts and humors. Richard III, too, is delightful as thewhimsical comedian who stops a funeral to make love to the corpse'swidow; but when, in the next act, he is replaced by a stage villain whosmothers babies and offs with people's heads, we are revolted at theimposture and repudiate the changeling. Faulconbridge, Coriolanus, Leontes are admirable descriptions of instinctive temperaments: indeedthe play of Coriolanus is the greatest of Shakespear's comedies; butdescription is not philosophy; and comedy neither compromises the authornor reveals him. He must be judged by those characters into which heputs what he knows of himself, his Hamlets and Macbeths and Lears andProsperos. If these characters are agonizing in a void about factitiousmelodramatic murders and revenges and the like, whilst the comiccharacters walk with their feet on solid ground, vivid and amusing, you know that the author has much to show and nothing to teach. Thecomparison between Falstaff and Prospero is like the comparisonbetween Micawber and David Copperfield. At the end of the book you knowMicawber, whereas you only know what has happened to David, and are notinterested enough in him to wonder what his politics or religion mightbe if anything so stupendous as a religious or political idea, or ageneral idea of any sort, were to occur to him. He is tolerable as achild; but he never becomes a man, and might be left out of his ownbiography altogether but for his usefulness as a stage confidant, aHoratio or "Charles his friend" what they call on the stage a feeder. 

Now you cannot say this of the works of the artist-philosophers. You cannot say it, for instance, of The Pilgrim's Progress. Put yourShakespearian hero and coward, Henry V and Pistol or Parolles, besideMr Valiant and Mr Fearing, and you have a sudden revelation of the abyssthat lies between the fashionable author who could see nothing in theworld but personal aims and the tragedy of their disappointment or thecomedy of their incongruity, and the field preacher who achieved virtueand courage by identifying himself with the purpose of the world ashe understood it. The contrast is enormous: Bunyan's coward stirs yourblood more than Shakespear's hero, who actually leaves you cold andsecretly hostile. You suddenly see that Shakespear, with all his flashesand divinations, never understood virtue and courage, never conceivedhow any man who was not a fool could, like Bunyan's hero, look backfrom the brink of the river of death over the strife and labor of hispilgrimage, and say "yet do I not repent me"; or, with the panache ofa millionaire, bequeath "my sword to him that shall succeed me in mypilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that can get it. " Thisis the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized byyourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before youare thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of afeverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining thatthe world will not devote itself to making you happy. And also the onlyreal tragedy in life is the being used by personally minded men forpurposes which you recognize to be base. All the rest is at worst meremisfortune or mortality: this alone is misery, slavery, hell on earth;and the revolt against it is the only force that offers a man's workto the poor artist, whom our personally minded rich people would sowillingly employ as pandar, buffoon, beauty monger, sentimentalizer andthe like. 

It may seem a long step from Bunyan to Nietzsche; but the differencebetween their conclusions is purely formal. Bunyan's perception thatrighteousness is filthy rags, his scorn for Mr Legality in the villageof Morality, his defiance of the Church as the supplanter of religion, his insistence on courage as the virtue of virtues, his estimate of thecareer of the conventionally respectable and sensible Worldly Wisemanas no better at bottom than the life and death of Mr Badman: allthis, expressed by Bunyan in the terms of a tinker's theology, is whatNietzsche has expressed in terms of post-Darwinian, post-Schopenhaurianphilosophy; Wagner in terms of polytheistic mythology; and Ibsen interms of mid-XIX century Parisian dramaturgy. Nothing is new in thesematters except their novelties: for instance, it is a novelty tocall Justification by Faith "Wille, " and Justification by Works"Vorstellung. " The sole use of the novelty is that you and I buy andread Schopenhaur's treatise on Will and Representation when we shouldnot dream of buying a set of sermons on Faith versus Works. At bottomthe controversy is the same, and the dramatic results are the same. Bunyan makes no attempt to present his pilgrims as more sensible orbetter conducted than Mr Worldly Wiseman. Mr W. W. 's worst enemies, asMr Embezzler, Mr Never-go-to-Church-on-Sunday, Mr Bad Form, Mr Murderer, Mr Burglar, Mr Co-respondent, Mr Blackmailer, Mr Cad, Mr Drunkard, MrLabor Agitator and so forth, can read the Pilgrim's Progress withoutfinding a word said against them; whereas the respectable people whosnub them and put them in prison, such as Mr W. W. Himself and his youngfriend Civility; Formalist and Hypocrisy; Wildhead, Inconsiderate, andPragmatick (who were clearly young university men of good familyand high feeding); that brisk lad Ignorance, Talkative, By-Ends ofFairspeech and his mother-in-law Lady Feigning, and other reputablegentlemen and citizens, catch it very severely. Even Little Faith, though he gets to heaven at last, is given to understand that it servedhim right to be mobbed by the brothers Faint Heart, Mistrust, andGuilt, all three recognized members of respectable society and veritablepillars of the law. The whole allegory is a consistent attack onmorality and respectability, without a word that one can rememberagainst vice and crime. Exactly what is complained of in Nietzsche andIbsen, is it not? And also exactly what would be complained of in allthe literature which is great enough and old enough to have attainedcanonical rank, officially or unofficially, were it not that books areadmitted to the canon by a compact which confesses their greatness inconsideration of abrogating their meaning; so that the reverend rectorcan agree with the prophet Micah as to his inspired style without beingcommitted to any complicity in Micah's furiously Radical opinions. Why, even I, as I force myself; pen in hand, into recognition and civility, find all the force of my onslaught destroyed by a simple policy ofnon-resistance. In vain do I redouble the violence of the language inwhich I proclaim my heterodoxies. I rail at the theistic credulity ofVoltaire, the amoristic superstition of Shelley, the revival of tribalsoothsaying and idolatrous rites which Huxley called Science andmistook for an advance on the Pentateuch, no less than at the welterof ecclesiastical and professional humbug which saves the face of thestupid system of violence and robbery which we call Law and Industry. Even atheists reproach me with infidelity and anarchists with nihilismbecause I cannot endure their moral tirades. And yet, instead ofexclaiming "Send this inconceivable Satanist to the stake, " therespectable newspapers pith me by announcing "another book by thisbrilliant and thoughtful writer. " And the ordinary citizen, knowing thatan author who is well spoken of by a respectable newspaper must be allright, reads me, as he reads Micah, with undisturbed edification fromhis own point of view. It is narrated that in the eighteen-seventies anold lady, a very devout Methodist, moved from Colchester to a house inthe neighborhood of the City Road, in London, where, mistaking the Hallof Science for a chapel, she sat at the feet of Charles Bradlaughfor many years, entranced by his eloquence, without questioninghis orthodoxy or moulting a feather of her faith. I fear I small bedefrauded of my just martyrdom in the same way. 

However, I am digressing, as a man with a grievance always does. Andafter all, the main thing in determining the artistic quality of a bookis not the opinions it propagates, but the fact that the writer hasopinions. The old lady from Colchester was right to sun her simple soulin the energetic radiance of Bradlaugh's genuine beliefs and disbeliefsrather than in the chill of such mere painting of light and heat aselocution and convention can achieve. My contempt for belles lettres, and for amateurs who become the heroes of the fanciers of literaryvirtuosity, is not founded on any illusion of mind as to the permanenceof those forms of thought (call them opinions) by which I strive tocommunicate my bent to my fellows. To younger men they are alreadyoutmoded; for though they have no more lost their logic than aneighteenth century pastel has lost its drawing or its color, yet, likethe pastel, they grow indefinably shabby, and will grow shabbier untilthey cease to count at all, when my books will either perish, or, ifthe world is still poor enough to want them, will have to stand, withBunyan's, by quite amorphous qualities of temper and energy. With thisconviction I cannot be a bellettrist. No doubt I must recognize, as eventhe Ancient Mariner did, that I must tell my story entertainingly if Iam to hold the wedding guest spellbound in spite of the siren sounds ofthe loud bassoon. But "for art's sake" alone I would not face the toilof writing a single sentence. I know that there are men who, havingnothing to say and nothing to write, are nevertheless so in love withoratory and with literature that they keep desperately repeating as muchas they can understand of what others have said or written aforetime. I know that the leisurely tricks which their want of conviction leavesthem free to play with the diluted and misapprehended message supplythem with a pleasant parlor game which they call style. I can pity theirdotage and even sympathize with their fancy. But a true original styleis never achieved for its own sake: a man may pay from a shilling to aguinea, according to his means, to see, hear, or read another man's actof genius; but he will not pay with his whole life and soul to become amere virtuoso in literature, exhibiting an accomplishment which will noteven make money for him, like fiddle playing. Effectiveness of assertionis the Alpha and Omega of style. He who has nothing to assert has nostyle and can have none: he who has something to assert will go as farin power of style as its momentousness and his conviction will carryhim. Disprove his assertion after it is made, yet its style remains. Darwin has no more destroyed the style of Job nor of Handel than MartinLuther destroyed the style of Giotto. All the assertions get disprovedsooner or later; and so we find the world full of a magnificent debrisof artistic fossils, with the matter-of-fact credibility gone clean outof them, but the form still splendid. And that is why the old mastersplay the deuce with our mere susceptibles. Your Royal Academician thinkshe can get the style of Giotto without Giotto's beliefs, and correcthis perspective into the bargain. Your man of letters thinks he canget Bunyan's or Shakespear's style without Bunyan's conviction orShakespear's apprehension, especially if he takes care not to splithis infinitives. And so with your Doctors of Music, who, with theircollections of discords duly prepared and resolved or retarded oranticipated in the manner of the great composers, think they can learnthe art of Palestrina from Cherubim's treatise. All this academic artis far worse than the trade in sham antique furniture; for the man whosells me an oaken chest which he swears was made in the XIII century, though as a matter of fact he made it himself only yesterday, at leastdoes not pretend that there are any modern ideas in it, whereas youracademic copier of fossils offers them to you as the latest outpouringof the human spirit, and, worst of all, kidnaps young people as pupilsand persuades them that his limitations are rules, his observancesdexterities, his timidities good taste, and his emptinesses purities. And when he declares that art should not be didactic, all the people whohave nothing to teach and all the people who don't want to learn agreewith him emphatically. 

I pride myself on not being one of these susceptible: If you studythe electric light with which I supply you in that Bumbledonian publiccapacity of mine over which you make merry from time to time, you willfind that your house contains a great quantity of highly susceptiblecopper wire which gorges itself with electricity and gives you no lightwhatever. But here and there occurs a scrap of intensely insusceptible, intensely resistant material; and that stubborn scrap grapples with thecurrent and will not let it through until it has made itself useful toyou as those two vital qualities of literature, light and heat. Now if Iam to be no mere copper wire amateur but a luminous author, I must alsobe a most intensely refractory person, liable to go out and to go wrongat inconvenient moments, and with incendiary possibilities. These arethe faults of my qualities; and I assure you that I sometimes dislikemyself so much that when some irritable reviewer chances at that momentto pitch into me with zest, I feel unspeakably relieved and obliged. ButI never dream of reforming, knowing that I must take myself as I am andget what work I can out of myself. All this you will understand; forthere is community of material between us: we are both critics of lifeas well as of art; and you have perhaps said to yourself when I havepassed your windows, "There, but for the grace of God, go I. " An awfuland chastening reflection, which shall be the closing cadence of thisimmoderately long letter from yours faithfully, G. BERNARD SHAW. 

WOKING, 1903

ACT I

Roebuck Ramsden is in his study, opening the morning letters. The study, handsomely and solidly furnished, proclaims the man of means. Nota speck of dust is visible: it is clear that there are at least twohousemaids and a parlormaid downstairs, and a housekeeper upstairs whodoes not let them spare elbow-grease. Even the top of Roebuck's head ispolished: on a sunshiny day he could heliograph his orders to distantcamps by merely nodding. In no other respect, however, does he suggestthe military man. It is in active civil life that men get his broad airof importance, his dignified expectation of deference, his determinatemouth disarmed and refined since the hour of his success by thewithdrawal of opposition and the concession of comfort and precedenceand power. He is more than a highly respectable man: he is marked outas a president of highly respectable men, a chairman among directors, an alderman among councillors, a mayor among aldermen. Four tufts ofiron-grey hair, which will soon be as white as isinglass, and are inother respects not at all unlike it, grow in two symmetrical pairs abovehis ears and at the angles of his spreading jaws. He wears a black frockcoat, a white waistcoat (it is bright spring weather), and trousers, neither black nor perceptibly blue, of one of those indefinitely mixedhues which the modern clothier has produced to harmonize with thereligions of respectable men. He has not been out of doors yet to-day;so he still wears his slippers, his boots being ready for him on thehearthrug. Surmising that he has no valet, and seeing that he has nosecretary with a shorthand notebook and a typewriter, one meditateson how little our great burgess domesticity has been disturbed by newfashions and methods, or by the enterprise of the railway and hotelcompanies which sell you a Saturday to Monday of life at Folkestone as areal gentleman for two guineas, first class fares both ways included. 

How old is Roebuck? The question is important on the threshold of adrama of ideas; for under such circumstances everything depends onwhether his adolescence belonged to the sixties or to the eighties. Hewas born, as a matter of fact, in 1839, and was a Unitarian and FreeTrader from his boyhood, and an Evolutionist from the publication ofthe Origin of Species. Consequently he has always classed himself as anadvanced thinker and fearlessly outspoken reformer. 

Sitting at his writing table, he has on his right the windows givingon Portland Place. Through these, as through a proscenium, the curiousspectator may contemplate his profile as well as the blinds will permit. On his left is the inner wall, with a stately bookcase, and the doornot quite in the middle, but somewhat further from him. Against the wallopposite him are two busts on pillars: one, to his left, of John Bright;the other, to his right, of Mr Herbert Spencer. Between them hang anengraved portrait of Richard Cobden; enlarged photographs of Martineau, Huxley, and George Eliot; autotypes of allegories by Mr G. F. Watts (forRoebuck believed in the fine arts with all the earnestness of a man whodoes not understand them), and an impression of Dupont's engraving ofDelaroche's Beaux Artes hemicycle, representing the great men ofall ages. On the wall behind him, above the mantelshelf, is a familyportrait of impenetrable obscurity. 

A chair stands near the writing table for the convenience of businessvisitors. Two other chairs are against the wall between the busts. 

A parlormaid enters with a visitor's card. Roebuck takes it, and nods, pleased. Evidently a welcome caller. 

RAMSDEN. Show him up. 

The parlormaid goes out and returns with the visitor. 

THE MAID. Mr Robinson. 

Mr Robinson is really an uncommonly nice looking young fellow. He must, one thinks, be the jeune premier; for it is not in reason to supposethat a second such attractive male figure should appear in one story. The slim shapely frame, the elegant suit of new mourning, the small headand regular features, the pretty little moustache, the frank clear eyes, the wholesome bloom and the youthful complexion, the well brushed glossyhair, not curly, but of fine texture and good dark color, the arch ofgood nature in the eyebrows, the erect forehead and neatly pointed chin, all announce the man who will love and suffer later on. And that he willnot do so without sympathy is guaranteed by an engaging sincerity andeager modest serviceableness which stamp him as a man of amiable nature. The moment he appears, Ramsden's face expands into fatherly liking andwelcome, an expression which drops into one of decorous grief as theyoung man approaches him with sorrow in his face as well as in his blackclothes. Ramsden seems to know the nature of the bereavement. As thevisitor advances silently to the writing table, the old man rises andshakes his hand across it without a word: a long, affectionate shakewhich tells the story of a recent sorrow common to both. 

RAMSDEN. [concluding the handshake and cheering up] Well, well, Octavius, it's the common lot. We must all face it someday. Sit down. 

Octavius takes the visitor's chair. Ramsden replaces himself in his own. 

OCTAVIUS. Yes: we must face it, Mr Ramsden. But I owed him a great deal. He did everything for me that my father could have done if he had lived. 

RAMSDEN. He had no son of his own, you see. 

OCTAVIUS. But he had daughters; and yet he was as good to my sister asto me. And his death was so sudden! I always intended to thank him--tolet him know that I had not taken all his care of me as a matterof course, as any boy takes his father's care. But I waited for anopportunity and now he is dead--dropped without a moment's warning. Hewill never know what I felt. [He takes out his handkerchief and criesunaffectedly]. 

RAMSDEN. How do we know that, Octavius? He may know it: we cannottell. Come! Don't grieve. [Octavius masters himself and puts up hishandkerchief]. That's right. Now let me tell you something to consoleyou. The last time I saw him--it was in this very room--he said to me:"Tavy is a generous lad and the soul of honor; and when I see how littleconsideration other men get from their sons, I realize how much betterthan a son he's been to me. " There! Doesn't that do you good?

OCTAVIUS. Mr Ramsden: he used to say to me that he had met only one manin the world who was the soul of honor, and that was Roebuck Ramsden. 

RAMSDEN. Oh, that was his partiality: we were very old friends, youknow. But there was something else he used to say about you. I wonderwhether I ought to tell you or not!

OCTAVIUS. You know best. 

RAMSDEN. It was something about his daughter. 

OCTAVIUS. [eagerly] About Ann! Oh, do tell me that, Mr Ramsden. 

RAMSDEN. Well, he said he was glad, after all, you were not his son, because he thought that someday Annie and you--[Octavius blushesvividly]. Well, perhaps I shouldn't have told you. But he was inearnest. 

OCTAVIUS. Oh, if only I thought I had a chance! You know, Mr Ramsden, Idon't care about money or about what people call position; and I can'tbring myself to take an interest in the business of struggling for them. Well, Ann has a most exquisite nature; but she is so accustomed to bein the thick of that sort of thing that she thinks a man's characterincomplete if he is not ambitious. She knows that if she married me shewould have to reason herself out of being ashamed of me for not being abig success of some kind. 

RAMSDEN. [Getting up and planting himself with his back to thefireplace] Nonsense, my boy, nonsense! You're too modest. What does sheknow about the real value of men at her age? [More seriously] Besides, she's a wonderfully dutiful girl. Her father's wish would be sacred toher. Do you know that since she grew up to years of discretion, I don'tbelieve she has ever once given her own wish as a reason for doinganything or not doing it. It's always "Father wishes me to, " or "Motherwouldn't like it. " It's really almost a fault in her. I have often toldher she must learn to think for herself. 

OCTAVIUS. [shaking his head] I couldn't ask her to marry me because herfather wished it, Mr Ramsden. 

RAMSDEN. Well, perhaps not. No: of course not. I see that. No: youcertainly couldn't. But when you win her on your own merits, it will bea great happiness to her to fulfil her father's desire as well as herown. Eh? Come! you'll ask her, won't you?

OCTAVIUS. [with sad gaiety] At all events I promise you I shall neverask anyone else. 

RAMSDEN. Oh, you shan't need to. She'll accept you, my boy--although[here he suddenly becomes very serious indeed] you have one greatdrawback. 

OCTAVIUS. [anxiously] What drawback is that, Mr Ramsden? I should rathersay which of my many drawbacks?

RAMSDEN. I'll tell you, Octavius. [He takes from the table a book boundin red cloth]. I have in my hand a copy of the most infamous, the mostscandalous, the most mischievous, the most blackguardly book that everescaped burning at the hands of the common hangman. I have not readit: I would not soil my mind with such filth; but I have read what thepapers say of it. The title is quite enough for me. [He reads it]. TheRevolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion by John Tanner, M. I. R. C. , Member of the Idle Rich Class. 

OCTAVIUS. [smiling] But Jack--

RAMSDEN. [testily] For goodness' sake, don't call him Jack under myroof [he throws the book violently down on the table, Then, somewhatrelieved, he comes past the table to Octavius, and addresses him atclose quarters with impressive gravity]. Now, Octavius, I know that mydead friend was right when he said you were a generous lad. I know thatthis man was your schoolfellow, and that you feel bound to stand byhim because there was a boyish friendship between you. But I ask youto consider the altered circumstances. You were treated as a son in myfriend's house. You lived there; and your friends could not be turnedfrom the door. This Tanner was in and out there on your account almostfrom his childhood. He addresses Annie by her Christian name as freelyas you do. Well, while her father was alive, that was her father'sbusiness, not mine. This man Tanner was only a boy to him: his opinionswere something to be laughed at, like a man's hat on a child's head. But now Tanner is a grown man and Annie a grown woman. And her fatheris gone. We don't as yet know the exact terms of his will; but he oftentalked it over with me; and I have no more doubt than I have that you'resitting there that the will appoints me Annie's trustee and guardian. [Forcibly] Now I tell you, once for all, I can't and I won't have Annieplaced in such a position that she must, out of regard for you, sufferthe intimacy of this fellow Tanner. It's not fair: it's not right: it'snot kind. What are you going to do about it?

OCTAVIUS. But Ann herself has told Jack that whatever his opinions are, he will always be welcome because he knew her dear father. 

RAMSDEN. [out of patience] That girl's mad about her duty to herparents. [He starts off like a goaded ox in the direction of JohnBright, in whose expression there is no sympathy for him. As he speaks, he fumes down to Herbert Spencer, who receives him still more coldly]Excuse me, Octavius; but there are limits to social toleration. Youknow that I am not a bigoted or prejudiced man. You know that I am plainRoebuck Ramsden when other men who have done less have got handles totheir names, because I have stood for equality and liberty of consciencewhile they were truckling to the Church and to the aristocracy. Whitefield and I lost chance after chance through our advanced opinions. But I draw the line at Anarchism and Free Love and that sort of thing. If I am to be Annie's guardian, she will have to learn that she has aduty to me. I won't have it: I will not have it. She must forbid JohnTanner the house; and so must you. 

The parlormaid returns. 

OCTAVIUS. But--

RAMSDEN. [calling his attention to the servant] Ssh! Well?

THE MAID. Mr Tanner wishes to see you, sir. 

RAMSDEN. Mr Tanner!

OCTAVIUS. Jack!

RAMSDEN. How dare Mr Tanner call on me! Say I cannot see him. 

OCTAVIUS. [hurt] I am sorry you are turning my friend from your doorlike that. 

THE MAID. [calmly] He's not at the door, sir. He's upstairs in thedrawingroom with Miss Ramsden. He came with Mrs Whitefield and Miss Annand Miss Robinson, sir. 

Ramsden's feelings are beyond words. 

OCTAVIUS. [grinning] That's very like Jack, Mr Ramsden. You must seehim, even if it's only to turn him out. 

RAMSDEN. [hammering out his words with suppressed fury] Go upstairs andask Mr Tanner to be good enough to step down here. [The parlormaid goesout; and Ramsden returns to the fireplace, as to a fortified position]. I must say that of all the confounded pieces of impertinence--well, ifthese are Anarchist manners I hope you like them. And Annie with him!Annie! A-- [he chokes]. 

OCTAVIUS. Yes: that's what surprises me. He's so desperately afraid ofAnn. There must be something the matter. 

Mr John Tanner suddenly opens the door and enters. He is too young to bedescribed simply as a big man with a beard. But it is already plain thatmiddle life will find him in that category. He has still some of theslimness of youth; but youthfulness is not the effect he aims at: hisfrock coat would befit a prime minister; and a certain high chestedcarriage of the shoulders, a lofty pose of the head, and the Olympianmajesty with which a mane, or rather a huge wisp, of hazel coloredhair is thrown back from an imposing brow, suggest Jupiter rather thanApollo. He is prodigiously fluent of speech, restless, excitable (markthe snorting nostril and the restless blue eye, just the thirty-secondthof an inch too wide open), possibly a little mad. He is carefullydressed, not from the vanity that cannot resist finery, but from a senseof the importance of everything he does which leads him to make asmuch of paying a call as other men do of getting married or laying afoundation stone. A sensitive, susceptible, exaggerative, earnest man: amegalomaniac, who would be lost without a sense of humor. 

Just at present the sense of humor is in abeyance. To say that he isexcited is nothing: all his moods are phases of excitement. He is now inthe panic-stricken phase; and he walks straight up to Ramsden as if withthe fixed intention of shooting him on his own hearthrug. But what hepulls from his breast pocket is not a pistol, but a foolscap documentwhich he thrusts under the indignant nose of Ramsden as he exclaims--

TANNER. Ramsden: do you know what that is?

RAMSDEN. [loftily] No, Sir. 

TANNER. It's a copy of Whitefield's will. Ann got it this morning. 

RAMSDEN. When you say Ann, you mean, I presume, Miss Whitefield. 

TANNER. I mean our Ann, your Ann, Tavy's Ann, and now, Heaven help me, my Ann!

OCTAVIUS. [rising, very pale] What do you mean?

TANNER. Mean! [He holds up the will]. Do you know who is appointed Ann'sguardian by this will?

RAMSDEN. [coolly] I believe I am. 

TANNER. You! You and I, man. I! I!! I!!! Both of us! [He flings the willdown on the writing table]. 

RAMSDEN. You! Impossible. 

TANNER. It's only too hideously true. [He throws himself into Octavius'schair]. Ramsden: get me out of it somehow. You don't know Ann as wellas I do. She'll commit every crime a respectable woman can; andshe'll justify every one of them by saying that it was the wish ofher guardians. She'll put everything on us; and we shall have no morecontrol over her than a couple of mice over a cat. 

OCTAVIUS. Jack: I wish you wouldn't talk like that about Ann. 

TANNER. This chap's in love with her: that's another complication. Well, she'll either jilt him and say I didn't approve of him, or marry himand say you ordered her to. I tell you, this is the most staggering blowthat has ever fallen on a man of my age and temperament. 

RAMSDEN. Let me see that will, sir. [He goes to the writing table andpicks it up]. I cannot believe that my old friend Whitefield would haveshown such a want of confidence in me as to associate me with-- [Hiscountenance falls as he reads]. 

TANNER. It's all my own doing: that's the horrible irony of it. He toldme one day that you were to be Ann's guardian; and like a fool I beganarguing with him about the folly of leaving a young woman under thecontrol of an old man with obsolete ideas. 

RAMSDEN. [stupended] My ideas obsolete!!!!!

TANNER. Totally. I had just finished an essay called Down withGovernment by the Greyhaired; and I was full of arguments andillustrations. I said the proper thing was to combine the experience ofan old hand with the vitality of a young one. Hang me if he didn't takeme at my word and alter his will--it's dated only a fortnight after thatconversation--appointing me as joint guardian with you!

RAMSDEN. [pale and determined] I shall refuse to act. 

TANNER. What's the good of that? I've been refusing all the way fromRichmond; but Ann keeps on saying that of course she's only an orphan;and that she can't expect the people who were glad to come to the housein her father's time to trouble much about her now. That's the latestgame. An orphan! It's like hearing an ironclad talk about being at themercy of the winds and waves. 

OCTAVIUS. This is not fair, Jack. She is an orphan. And you ought tostand by her. 

TANNER. Stand by her! What danger is she in? She has the law on herside; she has popular sentiment on her side; she has plenty of moneyand no conscience. All she wants with me is to load up all her moralresponsibilities on me, and do as she likes at the expense of mycharacter. I can't control her; and she can compromise me as much as shelikes. I might as well be her husband. 

RAMSDEN. You can refuse to accept the guardianship. I shall certainlyrefuse to hold it jointly with you. 

TANNER. Yes; and what will she say to that? what does she say to it?Just that her father's wishes are sacred to her, and that she shallalways look up to me as her guardian whether I care to face theresponsibility or not. Refuse! You might as well refuse to accept theembraces of a boa constrictor when once it gets round your neck. 

OCTAVIUS. This sort of talk is not kind to me, Jack. 

TANNER. [rising and going to Octavius to console him, but stilllamenting] If he wanted a young guardian, why didn't he appoint Tavy?

RAMSDEN. Ah! why indeed?

OCTAVIUS. I will tell you. He sounded me about it; but I refused thetrust because I loved her. I had no right to let myself be forced on heras a guardian by her father. He spoke to her about it; and she said Iwas right. You know I love her, Mr Ramsden; and Jack knows it too. IfJack loved a woman, I would not compare her to a boa constrictor in hispresence, however much I might dislike her [he sits down between thebusts and turns his face to the wall]. 

RAMSDEN. I do not believe that Whitefield was in his right senseswhen he made that will. You have admitted that he made it under yourinfluence. 

TANNER. You ought to be pretty well obliged to me for my influence. Heleaves you two thousand five hundred for your trouble. He leaves Tavy adowry for his sister and five thousand for himself. 

OCTAVIUS. [his tears flowing afresh] Oh, I can't take it. He was toogood to us. 

TANNER. You won't get it, my boy, if Ramsden upsets the will. 

RAMSDEN. Ha! I see. You have got me in a cleft stick. 

TANNER. He leaves me nothing but the charge of Ann's morals, on theground that I have already more money than is good for me. That showsthat he had his wits about him, doesn't it?

RAMSDEN. [grimly] I admit that. 

OCTAVIUS. [rising and coming from his refuge by the wall] Mr Ramsden:I think you are prejudiced against Jack. He is a man of honor, andincapable of abusing--

TANNER. Don't, Tavy: you'll make me ill. I am not a man of honor: I ama man struck down by a dead hand. Tavy: you must marry her after all andtake her off my hands. And I had set my heart on saving you from her!

OCTAVIUS. Oh, Jack, you talk of saving me from my highest happiness. 

TANNER. Yes, a lifetime of happiness. If it were only the first halfhour's happiness, Tavy, I would buy it for you with my last penny. Buta lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell onearth. 

RAMSDEN. [violently] Stuff, sir. Talk sense; or else go and wastesomeone else's time: I have something better to do than listen to yourfooleries [he positively kicks his way to his table and resumes hisseat]. 

TANNER. You hear him, Tavy! Not an idea in his head later thaneighteen-sixty. We can't leave Ann with no other guardian to turn to. 

RAMSDEN. I am proud of your contempt for my character and opinions, sir. Your own are set forth in that book, I believe. 

TANNER. [eagerly going to the table] What! You've got my book! What doyou think of it?

RAMSDEN. Do you suppose I would read such a book, sir?

TANNER. Then why did you buy it?

RAMSDEN. I did not buy it, sir. It has been sent me by some foolishlady who seems to admire your views. I was about to dispose of it whenOctavius interrupted me. I shall do so now, with your permission. [Hethrows the book into the waste paper basket with such vehemence thatTanner recoils under the impression that it is being thrown at hishead]. 

TANNER. You have no more manners than I have myself. However, that savesceremony between us. [He sits down again]. What do you intend to doabout this will?

OCTAVIUS. May I make a suggestion?

RAMSDEN. Certainly, Octavius. 

OCTAVIUS. Aren't we forgetting that Ann herself may have some wishes inthis matter?

RAMSDEN. I quite intend that Annie's wishes shall be consulted in everyreasonable way. But she is only a woman, and a young and inexperiencedwoman at that. 

TANNER. Ramsden: I begin to pity you. 

RAMSDEN. [hotly] I don't want to know how you feel towards me, MrTanner. 

TANNER. Ann will do just exactly what she likes. And what's more, she'llforce us to advise her to do it; and she'll put the blame on us if itturns out badly. So, as Tavy is longing to see her--

OCTAVIUS. [shyly] I am not, Jack. 

TANNER. You lie, Tavy: you are. So let's have her down from thedrawing-room and ask her what she intends us to do. Off with you, Tavy, and fetch her. [Tavy turns to go]. And don't be long for the strainedrelations between myself and Ramsden will make the interval ratherpainful [Ramsden compresses his lips, but says nothing--]. 

OCTAVIUS. Never mind him, Mr Ramsden. He's not serious. [He goes out]. 

RAMSDEN [very deliberately] Mr Tanner: you are the most impudent personI have ever met. 

TANNER. [seriously] I know it, Ramsden. Yet even I cannot wholly conquershame. We live in an atmosphere of shame. We are ashamed of everythingthat is real about us; ashamed of ourselves, of our relatives, of ourincomes, of our accents, of our opinions, of our experience, just aswe are ashamed of our naked skins. Good Lord, my dear Ramsden, we areashamed to walk, ashamed to ride in an omnibus, ashamed to hire a hansominstead of keeping a carriage, ashamed of keeping one horse instead oftwo and a groom-gardener instead of a coachman and footman. The morethings a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is. Why, you'reashamed to buy my book, ashamed to read it: the only thing you're notashamed of is to judge me for it without having read it; and even thatonly means that you're ashamed to have heterodox opinions. Look at theeffect I produce because my fairy godmother withheld from me this giftof shame. I have every possible virtue that a man can have except--

RAMSDEN. I am glad you think so well of yourself. 

TANNER. All you mean by that is that you think I ought to be ashamed oftalking about my virtues. You don't mean that I haven't got them: youknow perfectly well that I am as sober and honest a citizen as yourself, as truthful personally, and much more truthful politically and morally. 

RAMSDEN. [touched on his most sensitive point] I deny that. I willnot allow you or any man to treat me as if I were a mere member ofthe British public. I detest its prejudices; I scorn its narrowness; Idemand the right to think for myself. You pose as an advanced man. Letme tell you that I was an advanced man before you were born. 

TANNER. I knew it was a long time ago. 

RAMSDEN. I am as advanced as ever I was. I defy you to prove that I haveever hauled down the flag. I am more advanced than ever I was. I growmore advanced every day. 

TANNER. More advanced in years, Polonius. 

RAMSDEN. Polonius! So you are Hamlet, I suppose. 

TANNER. No: I am only the most impudent person you've ever met. That'syour notion of a thoroughly bad character. When you want to give me apiece of your mind, you ask yourself, as a just and upright man, whatis the worst you can fairly say of me. Thief, liar, forger, adulterer, perjurer, glutton, drunkard? Not one of these names fit me. You haveto fall back on my deficiency in shame. Well, I admit it. I evencongratulate myself; for if I were ashamed of my real self, I shouldcut as stupid a figure as any of the rest of you. Cultivate a littleimpudence, Ramsden; and you will become quite a remarkable man. 

RAMSDEN. I have no--

TANNER. You have no desire for that sort of notoriety. Bless you, I knewthat answer would come as well as I know that a box of matches will comeout of an automatic machine when I put a penny in the slot: you would beashamed to say anything else. 

The crushing retort for which Ramsden has been visibly collecting hisforces is lost for ever; for at this point Octavius returns with MissAnn Whitefield and her mother; and Ramsden springs up and hurries to thedoor to receive them. Whether Ann is good-looking or not depends uponyour taste; also and perhaps chiefly on your age and sex. To Octaviusshe is an enchantingly beautiful woman, in whose presence the worldbecomes transfigured, and the puny limits of individual consciousnessare suddenly made infinite by a mystic memory of the whole life of therace to its beginnings in the east, or even back to the paradise fromwhich it fell. She is to him the reality of romance, the leaner goodsense of nonsense, the unveiling of his eyes, the freeing of his soul, the abolition of time, place and circumstance, the etherealization ofhis blood into rapturous rivers of the very water of life itself, the revelation of all the mysteries and the sanctification of all thedogmas. To her mother she is, to put it as moderately as possible, nothing whatever of the kind. Not that Octavius's admiration is in anyway ridiculous or discreditable. Ann is a well formed creature, as faras that goes; and she is perfectly ladylike, graceful, and comely, withensnaring eyes and hair. Besides, instead of making herself an eyesore, like her mother, she has devised a mourning costume of black andviolet silk which does honor to her late father and reveals the familytradition of brave unconventionality by which Ramsden sets such store. 

But all this is beside the point as an explanation of Ann's charm. Turn up her nose, give a cast to her eye, replace her black and violetconfection by the apron and feathers of a flower girl, strike all theaitches out of her speech, and Ann would still make men dream. Vitalityis as common as humanity; but, like humanity, it sometimes rises togenius; and Ann is one of the vital geniuses. Not at all, if you please, an oversexed person: that is a vital defect, not a true excess. She isa perfectly respectable, perfectly self-controlled woman, and looksit; though her pose is fashionably frank and impulsive. She inspiresconfidence as a person who will do nothing she does not mean to do; alsosome fear, perhaps, as a woman who will probably do everything she meansto do without taking more account of other people than may be necessaryand what she calls right. In short, what the weaker of her own sexsometimes call a cat. 

Nothing can be more decorous than her entry and her reception byRamsden, whom she kisses. The late Mr Whitefield would be gratifiedalmost to impatience by the long faces of the men (except Tanner, who isfidgety), the silent handgrasps, the sympathetic placing of chairs, thesniffing of the widow, and the liquid eye of the daughter, whose heart, apparently, will not let her control her tongue to speech. Ramsden andOctavius take the two chairs from the wall, and place them for the twoladies; but Ann comes to Tanner and takes his chair, which he offerswith a brusque gesture, subsequently relieving his irritation by sittingdown on the corner of the writing table with studied indecorum. Octaviusgives Mrs Whitefield a chair next Ann, and himself takes the vacantone which Ramsden has placed under the nose of the effigy of Mr HerbertSpencer. 

Mrs Whitefield, by the way, is a little woman, whose faded flaxen hairlooks like straw on an egg. She has an expression of muddled shrewdness, a squeak of protest in her voice, and an odd air of continually elbowingaway some larger person who is crushing her into a corner. One guessesher as one of those women who are conscious of being treated as sillyand negligible, and who, without having strength enough to assertthemselves effectually, at any rate never submit to their fate. Thereis a touch of chivalry in Octavius's scrupulous attention to her, evenwhilst his whole soul is absorbed by Ann. 

Ramsden goes solemnly back to his magisterial seat at the writing table, ignoring Tanner, and opens the proceedings. 

RAMSDEN. I am sorry, Annie, to force business on you at a sad time likethe present. But your poor dear father's will has raised a very seriousquestion. You have read it, I believe?

[Ann assents with a nod and a catch of her breath, too much affected tospeak]. 

I must say I am surprised to find Mr Tanner named as joint guardianand trustee with myself of you and Rhoda. [A pause. They all lookportentous; but they have nothing to say. Ramsden, a little ruffled bythe lack of any response, continues] I don't know that I can consent toact under such conditions. Mr Tanner has, I understand, some objectionalso; but I do not profess to understand its nature: he will no doubtspeak for himself. But we are agreed that we can decide nothing until weknow your views. I am afraid I shall have to ask you to choose betweenmy sole guardianship and that of Mr Tanner; for I fear it is impossiblefor us to undertake a joint arrangement. 

ANN. [in a low musical voice] Mamma--

MRS WHITEFIELD. [hastily] Now, Ann, I do beg you not to put it on me. Ihave no opinion on the subject; and if I had, it would probably not beattended to. I am quite with whatever you three think best. 

Tanner turns his head and looks fixedly at Ramsden, who angrily refusesto receive this mute communication. 

ANN. [resuming in the same gentle voice, ignoring her mother's badtaste] Mamma knows that she is not strong enough to bear the wholeresponsibility for me and Rhoda without some help and advice. Rhodamust have a guardian; and though I am older, I do not think any youngunmarried woman should be left quite to her own guidance. I hope youagree with me, Granny?

TANNER. [starting] Granny! Do you intend to call your guardians Granny?

ANN. Don't be foolish, Jack. Mr Ramsden has always been GrandpapaRoebuck to me: I am Granny's Annie; and he is Annie's Granny. Ichristened him so when I first learned to speak. 

RAMSDEN. [sarcastically] I hope you are satisfied, Mr Tanner. Go on, Annie: I quite agree with you. 

ANN. Well, if I am to have a guardian, CAN I set aside anybody whom mydear father appointed for me?

RAMSDEN. [biting his lip] You approve of your father's choice, then?

ANN. It is not for me to approve or disapprove. I accept it. My fatherloved me and knew best what was good for me. 

RAMSDEN. Of course I understand your feeling, Annie. It is what I shouldhave expected of you; and it does you credit. But it does not settle thequestion so completely as you think. Let me put a case to you. Supposeyou were to discover that I had been guilty of some disgracefulaction--that I was not the man your poor dear father took me for. Wouldyou still consider it right that I should be Rhoda's guardian?

ANN. I can't imagine you doing anything disgraceful, Granny. 

TANNER. [to Ramsden] You haven't done anything of the sort, have you?

RAMSDEN. [indignantly] No sir. 

MRS. WHITEFIELD. [placidly] Well, then, why suppose it?

ANN. You see, Granny, Mamma would not like me to suppose it. 

RAMSDEN. [much perplexed] You are both so full of natural andaffectionate feeling in these family matters that it is very hard to putthe situation fairly before you. 

TANNER. Besides, my friend, you are not putting the situation fairlybefore them. 

RAMSDEN. [sulkily] Put it yourself, then. 

TANNER. I will. Ann: Ramsden thinks I am not fit be your guardian; and Iquite agree with him. He considers that if your father had read my book, he wouldn't have appointed me. That book is the disgraceful action hehas been talking about. He thinks it's your duty for Rhoda's sake to askhim to act alone and to make me withdraw. Say the word and I will. 

ANN. But I haven't read your book, Jack. 

TANNER. [diving at the waste-paper basket and fishing the book out forher] Then read it at once and decide. 

RAMSDEN. If I am to be your guardian, I positively forbid you to readthat book, Annie. [He smites the table with his fist and rises]. 

ANN. Of course, if you don't wish it. [She puts the book on the table]. 

TANNER. If one guardian is to forbid you to read the other guardian'sbook, how are we to settle it? Suppose I order you to read it! Whatabout your duty to me?

ANN. [gently] I am sure you would never purposely force me into apainful dilemma, Jack. 

RAMSDEN. [irritably] Yes, yes, Annie: this is all very well, and, as Isaid, quite natural and becoming. But you must make a choice one way orthe other. We are as much in a dilemma as you. 

ANN. I feel that I am too young, too inexperienced, to decide. Myfather's wishes are sacred to me. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. If you two men won't carry them out I must say it israther hard that you should put the responsibility on Ann. It seems tome that people are always putting things on other people in this world. 

RAMSDEN. I am sorry you take it that way. 

ANN. [touchingly] Do you refuse to accept me as your ward, Granny?

RAMSDEN. No: I never said that. I greatly object to act with Mr Tanner:that's all. 

MRS. WHITEFIELD. Why? What's the matter with poor Jack?

TANNER. My views are too advanced for him. 

RAMSDEN. [indignantly] They are not. I deny it. 

ANN. Of course not. What nonsense! Nobody is more advanced than Granny. I am sure it is Jack himself who has made all the difficulty. Come, Jack! Be kind to me in my sorrow. You don't refuse to accept me as yourward, do you?

TANNER. [gloomily] No. I let myself in for it; so I suppose I must faceit. [He turns away to the bookcase, and stands there, moodily studyingthe titles of the volumes]. 

ANN. [rising and expanding with subdued but gushing delight] Then we areall agreed; and my dear father's will is to be carried out. You don'tknow what a joy that is to me and to my mother! [She goes to Ramsden andpresses both his hands, saying] And I shall have my dear Granny to helpand advise me. [She casts a glance at Tanner over her shoulder]. AndJack the Giant Killer. [She goes past her mother to Octavius]. AndJack's inseparable friend Ricky-ticky-tavy [he blushes and looksinexpressibly foolish]. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [rising and shaking her widow's weeds straight] Now thatyou are Ann's guardian, Mr Ramsden, I wish you would speak to her abouther habit of giving people nicknames. They can't be expected to like it. [She moves towards the door]. 

ANN. How can you say such a thing, Mamma! [Glowing with affectionateremorse] Oh, I wonder can you be right! Have I been inconsiderate? [Sheturns to Octavius, who is sitting astride his chair with his elbows onthe back of it. Putting her hand on his forehead the turns his face upsuddenly]. Do you want to be treated like a grown up man? Must I callyou Mr Robinson in future?

OCTAVIUS. [earnestly] Oh please call me Ricky-ticky--tavy, "Mr Robinson"would hurt me cruelly. [She laughs and pats his cheek with her finger;then comes back to Ramsden]. You know I'm beginning to think that Grannyis rather a piece of impertinence. But I never dreamt of its hurtingyou. 

RAMSDEN. [breezily, as he pats her affectionately on the back] My dearAnnie, nonsense. I insist on Granny. I won't answer to any other namethan Annie's Granny. 

ANN. [gratefully] You all spoil me, except Jack. 

TANNER. [over his shoulder, from the bookcase] I think you ought to callme Mr Tanner. 

ANN. [gently] No you don't, Jack. That's like the things you say onpurpose to shock people: those who know you pay no attention to them. But, if you like, I'll call you after your famous ancestor Don Juan. 

RAMSDEN. Don Juan!

ANN. [innocently] Oh, is there any harm in it? I didn't know. Then Icertainly won't call you that. May I call you Jack until I can think ofsomething else?

TANKER. Oh, for Heaven's sake don't try to invent anything worse. Icapitulate. I consent to Jack. I embrace Jack. Here endeth my first andlast attempt to assert my authority. 

ANN. You see, Mamma, they all really like to have pet names. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. Well, I think you might at least drop them until we areout of mourning. 

ANN. [reproachfully, stricken to the soul] Oh, how could you remind me, mother? [She hastily leaves the room to conceal her emotion]. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. Of course. My fault as usual! [She follows Ann]. 

TANNER. [coming from the bockcase] Ramsden: we'rebeaten--smashed--nonentitized, like her mother. 

RAMSDEN. Stuff, Sir. [He follows Mrs Whitefield out of the room]. 

TANNER. [left alone with Octavius, stares whimsically at him] Tavy: doyou want to count for something in the world?

OCTAVIUS. I want to count for something as a poet: I want to write agreat play. 

TANNER. With Ann as the heroine?

OCTAVIUS. Yes: I confess it. 

TANNER. Take care, Tavy. The play with Ann as the heroine is all right;but if you're not very careful, by Heaven she'll marry you. 

OCTAVIUS. [sighing] No such luck, Jack!

TANNER. Why, man, your head is in the lioness's mouth: you are halfswallowed already--in three bites--Bite One, Ricky; Bite Two, Ticky;Bite Three, Tavy; and down you go. 

OCTAVIUS. She is the same to everybody, Jack: you know her ways. 

TANNER. Yes: she breaks everybody's back with the stroke of her paw; butthe question is, which of us will she eat? My own opinion is that shemeans to eat you. 

OCTAVIUS. [rising, pettishly] It's horrible to talk like that about herwhen she is upstairs crying for her father. But I do so want her to eatme that I can bear your brutalities because they give me hope. 

TANNER. Tavy; that's the devilish side of a woman's fascination: shemakes you will your own destruction. 

OCTAVIUS. But it's not destruction: it's fulfilment. 

TANNER. Yes, of HER purpose; and that purpose is neither her happinessnor yours, but Nature's. Vitality in a woman is a blind fury ofcreation. She sacrifices herself to it: do you think she will hesitateto sacrifice you?

OCTAVIUS. Why, it is just because she is self-sacrificing that she willnot sacrifice those she loves. 

TANNER. That is the profoundest of mistakes, Tavy. It is theself-sacrificing women that sacrifice others most recklessly. Becausethey are unselfish, they are kind in little things. Because they have apurpose which is not their own purpose, but that of the whole universe, a man is nothing to them but an instrument of that purpose. 

OCTAVIUS. Don't be ungenerous, Jack. They take the tenderest care of us. 

TANNER. Yes, as a soldier takes care of his rifle or a musician of hisviolin. But do they allow us any purpose or freedom of our own? Willthey lend us to one another? Can the strongest man escape from them whenonce he is appropriated? They tremble when we are in danger, and weepwhen we die; but the tears are not for us, but for a father wasted, ason's breeding thrown away. They accuse us of treating them as a meremeans to our pleasure; but how can so feeble and transient a folly asa man's selfish pleasure enslave a woman as the whole purpose of Natureembodied in a woman can enslave a man?

OCTAVIUS. What matter, if the slavery makes us happy?

TANNER. No matter at all if you have no purpose of your own, and are, like most men, a mere breadwinner. But you, Tavy, are an artist: thatis, you have a purpose as absorbing and as unscrupulous as a woman'spurpose. 

OCTAVIUS. Not unscrupulous. 

TANNER. Quite unscrupulous. The true artist will let his wife starve, his children go barefoot, his mother drudge for his living atseventy, sooner than work at anything but his art. To women he is halfvivisector, half vampire. He gets into intimate relations with them tostudy them, to strip the mask of convention from them, to surprise theirinmost secrets, knowing that they have the power to rouse his deepestcreative energies, to rescue him from his cold reason, to make him seevisions and dream dreams, to inspire him, as he calls it. He persuadeswomen that they may do this for their own purpose whilst he really meansthem to do it for his. He steals the mother's milk and blackens it tomake printer's ink to scoff at her and glorify ideal women with. Hepretends to spare her the pangs of childbearing so that he may havefor himself the tenderness and fostering that belong of right to herchildren. Since marriage began, the great artist has been known as abad husband. But he is worse: he is a child-robber, a bloodsucker, ahypocrite and a cheat. Perish the race and wither a thousand women ifonly the sacrifice of them enable him to act Hamlet better, to painta finer picture, to write a deeper poem, a greater play, a profounderphilosophy! For mark you, Tavy, the artist's work is to show usourselves as we really are. Our minds are nothing but this knowledge ofourselves; and he who adds a jot to such knowledge creates new mind assurely as any woman creates new men. In the rage of that creation heis as ruthless as the woman, as dangerous to her as she to him, andas horribly fascinating. Of all human struggles there is none sotreacherous and remorseless as the struggle between the artist manand the mother woman. Which shall use up the other? that is the issuebetween them. And it is all the deadlier because, in your romanticistcant, they love one another. 

OCTAVIUS. Even if it were so--and I don't admit it for a moment--it isout of the deadliest struggles that we get the noblest characters. 

TANNER. Remember that the next time you meet a grizzly bear or a Bengaltiger, Tavy. 

OCTAVIUS. I meant where there is love, Jack. 

TANNER. Oh, the tiger will love you. There is no love sincerer than thelove of food. I think Ann loves you that way: she patted your cheek asif it were a nicely underdone chop. 

OCTAVIUS. You know, Jack, I should have to run away from you if I didnot make it a fixed rule not to mind anything you say. You come out withperfectly revolting things sometimes. 

Ramsden returns, followed by Ann. They come in quickly, with theirformer leisurely air of decorous grief changed to one of genuineconcern, and, on Ramsden's part, of worry. He comes between the two men, intending to address Octavius, but pulls himself up abruptly as he seesTanner. 

RAMSDEN. I hardly expected to find you still here, Mr Tanner. 

TANNER. Am I in the way? Good morning, fellow guardian [he goes towardsthe door]. 

ANN. Stop, Jack. Granny: he must know, sooner or later. 

RAMSDEN. Octavius: I have a very serious piece of news for you. It is ofthe most private and delicate nature--of the most painful nature too, Iam sorry to say. Do you wish Mr Tanner to be present whilst I explain?

OCTAVIUS. [turning pale] I have no secrets from Jack. 

RAMSDEN. Before you decide that finally, let me say that the newsconcerns your sister, and that it is terrible news. 

OCTAVIUS. Violet! What has happened? Is she--dead?

RAMSDEN. I am not sure that it is not even worse than that. 

OCTAVIUS. Is she badly hurt? Has there been an accident?

RAMSDEN. No: nothing of that sort. 

TANNER. Ann: will you have the common humanity to tell us what thematter is?

ANN. [half whispering] I can't. Violet has done something dreadful. Weshall have to get her away somewhere. [She flutters to the writingtable and sits in Ramsden's chair, leaving the three men to fight it outbetween them]. 

OCTAVIUS. [enlightened] Is that what you meant, Mr Ramsden?

RAMSDEN. Yes. [Octavius sinks upon a chair, crushed]. I am afraid thereis no doubt that Violet did not really go to Eastbourne three weeks agowhen we thought she was with the Parry Whitefields. And she called on astrange doctor yesterday with a wedding ring on her finger. Mrs. ParryWhitefield met her there by chance; and so the whole thing came out. 

OCTAVIUS. [rising with his fists clenched] Who is the scoundrel?

ANN. She won't tell us. 

OCTAVIUS. [collapsing upon his chair again] What a frightful thing!

TANNER. [with angry sarcasm] Dreadful. Appalling. Worse than death, asRamsden says. [He comes to Octavius]. What would you not give, Tavy, toturn it into a railway accident, with all her bones broken or somethingequally respectable and deserving of sympathy?

OCTAVIUS. Don't be brutal, Jack. 

TANNER. Brutal! Good Heavens, man, what are you crying for? Here isa woman whom we all supposed to be making bad water color sketches, practising Grieg and Brahms, gadding about to concerts and parties, wasting her life and her money. We suddenly learn that she has turnedfrom these sillinesses to the fulfilment of her highest purpose andgreatest function--to increase, multiply and replenish the earth. Andinstead of admiring her courage and rejoicing in her instinct; insteadof crowning the completed womanhood and raising the triumphal strain of"Unto us a child is born: unto us a son is given, " here you are--you whohave been as merry as Brigs in your mourning for the dead--all pullinglong faces and looking as ashamed and disgraced as if the girl hadcommitted the vilest of crimes. 

RAMSDEN. [roaring with rage] I will not have these abominations utteredin my house [he smites the writing table with his fist]. 

TANNER. Look here: if you insult me again I'll take you at your word andleave your house. Ann: where is Violet now?

ANN. Why? Are you going to her?

TANNER. Of course I am going to her. She wants help; she wants money;she wants respect and congratulation. She wants every chance for herchild. She does not seem likely to get it from you: she shall from me. Where is she?

ANN. Don't be so headstrong, Jack. She's upstairs. 

TANNER. What! Under Ramsden's sacred roof! Go and do your miserableduty, Ramsden. Hunt her out into the street. Cleanse your threshold fromher contamination. Vindicate the purity of your English home. I'll gofor a cab. 

ANN. [alarmed] Oh, Granny, you mustn't do that. 

OCTAVIUS. [broken-heartedly, rising] I'll take her away, Mr Ramsden. Shehad no right to come to your house. 

RAMSDEN. [indignantly] But I am only too anxious to help her. [turningon Tanner] How dare you, sir, impute such monstrous intentions to me?I protest against it. I am ready to put down my last penny to save herfrom being driven to run to you for protection. 

TANNER. [subsiding] It's all right, then. He's not going to act up tohis principles. It's agreed that we all stand by Violet. 

OCTAVIUS. But who is the man? He can make reparation by marrying her;and he shall, or he shall answer for it to me. 

RAMSDEN. He shall, Octavius. There you speak like a man. 

TANNER. Then you don't think him a scoundrel, after all?

OCTAVIUS. Not a scoundrel! He is a heartless scoundrel. 

RAMSDEN. A damned scoundrel. I beg your pardon, Annie; but I can say noless. 

TANNER. So we are to marry your sister to a damned scoundrel by way ofreforming her character! On my soul, I think you are all mad. 

ANN. Don't be absurd, Jack. Of course you are quite right, Tavy; but wedon't know who he is: Violet won't tell us. 

TANNER. What on earth does it matter who he is? He's done his part; andViolet must do the rest. 

RAMSDEN. [beside himself] Stuff! lunacy! There is a rascal in our midst, a libertine, a villain worse than a murderer; and we are not tolearn who he is! In our ignorance we are to shake him by the hand; tointroduce him into our homes; to trust our daughters with him; to--to--

ANN. [coaxingly] There, Granny, don't talk so loud. It's most shocking:we must all admit that; but if Violet won't tell us, what can we do?Nothing. Simply nothing. 

RAMSDEN. Hmph! I'm not so sure of that. If any man has paid Violet anyspecial attention, we can easily find that out. If there is any man ofnotoriously loose principles among us--

TANNER. Ahem!

RAMSDEN. [raising his voice] Yes sir, I repeat, if there is any man ofnotoriously loose principles among us--

TANNER. Or any man notoriously lacking in self-control. 

RAMSDEN. [aghast] Do you dare to suggest that I am capable of such anact?

TANNER. My dear Ramsden, this is an act of which every man is capable. That is what comes of getting at cross purposes with Nature. Thesuspicion you have just flung at me clings to us all. It's a sort of mudthat sticks to the judge's ermine or the cardinal's robe as fast as tothe rags of the tramp. Come, Tavy: don't look so bewildered: it mighthave been me: it might have been Ramsden; just as it might have beenanybody. If it had, what could we do but lie and protest as Ramsden isgoing to protest. 

RAMSDEN. [choking] I--I--I--

TANNER. Guilt itself could not stammer more confusedly, And yet you knowperfectly well he's innocent, Tavy. 

RAMSDEN. [exhausted] I am glad you admit that, sir. I admit, myself, that there is an element of truth in what you say, grossly as youmay distort it to gratify your malicious humor. I hope, Octavius, nosuspicion of me is possible in your mind. 

OCTAVIUS. Of you! No, not for a moment. 

TANNER. [drily] I think he suspects me just a little. 

OCTAVIUS. Jack: you couldn't--you wouldn't--

TANNER. Why not?

OCTAVIUS. [appalled] Why not!

TANNER. Oh, well, I'll tell you why not. First, you would feel boundto quarrel with me. Second, Violet doesn't like me. Third, if I hadthe honor of being the father of Violet's child, I should boast of itinstead of denying it. So be easy: our Friendship is not in danger. 

OCTAVIUS. I should have put away the suspicion with horror if only youwould think and feel naturally about it. I beg your pardon. 

TANNER. MY pardon! nonsense! And now let's sit down and have a familycouncil. [He sits down. The rest follow his example, more or less underprotest]. Violet is going to do the State a service; consequently shemust be packed abroad like a criminal until it's over. What's happeningupstairs?

ANN. Violet is in the housekeeper's room--by herself, of course. 

TANNER. Why not in the drawingroom?

ANN. Don't be absurd, Jack. Miss Ramsden is in the drawingroom with mymother, considering what to do. 

TANNER. Oh! the housekeeper's room is the penitentiary, I suppose; andthe prisoner is waiting to be brought before her judges. The old cats!

ANN. Oh, Jack!

RAMSDEN. You are at present a guest beneath the roof of one of the oldcats, sir. My sister is the mistress of this house. 

TANNER. She would put me in the housekeeper's room, too, if she dared, Ramsden. However, I withdraw cats. Cats would have more sense. Ann: asyour guardian, I order you to go to Violet at once and be particularlykind to her. 

ANN. I have seen her, Jack. And I am sorry to say I am afraid she isgoing to be rather obstinate about going abroad. I think Tavy ought tospeak to her about it. 

OCTAVIUS. How can I speak to her about such a thing [he breaks down]?

ANN. Don't break down, Ricky. Try to bear it for all our sakes. 

RAMSDEN. Life is not all plays and poems, Octavius. Come! face it like aman. 

TANNER. [chafing again] Poor dear brother! Poor dear friends of thefamily! Poor dear Tabbies and Grimalkins. Poor dear everybody except thewoman who is going to risk her life to create another life! Tavy: don'tyou be a selfish ass. Away with you and talk to Violet; and bring herdown here if she cares to come. [Octavius rises]. Tell her we'll standby her. 

RAMSDEN. [rising] No, sir--

TANNER. [rising also and interrupting him] Oh, we understand: it'sagainst your conscience; but still you'll do it. 

OCTAVIUS. I assure you all, on my word, I never meant to be selfish. It's so hard to know what to do when one wishes earnestly to do right. 

TANNER. My dear Tavy, your pious English habit of regarding the worldas a moral gymnasium built expressly to strengthen your character in, occasionally leads you to think about your own confounded principleswhen you should be thinking about other people's necessities. The needof the present hour is a happy mother and a healthy baby. Bend yourenergies on that; and you will see your way clearly enough. 

Octavius, much perplexed, goes out. 

RAMSDEN. [facing Tanner impressively] And Morality, sir? What is tobecome of that?

TANNER. Meaning a weeping Magdalen and an innocent child branded withher shame. Not in our circle, thank you. Morality can go to its fatherthe devil. 

RAMSDEN. I thought so, sir. Morality sent to the devil to please ourlibertines, male and female. That is to be the future of England, is it?

TANNER. Oh, England will survive your disapproval. Meanwhile, Iunderstand that you agree with me as to the practical course we are totake?

RAMSDEN. Not in your spirit sir. Not for your reasons. 

TANNER. You can explain that if anybody calls you to account, here orhereafter. [He turns away, and plants himself in front of Mr HerbertSpencer, at whom he stares gloomily]. 

ANN. [rising and coming to Ramsden] Granny: hadn't you better go up tothe drawingroom and tell them what we intend to do?

RAMSDEN. [looking pointedly at Tanner] I hardly like to leave you alonewith this gentleman. Will you not come with me?

ANN. Miss Ramsden would not like to speak about it before me, Granny. Iought not to be present. 

RAMSDEN. You are right: I should have thought of that. You are a goodgirl, Annie. 

He pats her on the shoulder. She looks up at him with beaming eyes andhe goes out, much moved. Having disposed of him, she looks at Tanner. His back being turned to her, she gives a moment's attention to herpersonal appearance, then softly goes to him and speaks almost into hisear. 

ANN. Jack [he turns with a start]: are you glad that you are myguardian? You don't mind being made responsible for me, I hope. 

TANNER. The latest addition to your collection of scapegoats, eh?

ANN. Oh, that stupid old joke of yours about me! Do please drop it. Whydo you say things that you know must pain me? I do my best to pleaseyou, Jack: I suppose I may tell you so now that you are my guardian. Youwill make me so unhappy if you refuse to be friends with me. 

TANNER. [studying her as gloomily as he studied the dust] You need notgo begging for my regard. How unreal our moral judgments are! You seemto me to have absolutely no conscience--only hypocrisy; and you can'tsee the difference--yet there is a sort of fascination about you. Ialways attend to you, somehow. I should miss you if I lost you. 

ANN. [tranquilly slipping her arm into his and walking about with him]But isn't that only natural, Jack? We have known each other since wewere children. Do you remember?

TANNER. [abruptly breaking loose] Stop! I remember EVERYTHING. 

ANN. Oh, I daresay we were often very silly; but--

TANNER. I won't have it, Ann. I am no more that schoolboy now than Iam the dotard of ninety I shall grow into if I live long enough. It isover: let me forget it. 

ANN. Wasn't it a happy time? [She attempts to take his arm again]. 

TANNER. Sit down and behave yourself. [He makes her sit down in thechair next the writing table]. No doubt it was a happy time for you. Youwere a good girl and never compromised yourself. And yet the wickedestchild that ever was slapped could hardly have had a better time. I canunderstand the success with which you bullied the other girls: yourvirtue imposed on them. But tell me this: did you ever know a good boy?

ANN. Of course. All boys are foolish sometimes; but Tavy was always areally good boy. 

TANNER. [struck by this] Yes: you're right. For some reason you nevertempted Tavy. 

ANN. Tempted! Jack!

TANNER. Yes, my dear Lady Mephistopheles, tempted. You were insatiablycurious as to what a boy might be capable of, and diabolically clever atgetting through his guard and surprising his inmost secrets. 

ANN. What nonsense! All because you used to tell me long stories of thewicked things you had done--silly boys tricks! And you call such thingsinmost secrets: Boys' secrets are just like men's; and you know whatthey are!

TANNER. [obstinately] No I don't. What are they, pray?

ANN. Why, the things they tell everybody, of course. 

TANNER. Now I swear I told you things I told no one else. You lured meinto a compact by which we were to have no secrets from one another. Wewere to tell one another everything, I didn't notice that you never toldme anything. 

ANN. You didn't want to talk about me, Jack. You wanted to talk aboutyourself. 

TANNER. Ah, true, horribly true. But what a devil of a child you musthave been to know that weakness and to play on it for the satisfactionof your own curiosity! I wanted to brag to you, to make myselfinteresting. And I found myself doing all sorts of mischievous thingssimply to have something to tell you about. I fought with boys I didn'thate; I lied about things I might just as well have told the truthabout; I stole things I didn't want; I kissed little girls I didn't carefor. It was all bravado: passionless and therefore unreal. 

ANN. I never told of you, Jack. 

TANNER. No; but if you had wanted to stop me you would have told of me. You wanted me to go on. 

ANN. [flashing out] Oh, that's not true: it's NOT true, Jack. I neverwanted you to do those dull, disappointing, brutal, stupid, vulgarthings. I always hoped that it would be something really heroic at last. [Recovering herself] Excuse me, Jack; but the things you did were nevera bit like the things I wanted you to do. They often gave me greatuneasiness; but I could not tell on you and get you into trouble. Andyou were only a boy. I knew you would grow out of them. Perhaps I waswrong. 

TANNER. [sardonically] Do not give way to remorse, Ann. At leastnineteen twentieths of the exploits I confessed to you were pure lies. Isoon noticed that you didn't like the true stories. 

ANN. Of course I knew that some of the things couldn't have happened. But--

TANNER. You are going to remind me that some of the most disgracefulones did. 

ANN. [fondly, to his great terror] I don't want to remind you ofanything. But I knew the people they happened to, and heard about them. 

TANNER. Yes; but even the true stories were touched up for telling. A sensitive boy's humiliations may be very good fun for ordinarythickskinned grown-ups; but to the boy himself they are so acute, so ignominious, that he cannot confess them--cannot but deny thempassionately. However, perhaps it was as well for me that I romanced abit; for, on the one occasion when I told you the truth, you threatenedto tell of me. 

ANN. Oh, never. Never once. 

TANNER. Yes, you did. Do you remember a dark-eyed girl named RachelRosetree? [Ann's brows contract for an instant involuntarily]. I got upa love affair with her; and we met one night in the garden and walkedabout very uncomfortably with our arms round one another, and kissed atparting, and were most conscientiously romantic. If that love affair hadgone on, it would have bored me to death; but it didn't go on; for thenext thing that happened was that Rachel cut me because she found outthat I had told you. How did she find it out? From you. You went to herand held the guilty secret over her head, leading her a life of abjectterror and humiliation by threatening to tell on her. 

ANN. And a very good thing for her, too. It was my duty to stop hermisconduct; and she is thankful to me for it now. 

TANNER. Is she?

ANN. She ought to be, at all events. 

TANNER. It was not your duty to stop my misconduct, I suppose. 

ANN. I did stop it by stopping her. 

TANNER. Are you sure of that? You stopped my telling you about myadventures; but how do you know that you stopped the adventures?

ANN. Do you mean to say that you went on in the same way with othergirls?

TANNER. No. I had enough of that sort of romantic tomfoolery withRachel. 

ANN. [unconvinced] Then why did you break off our confidences and becomequite strange to me?

TANNER. [enigmatically] It happened just then that I got something thatI wanted to keep all to myself instead of sharing it with you. 

ANN. I am sure I shouldn't have asked for any of it if you had grudgedit. 

TANNER. It wasn't a box of sweets, Ann. It was something you'd neverhave let me call my own. 

ANN. [incredulously] What?

TANNER. My soul. 

ANN. Oh, do be sensible, Jack. You know you're talking nonsense. 

TANNER. The most solemn earnest, Ann. You didn't notice at that timethat you were getting a soul too. But you were. It was not for nothingthat you suddenly found you had a moral duty to chastise and reformRachel. Up to that time you had traded pretty extensively in being agood child; but you had never set up a sense of duty to others. Well, Iset one up too. Up to that time I had played the boy buccaneer with nomore conscience than a fox in a poultry farm. But now I began to havescruples, to feel obligations, to find that veracity and honor were nolonger goody-goody expressions in the mouths of grown up people, butcompelling principles in myself. 

ANN. [quietly] Yes, I suppose you're right. You were beginning to be aman, and I to be a woman. 

TANNER. Are you sure it was not that we were beginning to be somethingmore? What does the beginning of manhood and womanhood mean in mostpeople's mouths? You know: it means the beginning of love. But lovebegan long before that for me. Love played its part in the earliestdreams and follies and romances I can remember--may I say the earliestfollies and romances we can remember?--though we did not understand itat the time. No: the change that came to me was the birth in me of moralpassion; and I declare that according to my experience moral passion isthe only real passion. 

ANN. All passions ought to be moral, Jack. 

TANNER. Ought! Do you think that anything is strong enough to imposeoughts on a passion except a stronger passion still?

ANN. Our moral sense controls passion, Jack. Don't be stupid. 

TANNER. Our moral sense! And is that not a passion? Is the devil tohave all the passions as well as all the good times? If it were not apassion--if it were not the mightiest of the passions, all the otherpassions would sweep it away like a leaf before a hurricane. It is thebirth of that passion that turns a child into a man. 

ANN. There are other passions, Jack. Very strong ones. 

TANNER. All the other passions were in me before; but they were idleand aimless--mere childish greedinesses and cruelties, curiositiesand fancies, habits and superstitions, grotesque and ridiculous to themature intelligence. When they suddenly began to shine like newly litflames it was by no light of their own, but by the radiance of thedawning moral passion. That passion dignified them, gave them conscienceand meaning, found them a mob of appetites and organized them into anarmy of purposes and principles. My soul was born of that passion. 

ANN. I noticed that you got more sense. You were a dreadfullydestructive boy before that. 

TANNER. Destructive! Stuff! I was only mischievous. 

ANN. Oh Jack, you were very destructive. You ruined all the young firtrees by chopping off their leaders with a wooden sword. You broke allthe cucumber frames with your catapult. You set fire to the common: thepolice arrested Tavy for it because he ran away when he couldn't stopyou. You--

TANNER. Pooh! pooh! pooh! these were battles, bombardments, stratagemsto save our scalps from the red Indians. You have no imagination, Ann. Iam ten times more destructive now than I was then. The moral passion hastaken my destructiveness in hand and directed it to moral ends. I havebecome a reformer, and, like all reformers, an iconoclast. I no longerbreak cucumber frames and burn gorse bushes: I shatter creeds anddemolish idols. 

ANN. [bored] I am afraid I am too feminine to see any sense indestruction. Destruction can only destroy. 

TANNER. Yes. That is why it is so useful. Construction cumbers theground with institutions made by busybodies. Destruction clears it andgives us breathing space and liberty. 

ANN. It's no use, Jack. No woman will agree with you there. 

TANNER. That's because you confuse construction and destruction withcreation and murder. They're quite different: I adore creation and abhormurder. Yes: I adore it in tree and flower, in bird and beast, evenin you. [A flush of interest and delight suddenly clears the growingperplexity and boredom from her face]. It was the creative instinct thatled you to attach me to you by bonds that have left their mark on meto this day. Yes, Ann: the old childish compact between us was anunconscious love compact. 

ANN. Jack!

TANNER. Oh, don't be alarmed--

ANN. I am not alarmed. 

TANNER. [whimsically] Then you ought to be: where are your principles?

ANN. Jack: are you serious or are you not?

TANNER. Do you mean about the moral passion?

ANN. No, no; the other one. [Confused] Oh! you are so silly; one neverknows how to take you. 

TANNER. You must take me quite seriously. I am your guardian; and it ismy duty to improve your mind. 

ANN. The love compact is over, then, is it? I suppose you grew tired ofme?

TANNER. No; but the moral passion made our childish relationsimpossible. A jealous sense of my new individuality arose in me. 

ANN. You hated to be treated as a boy any longer. Poor Jack!

TANNER. Yes, because to be treated as a boy was to be taken on the oldfooting. I had become a new person; and those who knew the old personlaughed at me. The only man who behaved sensibly was my tailor: he tookmy measure anew every time he saw me, whilst all the rest went on withtheir old measurements and expected them to fit me. 

ANN. You became frightfully self-conscious. 

TANNER. When you go to heaven, Ann, you will be frightfully conscious ofyour wings for the first year or so. When you meet your relatives there, and they persist in treating you as if you were still a mortal, you willnot be able to bear them. You will try to get into a circle which hasnever known you except as an angel. 

ANN. So it was only your vanity that made you run away from us afterall?

TANNER. Yes, only my vanity, as you call it. 

ANN. You need not have kept away from ME on that account. 

TANNER. From you above all others. You fought harder than anybodyagainst my emancipation. 

ANN. [earnestly] Oh, how wrong you are! I would have done anything foryou. 

TANNER. Anything except let me get loose from you. Even then you hadacquired by instinct that damnable woman's trick of heaping obligationson a man, of placing yourself so entirely and helplessly at his mercythat at last he dare not take a step without running to you for leave. I know a poor wretch whose one desire in life is to run away from hiswife. She prevents him by threatening to throw herself in front of theengine of the train he leaves her in. That is what all women do. If wetry to go where you do not want us to go there is no law to prevent us, but when we take the first step your breasts are under our foot as itdescends: your bodies are under our wheels as we start. No woman shallever enslave me in that way. 

ANN. But, Jack, you cannot get through life without considering otherpeople a little. 

TANNER. Ay; but what other people? It is this consideration of otherpeople or rather this cowardly fear of them which we call considerationthat makes us the sentimental slaves we are. To consider you, as youcall it, is to substitute your will for my own. How if it be a baserwill than mine? Are women taught better than men or worse? Are mobs ofvoters taught better than statesmen or worse? Worse, of course, in bothcases. And then what sort of world are you going to get, with its publicmen considering its voting mobs, and its private men considering theirwives? What does Church and State mean nowadays? The Woman and theRatepayer. 

ANN. [placidly] I am so glad you understand politics, Jack: it willbe most useful to you if you go into parliament [he collapses like apricked bladder]. But I am sorry you thought my influence a bad one. 

TANNER. I don't say it was a bad one. But bad or good, I didn't chooseto be cut to your measure. And I won't be cut to it. 

ANN. Nobody wants you to, Jack. I assure you--really on my word--Idon't mind your queer opinions one little bit. You know we have all beenbrought up to have advanced opinions. Why do you persist in thinking meso narrow minded?

TANNER. That's the danger of it. I know you don't mind, because you'vefound out that it doesn't matter. The boa constrictor doesn't mind theopinions of a stag one little bit when once she has got her coils roundit. 

ANN. [rising in sudden enlightenment] O-o-o-o-oh! NOW I understand whyyou warned Tavy that I am a boa constrictor. Granny told me. [She laughsand throws her boa around her neck]. Doesn't it feel nice and soft, Jack?

TANNER. [in the toils] You scandalous woman, will you throw away evenyour hypocrisy?

ANN. I am never hypocritical with you, Jack. Are you angry? [Shewithdraws the boa and throws it on a chair]. Perhaps I shouldn't havedone that. 

TANNER. [contemptuously] Pooh, prudery! Why should you not, if it amusesyou?

ANN. [Shyly] Well, because--because I suppose what you really meant bythe boa constrictor was THIS [she puts her arms round his neck]. 

TANNER. [Staring at her] Magnificent audacity! [She laughs and pats hischeeks]. Now just to think that if I mentioned this episode not a soulwould believe me except the people who would cut me for telling, whilstif you accused me of it nobody would believe my denial. 

ANN. [taking her arms away with perfect dignity] You are incorrigible, Jack. But you should not jest about our affection for one another. Nobody could possibly misunderstand it. YOU do not misunderstand it, Ihope. 

TANNER. My blood interprets for me, Ann. Poor Ricky Tiky Tavy!

ANN. [looking quickly at him as if this were a new light] Surely you arenot so absurd as to be jealous of Tavy. 

TANNER. Jealous! Why should I be? But I don't wonder at your grip ofhim. I feel the coils tightening round my very self, though you are onlyplaying with me. 

ANN. Do you think I have designs on Tavy?

TANNER. I know you have. 

ANN. [earnestly] Take care, Jack. You may make Tavy very happy if youmislead him about me. 

TANNER. Never fear: he will not escape you. 

ANN. I wonder are you really a clever man!

TANNER. Why this sudden misgiving on the subject?

ANN. You seem to understand all the things I don't understand; but youare a perfect baby in the things I do understand. 

TANNER. I understand how Tavy feels for you, Ann; you may depend onthat, at all events. 

ANN. And you think you understand how I feel for Tavy, don't you?

TANNER. I know only too well what is going to happen to poor Tavy. 

ANN. I should laugh at you, Jack, if it were not for poor papa's death. Mind! Tavy will be very unhappy. 

TANNER. Yes; but he won't know it, poor devil. He is a thousand timestoo good for you. That's why he is going to make the mistake of his lifeabout you. 

ANN. I think men make more mistakes by being too clever than by beingtoo good [she sits down, with a trace of contempt for the whole male sexin the elegant carriage of her shoulders]. 

TANNER. Oh, I know you don't care very much about Tavy. But there isalways one who kisses and one who only allows the kiss. Tavy will kiss;and you will only turn the cheek. And you will throw him over if anybodybetter turns up. 

ANN. [offended] You have no right to say such things, Jack. They are nottrue, and not delicate. If you and Tavy choose to be stupid about me, that is not my fault. 

TANNER. [remorsefully] Forgive my brutalities, Ann. They are levelledat this wicked world, not at you. [She looks up at him, pleased andforgiving. He becomes cautious at once]. All the same, I wish Ramsdenwould come back. I never feel safe with you: there is a devilishcharm--or no: not a charm, a subtle interest [she laughs]. Just so: youknow it; and you triumph in it. Openly and shamelessly triumph in it!

ANN. What a shocking flirt you are, Jack!

TANNER. A flirt!! I!!

ANN. Yes, a flirt. You are always abusing and offending people, but younever really mean to let go your hold of them. 

TANNER. I will ring the bell. This conversation has already gone furtherthan I intended. 

Ramsden and Octavius come back with Miss Ramsden, a hardheaded oldmaiden lady in a plain brown silk gown, with enough rings, chains andbrooches to show that her plainness of dress is a matter of principle, not of poverty. She comes into the room very determinedly: the two men, perplexed and downcast, following her. Ann rises and goes eagerly tomeet her. Tanner retreats to the wall between the busts and pretendsto study the pictures. Ramsden goes to his table as usual; and Octaviusclings to the neighborhood of Tanner. 

MISS RAMSDEN. [almost pushing Ann aside as she comes to Mr. Whitefield'schair and plants herself there resolutely] I wash my hands of the wholeaffair. 

OCTAVIUS. [very wretched] I know you wish me to take Violet away, MissRamsden. I will. [He turns irresolutely to the door]. 

RAMSDEN. No no--

MISS RAMSDEN. What is the use of saying no, Roebuck? Octavius knows thatI would not turn any truly contrite and repentant woman from your doors. But when a woman is not only wicked, but intends to go on being wicked, she and I part company. 

ANN. Oh, Miss Ramsden, what do you mean? What has Violet said?

RAMSDEN. Violet is certainly very obstinate. She won't leave London. Idon't understand her. 

MISS RAMSDEN. I do. It's as plain as the nose on your face, Roebuck, that she won't go because she doesn't want to be separated from thisman, whoever he is. 

ANN. Oh, surely, surely! Octavius: did you speak to her?

OCTAVIUS. She won't tell us anything. She won't make any arrangementuntil she has consulted somebody. It can't be anybody else than thescoundrel who has betrayed her. 

TANNER. [to Octavius] Well, let her consult him. He will be glad enoughto have her sent abroad. Where is the difficulty?

MISS RAMSDEN. [Taking the answer out of Octavius's mouth]. Thedifficulty, Mr Jack, is that when he offered to help her I didn't offerto become her accomplice in her wickedness. She either pledges her wordnever to see that man again, or else she finds some new friends; and thesooner the better. 

[The parlormaid appears at the door. Ann hastily resumes her seat, andlooks as unconcerned as possible. Octavius instinctively imitates her]. 

THE MAID. The cab is at the door, ma'am. 

MISS RAMSDEN. What cab?

THE MAID. For Miss Robinson. 

MISS RAMSDEN. Oh! [Recovering herself] All right. [The maid withdraws]. She has sent for a cab. 

TANNER. I wanted to send for that cab half an hour ago. 

MISS RAMSDEN. I am glad she understands the position she has placedherself in. 

RAMSDEN. I don't like her going away in this fashion, Susan. We hadbetter not do anything harsh. 

OCTAVIUS. No: thank you again and again; but Miss Ramsden is quiteright. Violet cannot expect to stay. 

ANN. Hadn't you better go with her, Tavy?

OCTAVIUS. She won't have me. 

MISS RAMSDEN. Of course she won't. She's going straight to that man. 

TANNER. As a natural result of her virtuous reception here. 

RAMSDEN. [much troubled] There, Susan! You hear! and there's some truthin it. I wish you could reconcile it with your principles to be a littlepatient with this poor girl. She's very young; and there's a time foreverything. 

MISS RAMSDEN. Oh, she will get all the sympathy she wants from the men. I'm surprised at you, Roebuck. 

TANNER. So am I, Ramsden, most favorably. 

Violet appears at the door. She is as impenitent and self-assured ayoung lady as one would desire to see among the best behaved of her sex. Her small head and tiny resolute mouth and chin; her haughty crispnessof speech and trimness of carriage; the ruthless elegance of herequipment, which includes a very smart hat with a dead bird in it, marka personality which is as formidable as it is exquisitely pretty. She isnot a siren, like Ann: admiration comes to her without any compulsionor even interest on her part; besides, there is some fun in Ann, but inthis woman none, perhaps no mercy either: if anything restrains her, itis intelligence and pride, not compassion. Her voice might be thevoice of a schoolmistress addressing a class of girls who had disgracedthemselves, as she proceeds with complete composure and some disgust tosay what she has come to say. 

VIOLET. I have only looked in to tell Miss Ramsden that she will findher birthday present to me, the filagree bracelet, in the housekeeper'sroom. 

TANNER. Do come in, Violet, and talk to us sensibly. 

VIOLET. Thank you: I have had quite enough of the family conversationthis morning. So has your mother, Ann: she has gone home crying. Butat all events, I have found out what some of my pretended friends areworth. Good bye. 

TANNER. No, no: one moment. I have something to say which I beg youto hear. [She looks at him without the slightest curiosity, but waits, apparently as much to finish getting her glove on as to hear what hehas to say]. I am altogether on your side in this matter. I congratulateyou, with the sincerest respect, on having the courage to do what youhave done. You are entirely in the right; and the family is entirely inthe wrong. 

Sensation. Ann and Miss Ramsden rise and turn toward the two. Violet, more surprised than any of the others, forgets her glove, and comesforward into the middle of the room, both puzzled and displeased. Octavius alone does not move or raise his head; he is overwhelmed withshame. 

ANN. [pleading to Tanner to be sensible] Jack!

MISS RAMSDEN. [outraged] Well, I must say!

VIOLET. [sharply to Tanner] Who told you?

TANNER. Why, Ramsden and Tavy of course. Why should they not?

VIOLET. But they don't know. 

TANNER. Don't know what?

VIOLET. They don't know that I am in the right, I mean. 

TANNER. Oh, they know it in their hearts, though they think themselvesbound to blame you by their silly superstitions about morality andpropriety and so forth. But I know, and the whole world really knows, though it dare not say so, that you were right to follow your instinct;that vitality and bravery are the greatest qualities a woman can have, and motherhood her solemn initiation into womanhood; and that the factof your not being legally married matters not one scrap either to yourown worth or to our real regard for you. 

VIOLET. [flushing with indignation] Oh! You think me a wicked woman, like the rest. You think I have not only been vile, but that I shareyour abominable opinions. Miss Ramsden: I have borne your hard wordsbecause I knew you would be sorry for them when you found out the truth. But I won't bear such a horrible insult as to be complimented by Jack onbeing one of the wretches of whom he approves. I have kept my marriagea secret for my husband's sake. But now I claim my right as a marriedwoman not to be insulted. 

OCTAVIUS. [raising his head with inexpressible relief] You are married!

VIOLET. Yes; and I think you might have guessed it. What business hadyou all to take it for granted that I had no right to wear my weddingring? Not one of you even asked me: I cannot forget that. 

TANNER. [in ruins] I am utterly crushed. I meant well--Iapologize--abjectly apologize. 

VIOLET. I hope you will be more careful in future about the thingsyou say. Of course one does not take them seriously. But they are verydisagreeable, and rather in bad taste. 

TANNER. [bowing to the storm] I have no defence: I shall know better infuture than to take any woman's part. We have all disgraced ourselves inyour eyes, I am afraid, except Ann, SHE befriended you. For Ann's sake, forgive us. 

VIOLET. Yes: Ann has been very kind; but then Ann knew. 

TANNER. Oh!

MISS RAMSDEN. [stiffly] And who, pray, is the gentleman who does notacknowledge his wife?

VIOLET. [promptly] That is my business, Miss Ramsden, and not yours. Ihave my reasons for keeping my marriage a secret for the present. 

RAMSDEN. All I can say is that we are extremely sorry, Violet. I amshocked to think of how we have treated you. 

OCTAVIUS. [awkwardly] I beg your pardon, Violet. I can say no more. 

MISS RAMSDEN. [still loth to surrender] Of course what you say putsa very different complexion on the matter. All the same, I owe it tomyself--

VIOLET. [cutting her short] You owe me an apology, Miss Ramsden: that'swhat you owe both to yourself and to me. If you were a married woman youwould not like sitting in the housekeeper's room and being treated likea naughty child by young girls and old ladies without any serious dutiesand responsibilities. 

TANNER. Don't hit us when we're down, Violet. We seem to have made foolsof ourselves; but really it was you who made fools of us. 

VIOLET. It was no business of yours, Jack, in any case. 

TANNER. No business of mine! Why, Ramsden as good as accused me of beingthe unknown gentleman. 

Ramsden makes a frantic demonstration; but Violet's cool keen angerextinguishes it. 

VIOLET. You! Oh, how infamous! how abominable! How disgracefully youhave all been talking about me! If my husband knew it he would never letme speak to any of you again. [To Ramsden] I think you might have sparedme, at least. 

RAMSDEN. But I assure you I never--at least it is a monstrous perversionof something I said that--

MISS RAMSDEN. You needn't apologize, Roebuck. She brought it all onherself. It is for her to apologize for having deceived us. 

VIOLET. I can make allowances for you, Miss Ramsden: you cannotunderstand how I feel on this subject though I should have expectedrather better taste from people of greater experience. However, I quitefeel that you have all placed yourselves in a very painful position;and the most truly considerate thing for me to do is to go at once. Goodmorning. 

She goes, leaving them staring. 

Miss RAMSDEN. Well, I must say--!

RAMSDEN. [plaintively] I don't think she is quite fair to us. 

TANNER. You must cower before the wedding ring like the rest of us, Ramsden. The cup of our ignominy is full. 

ACT II

On the carriage drive in the park of a country house near Richmond amotor car has broken down. It stands in front of a clump of trees roundwhich the drive sweeps to the house, which is partly visible throughthem: indeed Tanner, standing in the drive with the car on his righthand, could get an unobstructed view of the west corner of the house onhis left were he not far too much interested in a pair of supine legsin blue serge trousers which protrude from beneath the machine. He iswatching them intently with bent back and hands supported on his knees. His leathern overcoat and peaked cap proclaim him one of the dismountedpassengers. 

THE LEGS. Aha! I got him. 

TANNER. All right now?

THE LEGS. All right now. 

Tanner stoops and takes the legs by the ankles, drawing their ownerforth like a wheelbarrow, walking on his hands, with a hammer in hismouth. He is a young man in a neat suit of blue serge, clean shaven, dark eyed, square fingered, with short well brushed black hair andrather irregular sceptically turned eyebrows. When he is manipulatingthe car his movements are swift and sudden, yet attentive anddeliberate. With Tanner and Tanner's friends his manner is not in theleast deferential, but cool and reticent, keeping them quite effectuallyat a distance whilst giving them no excuse for complaining of him. Nevertheless he has a vigilant eye on them always, and that, too, rathercynically, like a man who knows the world well from its seamy side. Hespeaks slowly and with a touch of sarcasm; and as he does not at allaffect the gentleman in his speech, it may be inferred that his smartappearance is a mark of respect to himself and his own class, not tothat which employs him. 

He now gets into the car to test his machinery and put his cap andovercoat on again. Tanner takes off his leather overcoat and pitchesit into the car. The chauffeur (or automobilist or motoreer or whateverEngland may presently decide to call him) looks round inquiringly in theact of stowing away his hammer. 

THE CHAUFFEUR. Had enough of it, eh?

TANNER. I may as well walk to the house and stretch my legs and calm mynerves a little. [Looking at his watch] I suppose you know that we havecome from Hyde Park Corner to Richmond in twenty-one minutes. 

THE CHAUFFEUR. I'd have done it under fifteen if I'd had a clear roadall the way. 

TANNER. Why do you do it? Is it for love of sport or for the fun ofterrifying your unfortunate employer?

THE CHAUFFEUR. What are you afraid of?

TANNER. The police, and breaking my neck. 

THE CHAUFFEUR. Well, if you like easy going, you can take a bus, youknow. It's cheaper. You pay me to save your time and give you the valueof your thousand pound car. [He sits down calmly]. 

TANNER. I am the slave of that car and of you too. I dream of theaccursed thing at night. 

THE CHAUFFEUR. You'll get over that. If you're going up to the house, may I ask how long you're goin to stay there? Because if you mean toput in the whole morning talkin to the ladies, I'll put the car in thestables and make myself comfortable. If not, I'll keep the car on the goabout here til you come. 

TANNER. Better wait here. We shan't be long. There's a young Americangentleman, a Mr Malone, who is driving Mr Robinson down in his newAmerican steam car. 

THE CHAUFFEUR. [springing up and coming hastily out of the car toTanner] American steam car! Wot! racin us down from London!

TANNER. Perhaps they're here already. 

THE CHAUFFEUR. If I'd known it! [with deep reproach] Why didn't you tellme, Mr Tanner?

TANNER. Because I've been told that this car is capable of 84 miles anhour; and I already know what YOU are capable of when there is a rivalcar on the road. No, Henry: there are things it is not good for you toknow; and this was one of them. However, cheer up: we are going to havea day after your own heart. The American is to take Mr Robinson and hissister and Miss Whitefield. We are to take Miss Rhoda. 

THE CHAUFFEUR. [consoled, and musing on another matter] That's MissWhitefield's sister, isn't it?

TANNER. Yes. 

THE CHAUFFEUR. And Miss Whitefield herself is goin in the other car? Notwith you?

TANNER. Why the devil should she come with me? Mr Robinson will be inthe other car. [The Chauffeur looks at Tanner with cool incredulity, andturns to the car, whistling a popular air softly to himself. Tanner, a little annoyed, is about to pursue the subject when he hears thefootsteps of Octavius on the gravel. Octavius is coming from the house, dressed for motoring, but without his overcoat]. We've lost the race, thank Heaven: here's Mr Robinson. Well, Tavy, is the steam car asuccess?

OCTAVIUS. I think so. We came from Hyde Park Corner here in seventeenminutes. [The Chauffeur, furious, kicks the car with a groan ofvexation]. How long were you?

TANNER. Oh, about three quarters of an hour or so. 

THE CHAUFFEUR. [remonstrating] Now, now, Mr Tanner, come now! We couldha done it easy under fifteen. 

TANNER. By the way, let me introduce you. Mr Octavius Robinson: Mr EnryStraker. 

STRAKER. Pleased to meet you, sir. Mr Tanner is gittin at you with hisEnry Straker, you know. You call it Henery. But I don't mind, bless you. 

TANNER. You think it's simply bad taste in me to chaff him, Tavy. Butyou're wrong. This man takes more trouble to drop his aiches than everhis father did to pick them up. It's a mark of caste to him. I havenever met anybody more swollen with the pride of class than Enry is. 

STRAKER. Easy, easy! A little moderation, Mr Tanner. 

TANNER. A little moderation, Tavy, you observe. You would tell me todraw it mild, But this chap has been educated. What's more, he knowsthat we haven't. What was that board school of yours, Straker?

STRAKER. Sherbrooke Road. 

TANNER. Sherbrooke Road! Would any of us say Rugby! Harrow! Eton! inthat tone of intellectual snobbery? Sherbrooke Road is a place whereboys learn something; Eton is a boy farm where we are sent because weare nuisances at home, and because in after life, whenever a Duke ismentioned, we can claim him as an old schoolfellow. 

STRAKER. You don't know nothing about it, Mr. Tanner. It's not the BoardSchool that does it: it's the Polytechnic. 

TANNER. His university, Octavius. Not Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, Dublinor Glasgow. Not even those Nonconformist holes in Wales. No, Tavy. Regent Street, Chelsea, the Borough--I don't know half their confoundednames: these are his universities, not mere shops for selling classlimitations like ours. You despise Oxford, Enry, don't you?

STRAKER. No, I don't. Very nice sort of place, Oxford, I shouldthink, for people that like that sort of place. They teach you to be agentleman there. In the Polytechnic they teach you to be an engineer orsuch like. See?

TANNER. Sarcasm, Tavy, sarcasm! Oh, if you could only see into Enry'ssoul, the depth of his contempt for a gentleman, the arrogance of hispride in being an engineer, would appal you. He positively likes the carto break down because it brings out my gentlemanly helplessness and hisworkmanlike skill and resource. 

STRAKER. Never you mind him, Mr Robinson. He likes to talk. We know him, don't we?

OCTAVIUS. [earnestly] But there's a great truth at the bottom of what hesays. I believe most intensely in the dignity of labor. 

STRAKER. [unimpressed] That's because you never done any Mr Robinson. My business is to do away with labor. You'll get more out of me and amachine than you will out of twenty laborers, and not so much to drinkeither. 

TANNER. For Heaven's sake, Tavy, don't start him on political economy. He knows all about it; and we don't. You're only a poetic Socialist, Tavy: he's a scientific one. 

STRAKER. [unperturbed] Yes. Well, this conversation is very improvin;but I've got to look after the car; and you two want to talk about yourladies. I know. [He retires to busy himself about the car; and presentlysaunters off towards the house]. 

TANNER. That's a very momentous social phenomenon. 

OCTAVIUS. What is?

TANNER. Straker is. Here have we literary and cultured persons beenfor years setting up a cry of the New Woman whenever some unusually oldfashioned female came along; and never noticing the advent of the NewMan. Straker's the New Man. 

OCTAVIUS. I see nothing new about him, except your way of chaffinghim. But I don't want to talk about him just now. I want to speak to youabout Ann. 

TANNER. Straker knew even that. He learnt it at the Polytechnic, probably. Well, what about Ann? Have you proposed to her?

OCTAVIUS. [self-reproachfully] I was brute enough to do so last night. 

TANNER. Brute enough! What do you mean?

OCTAVIUS. [dithyrambically] Jack: we men are all coarse. We neverunderstand how exquisite a woman's sensibilities are. How could I havedone such a thing!

TANNER. Done what, you maudlin idiot?

OCTAVIUS. Yes, I am an idiot. Jack: if you had heard her voice! if youhad seen her tears! I have lain awake all night thinking of them. If shehad reproached me, I could have borne it better. 

TANNER. Tears! that's dangerous. What did she say?

OCTAVIUS. She asked me how she could think of anything now but her dearfather. She stifled a sob--[he breaks down]. 

TANNER. [patting him on the back] Bear it like a man, Tavy, even if youfeel it like an ass. It's the old game: she's not tired of playing withyou yet. 

OCTAVIUS. [impatiently] Oh, don't be a fool, Jack. Do you suppose thiseternal shallow cynicism of yours has any real bearing on a nature likehers?

TANNER. Hm! Did she say anything else?

OCTAVIUS. Yes; and that is why I expose myself and her to your ridiculeby telling you what passed. 

TANNER. [remorsefully] No, dear Tavy, not ridicule, on my honor!However, no matter. Go on. 

OCTAVIUS. Her sense of duty is so devout, so perfect, so--

TANNER. Yes: I know. Go on. 

OCTAVIUS. You see, under this new arrangement, you and Ramsden are herguardians; and she considers that all her duty to her father is nowtransferred to you. She said she thought I ought to have spoken to youboth in the first instance. Of course she is right; but somehow it seemsrather absurd that I am to come to you and formally ask to be receivedas a suitor for your ward's hand. 

TANNER. I am glad that love has not totally extinguished your sense ofhumor, Tavy. 

OCTAVIUS. That answer won't satisfy her. 

TANNER. My official answer is, obviously, Bless you, my children: mayyou be happy!

OCTAVIUS. I wish you would stop playing the fool about this. If it isnot serious to you, it is to me, and to her. 

TANNER. You know very well that she is as free to choose as you. Shedoes not think so. 

TANNER. Oh, doesn't she! just! However, say what you want me to do. 

OCTAVIUS. I want you to tell her sincerely and earnestly what you thinkabout me. I want you to tell her that you can trust her to me--that is, if you feel you can. 

TANNER. I have no doubt that I can trust her to you. What worries me isthe idea of trusting you to her. Have you read Maeterlinck's book aboutthe bee?

OCTAVIUS. [keeping his temper with difficulty] I am not discussingliterature at present. 

TANNER. Be just a little patient with me. I am not discussingliterature: the book about the bee is natural history. It's an awfullesson to mankind. You think that you are Ann's suitor; that you are thepursuer and she the pursued; that it is your part to woo, to persuade, to prevail, to overcome. Fool: it is you who are the pursued, the markeddown quarry, the destined prey. You need not sit looking longinglyat the bait through the wires of the trap: the door is open, and willremain so until it shuts behind you for ever. 

OCTAVIUS. I wish I could believe that, vilely as you put it. 

TANNER. Why, man, what other work has she in life but to get a husband?It is a woman's business to get married as soon as possible, and aman's to keep unmarried as long as he can. You have your poems and yourtragedies to work at: Ann has nothing. 

OCTAVIUS. I cannot write without inspiration. And nobody can give methat except Ann. 

TANNER. Well, hadn't you better get it from her at a safe distance?Petrarch didn't see half as much of Laura, nor Dante of Beatrice, as yousee of Ann now; and yet they wrote first-rate poetry--at least soI'm told. They never exposed their idolatry to the test of domesticfamiliarity; and it lasted them to their graves. Marry Ann and atthe end of a week you'll find no more inspiration than in a plate ofmuffins. 

OCTAVIUS. You think I shall tire of her. 

TANNER. Not at all: you don't get tired of muffins. But you don't findinspiration in them; and you won't in her when she ceases to be a poet'sdream and becomes a solid eleven stone wife. You'll be forced to dreamabout somebody else; and then there will be a row. 

OCTAVIUS. This sort of talk is no use, Jack. You don't understand. Youhave never been in love. 

TANNER. I! I have never been out of it. Why, I am in love even with Ann. But I am neither the slave of love nor its dupe. Go to the bee, thoupoet: consider her ways and be wise. By Heaven, Tavy, if women could dowithout our work, and we ate their children's bread instead of makingit, they would kill us as the spider kills her mate or as the bees killthe drone. And they would be right if we were good for nothing but love. 

OCTAVIUS. Ah, if we were only good enough for Love! There is nothinglike Love: there is nothing else but Love: without it the world would bea dream of sordid horror. 

TANNER. And this--this is the man who asks me to give him the hand of myward! Tavy: I believe we were changed in our cradles, and that you arethe real descendant of Don Juan. 

OCTAVIUS. I beg you not to say anything like that to Ann. 

TANNER. Don't be afraid. She has marked you for her own; and nothingwill stop her now. You are doomed. [Straker comes back with anewspaper]. Here comes the New Man, demoralizing himself with ahalfpenny paper as usual. 

STRAKER. Now, would you believe it: Mr Robinson, when we're out motoringwe take in two papers, the Times for him, the Leader or the Echo for me. And do you think I ever see my paper? Not much. He grabs the Leader andleaves me to stodge myself with his Times. 

OCTAVIUS. Are there no winners in the Times?

TANNER. Enry don't old with bettin, Tavy. Motor records are hisweakness. What's the latest?

STRAKER. Paris to Biskra at forty mile an hour average, not countin theMediterranean. 

TANNER. How many killed?

STRAKER. Two silly sheep. What does it matter? Sheep don't cost such alot: they were glad to ave the price without the trouble o sellin emto the butcher. All the same, d'y'see, there'll be a clamor agin itpresently; and then the French Government'll stop it; an our chance willbe gone see? That what makes me fairly mad: Mr Tanner won't do a goodrun while he can. 

TANNER. Tavy: do you remember my uncle James?

OCTAVIUS. Yes. Why?

TANNER. Uncle James had a first rate cook: he couldn't digest anythingexcept what she cooked. Well, the poor man was shy and hated society. But his cook was proud of her skill, and wanted to serve up dinners toprinces and ambassadors. To prevent her from leaving him, that poorold man had to give a big dinner twice a month, and suffer agonies ofawkwardness. Now here am I; and here is this chap Enry Straker, the NewMan. I loathe travelling; but I rather like Enry. He cares for nothingbut tearing along in a leather coat and goggles, with two inches of dustall over him, at sixty miles an hour and the risk of his life and mine. Except, of course, when he is lying on his back in the mud under themachine trying to find out where it has given way. Well, if I don't givehim a thousand mile run at least once a fortnight I shall lose him. Hewill give me the sack and go to some American millionaire; and I shallhave to put up with a nice respectful groom-gardener-amateur, who willtouch his hat and know his place. I am Enry's slave, just as Uncle Jameswas his cook's slave. 

STRAKER. [exasperated] Garn! I wish I had a car that would go as fastas you can talk, Mr Tanner. What I say is that you lose money by a motorcar unless you keep it workin. Might as well ave a pram and a nussmaidto wheel you in it as that car and me if you don't git the last inch outof us both. 

TANNER. [soothingly] All right, Henry, all right. We'll go out for halfan hour presently. 

STRAKER. [in disgust] Arf an ahr! [He returns to his machine; seatshimself in it; and turns up a fresh page of his paper in search of morenews]. 

OCTAVIUS. Oh, that reminds me. I have a note for you from Rhoda. [Hegives Tanner a note]. 

TANNER. [opening it] I rather think Rhoda is heading for a row with Ann. As a rule there is only one person an English girl hates more than shehates her mother; and that's her eldest sister. But Rhoda positivelyprefers her mother to Ann. She--[indignantly] Oh, I say!

OCTAVIUS. What's the matter?

TANNER. Rhoda was to have come with me for a ride in the motor car. Shesays Ann has forbidden her to go out with me. 

Straker suddenly begins whistling his favorite air with remarkabledeliberation. Surprised by this burst of larklike melody, and jarred bya sardonic note in its cheerfulness, they turn and look inquiringly athim. But he is busy with his paper; and nothing comes of their movement. 

OCTAVIUS. [recovering himself] Does she give any reason?

TANNER. Reason! An insult is not a reason. Ann forbids her to be alonewith me on any occasion. Says I am not a fit person for a young girl tobe with. What do you think of your paragon now?

OCTAVIUS. You must remember that she has a very heavy responsibility nowthat her father is dead. Mrs Whitefield is too weak to control Rhoda. 

TANNER. [staring at him] In short, you agree with Ann. 

OCTAVIUS. No; but I think I understand her. You must admit that yourviews are hardly suited for the formation of a young girl's mind andcharacter. 

TANNER. I admit nothing of the sort. I admit that the formation of ayoung lady's mind and character usually consists in telling her lies;but I object to the particular lie that I am in the habit of abusing theconfidence of girls. 

OCTAVIUS. Ann doesn't say that, Jack. 

TANNER. What else does she mean?

STRAKER. [catching sight of Ann coming from the house] Miss Whitefield, gentlemen. [He dismounts and strolls away down the avenue with the airof a man who knows he is no longer wanted]. 

ANN. [coming between Octavius and Tanner]. Good morning, Jack. I havecome to tell you that poor Rhoda has got one of her headaches and cannotgo out with you to-day in the car. It is a cruel disappointment to her, poor child!

TANNER. What do you say now, Tavy. 

OCTAVIUS. Surely you cannot misunderstand, Jack. Ann is showing you thekindest consideration, even at the cost of deceiving you. 

ANN. What do you mean?

TANNER. Would you like to cure Rhoda's headache, Ann?

ANN. Of course. 

TANNER. Then tell her what you said just now; and add that you arrivedabout two minutes after I had received her letter and read it. 

ANN. Rhoda has written to you!

TANNER. With full particulars. 

OCTAVIUS. Never mind him, Ann. You were right, quite right. Ann was onlydoing her duty, Jack; and you know it. Doing it in the kindest way, too. 

ANN. [going to Octavius] How kind you are, Tavy! How helpful! How wellyou understand!

Octavius beams. 

TANNER. Ay: tighten the coils. You love her, Tavy, don't you?

OCTAVIUS. She knows I do. 

ANN. Hush. For shame, Tavy!

TANNER. Oh, I give you leave. I am your guardian; and I commit you toTavy's care for the next hour. 

ANN. No, Jack. I must speak to you about Rhoda. Ricky: will you go backto the house and entertain your American friend? He's rather on Mamma'shands so early in the morning. She wants to finish her housekeeping. 

OCTAVIUS. I fly, dearest Ann [he kisses her hand]. 

ANN. [tenderly] Ricky Ticky Tavy!

He looks at her with an eloquent blush, and runs off. 

TANNER. [bluntly] Now look here, Ann. This time you've landed yourself;and if Tavy were not in love with you past all salvation he'd have foundout what an incorrigible liar you are. 

ANN. You misunderstand, Jack. I didn't dare tell Tavy the truth. 

TANNER. No: your daring is generally in the opposite direction. What thedevil do you mean by telling Rhoda that I am too vicious to associatewith her? How can I ever have any human or decent relations with heragain, now that you have poisoned her mind in that abominable way?

ANN. I know you are incapable of behaving badly. 

TANNER. Then why did you lie to her?

ANN. I had to. 

TANNER. Had to!

ANN. Mother made me. 

TANNER. [his eye flashing] Ha! I might have known it. The mother! Alwaysthe mother!

ANN. It was that dreadful book of yours. You know how timid mother is. All timid women are conventional: we must be conventional, Jack, or weare so cruelly, so vilely misunderstood. Even you, who are a man, cannotsay what you think without being misunderstood and vilified--yes: Iadmit it: I have had to vilify you. Do you want to have poor Rhodamisunderstood and vilified to the same way? Would it be right for motherto let her expose herself to such treatment before she is old enough tojudge for herself?

TANNER. In short, the way to avoid misunderstanding is for everybody tolie and slander and insinuate and pretend as hard as they can. That iswhat obeying your mother comes to. 

ANN. I love my mother, Jack. 

TANNER. [working himself up into a sociological rage] Is that any reasonwhy you are not to call your soul your own? Oh, I protest against thisvile abjection of youth to age! look at fashionable society as you knowit. What does it pretend to be? An exquisite dance of nymphs. What isit? A horrible procession of wretched girls, each in the claws of acynical, cunning, avaricious, disillusioned, ignorantly experienced, foul-minded old woman whom she calls mother, and whose duty it isto corrupt her mind and sell her to the highest bidder. Why do theseunhappy slaves marry anybody, however old and vile, sooner than notmarry at all? Because marriage is their only means of escape from thesedecrepit fiends who hide their selfish ambitions, their jealous hatredsof the young rivals who have supplanted them, under the mask of maternalduty and family affection. Such things are abominable: the voice ofnature proclaims for the daughter a father's care and for the son amother's. The law for father and son and mother and daughter is notthe law of love: it is the law of revolution, of emancipation, of finalsupersession of the old and worn-out by the young and capable. Itell you, the first duty of manhood and womanhood is a Declaration ofIndependence: the man who pleads his father's authority is no man: thewoman who pleads her mother's authority is unfit to bear citizens to afree people. 

ANN. [watching him with quiet curiosity] I suppose you will go inseriously for politics some day, Jack. 

TANNER. [heavily let down] Eh? What? Wh--? [Collecting his scatteredwits] What has that got to do with what I have been saying?

ANN. You talk so well. 

TANNER. Talk! Talk! It means nothing to you but talk. Well, go backto your mother, and help her to poison Rhoda's imagination as she haspoisoned yours. It is the tame elephants who enjoy capturing the wildones. 

ANN. I am getting on. Yesterday I was a boa constrictor: to-day I am anelephant. 

TANNER. Yes. So pack your trunk and begone; I have no more to say toyou. 

ANN. You are so utterly unreasonable and impracticable. What can I do?

TANNER. Do! Break your chains. Go your way according to your ownconscience and not according to your mother's. Get your mind cleanand vigorous; and learn to enjoy a fast ride in a motor car instead ofseeing nothing in it but an excuse for a detestable intrigue. Come withme to Marseilles and across to Algiers and to Biskra, at sixty milesan hour. Come right down to the Cape if you like. That will be aDeclaration of Independence with a vengeance. You can write a book aboutit afterwards. That will finish your mother and make a woman of you. 

ANN. [thoughtfully] I don't think there would be any harm in that, Jack. You are my guardian: you stand in my father's place, by his own wish. Nobody could say a word against our travelling together. It would bedelightful: thank you a thousand times, Jack. I'll come. 

TANNER. [aghast] You'll come!!!

ANN. Of course. 

TANNER. But-- [he stops, utterly appalled; then resumes feebly] No: lookhere, Ann: if there's no harm in it there's no point in doing it. 

ANN. How absurd you are! You don't want to compromise me, do you?

TANNER. Yes: that's the whole sense of my proposal. 

ANN. You are talking the greatest nonsense; and you know it. You wouldnever do anything to hurt me. 

TANNER. Well, if you don't want to be compromised, don't come. 

ANN. [with simple earnestness] Yes, I will come, Jack, since you wishit. You are my guardian; and think we ought to see more of one anotherand come to know one another better. [Gratefully] It's very thoughtfuland very kind of you, Jack, to offer me this lovely holiday, especiallyafter what I said about Rhoda. You really are good--much better than youthink. When do we start?

TANNER. But--

The conversation is interrupted by the arrival of Mrs Whitefield fromthe house. She is accompanied by the American gentleman, and followed byRamsden and Octavius. 

Hector Malone is an Eastern American; but he is not at all ashamed ofhis nationality. This makes English people of fashion think well ofhim, as of a young fellow who is manly enough to confess to an obviousdisadvantage without any attempt to conceal or extenuate it. They feelthat he ought not to be made to suffer for what is clearly not hisfault, and make a point of being specially kind to him. His chivalrousmanners to women, and his elevated moral sentiments, being bothgratuitous and unusual, strike them as being a little unfortunate;and though they find his vein of easy humor rather amusing when it hasceased to puzzle them (as it does at first), they have had to makehim understand that he really must not tell anecdotes unless theyare strictly personal and scandalous, and also that oratory is anaccomplishment which belongs to a cruder stage of civilization than thatin which his migration has landed him. On these points Hector is notquite convinced: he still thinks that the British are apt to make meritsof their stupidities, and to represent their various incapacities aspoints of good breeding. English life seems to him to suffer from a lackof edifying rhetoric (which he calls moral tone); English behavior toshow a want of respect for womanhood; English pronunciation to failvery vulgarly in tackling such words as world, girl, bird, etc. ; Englishsociety to be plain spoken to an extent which stretches occasionally tointolerable coarseness; and English intercourse to need enlivening bygames and stories and other pastimes; so he does not feel called upon toacquire these defects after taking great paths to cultivate himself in afirst rate manner before venturing across the Atlantic. To this culturehe finds English people either totally indifferent as they very commonlyare to all culture, or else politely evasive, the truth being thatHector's culture is nothing but a state of saturation with our literaryexports of thirty years ago, reimported by him to be unpacked at amoment's notice and hurled at the head of English literature, scienceand art, at every conversational opportunity. The dismay set up bythese sallies encourages him in his belief that he is helping to educateEngland. When he finds people chattering harmlessly about Anatole Franceand Nietzsche, he devastates them with Matthew Arnold, the Autocrat ofthe Breakfast Table, and even Macaulay; and as he is devoutly religiousat bottom, he first leads the unwary, by humorous irreverences, to wavepopular theology out of account in discussing moral questions with him, and then scatters them in confusion by demanding whether the carryingout of his ideals of conduct was not the manifest object of God Almightyin creating honest men and pure women. The engaging freshness of hispersonality and the dumbfoundering staleness of his culture make itextremely difficult to decide whether he is worth knowing; forwhilst his company is undeniably pleasant and enlivening, there isintellectually nothing new to be got out of him, especially as hedespises politics, and is careful not to talk commercial shop, in whichdepartment he is probably much in advance of his English capitalistfriends. He gets on best with romantic Christians of the amoristic sect:hence the friendship which has sprung up between him and Octavius. 

In appearance Hector is a neatly built young man of twenty-four, witha short, smartly trimmed black beard, clear, well shaped eyes, and aningratiating vivacity of expression. He is, from the fashionable pointof view, faultlessly dressed. As he comes along the drive from thehouse with Mrs Whitefield he is sedulously making himself agreeableand entertaining, and thereby placing on her slender wit a burden it isunable to bear. An Englishman would let her alone, accepting boredom andindifference of their common lot; and the poor lady wants to be eitherlet alone or let prattle about the things that interest her. 

Ramsden strolls over to inspect the motor car. Octavius joins Hector. 

ANN. [pouncing on her mother joyously] Oh, mamma, what do you think!Jack is going to take me to Nice in his motor car. Isn't it lovely? I amthe happiest person in London. 

TANNER. [desperately] Mrs Whitefield objects. I am sure she objects. Doesn't she, Ramsden?

RAMSDEN. I should think it very likely indeed. 

ANN. You don't object, do you, mother?

MRS WHITEFIELD. I object! Why should I? I think it will do you good, Ann. [Trotting over to Tanner] I meant to ask you to take Rhoda out fora run occasionally: she is too much in the house; but it will do whenyou come back. 

TANNER. Abyss beneath abyss of perfidy!

ANN. [hastily, to distract attention from this outburst] Oh, I forgot:you have not met Mr Malone. Mr Tanner, my guardian: Mr Hector Malone. 

HECTOR. Pleased to meet you, Mr Tanner. I should like to suggest anextension of the travelling party to Nice, if I may. 

ANN. Oh, we're all coming. That's understood, isn't it?

HECTOR. I also am the modest possessor of a motor car. If Miss Robinsonwill allow me the privilege of taking her, my car is at her service. 

OCTAVIUS. Violet!

General constraint. 

ANN. [subduedly] Come, mother: we must leave them to talk over thearrangements. I must see to my travelling kit. 

Mrs Whitefield looks bewildered; but Ann draws her discreetly away; andthey disappear round the corner towards the house. 

HECTOR. I think I may go so far as to say that I can depend on MissRobinson's consent. 

Continued embarrassment. 

OCTAVIUS. I'm afraid we must leave Violet behind, There arecircumstances which make it impossible for her to come on such anexpedition. 

HECTOR. [amused and not at all convinced] Too American, eh? Must theyoung lady have a chaperone?

OCTAVIUS. It's not that, Malone--at least not altogether. 

HECTOR. Indeed! May I ask what other objection applies?

TANNER. [impatiently] Oh, tell him, tell him. We shall never be able tokeep the secret unless everybody knows what it is. Mr Malone: if you goto Nice with Violet, you go with another man's wife. She is married. 

HECTOR. [thunderstruck] You don't tell me so!

TANNER. We do. In confidence. 

RAMSDEN. [with an air of importance, lest Malone should suspect amisalliance] Her marriage has not yet been made known: she desires thatit shall not be mentioned for the present. 

HECTOR. I shall respect the lady's wishes. Would it be indiscreet to askwho her husband is, in case I should have an opportunity of consultinghim about this trip?

TANNER. We don't know who he is. 

HECTOR. [retiring into his shell in a very marked manner] In that case, I have no more to say. 

They become more embarrassed than ever. 

OCTAVIUS. You must think this very strange. 

HECTOR. A little singular. Pardon me for saving so. 

RAMSDEN. [half apologetic, half huffy] The young lady was marriedsecretly; and her husband has forbidden her, it seems, to declarehis name. It is only right to tell you, since you are interested inMiss--er--in Violet. 

OCTAVIUS. [sympathetically] I hope this is not a disappointment to you. 

HECTOR. [softened, coming out of his shell again] Well it is a blow. I can hardly understand how a man can leave a wife in such a position. Surely it's not customary. It's not manly. It's not considerate. 

OCTAVIUS. We feel that, as you may imagine, pretty deeply. 

RAMSDEN. [testily] It is some young fool who has not enough experienceto know what mystifications of this kind lead to. 

HECTOR. [with strong symptoms of moral repugnance] I hope so. A man needbe very young and pretty foolish too to be excused for such conduct. You take a very lenient view, Mr Ramsden. Too lenient to my mind. Surelymarriage should ennoble a man. 

TANNER. [sardonically] Ha!

HECTOR. Am I to gather from that cacchination that you don't agree withme, Mr Tanner?

TANNER. [drily] Get married and try. You may find it delightful fora while: you certainly won't find it ennobling. The greatest commonmeasure of a man and a woman is not necessarily greater than the man'ssingle measure. 

HECTOR. Well, we think in America that a woman's moral number is higherthan a man's, and that the purer nature of a woman lifts a man right outof himself, and makes him better than he was. 

OCTAVIUS. [with conviction] So it does. 

TANNER. No wonder American women prefer to live in Europe! It's morecomfortable than standing all their lives on an altar to be worshipped. Anyhow, Violet's husband has not been ennobled. So what's to be done?

HECTOR. [shaking his head] I can't dismiss that man's conduct as lightlyas you do, Mr Tanner. However, I'll say no more. Whoever he is, he'sMiss Robinson's husband; and I should be glad for her sake to thinkbetter of him. 

OCTAVIUS. [touched; for he divines a secret sorrow] I'm very sorry, Malone. Very sorry. 

HECTOR. [gratefully] You're a good fellow, Robinson, Thank you. 

TANNER. Talk about something else. Violet's coming from the house. 

HECTOR. I should esteem it a very great favor, men, if you would takethe opportunity to let me have a few words with the lady alone. I shallhave to cry off this trip; and it's rather a delicate--

RAMSDEN. [glad to escape] Say no more. Come Tanner, Come, Tavy. [Hestrolls away into the park with Octavius and Tanner, past the motorcar]. 

Violet comes down the avenue to Hector. 

VIOLET. Are they looking?

HECTOR. No. 

She kisses him. 

VIOLET. Have you been telling lies for my sake?

HECTOR. Lying! Lying hardly describes it. I overdo it. I get carriedaway in an ecstasy of mendacity. Violet: I wish you'd let me own up. 

VIOLET. [instantly becoming serious and resolute] No, no. Hector: youpromised me not to. 

HECTOR. I'll keep my promise until you release me from it. But I feelmean, lying to those men, and denying my wife. Just dastardly. 

VIOLET. I wish your father were not so unreasonable. 

HECTOR. He's not unreasonable. He's right from his point of view. He hasa prejudice against the English middle class. 

VIOLET. It's too ridiculous. You know how I dislike saying such thingsto you, Hector; but if I were to--oh, well, no matter. 

HECTOR. I know. If you were to marry the son of an English manufacturerof office furniture, your friends would consider it a misalliance. Andhere's my silly old dad, who is the biggest office furniture man inthe world, would show me the door for marrying the most perfect ladyin England merely because she has no handle to her name. Of course it'sjust absurd. But I tell you, Violet, I don't like deceiving him. I feelas if I was stealing his money. Why won't you let me own up?

VIOLET. We can't afford it. You can be as romantic as you please aboutlove, Hector; but you mustn't be romantic about money. 

HECTOR. [divided between his uxoriousness and his habitual elevationof moral sentiment] That's very English. [Appealing to her impulsively]Violet: Dad's bound to find us out some day. 

VIOLET. Oh yes, later on of course. But don't let's go over this everytime we meet, dear. You promised--

HECTOR. All right, all right, I--

VIOLET. [not to be silenced] It is I and not you who suffer by thisconcealment; and as to facing a struggle and poverty and all that sortof thing I simply will not do it. It's too silly. 

HECTOR. You shall not. I'll sort of borrow the money from my dad until Iget on my own feet; and then I can own up and pay up at the same time. 

VIOLET. [alarmed and indignant] Do you mean to work? Do you want tospoil our marriage?

HECTOR. Well, I don't mean to let marriage spoil my character. Yourfriend Mr Tanner has got the laugh on me a bit already about that; and--

VIOLET. The beast! I hate Jack Tanner. 

HECTOR. [magnanimously] Oh, he's all right: he only needs the love ofa good woman to ennoble him. Besides, he's proposed a motoring trip toNice; and I'm going to take you. 

VIOLET. How jolly!

HECTOR. Yes; but how are we going to manage? You see, they've warnedme off going with you, so to speak. They've told me in confidence thatyou're married. That's just the most overwhelming confidence I've everbeen honored with. 

Tanner returns with Straker, who goes to his car. 

TANNER. Your car is a great success, Mr Malone. Your engineer is showingit off to Mr Ramsden. 

HECTOR. [eagerly--forgetting himself] Let's come, Vi. 

VIOLET. [coldly, warning him with her eyes] I beg your pardon, MrMalone, I did not quite catch--

HECTOR. [recollecting himself] I ask to be allowed the pleasure ofshowing you my little American steam car, Miss Robinson. 

VIOLET. I shall be very pleased. [They go off together down the avenue]. 

TANNER. About this trip, Straker. 

STRAKER. [preoccupied with the car] Yes?

TANNER. Miss Whitefield is supposed to be coming with me. 

STRAKER. So I gather. 

TANNER. Mr Robinson is to be one of the party. 

STRAKER. Yes. 

TANNER. Well, if you can manage so as to be a good deal occupied withme, and leave Mr Robinson a good deal occupied with Miss Whitefield, hewill be deeply grateful to you. 

STRAKER. [looking round at him] Evidently. 

TANNER. "Evidently!" Your grandfather would have simply winked. 

STRAKER. My grandfather would have touched his at. 

TANNER. And I should have given your good nice respectful grandfather asovereign. 

STRAKER. Five shillins, more likely. [He leaves the car and approachesTanner]. What about the lady's views?

TANNER. She is just as willing to be left to Mr Robinson as Mr Robinsonis to be left to her. [Straker looks at his principal with coolscepticism; then turns to the car whistling his favorite air]. Stop thataggravating noise. What do you mean by it? [Straker calmly resumes themelody and finishes it. Tanner politely hears it out before he againaddresses Straker, this time with elaborate seriousness]. Enry: I haveever been a warm advocate of the spread of music among the masses; butI object to your obliging the company whenever Miss Whitefield's name ismentioned. You did it this morning, too. 

STRAKER. [obstinately] It's not a bit o use. Mr Robinson may as wellgive it up first as last. 

TANNER. Why?

STRAKER. Garn! You know why. Course it's not my business; but youneedn't start kiddin me about it. 

TANNER. I am not kidding. I don't know why. 

STRAKER. [Cheerfully sulky] Oh, very well. All right. It ain't mybusiness. 

TANNER. [impressively] I trust, Enry, that, as between employer andengineer, I shall always know how to keep my proper distance, and notintrude my private affairs on you. Even our business arrangementsare subject to the approval of your Trade Union. But don't abuse youradvantages. Let me remind you that Voltaire said that what was too sillyto be said could be sung. 

STRAKER. It wasn't Voltaire: it was Bow Mar Shay. 

TANNER. I stand corrected: Beaumarchais of course. Now you seem to thinkthat what is too delicate to be said can be whistled. Unfortunately yourwhistling, though melodious, is unintelligible. Come! there's nobodylistening: neither my genteel relatives nor the secretary of yourconfounded Union. As man to man, Enry, why do you think that my friendhas no chance with Miss Whitefield?

STRAKER. Cause she's arter summun else. 

TANNER. Bosh! who else?

STRAKER. You. 

TANNER. Me!!!

STRAKER. Mean to tell me you didn't know? Oh, come, Mr Tanner!

TANNER. [in fierce earnest] Are you playing the fool, or do you mean it?

STRAKER. [with a flash of temper] I'm not playin no fool. [More coolly]Why, it's as plain as the nose on your face. If you ain't spotted that, you don't know much about these sort of things. [Serene again] Ex-cuseme, you know, Mr Tanner; but you asked me as man to man; and I told youas man to man. 

TANNER. [wildly appealing to the heavens] Then I--I am the bee, thespider, the marked down victim, the destined prey. 

STRAKER. I dunno about the bee and the spider. But the marked downvictim, that's what you are and no mistake; and a jolly good job foryou, too, I should say. 

TANNER. [momentously] Henry Straker: the moment of your life hasarrived. 

STRAKER. What d'y'mean?

TANNER. That record to Biskra. 

STRAKER. [eagerly] Yes?

TANNER. Break it. 

STRAKER. [rising to the height of his destiny] D'y'mean it?

TANNER. I do. 

STRAKER. When?

TANNER. Now. Is that machine ready to start?

STRAKER. [quailing] But you can't--

TANNER. [cutting him short by getting into the car] Off we go. First tothe bank for money; then to my rooms for my kit; then to your rooms foryour kit; then break the record from London to Dover or Folkestone; thenacross the channel and away like mad to Marseilles, Gibraltar, Genoa, any port from which we can sail to a Mahometan country where men areprotected from women. 

STRAKER. Garn! you're kiddin. 

TANNER. [resolutely] Stay behind then. If you won't come I'll do italone. [He starts the motor]. 

STRAKER. [running after him] Here! Mister! arf a mo! steady on! [hescrambles in as the car plunges forward]. 

ACT III

Evening in the Sierra Nevada. Rolling slopes of brown, with olive treesinstead of apple trees in the cultivated patches, and occasional pricklypears instead of gorse and bracken in the wilds. Higher up, tall stonepeaks and precipices, all handsome and distinguished. No wild naturehere: rather a most aristocratic mountain landscape made by a fastidiousartist-creator. No vulgar profusion of vegetation: even a touch ofaridity in the frequent patches of stones: Spanish magnificence andSpanish economy everywhere. 

Not very far north of a spot at which the high road over one of thepasses crosses a tunnel on the railway from Malaga to Granada, is oneof the mountain amphitheatres of the Sierra. Looking at it from the wideend of the horse-shoe, one sees, a little to the right, in the faceof the cliff, a romantic cave which is really an abandoned quarry, andtowards the left a little hill, commanding a view of the road, whichskirts the amphitheatre on the left, maintaining its higher level onembankments and on an occasional stone arch. On the hill, watchingthe road, is a man who is either a Spaniard or a Scotchman. Probably aSpaniard, since he wears the dress of a Spanish goatherd and seems athome in the Sierra Nevada, but very like a Scotchman for all that. Inthe hollow, on the slope leading to the quarry-cave, are about a dozenmen who, as they recline at their cave round a heap of smouldering whiteashes of dead leaf and brushwood, have an air of being conscious ofthemselves as picturesque scoundrels honoring the Sierra by using it asan effective pictorial background. As a matter of artistic fact they arenot picturesque; and the mountains tolerate them as lions tolerate lice. An English policeman or Poor Law Guardian would recognize them as aselected band of tramps and ablebodied paupers. 

This description of them is not wholly contemptuous. Whoever hasintelligently observed the tramp, or visited the ablebodied ward of aworkhouse, will admit that our social failures are not all drunkards andweaklings. Some of them are men who do not fit the class they were borninto. Precisely the same qualities that make the educated gentleman anartist may make an uneducated manual laborer an ablebodied pauper. Thereare men who fall helplessly into the workhouse because they are goodfar nothing; but there are also men who are there because they arestrongminded enough to disregard the social convention (obviously not adisinterested one on the part of the ratepayer) which bids a man liveby heavy and badly paid drudgery when he has the alternative of walkinginto the workhouse, announcing himself as a destitute person, andlegally compelling the Guardians to feed, clothe and house him betterthan he could feed, clothe and house himself without great exertion. When a man who is born a poet refuses a stool in a stockbroker's office, and starves in a garret, spunging on a poor landlady or on his friendsand relatives rather than work against his grain; or when a lady, because she is a lady, will face any extremity of parasitic dependencerather than take a situation as cook or parlormaid, we make largeallowances for them. To such allowances the ablebodied pauper and hisnomadic variant the tramp are equally entitled. 

Further, the imaginative man, if his life is to be tolerable to him, must have leisure to tell himself stories, and a position which lendsitself to imaginative decoration. The ranks of unskilled labor offer nosuch positions. We misuse our laborers horribly; and when a man refusesto be misused, we have no right to say that he is refusing honest work. Let us be frank in this matter before we go on with our play; so that wemay enjoy it without hypocrisy. If we were reasoning, farsighted people, four fifths of us would go straight to the Guardians for relief, and knock the whole social system to pieces with most beneficialreconstructive results. The reason we do got do this is because we worklike bees or ants, by instinct or habit, not reasoning about the matterat all. Therefore when a man comes along who can and does reason, andwho, applying the Kantian test to his conduct, can truly say to us, Ifeverybody did as I do, the world would be compelled to reform itselfindustrially, and abolish slavery and squalor, which exist only becauseeverybody does as you do, let us honor that man and seriouslyconsider the advisability of following his example. Such a man is theable-bodied, able-minded pauper. Were he a gentleman doing his best toget a pension or a sinecure instead of sweeping a crossing, nobody wouldblame him; for deciding that so long as the alternative lies betweenliving mainly at the expense of the community and allowing the communityto live mainly at his, it would be folly to accept what is to himpersonally the greater of the two evils. 

We may therefore contemplate the tramps of the Sierra without prejudice, admitting cheerfully that our objects--briefly, to be gentlemen offortune--are much the same as theirs, and the difference in our positionand methods merely accidental. One or two of them, perhaps, it would bewiser to kill without malice in a friendly and frank manner; for thereare bipeds, just as there are quadrupeds, who are too dangerous to beleft unchained and unmuzzled; and these cannot fairly expect to haveother men's lives wasted in the work of watching them. But as societyhas not the courage to kill them, and, when it catches them, simplywreaks on them some superstitious expiatory rites of torture anddegradation, and than lets them loose with heightened qualifications formischief; it is just as well that they are at large in the Sierra, and in the hands of a chief who looks as if he might possibly, onprovocation, order them to be shot. 

This chief, seated in the centre of the group on a squared block ofstone from the quarry, is a tall strong man, with a striking cockatoonose, glossy black hair, pointed beard, upturned moustache, and aMephistophelean affectation which is fairly imposing, perhaps becausethe scenery admits of a larger swagger than Piccadilly, perhaps becauseof a certain sentimentality in the man which gives him that touch ofgrace which alone can excuse deliberate picturesqueness. His eyes andmouth are by no means rascally; he has a fine voice and a ready wit; andwhether he is really the strongest man in the party, or not, he looksit. He is certainly, the best fed, the best dressed, and the besttrained. The fact that he speaks English is not unexpected in spite ofthe Spanish landscape; for with the exception of one man who might beguessed as a bullfighter ruined by drink and one unmistakable Frenchman, they are all cockney or American; therefore, in a land of cloaks andsombreros, they mostly wear seedy overcoats, woollen mufflers, hardhemispherical hats, and dirty brown gloves. Only a very few dress aftertheir leader, whose broad sombrero with a cock's feather in the band, and voluminous cloak descending to his high boots, are as un-English aspossible. None of them are armed; and the ungloved ones keep their handsin their pockets because it is their national belief that it must bedangerously cold in the open air with the night coming on. (It is aswarm an evening as any reasonable man could desire). 

Except the bullfighting inebriate there is only one person in thecompany who looks more than, say, thirty-three. He is a small man withreddish whiskers, weak eyes, and the anxious look of a small tradesmanin difficulties. He wears the only tall hat visible: it shines in thesunset with the sticky glow of some sixpenny patent hat reviver, oftenapplied and constantly tending to produce a worse state of the originalsurface than the ruin it was applied to remedy. He has a collar and cuffof celluloid; and his brown Chesterfield overcoat, with velvet collar, is still presentable. He is pre-eminently the respectable man of theparty, and is certainly over forty, possibly over fifty. He is thecorner man on the leader's right, opposite three men in scarlet ties onhis left. One of these three is the Frenchman. Of the remaining two, whoare both English, one is argumentative, solemn, and obstinate; the otherrowdy and mischievous. 

The chief, with a magnificent fling of the end of his cloak across hisleft shoulder, rises to address them. The applause which greets himshows that he is a favorite orator. 

THE CHIEF. Friends and fellow brigands. I have a proposal to maketo this meeting. We have now spent three evenings in discussing thequestion Have Anarchists or Social-Democrats the most personal courage?We have gone into the principles of Anarchism and Social-Democracy atgreat length. The cause of Anarchy has been ably represented by our oneAnarchist, who doesn't know what Anarchism means [laughter]--

THE ANARCHIST. [rising] A point of order, Mendoza--

MENDOZA. [forcibly] No, by thunder: your last point of order took halfan hour. Besides, Anarchists don't believe in order. 

THE ANARCHIST. [mild, polite but persistent: he is, in fact, therespectable looking elderly man in the celluloid collar and cuffs] Thatis a vulgar error. I can prove--

MENDOZA. Order, order. 

THE OTHERS [shouting] Order, order. Sit down. Chair! Shut up. 

The Anarchist is suppressed. 

MENDOZA. On the other hand we have three Social-Democrats among us. Theyare not on speaking terms; and they have put before us three distinctand incompatible views of Social-Democracy. 

THE MAJORITY. [shouting assent] Hear, hear! So we are. Right. 

THE ROWDY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT. [smarting under oppression] You ain't noChristian. You're a Sheeny, you are. 

MENDOZA. [with crushing magnanimity] My friend; I am an exception toall rules. It is true that I have the honor to be a Jew; and, when theZionists need a leader to reassemble our race on its historic soilof Palestine, Mendoza will not be the last to volunteer [sympatheticapplause--hear, hear, etc. ]. But I am not a slave to any superstition. I have swallowed all the formulas, even that of Socialism; though, in asense, once a Socialist, always a Socialist. 

THE SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS. Hear, hear!

MENDOZA. But I am well aware that the ordinary man--even the ordinarybrigand, who can scarcely be called an ordinary man [Hear, hear!]--isnot a philosopher. Common sense is good enough for him; and in ourbusiness affairs common sense is good enough for me. Well, what is ourbusiness here in the Sierra Nevada, chosen by the Moors as the fairestspot in Spain? Is it to discuss abstruse questions of political economy?No: it is to hold up motor cars and secure a more equitable distributionof wealth. 

THE SULKY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT. All made by labor, mind you. 

MENDOZA. [urbanely] Undoubtedly. All made by labor, and on its way to besquandered by wealthy vagabonds in the dens of vice that disfigure thesunny shores of the Mediterranean. We intercept that wealth. We restoreit to circulation among the class that produced it and that chieflyneeds it--the working class. We do this at the risk of our livesand liberties, by the exercise of the virtues of courage, endurance, foresight, and abstinence--especially abstinence. I myself have eatennothing but prickly pears and broiled rabbit for three days. 

THE SULKY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT. [Stubbornly] No more ain't we. 

MENDOZA. [indignantly] Have I taken more than my share?

THE SULKY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT. [unmoved] Why should you?

THE ANARCHIST. Why should he not? To each according to his needs: fromeach according to his means. 

THE FRENCHMAN. [shaking his fist at the anarchist] Fumiste!

MENDOZA. [diplomatically] I agree with both of you. 

THE GENUINELY ENGLISH BRIGANDS. Hear, hear! Bravo, Mendoza!

MENDOZA. What I say is, let us treat one another as gentlemen, andstrive to excel in personal courage only when we take the field. 

THE ROWDY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT. [derisively] Shikespear. 

A whistle comes from the goatherd on the hill. He springs up and pointsexcitedly forward along the road to the north. 

THE GOATHERD. Automobile! Automobile! [He rushes down the hill and joinsthe rest, who all scramble to their feet]. 

MENDOZA. [in ringing tones] To arms! Who has the gun?

THE SULKY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT. [handing a rifle to Mendoza] Here. 

MENDOZA. Have the nails been strewn in the road?

THE ROWDY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT. Two ahnces of em. 

MENDOZA. Good! [To the Frenchman] With me, Duval. If the nails fail, puncture their tires with a bullet. [He gives the rifle to Duval, whofollows him up the hill. Mendoza produces an opera glass. The othershurry across to the road and disappear to the north]. 

MENDOZA. [on the hill, using his glass] Two only, a capitalist and hischauffeur. They look English. 

DUVAL. Angliche! Aoh yess. Cochons! [Handling the rifle] Faut tire, n'est-ce-pas?

MENDOZA. No: the nails have gone home. Their tire is down: they stop. 

DUVAL. [shouting to the others] Fondez sur eux, nom de Dieu!

MENDOZA. [rebuking his excitement] Du calme, Duval: keep your hair on. They take it quietly. Let us descend and receive them. 

Mendoza descends, passing behind the fire and coming forward, whilstTanner and Straker, in their motoring goggles, leather coats, and caps, are led in from the road by brigands. 

TANNER. Is this the gentleman you describe as your boss? Does he speakEnglish?

THE ROWDY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT. Course he does. Y'don't suppowz weHinglishmen lets ahrselves be bossed by a bloomin Spenniard, do you?

MENDOZA. [with dignity] Allow me to introduce myself: Mendoza, Presidentof the League of the Sierra! [Posing loftily] I am a brigand: I live byrobbing the rich. 

TANNER. [promptly] I am a gentleman: I live by robbing the poor. Shakehands. 

THE ENGLISH SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS. Hear, hear!

General laughter and good humor. Tanner and Mendoza shake hands. TheBrigands drop into their former places. 

STRAKER. Ere! where do I come in?

TANNER. [introducing] My friend and chauffeur. 

THE SULKY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT. [suspiciously] Well, which is he? friend orshow-foor? It makes all the difference you know. 

MENDOZA. [explaining] We should expect ransom for a friend. Aprofessional chauffeur is free of the mountains. He even takes atrifling percentage of his princpal's ransom if he will honor us byaccepting it. 

STRAKER. I see. Just to encourage me to come this way again. Well, I'llthink about it. 

DUVAL. [impulsively rushing across to Straker] Mon frere! [He embraceshim rapturously and kisses him on both cheeks]. 

STRAKER. [disgusted] Ere, git out: don't be silly. Who are you, pray?

DUVAL. Duval: Social-Democrat. 

STRAKER. Oh, you're a Social-Democrat, are you?

THE ANARCHIST. He means that he has sold out to the parliamentaryhumbugs and the bourgeoisie. Compromise! that is his faith. 

DUVAL. [furiously] I understand what he say. He say Bourgeois. He sayCompromise. Jamais de la vie! Miserable menteur--

STRAKER. See here, Captain Mendoza, ow much o this sort o thing do youput up with here? Are we avin a pleasure trip in the mountains, or arewe at a Socialist meetin?

THE MAJORITY. Hear, hear! Shut up. Chuck it. Sit down, etc. Etc. [TheSocial-Democrats and the Anarchist are hurtled into the background. Straker, after superintending this proceeding with satisfaction, placeshimself on Mendoza's left, Tanner being on his right]. 

MENDOZA. Can we offer you anything? Broiled rabbit and prickly pears--

TANNER. Thank you: we have dined. 

MENDOZA. [to his followers] Gentlemen: business is over for the day. Goas you please until morning. 

The Brigands disperse into groups lazily. Some go into the cave. Otherssit down or lie down to sleep in the open. A few produce a pack of cardsand move off towards the road; for it is now starlight; and they knowthat motor cars have lamps which can be turned to account for lighting acard party. 

STRAKER. [calling after them] Don't none of you go fooling with thatcar, d'ye hear?

MENDOZA. No fear, Monsieur le Chauffeur. The first one we captured curedus of that. 

STRAKER. [interested] What did it do?

MENDOZA. It carried three brave comrades of ours, who did not know howto stop it, into Granada, and capsized them opposite the police station. Since then we never touch one without sending for the chauffeur. Shallwe chat at our ease?

TANNER. By all means. 

Tanner, Mendoza, and Straker sit down on the turf by the fire. Mendozadelicately waives his presidential dignity, of which the right to sit onthe squared stone block is the appanage, by sitting on the ground likehis guests, and using the stone only as a support for his back. 

MENDOZA. It is the custom in Spain always to put off business untilto-morrow. In fact, you have arrived out of office hours. However, ifyou would prefer to settle the question of ransom at once, I am at yourservice. 

TANNER. To-morrow will do for me. I am rich enough to pay anything inreason. 

MENDOZA. [respectfully, much struck by this admission] You are aremarkable man, sir. Our guests usually describe themselves as miserablypoor. 

TANNER. Pooh! Miserably poor people don't own motor cars. 

MENDOZA. Precisely what we say to them. 

TANNER. Treat us well: we shall not prove ungrateful. 

STRAKER. No prickly pears and broiled rabbits, you know. Don't tell meyou can't do us a bit better than that if you like. 

MENDOZA. Wine, kids, milk, cheese and bread can be procured for readymoney. 

STRAKER. [graciously] Now you're talking. 

TANNER. Are you all Socialists here, may I ask?

MENDOZA. [repudiating this humiliating misconception] Oh no, no, no:nothing of the kind, I assure you. We naturally have modern views as tothe justice of the existing distribution of wealth: otherwise we shouldlose our self-respect. But nothing that you could take exception to, except two or three faddists. 

TANNER. I had no intention of suggesting anything discreditable. Infact, I am a bit of a Socialist myself. 

STRAKER. [drily] Most rich men are, I notice. 

MENDOZA. Quite so. It has reached us, I admit. It is in the air of thecentury. 

STRAKER. Socialism must be looking up a bit if your chaps are taking toit. 

MENDOZA. That is true, sir. A movement which is confined to philosophersand honest men can never exercise any real political influence: thereare too few of them. Until a movement shows itself capable of spreadingamong brigands, it can never hope for a political majority. 

TANNER. But are your brigands any less honest than ordinary citizens?

MENDOZA. Sir: I will be frank with you. Brigandage is abnormal. Abnormalprofessions attract two classes: those who are not good enough forordinary bourgeois life and those who are too good for it. We are dregsand scum, sir: the dregs very filthy, the scum very superior. 

STRAKER. Take care! some o the dregs'll hear you. 

MENDOZA. It does not matter: each brigand thinks himself scum, and likesto hear the others called dregs. 

TANNER. Come! you are a wit. [Mendoza inclines his head, flattered]. Mayone ask you a blunt question?

MENDOZA. As blunt as you please. 

TANNER. How does it pay a man of your talent to shepherd such a flock asthis on broiled rabbit and prickly pears? I have seen men less gifted, and I'll swear less honest, supping at the Savoy on foie gras andchampagne. 

MENDOZA. Pooh! they have all had their turn at the broiled rabbit, justas I shall have my turn at the Savoy. Indeed, I have had a turn therealready--as waiter. 

TANNER. A waiter! You astonish me!

MENDOZA. [reflectively] Yes: I, Mendoza of the Sierra, was a waiter. Hence, perhaps, my cosmopolitanism. [With sudden intensity] Shall I tellyou the story of my life?

STRAKER. [apprehensively] If it ain't too long, old chap--

TANNER. [interrupting him] Tsh-sh: you are a Philistine, Henry: you haveno romance in you. [To Mendoza] You interest me extremely, President. Never mind Henry: he can go to sleep. 

MENDOZA. The woman I loved--

STRAKER. Oh, this is a love story, is it? Right you are. Go on: I wasonly afraid you were going to talk about yourself. 

MENDOZA. Myself! I have thrown myself away for her sake: that is whyI am here. No matter: I count the world well lost for her. She had, Ipledge you my word, the most magnificent head of hair I ever saw. Shehad humor; she had intellect; she could cook to perfection; and herhighly strung temperament made her uncertain, incalculable, variable, capricious, cruel, in a word, enchanting. 

STRAKER. A six shillin novel sort o woman, all but the cookin. Er namewas Lady Gladys Plantagenet, wasn't it?

MENDOZA. No, sir: she was not an earl's daughter. Photography, reproduced by the half-tone process, has made me familiar with theappearance of the daughters of the English peerage; and I can honestlysay that I would have sold the lot, faces, dowries, clothes, titles, andall, for a smile from this woman. Yet she was a woman of the people, a worker: otherwise--let me reciprocate your bluntness--I should havescorned her. 

TANNER. Very properly. And did she respond to your love?

MENDOZA. Should I be here if she did? She objected to marry a Jew. 

TANNER. On religious grounds?

MENDOZA. No: she was a freethinker. She said that every Jew considers inhis heart that English people are dirty in their habits. 

TANNER. [surprised] Dirty!

MENDOZA. It showed her extraordinary knowledge of the world; for itis undoubtedly true. Our elaborate sanitary code makes us undulycontemptuous of the Gentile. 

TANNER. Did you ever hear that, Henry?

STRAKER. I've heard my sister say so. She was cook in a Jewish familyonce. 

MENDOZA. I could not deny it; neither could I eradicate the impressionit made on her mind. I could have got round any other objection; butno woman can stand a suspicion of indelicacy as to her person. Myentreaties were in vain: she always retorted that she wasn't good enoughfor me, and recommended me to marry an accursed barmaid named RebeccaLazarus, whom I loathed. I talked of suicide: she offered me a packetof beetle poison to do it with. I hinted at murder: she went intohysterics; and as I am a living man I went to America so that she mightsleep without dreaming that I was stealing upstairs to cut her throat. In America I went out west and fell in with a man who was wanted by thepolice for holding up trains. It was he who had the idea of holding upmotors cars--in the South of Europe: a welcome idea to a desperate anddisappointed man. He gave me some valuable introductions to capitalistsof the right sort. I formed a syndicate; and the present enterprise isthe result. I became leader, as the Jew always becomes leader, by hisbrains and imagination. But with all my pride of race I would giveeverything I possess to be an Englishman. I am like a boy: I cut hername on the trees and her initials on the sod. When I am alone I liedown and tear my wretched hair and cry Louisa--

STRAKER. [startled] Louisa!

MENDOZA. It is her name--Louisa--Louisa Straker--

TANNER. Straker!

STRAKER. [scrambling up on his knees most indignantly] Look here: LouisaStraker is my sister, see? Wot do you mean by gassin about her likethis? Wot she got to do with you?

MENDOZA. A dramatic coincidence! You are Enry, her favorite brother!

STRAKER. Oo are you callin Enry? What call have you to take a libertywith my name or with hers? For two pins I'd punch your fat ed, so Iwould. 

MENDOZA. [with grandiose calm] If I let you do it, will you promise tobrag of it afterwards to her? She will be reminded of her Mendoza: thatis all I desire. 

TANNER. This is genuine devotion, Henry. You should respect it. 

STRAKER. [fiercely] Funk, more likely. 

MENDOZA. [springing to his feet] Funk! Young man: I come of a famousfamily of fighters; and as your sister well knows, you would have asmuch chance against me as a perambulator against your motor car. 

STRAKER. [secretly daunted, but rising from his knees with an air ofreckless pugnacity] I ain't afraid of you. With your Louisa! Louisa!Miss Straker is good enough for you, I should think. 

MENDOZA. I wish you could persuade her to think so. 

STRAKER. [exasperated] Here--

TANNER. [rising quickly and interposing] Oh come, Henry: even if youcould fight the President you can't fight the whole League of theSierra. Sit down again and be friendly. A cat may look at a king; andeven a President of brigands may look at your sister. All this familypride is really very old fashioned. 

STRAKER. [subdued, but grumbling] Let him look at her. But wot does hemean by makin out that she ever looked at im? [Reluctantly resuming hiscouch on the turf] Ear him talk, one ud think she was keepin companywith him. [He turns his back on them and composes himself to sleep]. 

MENDOZA. [to Tanner, becoming more confidential as he finds himselfvirtually alone with a sympathetic listener in the still starlight ofthe mountains; for all the rest are asleep by this time] It was just sowith her, sir. Her intellect reached forward into the twentieth century:her social prejudices and family affections reached back into the darkages. Ah, sir, how the words of Shakespear seem to fit every crisis inour emotions!

 I loved Louisa: 40, 000 brothers Could not with all their quantity of love Make up my sum. 

And so on. I forget the rest. Call it madness if you will--infatuation. I am an able man, a strong man: in ten years I should have owned afirst-class hotel. I met her; and you see! I am a brigand, an outcast. Even Shakespear cannot do justice to what I feel for Louisa. Let meread you some lines that I have written about her myself. However slighttheir literary merit may be, they express what I feel better than anycasual words can. [He produces a packet of hotel bills scrawled withmanuscript, and kneels at the fire to decipher them, poking it with astick to make it glow]. 

TANNER. [clapping him rudely on the shoulder] Put them in the fire, President. 

MENDOZA. [startled] Eh?

TANNER. You are sacrificing your career to a monomania. 

MENDOZA. I know it. 

TANNER. No you don't. No man would commit such a crime against himselfif he really knew what he was doing. How can you look round at theseaugust hills, look up at this divine sky, taste this finely temperedair, and then talk like a literary hack on a second floor in Bloomsbury?

MENDOZA. [shaking his head] The Sierra is no better than Bloomsbury whenonce the novelty has worn off. Besides, these mountains make you dreamof women--of women with magnificent hair. 

TANNER. Of Louisa, in short. They will not make me dream of women, myfriend: I am heartwhole. 

MENDOZA. Do not boast until morning, sir. This is a strange country fordreams. 

TANNER. Well, we shall see. Goodnight. [He lies down and composeshimself to sleep]. 

Mendoza, with a sigh, follows his example; and for a few momentsthere is peace in the Sierra. Then Mendoza sits up suddenly and sayspleadingly to Tanner--

MENDOZA. Just allow me to read a few lines before you go to sleep. Ishould really like your opinion of them. 

TANNER. [drowsily] Go on. I am listening. 

MENDOZA. I saw thee first in Whitsun week Louisa, Louisa--

TANNER. [roaring himself] My dear President, Louisa is a very prettyname; but it really doesn't rhyme well to Whitsun week. 

MENDOZA. Of course not. Louisa is not the rhyme, but the refrain. 

TANNER. [subsiding] Ah, the refrain. I beg your pardon. Go on. 

MENDOZA. Perhaps you do not care for that one: I think you will likethis better. [He recites, in rich soft tones, and to slow time]

 Louisa, I love thee. I love thee, Louisa. Louisa, Louisa, Louisa, I love thee. One name and one phrase make my music, Louisa. Louisa, Louisa, Louisa, I love thee. 

 Mendoza thy lover, Thy lover, Mendoza, Mendoza adoringly lives for Louisa. There's nothing but that in the world for Mendoza. Louisa, Louisa, Mendoza adores thee. 

[Affected] There is no merit in producing beautiful lines upon such aname. Louisa is an exquisite name, is it not?

TANNER. [all but asleep, responds with a faint groan]. 

MENDOZA. 

 O wert thou, Louisa, The wife of Mendoza, Mendoza's Louisa, Louisa Mendoza, How blest were the life of Louisa's Mendoza! How painless his longing of love for Louisa!

That is real poetry--from the heart--from the heart of hearts. Don't youthink it will move her?

No answer. 

[Resignedly] Asleep, as usual. Doggrel to all the world; heavenly musicto me! Idiot that I am to wear my heart on my sleeve! [He composeshimself to sleep, murmuring] Louisa, I love thee; I love thee, Louisa;Louisa, Louisa, Louisa, I--

Straker snores; rolls over on his side; and relapses into sleep. Stillness settles on the Sierra; and the darkness deepens. The firehas again buried itself in white ash and ceased to glow. The peaks showunfathomably dark against the starry firmament; but now the stars dimand vanish; and the sky seems to steal away out of the universe. Insteadof the Sierra there is nothing; omnipresent nothing. No sky, no peaks, no light, no sound, no time nor space, utter void. Then somewherethe beginning of a pallor, and with it a faint throbbing buzz as of aghostly violoncello palpitating on the same note endlessly. A couple ofghostly violins presently take advantage of this bass

(a staff of music is supplied here)

and therewith the pallor reveals a man in the void, an incorporeal butvisible man, seated, absurdly enough, on nothing. For a moment he raiseshis head as the music passes him by. Then, with a heavy sigh, he droopsin utter dejection; and the violins, discouraged, retrace their melodyin despair and at last give it up, extinguished by wailings from uncannywind instruments, thus:--

(more music)

It is all very odd. One recognizes the Mozartian strain; and on thishint, and by the aid of certain sparkles of violet light in the pallor, the man's costume explains itself as that of a Spanish nobleman of theXV-XVI century. Don Juan, of course; but where? why? how? Besides, inthe brief lifting of his face, now hidden by his hat brim, there wasa curious suggestion of Tanner. A more critical, fastidious, handsomeface, paler and colder, without Tanner's impetuous credulity andenthusiasm, and without a touch of his modern plutocratic vulgarity, butstill a resemblance, even an identity. The name too: Don Juan Tenorio, John Tanner. Where on earth---or elsewhere--have we got to from the XXcentury and the Sierra?

Another pallor in the void, this time not violet, but a disagreeablesmoky yellow. With it, the whisper of a ghostly clarionet turning thistune into infinite sadness:

(Here there is another musical staff. )

The yellowish pallor moves: there is an old crone wandering in the void, bent and toothless; draped, as well as one can guess, in the coarsebrown frock of some religious order. She wanders and wanders in herslow hopeless way, much as a wasp flies in its rapid busy way, untilshe blunders against the thing she seeks: companionship. With a sob ofrelief the poor old creature clutches at the presence of the man andaddresses him in her dry unlovely voice, which can still express prideand resolution as well as suffering. 

THE OLD WOMAN. Excuse me; but I am so lonely; and this place is soawful. 

DON JUAN. A new comer?

THE OLD WOMAN. Yes: I suppose I died this morning. I confessed; I hadextreme unction; I was in bed with my family about me and my eyes fixedon the cross. Then it grew dark; and when the light came back it wasthis light by which I walk seeing nothing. I have wandered for hours inhorrible loneliness. 

DON JUAN. [sighing] Ah! you have not yet lost the sense of time. Onesoon does, in eternity. 

THE OLD WOMAN. Where are we?

DON JUAN. In hell. 

THE OLD WOMAN [proudly] Hell! I in hell! How dare you?

DON JUAN. [unimpressed] Why not, Senora?

THE OLD WOMAN. You do not know to whom you are speaking. I am a lady, and a faithful daughter of the Church. 

DON JUAN. I do not doubt it. 

THE OLD WOMAN. But how then can I be in hell? Purgatory, perhaps: I havenot been perfect: who has? But hell! oh, you are lying. 

DON JUAN. Hell, Senora, I assure you; hell at its best that is, its mostsolitary--though perhaps you would prefer company. 

THE OLD WOMAN. But I have sincerely repented; I have confessed. 

DON JUAN. How much?

THE OLD WOMAN. More sins than I really committed. I loved confession. 

DON JUAN. Ah, that is perhaps as bad as confessing too little. At allevents, Senora, whether by oversight or intention, you are certainlydamned, like myself; and there is nothing for it now but to make thebest of it. 

THE OLD WOMAN [indignantly] Oh! and I might have been so much wickeder!All my good deeds wasted! It is unjust. 

DON JUAN. No: you were fully and clearly warned. For your bad deeds, vicarious atonement, mercy without justice. For your good deeds, justicewithout mercy. We have many good people here. 

THE OLD WOMAN. Were you a good man?

DON JUAN. I was a murderer. 

THE OLD WOMAN. A murderer! Oh, how dare they send me to herd withmurderers! I was not as bad as that: I was a good woman. There is somemistake: where can I have it set right?

DON JUAN. I do not know whether mistakes can be corrected here. Probablythey will not admit a mistake even if they have made one. 

THE OLD WOMAN. But whom can I ask?

DON JUAN. I should ask the Devil, Senora: he understands the ways ofthis place, which is more than I ever could. 

THE OLD WOMAN. The Devil! I speak to the Devil!

DON JUAN. In hell, Senora, the Devil is the leader of the best society. 

THE OLD WOMAN. I tell you, wretch, I know I am not in hell. 

DON JUAN. How do you know?

THE OLD WOMAN. Because I feel no pain. 

DON JUAN. Oh, then there is no mistake: you are intentionally damned. 

THE OLD WOMAN. Why do you say that?

DON JUAN. Because hell, Senora, is a place for the wicked. The wickedare quite comfortable in it: it was made for them. You tell me you feelno pain. I conclude you are one of those for whom Hell exists. 

THE OLD WOMAN. Do you feel no pain?

DON JUAN. I am not one of the wicked, Senora; therefore it bores me, bores me beyond description, beyond belief. 

THE OLD WOMAN. Not one of the wicked! You said you were a murderer. 

DON JUAN. Only a duel. I ran my sword through an old man who was tryingto run his through me. 

THE OLD WOMAN. If you were a gentleman, that was not a murder. 

DON JUAN. The old man called it murder, because he was, he said, defending his daughter's honor. By this he meant that because Ifoolishly fell in love with her and told her so, she screamed; and hetried to assassinate me after calling me insulting names. 

THE OLD WOMAN. You were like all men. Libertines and murderers all, all, all!

DON JUAN. And yet we meet here, dear lady. 

THE OLD WOMAN. Listen to me. My father was slain by just such a wretchas you, in just such a duel, for just such a cause. I screamed: it wasmy duty. My father drew on my assailant: his honor demanded it. He fell:that was the reward of honor. I am here: in hell, you tell me that isthe reward of duty. Is there justice in heaven?

DON JUAN. No; but there is justice in hell: heaven is far above suchidle human personalities. You will be welcome in hell, Senora. Hellis the home of honor, duty, justice, and the rest of the seven deadlyvirtues. All the wickedness on earth is done in their name: where elsebut in hell should they have their reward? Have I not told you that thetruly damned are those who are happy in hell?

THE OLD WOMAN. And are you happy here?

DON JUAN. [Springing to his feet] No; and that is the enigma on which Iponder in darkness. Why am I here? I, who repudiated all duty, trampledhonor underfoot, and laughed at justice!

THE OLD WOMAN. Oh, what do I care why you are here? Why am I here? I, who sacrificed all my inclinations to womanly virtue and propriety!

DON JUAN. Patience, lady: you will be perfectly happy and at home here. As with the poet, "Hell is a city much like Seville. "

THE OLD WOMAN. Happy! here! where I am nothing! where I am nobody!

DON JUAN. Not at all: you are a lady; and wherever ladies are is hell. Do not be surprised or terrified: you will find everything here that alady can desire, including devils who will serve you from sheer love ofservitude, and magnify your importance for the sake of dignifying theirservice--the best of servants. 

THE OLD WOMAN. My servants will be devils. 

DON JUAN. Have you ever had servants who were not devils?

THE OLD WOMAN. Never: they were devils, perfect devils, all of them. Butthat is only a manner of speaking. I thought you meant that my servantshere would be real devils. 

DON JUAN. No more real devils than you will be a real lady. Nothing isreal here. That is the horror of damnation. 

THE OLD WOMAN. Oh, this is all madness. This is worse than fire and theworm. 

DON JUAN. For you, perhaps, there are consolations. For instance: howold were you when you changed from time to eternity?

THE OLD WOMAN. Do not ask me how old I was as if I were a thing of thepast. I am 77. 

DON JUAN. A ripe age, Senora. But in hell old age is not tolerated. Itis too real. Here we worship Love and Beauty. Our souls being entirelydamned, we cultivate our hearts. As a lady of 77, you would not have asingle acquaintance in hell. 

THE OLD WOMAN. How can I help my age, man?

DON JUAN. You forget that you have left your age behind you in the realmof time. You are no more 77 than you are 7 or 17 or 27. 

THE OLD WOMAN. Nonsense!

DON JUAN. Consider, Senora: was not this true even when you lived onearth? When you were 70, were you really older underneath your wrinklesand your grey hams than when you were 30?

THE OLD WOMAN. No, younger: at 30 I was a fool. But of what use is it tofeel younger and look older?

DON JUAN. You see, Senora, the look was only an illusion. Your wrinkleslied, just as the plump smooth skin of many a stupid girl of 17, withheavy spirits and decrepit ideas, lies about her age? Well, here we haveno bodies: we see each other as bodies only because we learnt to thinkabout one another under that aspect when we were alive; and we stillthink in that way, knowing no other. But we can appear to one another atwhat age we choose. You have but to will any of your old looks back, andback they will come. 

THE OLD WOMAN. It cannot be true. 

DON JUAN. Try. 

THE OLD WOMAN. Seventeen!

DON JUAN. Stop. Before you decide, I had better tell you that thesethings are a matter of fashion. Occasionally we have a rage for 17; butit does not last long. Just at present the fashionable age is 40--or say37; but there are signs of a change. If you were at all good-looking at27, I should suggest your trying that, and setting a new fashion. 

THE OLD WOMAN. I do not believe a word you are saying. However, 27 beit. [Whisk! the old woman becomes a young one, and so handsome that inthe radiance into which her dull yellow halo has suddenly lightened onemight almost mistake her for Ann Whitefield]. 

DON JUAN. Dona Ana de Ulloa!

ANA. What? You know me!

DON JUAN. And you forget me!

ANA. I cannot see your face. [He raises his hat]. Don Juan Tenorio!Monster! You who slew my father! even here you pursue me. 

DON JUAN. I protest I do not pursue you. Allow me to withdraw [going]. 

ANA. [reining his arm] You shall not leave me alone in this dreadfulplace. 

DON JUAN. Provided my staying be not interpreted as pursuit. 

ANA. [releasing him] You may well wonder how I can endure your presence. My dear, dear father!

DON JUAN. Would you like to see him?

ANA. My father HERE!!!

DON JUAN. No: he is in heaven. 

ANA. I knew it. My noble father! He is looking down on us now. What musthe feel to see his daughter in this place, and in conversation with hismurderer!

DON JUAN. By the way, if we should meet him--

ANA. How can we meet him? He is in heaven. 

DON JUAN. He condescends to look in upon us here from time to time. Heaven bores him. So let me warn you that if you meet him he will bemortally offended if you speak of me as his murderer! He maintains thathe was a much better swordsman than I, and that if his foot had notslipped he would have killed me. No doubt he is right: I was not a goodfencer. I never dispute the point; so we are excellent friends. 

ANA. It is no dishonor to a soldier to be proud of his skill in arms. 

DON JUAN. You would rather not meet him, probably. 

ANA. How dare you say that?

DON JUAN. Oh, that is the usual feeling here. You may remember that onearth--though of course we never confessed it--the death of anyonewe knew, even those we liked best, was always mingled with a certainsatisfaction at being finally done with them. 

ANA. Monster! Never, never. 

DON JUAN. [placidly] I see you recognize the feeling. Yes: a funeral wasalways a festivity in black, especially the funeral of a relative. Atall events, family ties are rarely kept up here. Your father is quiteaccustomed to this: he will not expect any devotion from you. 

ANA. Wretch: I wore mourning for him all my life. 

DON JUAN. Yes: it became you. But a life of mourning is one thing: aneternity of it quite another. Besides, here you are as dead as he. Cananything be more ridiculous than one dead person mourning for another?Do not look shocked, my dear Ana; and do not be alarmed: there is plentyof humbug in hell (indeed there is hardly anything else); but the humbugof death and age and change is dropped because here WE are all dead andall eternal. You will pick up our ways soon. 

ANA. And will all the men call me their dear Ana?

DON JUAN. No. That was a slip of the tongue. I beg your pardon. 

ANA. [almost tenderly] Juan: did you really love me when you behaved sodisgracefully to me?

DON JUAN. [impatiently] Oh, I beg you not to begin talking about love. Here they talk of nothing else but love--its beauty, its holiness, itsspirituality, its devil knows what!--excuse me; but it does so bore me. They don't know what they're talking about. I do. They think they haveachieved the perfection of love because they have no bodies. Sheerimaginative debauchery! Faugh!

ANA. Has even death failed to refine your soul, Juan? Has the terriblejudgment of which my father's statue was the minister taught you noreverence?

DON JUAN. How is that very flattering statue, by the way? Does it stillcome to supper with naughty people and cast them into this bottomlesspit?

ANA. It has been a great expense to me. The boys in the monastery schoolwould not let it alone: the mischievous ones broke it; and the studiousones wrote their names on it. Three new noses in two years, and fingerswithout end. I had to leave it to its fate at last; and now I fear it isshockingly mutilated. My poor father!

DON JUAN. Hush! Listen! [Two great chords rolling on syncopated waves ofsound break forth: D minor and its dominant: a round of dreadful joy toall musicians]. Ha! Mozart's statue music. It is your father. You hadbetter disappear until I prepare him. [She vanishes]. 

From the void comes a living statue of white marble, designed torepresent a majestic old man. But he waives his majesty with infinitegrace; walks with a feather-like step; and makes every wrinkle in hiswar worn visage brim over with holiday joyousness. To his sculptor heowes a perfectly trained figure, which he carries erect and trim; andthe ends of his moustache curl up, elastic as watchsprings, giving himan air which, but for its Spanish dignity, would be called jaunty. He ison the pleasantest terms with Don Juan. His voice, save for a much moredistinguished intonation, is so like the voice of Roebuck Ramsden thatit calls attention to the fact that they are not unlike one another inspite of their very different fashion of shaving. 

DON JUAN. Ah, here you are, my friend. Why don't you learn to sing thesplendid music Mozart has written for you?

THE STATUE. Unluckily he has written it for a bass voice. Mine is acounter tenor. Well: have you repented yet?

DON JUAN. I have too much consideration for you to repent, Don Gonzalo. If I did, you would have no excuse for coming from Heaven to argue withme. 

THE STATUE. True. Remain obdurate, my boy. I wish I had killed you, as Ishould have done but for an accident. Then I should have come here; andyou would have had a statue and a reputation for piety to live up to. Any news?

DON JUAN. Yes: your daughter is dead. 

THE STATUE. [puzzled] My daughter? [Recollecting] Oh! the one you weretaken with. Let me see: what was her name?

DON JUAN. Ana. 

THE STATUE. To be sure: Ana. A goodlooking girl, if I recollect aright. Have you warned Whatshisname--her husband?

DON JUAN. My friend Ottavio? No: I have not seen him since Ana arrived. 

Ana comes indignantly to light. 

ANA. What does this mean? Ottavio here and YOUR friend! And you, father, have forgotten my name. You are indeed turned to stone. 

THE STATUE. My dear: I am so much more admired in marble than I ever wasin my own person that I have retained the shape the sculptor gave me. Hewas one of the first men of his day: you must acknowledge that. 

ANA. Father! Vanity! personal vanity! from you!

THE STATUE. Ah, you outlived that weakness, my daughter: you must benearly 80 by this time. I was cut off (by an accident) in my 64th year, and am considerably your junior in consequence. Besides, my child, in this place, what our libertine friend here would call the farce ofparental wisdom is dropped. Regard me, I beg, as a fellow creature, notas a father. 

ANA. You speak as this villain speaks. 

THE STATUE. Juan is a sound thinker, Ana. A bad fencer, but a soundthinker. 

ANA. [horror creeping upon her] I begin to understand. These are devils, mocking me. I had better pray. 

THE STATUE. [consoling her] No, no, no, my child: do not pray. If youdo, you will throw away the main advantage of this place. Written overthe gate here are the words "Leave every hope behind, ye who enter. "Only think what a relief that is! For what is hope? A form of moralresponsibility. Here there is no hope, and consequently no duty, nowork, nothing to be gained by praying, nothing to be lost by doing whatyou like. Hell, in short, is a place where you have nothing to do butamuse yourself. [Don Juan sighs deeply]. You sigh, friend Juan; but ifyou dwelt in heaven, as I do, you would realize your advantages. 

DON JUAN. You are in good spirits to-day, Commander. You are positivelybrilliant. What is the matter?

THE STATUE. I have come to a momentous decision, my boy. But first, where is our friend the Devil? I must consult him in the matter. And Anawould like to make his acquaintance, no doubt. 

ANA. You are preparing some torment for me. 

DON JUAN. All that is superstition, Ana. Reassure yourself. Remember:the devil is not so black as he is painted. 

THE STATUE. Let us give him a call. 

At the wave of the statue's hand the great chords roll out again butthis time Mozart's music gets grotesquely adulterated with Gounod's. A scarlet halo begins to glow; and into it the Devil rises, veryMephistophelean, and not at all unlike Mendoza, though not sointeresting. He looks older; is getting prematurely bald; and, in spiteof an effusion of goodnature and friendliness, is peevish and sensitivewhen his advances are not reciprocated. He does not inspire muchconfidence in his powers of hard work or endurance, and is, on thewhole, a disagreeably self-indulgent looking person; but he is cleverand plausible, though perceptibly less well bred than the two other men, and enormously less vital than the woman. 

THE DEVIL. [heartily] Have I the pleasure of again receiving a visitfrom the illustrious Commander of Calatrava? [Coldly] Don Juan, yourservant. [Politely] And a strange lady? My respects, Senora. 

ANA. Are you--

THE DEVIL. [bowing] Lucifer, at your service. 

ANA. I shall go mad. 

THE DEVIL. [gallantly] Ah, Senora, do not be anxious. You come to usfrom earth, full of the prejudices and terrors of that priest-riddenplace. You have heard me ill spoken of; and yet, believe me, I havehosts of friends there. 

ANA. Yes: you reign in their hearts. 

THE DEVIL. [shaking his head] You flatter me, Senora; but you aremistaken. It is true that the world cannot get on without me; but itnever gives me credit for that: in its heart it mistrusts and hates me. Its sympathies are all with misery, with poverty, with starvation of thebody and of the heart. I call on it to sympathize with joy, with love, with happiness, with beauty. 

DON JUAN. [nauseated] Excuse me: I am going. You know I cannot standthis. 

THE DEVIL. [angrily] Yes: I know that you are no friend of mine. 

THE STATUE. What harm is he doing you, Juan? It seems to me that he wastalking excellent sense when you interrupted him. 

THE DEVIL. [warmly shaking the statue's hand] Thank you, my friend:thank you. You have always understood me: he has always disparaged andavoided me. 

DON JUAN. I have treated you with perfect courtesy. 

THE DEVIL. Courtesy! What is courtesy? I care nothing for mere courtesy. Give me warmth of heart, true sincerity, the bond of sympathy with loveand joy--

DON JUAN. You are making me ill. 

THE DEVIL. There! [Appealing to the statue] You hear, sir! Oh, by whatirony of fate was this cold selfish egotist sent to my kingdom, and youtaken to the icy mansions of the sky!

THE STATUE. I can't complain. I was a hypocrite; and it served me rightto be sent to heaven. 

THE DEVIL. Why, sir, do you not join us, and leave a sphere for whichyour temperament is too sympathetic, your heart too warm, your capacityfor enjoyment too generous?

THE STATUE. I have this day resolved to do so. In future, excellent Sonof the Morning, I am yours. I have left Heaven for ever. 

THE DEVIL. [again grasping his hand] Ah, what an honor for me! What atriumph for our cause! Thank you, thank you. And now, my friend--I maycall you so at last--could you not persuade HIM to take the place youhave left vacant above?

THE STATUE. [shaking his head] I cannot conscientiously recommendanybody with whom I am on friendly terms to deliberately make himselfdull and uncomfortable. 

THE DEVIL. Of course not; but are you sure HE would be uncomfortable?Of course you know best: you brought him here originally; and we had thegreatest hopes of him. His sentiments were in the best taste of our bestpeople. You remember how he sang? [He begins to sing in a nasal operaticbaritone, tremulous from an eternity of misuse in the French manner]. 

 Vivan le femmine! Viva il buon vino!

THE STATUE. [taking up the tune an octave higher in his counter tenor]

 Sostegno a gloria D'umanita. 

THE DEVIL. Precisely. Well, he never sings for us now. 

DON JUAN. Do you complain of that? Hell is full of musical amateurs:music is the brandy of the damned. May not one lost soul be permitted toabstain?

THE DEVIL. You dare blaspheme against the sublimest of the arts!

DON JUAN. [with cold disgust] You talk like a hysterical woman fawningon a fiddler. 

THE DEVIL. I am not angry. I merely pity you. You have no soul; and youare unconscious of all that you lose. Now you, Senor Commander, are aborn musician. How well you sing! Mozart would be delighted if he werestill here; but he moped and went to heaven. Curious how these clevermen, whom you would have supposed born to be popular here, have turnedout social failures, like Don Juan!

DON JUAN. I am really very sorry to be a social failure. 

THE DEVIL. Not that we don't admire your intellect, you know. We do. ButI look at the matter from your own point of view. You don't get on withus. The place doesn't suit you. The truth is, you have--I won't say noheart; for we know that beneath all your affected cynicism you have awarm one. 

DON JUAN. [shrinking] Don't, please don't. 

THE DEVIL. [nettled] Well, you've no capacity for enjoyment. Will thatsatisfy you?

DON JUAN. It is a somewhat less insufferable form of cant than theother. But if you'll allow me, I'll take refuge, as usual, in solitude. 

THE DEVIL. Why not take refuge in Heaven? That's the proper place foryou. [To Ana] Come, Senora! could you not persuade him for his own goodto try a change of air?

ANA. But can he go to Heaven if he wants to?

THE DEVIL. What's to prevent him?

ANA. Can anybody--can I go to Heaven if I want to?

THE DEVIL. [rather contemptuously] Certainly, if your taste lies thatway. 

ANA. But why doesn't everybody go to Heaven, then?

THE STATUE. [chuckling] I can tell you that, my dear. It's becauseheaven is the most angelically dull place in all creation: that's why. 

THE DEVIL. His excellency the Commander puts it with military bluntness;but the strain of living in Heaven is intolerable. There is a notionthat I was turned out of it; but as a matter of fact nothing could haveinduced me to stay there. I simply left it and organized this place. 

THE STATUE. I don't wonder at it. Nobody could stand an eternity ofheaven. 

THE DEVIL. Oh, it suits some people. Let us be just, Commander: it isa question of temperament. I don't admire the heavenly temperament: Idon't understand it: I don't know that I particularly want to understandit; but it takes all sorts to make a universe. There is no accountingfor tastes: there are people who like it. I think Don Juan would likeit. 

DON JUAN. But--pardon my frankness--could you really go back there ifyou desired to; or are the grapes sour?

THE DEVIL. Back there! I often go back there. Have you never read thebook of Job? Have you any canonical authority for assuming that there isany barrier between our circle and the other one?

ANA. But surely there is a great gulf fixed. 

THE DEVIL. Dear lady: a parable must not be taken literally. The gulfis the difference between the angelic and the diabolic temperament. What more impassable gulf could you have? Think of what you have seenon earth. There is no physical gulf between the philosopher's class roomand the bull ring; but the bull fighters do not come to the class roomfor all that. Have you ever been in the country where I have the largestfollowing--England? There they have great racecourses, and also concertrooms where they play the classical compositions of his Excellency'sfriend Mozart. Those who go to the racecourses can stay away from themand go to the classical concerts instead if they like: there is no lawagainst it; for Englishmen never will be slaves: they are free to dowhatever the Government and public opinion allows them to do. And theclassical concert is admitted to be a higher, more cultivated, poetic, intellectual, ennobling place than the racecourse. But do the lovers ofracing desert their sport and flock to the concert room? Not they. They would suffer there all the weariness the Commander has suffered inheaven. There is the great gulf of the parable between the two places. Amere physical gulf they could bridge; or at least I could bridge it forthem (the earth is full of Devil's Bridges); but the gulf of dislikeis impassable and eternal. And that is the only gulf that separates myfriends here from those who are invidiously called the blest. 

ANA. I shall go to heaven at once. 

THE STATUE. My child; one word of warning first. Let me complete myfriend Lucifer's similitude of the classical concert. At every one ofthose concerts in England you will find rows of weary people who arethere, not because they really like classical music, but because theythink they ought to like it. Well, there is the same thing in heaven. A number of people sit there in glory, not because they are happy, butbecause they think they owe it to their position to be in heaven. Theyare almost all English. 

THE DEVIL. Yes: the Southerners give it up and join me just as youhave done. But the English really do not seem to know when they arethoroughly miserable. An Englishman thinks he is moral when he is onlyuncomfortable. 

THE STATUE. In short, my daughter, if you go to Heaven without beingnaturally qualified for it, you will not enjoy yourself there. 

ANA. And who dares say that I am not naturally qualified for it? Themost distinguished princes of the Church have never questioned it. I oweit to myself to leave this place at once. 

THE DEVIL. [offended] As you please, Senora. I should have expectedbetter taste from you. 

ANA. Father: I shall expect you to come with me. You cannot stay here. What will people say?

THE STATUE. People! Why, the best people are here--princes of the churchand all. So few go to Heaven, and so many come here, that the blest, once called a heavenly host, are a continually dwindling minority. Thesaints, the fathers, the elect of long ago are the cranks, the faddists, the outsiders of to-day. 

THE DEVIL. It is true. From the beginning of my career I knew that Ishould win in the long run by sheer weight of public opinion, in spiteof the long campaign of misrepresentation and calumny against me. Atbottom the universe is a constitutional one; and with such a majority asmine I cannot be kept permanently out of office. 

DON JUAN. I think, Ana, you had better stay here. 

ANA. [jealously] You do not want me to go with you. 

DON JUAN. Surely you do not want to enter Heaven in the company of areprobate like me. 

ANA. All souls are equally precious. You repent, do you not?

DON JUAN. My dear Ana, you are silly. Do you suppose heaven is likeearth, where people persuade themselves that what is done can be undoneby repentance; that what is spoken can be unspoken by withdrawing it;that what is true can be annihilated by a general agreement to give itthe lie? No: heaven is the home of the masters of reality: that is why Iam going thither. 

ANA. Thank you: I am going to heaven for happiness. I have had quiteenough of reality on earth. 

DON JUAN. Then you must stay here; for hell is the home of the unrealand of the seekers for happiness. It is the only refuge from heaven, which is, as I tell you, the home of the masters of reality, and fromearth, which is the home of the slaves of reality. The earth is anursery in which men and women play at being heros and heroines, saintsand sinners; but they are dragged down from their fool's paradise bytheir bodies: hunger and cold and thirst, age and decay and disease, death above all, make them slaves of reality: thrice a day meals mustbe eaten and digested: thrice a century a new generation must beengendered: ages of faith, of romance, and of science are all driven atlast to have but one prayer, "Make me a healthy animal. " But here youescape the tyranny of the flesh; for here you are not an animal at all:you are a ghost, an appearance, an illusion, a convention, deathless, ageless: in a word, bodiless. There are no social questions here, nopolitical questions, no religious questions, best of all, perhaps, nosanitary questions. Here you call your appearance beauty, your emotionslove, your sentiments heroism, your aspirations virtue, just as you didon earth; but here there are no hard facts to contradict you, no ironiccontrast of your needs with your pretensions, no human comedy, nothingbut a perpetual romance, a universal melodrama. As our German friend putit in his poem, "the poetically nonsensical here is good sense; and theEternal Feminine draws us ever upward and on"--without getting us a stepfarther. And yet you want to leave this paradise!

ANA. But if Hell be so beautiful as this, how glorious must heaven be!

The Devil, the Statue, and Don Juan all begin to speak at once inviolent protest; then stop, abashed. 

DON JUAN. I beg your pardon. 

THE DEVIL. Not at all. I interrupted you. 

THE STATUE. You were going to say something. 

DON JUAN. After you, gentlemen. 

THE DEVIL. [to Don Juan] You have been so eloquent on the advantages ofmy dominions that I leave you to do equal justice to the drawbacks ofthe alternative establishment. 

DON JUAN. In Heaven, as I picture it, dear lady, you live and workinstead of playing and pretending. You face things as they are; youescape nothing but glamor; and your steadfastness and your peril areyour glory. If the play still goes on here and on earth, and all theworld is a stage, Heaven is at least behind the scenes. But Heavencannot be described by metaphor. Thither I shall go presently, becausethere I hope to escape at last from lies and from the tedious, vulgarpursuit of happiness, to spend my eons in contemplation--

THE STATUE. Ugh!

DON JUAN. Senor Commander: I do not blame your disgust: a picturegallery is a dull place for a blind man. But even as you enjoy thecontemplation of such romantic mirages as beauty and pleasure; so wouldI enjoy the contemplation of that which interests me above all thingsnamely, Life: the force that ever strives to attain greater power ofcontemplating itself. What made this brain of mine, do you think? Notthe need to move my limbs; for a rat with half my brains moves as wellas I. Not merely the need to do, but the need to know what I do, lest inmy blind efforts to live I should be slaying myself. 

THE STATUE. You would have slain yourself in your blind efforts to fencebut for my foot slipping, my friend. 

DON JUAN. Audacious ribald: your laughter will finish in hideous boredombefore morning. 

THE STATUE. Ha ha! Do you remember how I frightened you when I saidsomething like that to you from my pedestal in Seville? It sounds ratherflat without my trombones. 

DON JUAN. They tell me it generally sounds flat with them, Commander. 

ANA. Oh, do not interrupt with these frivolities, father. Is therenothing in Heaven but contemplation, Juan?

DON JUAN. In the Heaven I seek, no other joy. But there is the work ofhelping Life in its struggle upward. Think of how it wastes and scattersitself, how it raises up obstacles to itself and destroys itself in itsignorance and blindness. It needs a brain, this irresistible force, lestin its ignorance it should resist itself. What a piece of work is man!says the poet. Yes: but what a blunderer! Here is the highest miracle oforganization yet attained by life, the most intensely alive thing thatexists, the most conscious of all the organisms; and yet, how wretchedare his brains! Stupidity made sordid and cruel by the realities learntfrom toil and poverty: Imagination resolved to starve sooner than facethese realities, piling up illusions to hide them, and calling itselfcleverness, genius! And each accusing the other of its own defect:Stupidity accusing Imagination of folly, and Imagination accusingStupidity of ignorance: whereas, alas! Stupidity has all the knowledge, and Imagination all the intelligence. 

THE DEVIL. And a pretty kettle of fish they make of it between them. DidI not say, when I was arranging that affair of Faust's, that all Man'sreason has done for him is to make him beastlier than any beast. Onesplendid body is worth the brains of a hundred dyspeptic, flatulentphilosophers. 

DON JUAN. You forget that brainless magnificence of body has been tried. Things immeasurably greater than man in every respect but brain haveexisted and perished. The megatherium, the icthyosaurus have paced theearth with seven-league steps and hidden the day with cloud vast wings. Where are they now? Fossils in museums, and so few and imperfect atthat, that a knuckle bone or a tooth of one of them is prized beyond thelives of a thousand soldiers. These things lived and wanted to live; butfor lack of brains they did not know how to carry out their purpose, andso destroyed themselves. 

THE DEVIL. And is Man any the less destroying himself for all thisboasted brain of his? Have you walked up and down upon the earth lately?I have; and I have examined Man's wonderful inventions. And I tell youthat in the arts of life man invents nothing; but in the arts of deathhe outdoes Nature herself, and produces by chemistry and machinery allthe slaughter of plague, pestilence and famine. The peasant I temptto-day eats and drinks what was eaten and drunk by the peasants of tenthousand years ago; and the house he lives in has not altered as muchin a thousand centuries as the fashion of a lady's bonnet in a score ofweeks. But when he goes out to slay, he carries a marvel of mechanismthat lets loose at the touch of his finger all the hidden molecularenergies, and leaves the javelin, the arrow, the blowpipe of his fathersfar behind. In the arts of peace Man is a bungler. I have seen hiscotton factories and the like, with machinery that a greedy dog couldhave invented if it had wanted money instead of food. I know his clumsytypewriters and bungling locomotives and tedious bicycles: they are toyscompared to the Maxim gun, the submarine torpedo boat. There is nothingin Man's industrial machinery but his greed and sloth: his heart is inhis weapons. This marvellous force of Life of which you boast is a forceof Death: Man measures his strength by his destructiveness. What ishis religion? An excuse for hating ME. What is his law? An excuse forhanging YOU. What is his morality? Gentility! an excuse for consumingwithout producing. What is his art? An excuse for gloating over picturesof slaughter. What are his politics? Either the worship of a despotbecause a despot can kill, or parliamentary cockfighting. I spent anevening lately in a certain celebrated legislature, and heard thepot lecturing the kettle for its blackness, and ministers answeringquestions. When I left I chalked up on the door the old nurserysaying--"Ask no questions and you will be told no lies. " I bought asixpenny family magazine, and found it full of pictures of young menshooting and stabbing one another. I saw a man die: he was a Londonbricklayer's laborer with seven children. He left seventeen poundsclub money; and his wife spent it all on his funeral and went intothe workhouse with the children next day. She would not have spentsevenpence on her children's schooling: the law had to force her to letthem be taught gratuitously; but on death she spent all she had. Theirimagination glows, their energies rise up at the idea of death, thesepeople: they love it; and the more horrible it is the more they enjoyit. Hell is a place far above their comprehension: they derive theirnotion of it from two of the greatest fools that ever lived, an Italianand an Englishman. The Italian described it as a place of mud, frost, filth, fire, and venomous serpents: all torture. This ass, when he wasnot lying about me, was maundering about some woman whom he saw once inthe street. The Englishman described me as being expelled from Heavenby cannons and gunpowder; and to this day every Briton believes thatthe whole of his silly story is in the Bible. What else he says I do notknow; for it is all in a long poem which neither I nor anyone else eversucceeded in wading through. It is the same in everything. The highestform of literature is the tragedy, a play in which everybody ismurdered at the end. In the old chronicles you read of earthquakes andpestilences, and are told that these showed the power and majesty of Godand the littleness of Man. Nowadays the chronicles describe battles. In a battle two bodies of men shoot at one another with bullets andexplosive shells until one body runs away, when the others chase thefugitives on horseback and cut them to pieces as they fly. And this, thechronicle concludes, shows the greatness and majesty of empires, and thelittleness of the vanquished. Over such battles the people run aboutthe streets yelling with delight, and egg their Governments on to spendhundreds of millions of money in the slaughter, whilst the strongestMinisters dare not spend an extra penny in the pound against the povertyand pestilence through which they themselves daily walk. I could giveyou a thousand instances; but they all come to the same thing: the powerthat governs the earth is not the power of Life but of Death; and theinner need that has nerved Life to the effort of organizing itself intothe human being is not the need for higher life but for a more efficientengine of destruction. The plague, the famine, the earthquake, thetempest were too spasmodic in their action; the tiger and crocodile weretoo easily satiated and not cruel enough: something more constantly, more ruthlessly, more ingeniously destructive was needed; and thatsomething was Man, the inventor of the rack, the stake, the gallows, and the electrocutor; of the sword and gun; above all, of justice, duty, patriotism and all the other isms by which even those who are cleverenough to be humanely disposed are persuaded to become the mostdestructive of all the destroyers. 

DON JUAN. Pshaw! all this is old. Your weak side, my diabolic friend, is that you have always been a gull: you take Man at his own valuation. Nothing would flatter him more than your opinion of him. He loves tothink of himself as bold and bad. He is neither one nor the other: heis only a coward. Call him tyrant, murderer, pirate, bully; and he willadore you, and swagger about with the consciousness of having the bloodof the old sea kings in his veins. Call him liar and thief; and he willonly take an action against you for libel. But call him coward; andhe will go mad with rage: he will face death to outface that stingingtruth. Man gives every reason for his conduct save one, every excuse forhis crimes save one, every plea for his safety save one; and that one ishis cowardice. Yet all his civilization is founded on his cowardice, onhis abject tameness, which he calls his respectability. There are limitsto what a mule or an ass will stand; but Man will suffer himself to bedegraded until his vileness becomes so loathsome to his oppressors thatthey themselves are forced to reform it. 

THE DEVIL. Precisely. And these are the creatures in whom you discoverwhat you call a Life Force!

DON JUAN. Yes; for now comes the most surprising part of the wholebusiness. 

THE STATUE. What's that?

DON JUAN. Why, that you can make any of these cowards brave by simplyputting an idea into his head. 

THE STATUE. Stuff! As an old soldier I admit the cowardice: it's asuniversal as sea sickness, and matters just as little. But that aboutputting an idea into a man's head is stuff and nonsense. In a battle allyou need to make you fight is a little hot blood and the knowledge thatit's more dangerous to lose than to win. 

DON JUAN. That is perhaps why battles are so useless. But men neverreally overcome fear until they imagine they are fighting to further auniversal purpose--fighting for an idea, as they call it. Why was theCrusader braver than the pirate? Because he fought, not for himself, butfor the Cross. What force was it that met him with a valor as recklessas his own? The force of men who fought, not for themselves, but forIslam. They took Spain from us, though we were fighting for our veryhearths and homes; but when we, too, fought for that mighty idea, aCatholic Church, we swept them back to Africa. 

THE DEVIL. [ironically] What! you a Catholic, Senor Don Juan! A devotee!My congratulations. 

THE STATUE. [seriously] Come come! as a soldier, I can listen to nothingagainst the Church. 

DON JUAN. Have no fear, Commander: this idea of a Catholic Church willsurvive Islam, will survive the Cross, will survive even that vulgarpageant of incompetent schoolboyish gladiators which you call the Army. 

THE STATUE. Juan: you will force me to call you to account for this. 

DON JUAN. Useless: I cannot fence. Every idea for which Man will diewill be a Catholic idea. When the Spaniard learns at last that he is nobetter than the Saracen, and his prophet no better than Mahomet, he willarise, more Catholic than ever, and die on a barricade across the filthyslum he starves in, for universal liberty and equality. 

THE STATUE. Bosh!

DON JUAN. What you call bosh is the only thing men dare die for. Later on, Liberty will not be Catholic enough: men will die for humanperfection, to which they will sacrifice all their liberty gladly. 

THE DEVIL. Ay: they will never be at a loss for an excuse for killingone another. 

DON JUAN. What of that? It is not death that matters, but the fear ofdeath. It is not killing and dying that degrade us, but base living, andaccepting the wages and profits of degradation. Better ten dead men thanone live slave or his master. Men shall yet rise up, father against sonand brother against brother, and kill one another for the great Catholicidea of abolishing slavery. 

THE DEVIL. Yes, when the Liberty and Equality of which you prate shallhave made free white Christians cheaper in the labor market than byauction at the block. 

DON JUAN. Never fear! the white laborer shall have his turn too. ButI am not now defending the illusory forms the great ideas take. I amgiving you examples of the fact that this creature Man, who in his ownselfish affairs is a coward to the backbone, will fight for an idea likea hero. He may be abject as a citizen; but he is dangerous as a fanatic. He can only be enslaved whilst he is spiritually weak enough to listento reason. I tell you, gentlemen, if you can show a man a piece of whathe now calls God's work to do, and what he will later on call by manynew names, you can make him entirely reckless of the consequences tohimself personally. 

ANA. Yes: he shirks all his responsibilities, and leaves his wife tograpple with them. 

THE STATUE. Well said, daughter. Do not let him talk you out of yourcommon sense. 

THE DEVIL. Alas! Senor Commander, now that we have got on to the subjectof Woman, he will talk more than ever. However, I confess it is for methe one supremely interesting subject. 

DON JUAN. To a woman, Senora, man's duties and responsibilities beginand end with the task of getting bread for her children. To her, Man isonly a means to the end of getting children and rearing them. 

ANA. Is that your idea of a woman's mind? I call it cynical anddisgusting materialism. 

DON JUAN. Pardon me, Ana: I said nothing about a woman's whole mind. Ispoke of her view of Man as a separate sex. It is no more cynical thanher view of herself as above all things a Mother. Sexually, Woman isNature's contrivance for perpetuating its highest achievement. Sexually, Man is Woman's contrivance for fulfilling Nature's behest in the mosteconomical way. She knows by instinct that far back in the evolutionalprocess she invented him, differentiated him, created him in order toproduce something better than the single-sexed process can produce. Whilst he fulfils the purpose for which she made him, he is welcome tohis dreams, his follies, his ideals, his heroisms, provided that thekeystone of them all is the worship of woman, of motherhood, of thefamily, of the hearth. But how rash and dangerous it was to invent aseparate creature whose sole function was her own impregnation! For markwhat has happened. First, Man has multiplied on her hands until thereare as many men as women; so that she has been unable to employ for herpurposes more than a fraction of the immense energy she has left athis disposal by saving him the exhausting labor of gestation. Thissuperfluous energy has gone to his brain and to his muscle. He hasbecome too strong to be controlled by her bodily, and too imaginativeand mentally vigorous to be content with mere self-reproduction. He hascreated civilization without consulting her, taking her domestic laborfor granted as the foundation of it. 

ANA. THAT is true, at all events. 

THE DEVIL. Yes; and this civilization! what is it, after all?

DON JUAN. After all, an excellent peg to hang your cynical commonplaceson; but BEFORE all, it is an attempt on Man's part to make himselfsomething more than the mere instrument of Woman's purpose. So far, theresult of Life's continual effort not only to maintain itself, but toachieve higher and higher organization and completer self-consciousness, is only, at best, a doubtful campaign between its forces and those ofDeath and Degeneration. The battles in this campaign are mere blunders, mostly won, like actual military battles, in spite of the commanders. 

THE STATUE. That is a dig at me. No matter: go on, go on. 

DON JUAN. It is a dig at a much higher power than you, Commander. Still, you must have noticed in your profession that even a stupid general canwin battles when the enemy's general is a little stupider. 

THE STATUE. [very seriously] Most true, Juan, most true. Some donkeyshave amazing luck. 

DON JUAN. Well, the Life Force is stupid; but it is not so stupid as theforces of Death and Degeneration. Besides, these are in its pay allthe time. And so Life wins, after a fashion. What mere copiousness offecundity can supply and mere greed preserve, we possess. The survivalof whatever form of civilization can produce the best rifle and the bestfed riflemen is assured. 

THE DEVIL. Exactly! the survival, not of the most effective means ofLife but of the most effective means of Death. You always come back tomy point, in spite of your wrigglings and evasions and sophistries, notto mention the intolerable length of your speeches. 

DON JUAN. Oh come! who began making long speeches? However, if I overtaxyour intellect, you can leave us and seek the society of love and beautyand the rest of your favorite boredoms. 

THE DEVIL. [much offended] This is not fair, Don Juan, and not civil. Iam also on the intellectual plane. Nobody can appreciate it more thanI do. I am arguing fairly with you, and, I think, utterly refuting you. Let us go on for another hour if you like. 

DON JUAN. Good: let us. 

THE STATUE. Not that I see any prospect of your coming to any point inparticular, Juan. Still, since in this place, instead of merely killingtime we have to kill eternity, go ahead by all means. 

DON JUAN. [somewhat impatiently] My point, you marbleheaded oldmasterpiece, is only a step ahead of you. Are we agreed that Life is aforce which has made innumerable experiments in organizing itself; thatthe mammoth and the man, the mouse and the megatherium, the flies andthe fleas and the Fathers of the Church, are all more or less successfulattempts to build up that raw force into higher and higher individuals, the ideal individual being omnipotent, omniscient, infallible, andwithal completely, unilludedly self-conscious: in short, a god?

THE DEVIL. I agree, for the sake of argument. 

THE STATUE. I agree, for the sake of avoiding argument. 

ANA. I most emphatically disagree as regards the Fathers of the Church;and I must beg you not to drag them into the argument. 

DON JUAN. I did so purely for the sake of alliteration, Ana; and Ishall make no further allusion to them. And now, since we are, with thatexception, agreed so far, will you not agree with me further that Lifehas not measured the success of its attempts at godhead by the beauty orbodily perfection of the result, since in both these respects the birds, as our friend Aristophanes long ago pointed out, are so extraordinarilysuperior, with their power of flight and their lovely plumage, and, may I add, the touching poetry of their loves and nestings, that it isinconceivable that Life, having once produced them, should, if loveand beauty were her object, start off on another line and labor at theclumsy elephant and the hideous ape, whose grandchildren we are?

ANA. Aristophanes was a heathen; and you, Juan, I am afraid, are verylittle better. 

THE DEVIL. You conclude, then, that Life was driving at clumsiness andugliness?

DON JUAN. No, perverse devil that you are, a thousand times no. Lifewas driving at brains--at its darling object: an organ by which it canattain not only self-consciousness but self-understanding. 

THE STATUE. This is metaphysics, Juan. Why the devil should--[to theDevil] I BEG your pardon. 

THE DEVIL. Pray don't mention it. I have always regarded the use of myname to secure additional emphasis as a high compliment to me. It isquite at your service, Commander. 

THE STATUE. Thank you: that's very good of you. Even in heaven, I neverquite got out of my old military habits of speech. What I was going toask Juan was why Life should bother itself about getting a brain. Whyshould it want to understand itself? Why not be content to enjoy itself?

DON JUAN. Without a brain, Commander, you would enjoy yourself withoutknowing it, and so lose all the fun. 

THE STATUE. True, most true. But I am quite content with brain enough toknow that I'm enjoying myself. I don't want to understand why. Infact, I'd rather not. My experience is that one's pleasures don't bearthinking about. 

DON JUAN. That is why intellect is so unpopular. But to Life, the forcebehind the Man, intellect is a necessity, because without it he blundersinto death. Just as Life, after ages of struggle, evolved that wonderfulbodily organ the eye, so that the living organism could see where itwas going and what was coming to help or threaten it, and thus avoida thousand dangers that formerly slew it, so it is evolving to-day amind's eye that shall see, not the physical world, but the purpose ofLife, and thereby enable the individual to work for that purpose insteadof thwarting and baffling it by setting up shortsighted personal aims asat present. Even as it is, only one sort of man has ever been happy, hasever been universally respected among all the conflicts of interests andillusions. 

THE STATUE. You mean the military man. 

DON JUAN. Commander: I do not mean the military man. When the militaryman approaches, the world locks up its spoons and packs off itswomankind. No: I sing, not arms and the hero, but the philosophic man:he who seeks in contemplation to discover the inner will of the world, in invention to discover the means of fulfilling that will, and inaction to do that will by the so-discovered means. Of all other sortsof men I declare myself tired. They're tedious failures. When I was onearth, professors of all sorts prowled round me feeling for an unhealthyspot in me on which they could fasten. The doctors of medicine bade meconsider what I must do to save my body, and offered me quack cures forimaginary diseases. I replied that I was not a hypochondriac; so theycalled me Ignoramus and went their way. The doctors of divinity bademe consider what I must do to save my soul; but I was not a spiritualhypochondriac any more than a bodily one, and would not trouble myselfabout that either; so they called me Atheist and went their way. Afterthem came the politician, who said there was only one purpose in Nature, and that was to get him into parliament. I told him I did not carewhether he got into parliament or not; so he called me Mugwump and wenthis way. Then came the romantic man, the Artist, with his love songs andhis paintings and his poems; and with him I had great delight for manyyears, and some profit; for I cultivated my senses for his sake; andhis songs taught me to hear better, his paintings to see better, andhis poems to feel more deeply. But he led me at last into the worship ofWoman. 

ANA. Juan!

DON JUAN. Yes: I came to believe that in her voice was all the music ofthe song, in her face all the beauty of the painting, and in her soulall the emotion of the poem. 

ANA. And you were disappointed, I suppose. Well, was it her fault thatyou attributed all these perfections to her?

DON JUAN. Yes, partly. For with a wonderful instinctive cunning, shekept silent and allowed me to glorify her; to mistake my own visions, thoughts, and feelings for hers. Now my friend the romantic man wasoften too poor or too timid to approach those women who were beautifulor refined enough to seem to realize his ideal; and so he went to hisgrave believing in his dream. But I was more favored by nature andcircumstance. I was of noble birth and rich; and when my person didnot please, my conversation flattered, though I generally found myselffortunate in both. 

THE STATUE. Coxcomb!

DON JUAN. Yes; but even my coxcombry pleased. Well, I found that when Ihad touched a woman's imagination, she would allow me to persuade myselfthat she loved me; but when my suit was granted she never said "I amhappy: my love is satisfied": she always said, first, "At last, thebarriers are down, " and second, "When will you come again?"

ANA. That is exactly what men say. 

DON JUAN. I protest I never said it. But all women say it. Well, thesetwo speeches always alarmed me; for the first meant that the lady'simpulse had been solely to throw down my fortifications and gain mycitadel; and the second openly announced that henceforth she regarded meas her property, and counted my time as already wholly at her disposal. 

THE DEVIL. That is where your want of heart came in. 

THE STATUE. [shaking his head] You shouldn't repeat what a woman says, Juan. 

ANA. [severely] It should be sacred to you. 

THE STATUE. Still, they certainly do always say it. I never minded thebarriers; but there was always a slight shock about the other, unlessone was very hard hit indeed. 

DON JUAN. Then the lady, who had been happy and idle enough before, became anxious, preoccupied with me, always intriguing, conspiring, pursuing, watching, waiting, bent wholly on making sure of her prey--Ibeing the prey, you understand. Now this was not what I had bargainedfor. It may have been very proper and very natural; but it was notmusic, painting, poetry and joy incarnated in a beautiful woman. I ranaway from it. I ran away from it very often: in fact I became famous forrunning away from it. 

ANA. Infamous, you mean. 

DON JUAN. I did not run away from you. Do you blame me for running awayfrom the others?

ANA. Nonsense, man. You are talking to a woman of 77 now. If you had hadthe chance, you would have run away from me too--if I had let you. Youwould not have found it so easy with me as with some of the others. Ifmen will not be faithful to their home and their duties, they must bemade to be. I daresay you all want to marry lovely incarnations of musicand painting and poetry. Well, you can't have them, because theydon't exist. If flesh and blood is not good enough for you you mustgo without: that's all. Women have to put up with flesh-and-bloodhusbands--and little enough of that too, sometimes; and you will have toput up with flesh-and-blood wives. The Devil looks dubious. The Statuemakes a wry face. I see you don't like that, any of you; but it's true, for all that; so if you don't like it you can lump it. 

DON JUAN. My dear lady, you have put my whole case against romance intoa few sentences. That is just why I turned my back on the romantic manwith the artist nature, as he called his infatuation. I thanked himfor teaching me to use my eyes and ears; but I told him that his beautyworshipping and happiness hunting and woman idealizing was not worth adump as a philosophy of life; so he called me Philistine and went hisway. 

ANA. It seems that Woman taught you something, too, with all herdefects. 

DON JUAN. She did more: she interpreted all the other teaching for me. Ah, my friends, when the barriers were down for the first time, whatan astounding illumination! I had been prepared for infatuation, forintoxication, for all the illusions of love's young dream; and lo! neverwas my perception clearer, nor my criticism more ruthless. The mostjealous rival of my mistress never saw every blemish in her more keenlythan I. I was not duped: I took her without chloroform. 

ANA. But you did take her. 

DON JUAN. That was the revelation. Up to that moment I had never lostthe sense of being my own master; never consciously taken a single stepuntil my reason had examined and approved it. I had come to believe thatI was a purely rational creature: a thinker! I said, with the foolishphilosopher, "I think; therefore I am. " It was Woman who taught me tosay "I am; therefore I think. " And also "I would think more; therefore Imust be more. "

THE STATUE. This is extremely abstract and metaphysical, Juan. If youwould stick to the concrete, and put your discoveries in the formof entertaining anecdotes about your adventures with women, yourconversation would be easier to follow. 

DON JUAN. Bah! what need I add? Do you not understand that when I stoodface to face with Woman, every fibre in my clear critical brain warnedme to spare her and save myself. My morals said No. My conscience saidNo. My chivalry and pity for her said No. My prudent regard for myselfsaid No. My ear, practised on a thousand songs and symphonies; my eye, exercised on a thousand paintings; tore her voice, her features, hercolor to shreds. I caught all those tell-tale resemblances to her fatherand mother by which I knew what she would be like in thirty years time. I noted the gleam of gold from a dead tooth in the laughing mouth: Imade curious observations of the strange odors of the chemistry of thenerves. The visions of my romantic reveries, in which I had trod theplains of heaven with a deathless, ageless creature of coral and ivory, deserted me in that supreme hour. I remembered them and desperatelystrove to recover their illusion; but they now seemed the emptiest ofinventions: my judgment was not to be corrupted: my brain still said Noon every issue. And whilst I was in the act of framing my excuse to thelady, Life seized me and threw me into her arms as a sailor throws ascrap of fish into the mouth of a seabird. 

THE STATUE. You might as well have gone without thinking such a lotabout it, Juan. You are like all the clever men: you have more brainsthan is good for you. 

THE DEVIL. And were you not the happier for the experience, Senor DonJuan?

DON JUAN. The happier, no: the wiser, yes. That moment introduced me forthe first time to myself, and, through myself, to the world. I saw thenhow useless it is to attempt to impose conditions on the irresistibleforce of Life; to preach prudence, careful selection, virtue, honor, chastity--

ANA. Don Juan: a word against chastity is an insult to me. 

DON JUAN. I say nothing against your chastity, Senora, since it took theform of a husband and twelve children. What more could you have done hadyou been the most abandoned of women?

ANA. I could have had twelve husbands and no children that's what Icould have done, Juan. And let me tell you that that would have made allthe difference to the earth which I replenished. 

THE STATUE. Bravo Ana! Juan: you are floored, quelled, annihilated. 

DON JUAN. No; for though that difference is the true essentialdifference--Dona Ana has, I admit, gone straight to the real point--yetit is not a difference of love or chastity, or even constancy; fortwelve children by twelve different husbands would have replenished theearth perhaps more effectively. Suppose my friend Ottavio had died whenyou were thirty, you would never have remained a widow: you were toobeautiful. Suppose the successor of Ottavio had died when you wereforty, you would still have been irresistible; and a woman who marriestwice marries three times if she becomes free to do so. Twelve lawfulchildren borne by one highly respectable lady to three different fathersis not impossible nor condemned by public opinion. That such a lady maybe more law abiding than the poor girl whom we used to spurn into thegutter for bearing one unlawful infant is no doubt true; but dare yousay she is less self-indulgent?

ANA. She is less virtuous: that is enough for me. 

DON JUAN. In that case, what is virtue but the Trade Unionism of themarried? Let us face the facts, dear Ana. The Life Force respectsmarriage only because marriage is a contrivance of its own to securethe greatest number of children and the closest care of them. For honor, chastity and all the rest of your moral figments it cares not a rap. Marriage is the most licentious of human institutions--

ANA. Juan!

THE STATUE. [protesting] Really!--

DON JUAN. [determinedly] I say the most licentious of humaninstitutions: that is the secret of its popularity. And a woman seekinga husband is the most unscrupulous of all the beasts of prey. Theconfusion of marriage with morality has done more to destroy theconscience of the human race than any other single error. Come, Ana!do not look shocked: you know better than any of us that marriage isa mantrap baited with simulated accomplishments and delusiveidealizations. When your sainted mother, by dint of scoldings andpunishments, forced you to learn how to play half a dozen pieces on thespinet which she hated as much as you did--had she any other purposethan to delude your suitors into the belief that your husband would havein his home an angel who would fill it with melody, or at least play himto sleep after dinner? You married my friend Ottavio: well, did you everopen the spinet from the hour when the Church united him to you?

ANA. You are a fool, Juan. A young married woman has something else todo than sit at the spinet without any support for her back; so she getsout of the habit of playing. 

DON JUAN. Not if she loves music. No: believe me, she only throws awaythe bait when the bird is in the net. 

ANA. [bitterly] And men, I suppose, never throw off the mask whentheir bird is in the net. The husband never becomes negligent, selfish, brutal--oh never!

DON JUAN. What do these recriminations prove, Ana? Only that the hero isas gross an imposture as the heroine. 

ANA. It is all nonsense: most marriages are perfectly comfortable. 

DON JUAN. "Perfectly" is a strong expression, Ana. What you mean is thatsensible people make the best of one another. Send me to the galleys andchain me to the felon whose number happens to be next before mine; and Imust accept the inevitable and make the best of the companionship. Manysuch companionships, they tell me, are touchingly affectionate; andmost are at least tolerably friendly. But that does not make a chaina desirable ornament nor the galleys an abode of bliss. Those who talkmost about the blessings of marriage and the constancy of its vowsare the very people who declare that if the chain were broken andthe prisoners left free to choose, the whole social fabric would flyasunder. You cannot have the argument both ways. If the prisoner ishappy, why lock him in? If he is not, why pretend that he is?

ANA. At all events, let me take an old woman's privilege again, and tellyou flatly that marriage peoples the world and debauchery does not. 

DON JUAN. How if a time comes when this shall cease to be true? Do younot know that where there is a will there is a way--that whatever Manreally wishes to do he will finally discover a means of doing? Well, you have done your best, you virtuous ladies, and others of your wayof thinking, to bend Man's mind wholly towards honorable love as thehighest good, and to understand by honorable love romance and beautyand happiness in the possession of beautiful, refined, delicate, affectionate women. You have taught women to value their own youth, health, shapeliness, and refinement above all things. Well, what placehave squalling babies and household cares in this exquisite paradise ofthe senses and emotions? Is it not the inevitable end of it all that thehuman will shall say to the human brain: Invent me a means by which Ican have love, beauty, romance, emotion, passion without their wretchedpenalties, their expenses, their worries, their trials, their illnessesand agonies and risks of death, their retinue of servants and nurses anddoctors and schoolmasters. 

THE DEVIL. All this, Senor Don Juan, is realized here in my realm. 

DON JUAN. Yes, at the cost of death. Man will not take it at that price:he demands the romantic delights of your hell whilst he is still onearth. Well, the means will be found: the brain will not fail when thewill is in earnest. The day is coming when great nations will find theirnumbers dwindling from census to census; when the six roomed villa willrise in price above the family mansion; when the viciously reckless poorand the stupidly pious rich will delay the extinction of the race onlyby degrading it; whilst the boldly prudent, the thriftily selfish andambitious, the imaginative and poetic, the lovers of money and solidcomfort, the worshippers of success, art, and of love, will all opposeto the Force of Life the device of sterility. 

THE STATUE. That is all very eloquent, my young friend; but if you hadlived to Ana's age, or even to mine, you would have learned that thepeople who get rid of the fear of poverty and children and all the otherfamily troubles, and devote themselves to having a good time of it, only leave their minds free for the fear of old age and ugliness andimpotence and death. The childless laborer is more tormented by hiswife's idleness and her constant demands for amusement and distractionthan he could be by twenty children; and his wife is more wretched thanhe. I have had my share of vanity; for as a young man I was admired bywomen; and as a statue I am praised by art critics. But I confess thathad I found nothing to do in the world but wallow in these delights Ishould have cut my throat. When I married Ana's mother--or perhaps, to be strictly correct, I should rather say when I at last gave in andallowed Ana's mother to marry me--I knew that I was planting thornsin my pillow, and that marriage for me, a swaggering young officerthitherto unvanquished, meant defeat and capture. 

ANA. [scandalized] Father!

THE STATUE. I am sorry to shock you, my love; but since Juan hasstripped every rag of decency from the discussion I may as well tell thefrozen truth. 

ANA. Hmf! I suppose I was one of the thorns. 

THE STATUE. By no means: you were often a rose. You see, your mother hadmost of the trouble you gave. 

DON JUAN. Then may I ask, Commander, why you have left Heaven to comehere and wallow, as you express it, in sentimental beatitudes which youconfess would once have driven you to cut your throat?

THE STATUE. [struck by this] Egad, that's true. 

THE DEVIL. [alarmed] What! You are going back from your word. [ToDon Juan] And all your philosophizing has been nothing but a mask forproselytizing! [To the Statue] Have you forgotten already the hideousdulness from which I am offering you a refuge here? [To Don Juan] Anddoes your demonstration of the approaching sterilization and extinctionof mankind lead to anything better than making the most of thosepleasures of art and love which you yourself admit refined you, elevatedyou, developed you?

DON JUAN. I never demonstrated the extinction of mankind. Life cannotwill its own extinction either in its blind amorphous state or in anyof the forms into which it has organized itself. I had not finished whenHis Excellency interrupted me. 

THE STATUE. I begin to doubt whether you ever will finish, my friend. You are extremely fond of hearing yourself talk. 

DON JUAN. True; but since you have endured so much you may as wellendure to the end. Long before this sterilization which I describedbecomes more than a clearly foreseen possibility, the reaction willbegin. The great central purpose of breeding the race, ay, breeding itto heights now deemed superhuman: that purpose which is now hidden in amephitic cloud of love and romance and prudery and fastidiousness, willbreak through into clear sunlight as a purpose no longer to be confusedwith the gratification of personal fancies, the impossible realizationof boys' and girls' dreams of bliss, or the need of older people forcompanionship or money. The plain-spoken marriage services of thevernacular Churches will no longer be abbreviated and half suppressedas indelicate. The sober decency, earnestness and authority of theirdeclaration of the real purpose of marriage will be honoredand accepted, whilst their romantic vowings and pledgings anduntil-death-do-us-partings and the like will be expunged as unbearablefrivolities. Do my sex the justice to admit, Senora, that we have alwaysrecognized that the sex relation is not a personal or friendly relationat all. 

ANA. Not a personal or friendly relation! What relation is morepersonal? more sacred? more holy?

DON JUAN. Sacred and holy, if you like, Ana, but not personallyfriendly. Your relation to God is sacred and holy: dare you call itpersonally friendly? In the sex relation the universal creative energy, of which the parties are both the helpless agents, over-rides andsweeps away all personal considerations and dispenses with all personalrelations. The pair may be utter strangers to one another, speakingdifferent languages, differing in race and color, in age anddisposition, with no bond between them but a possibility of thatfecundity for the sake of which the Life Force throws them into oneanother's arms at the exchange of a glance. Do we not recognize this byallowing marriages to be made by parents without consulting the woman?Have you not often expressed your disgust at the immorality of theEnglish nation, in which women and men of noble birth become acquaintedand court each other like peasants? And how much does even the peasantknow of his bride or she of him before he engages himself? Why, youwould not make a man your lawyer or your family doctor on so slight anacquaintance as you would fall in love with and marry him!

ANA. Yes, Juan: we know the libertine's philosophy. Always ignore theconsequences to the woman. 

DON JUAN. The consequences, yes: they justify her fierce grip of theman. But surely you do not call that attachment a sentimental one. Aswell call the policeman's attachment to his prisoner a love relation. 

ANA. You see you have to confess that marriage is necessary, though, according to you, love is the slightest of all the relations. 

DON JUAN. How do you know that it is not the greatest of all therelations? far too great to be a personal matter. Could your father haveserved his country if he had refused to kill any enemy of Spain unlesshe personally hated him? Can a woman serve her country if she refuses tomarry any man she does not personally love? You know it is not so:the woman of noble birth marries as the man of noble birth fights, onpolitical and family grounds, not on personal ones. 

THE STATUE. [impressed] A very clever point that, Juan: I must think itover. You are really full of ideas. How did you come to think of thisone?

DON JUAN. I learnt it by experience. When I was on earth, and made thoseproposals to ladies which, though universally condemned, have made meso interesting a hero of legend, I was not infrequently met in some suchway as this. The lady would say that she would countenance my advances, provided they were honorable. On inquiring what that proviso meant, Ifound that it meant that I proposed to get possession of her property ifshe had any, or to undertake her support for life if she had not; that Idesired her continual companionship, counsel and conversation to theend of my days, and would bind myself under penalties to be alwaysenraptured by them; and, above all, that I would turn my back on allother women for ever for her sake. I did not object to these conditionsbecause they were exorbitant and inhuman: it was their extraordinaryirrelevance that prostrated me. I invariably replied with perfectfrankness that I had never dreamt of any of these things; that unlessthe lady's character and intellect were equal or superior to my own, herconversation must degrade and her counsel mislead me; tha t her constantcompanionship might, for all I knew, become intolerably tedious to me;that I could not answer for my feelings for a week in advance, muchless to the end of my life; that to cut me off from all natural andunconstrained relations with the rest of my fellow creatures wouldnarrow and warp me if I submitted to it, and, if not, would bring meunder the curse of clandestinity; that, finally, my proposals to herwere wholly unconnected with any of these matters, and were the outcomeof a perfectly simple impulse of my manhood towards her womanhood. 

ANA. You mean that it was an immoral impulse. 

DON JUAN. Nature, my dear lady, is what you call immoral. I blush forit; but I cannot help it. Nature is a pandar, Time a wrecker, and Deatha murderer. I have always preferred to stand up to those facts and buildinstitutions on their recognition. You prefer to propitiate the threedevils by proclaiming their chastity, their thrift, and their lovingkindness; and to base your institutions on these flatteries. Is it anywonder that the institutions do not work smoothly?

THE STATUE. What used the ladies to say, Juan?

DON JUAN. Oh, come! Confidence for confidence. First tell me what youused to say to the ladies. 

THE STATUE. I! Oh, I swore that I would be faithful to the death; thatI should die if they refused me; that no woman could ever be to me whatshe was--

ANA. She? Who?

THE STATUE. Whoever it happened to be at the time, my dear. I hadcertain things I always said. One of them was that even when I waseighty, one white hair of the woman I loved would make me tremble morethan the thickest gold tress from the most beautiful young head. Anotherwas that I could not bear the thought of anyone else being the mother ofmy children. 

DON JUAN. [revolted] You old rascal!

THE STATUE. [Stoutly] Not a bit; for I really believed it with allmy soul at the moment. I had a heart: not like you. And it was thissincerity that made me successful. 

DON JUAN. Sincerity! To be fool enough to believe a ramping, stamping, thumping lie: that is what you call sincerity! To be so greedy fora woman that you deceive yourself in your eagerness to deceive her:sincerity, you call it!

THE STATUE. Oh, damn your sophistries! I was a man in love, not alawyer. And the women loved me for it, bless them!

DON JUAN. They made you think so. What will you say when I tell you thatthough I played the lawyer so callously, they made me think so too?I also had my moments of infatuation in which I gushed nonsense andbelieved it. Sometimes the desire to give pleasure by saying beautifulthings so rose in me on the flood of emotion that I said themrecklessly. At other times I argued against myself with a devilishcoldness that drew tears. But I found it just as hard to escape in theone case as in the others. When the lady's instinct was set on me, therewas nothing for it but lifelong servitude or flight. 

ANA. You dare boast, before me and my father, that every woman found youirresistible. 

DON JUAN. Am I boasting? It seems to me that I cut the most pitiable offigures. Besides, I said "when the lady's instinct was set on me. "It was not always so; and then, heavens! what transports of virtuousindignation! what overwhelming defiance to the dastardly seducer! whatscenes of Imogen and Iachimo!

ANA. I made no scenes. I simply called my father. 

DON JUAN. And he came, sword in hand, to vindicate outraged honor andmorality by murdering me. 

THE STATUE. Murdering! What do you mean? Did I kill you or did you killme?

DON JUAN. Which of us was the better fencer?

THE STATUE. I was. 

DON JUAN. Of course you were. And yet you, the hero of those scandalousadventures you have just been relating to us, you had the effrontery topose as the avenger of outraged morality and condemn me to death! Youwould have slain me but for an accident. 

THE STATUE. I was expected to, Juan. That is how things were arrangedon earth. I was not a social reformer; and I always did what it wascustomary for a gentleman to do. 

DON JUAN. That may account for your attacking me, but not for therevolting hypocrisy of your subsequent proceedings as a statue. 

THE STATUE. That all came of my going to Heaven. 

THE DEVIL. I still fail to see, Senor Don Juan, that these episodesin your earthly career and in that of the Senor Commander in any waydiscredit my view of life. Here, I repeat, you have all that you soughtwithout anything that you shrank from. 

DON JUAN. On the contrary, here I have everything that disappointed mewithout anything that I have not already tried and found wanting. I tellyou that as long as I can conceive something better than myself I cannotbe easy unless I am striving to bring it into existence or clearing theway for it. That is the law of my life. That is the working within meof Life's incessant aspiration to higher organization, wider, deeper, intenser self-consciousness, and clearer self-understanding. It was thesupremacy of this purpose that reduced love for me to the mere pleasureof a moment, art for me to the mere schooling of my faculties, religionfor me to a mere excuse for laziness, since it had set up a God wholooked at the world and saw that it was good, against the instinct inme that looked through my eyes at the world and saw that it could beimproved. I tell you that in the pursuit of my own pleasure, my ownhealth, my own fortune, I have never known happiness. It was not lovefor Woman that delivered me into her hands: it was fatigue, exhaustion. When I was a child, and bruised my head against a stone, I ran to thenearest woman and cried away my pain against her apron. When I grew up, and bruised my soul against the brutalities and stupidities with whichI had to strive, I did again just what I had done as a child. I haveenjoyed, too, my rests, my recuperations, my breathing times, my veryprostrations after strife; but rather would I be dragged through all thecircles of the foolish Italian's Inferno than through the pleasures ofEurope. That is what has made this place of eternal pleasures so deadlyto me. It is the absence of this instinct in you that makes you thatstrange monster called a Devil. It is the success with which you havediverted the attention of men from their real purpose, which in onedegree or another is the same as mine, to yours, that has earned you thename of The Tempter. It is the fact that they are doing your will, orrather drifting with your want of will, instead of doing their own, thatmakes them the uncomfortable, false, restless, artificial, petulant, wretched creatures they are. 

THE DEVIL. [mortified] Senor Don Juan: you are uncivil to my friends. 

DON JUAN. Pooh! why should I be civil to them or to you? In this Palaceof Lies a truth or two will not hurt you. Your friends are all thedullest dogs I know. They are not beautiful: they are only decorated. They are not clean: they are only shaved and starched. They are notdignified: they are only fashionably dressed. They are not educatedthey are only college passmen. They are not religious: they are onlypewrenters. They are not moral: they are only conventional. They are notvirtuous: they are only cowardly. They are not even vicious: they areonly "frail. " They are not artistic: they are only lascivious. They arenot prosperous: they are only rich. They are not loyal, they areonly servile; not dutiful, only sheepish; not public spirited, onlypatriotic; not courageous, only quarrelsome; not determined, onlyobstinate; not masterful, only domineering; not self-controlled, onlyobtuse; not self-respecting, only vain; not kind, only sentimental; notsocial, only gregarious; not considerate, only polite; not intelligent, only opinionated; not progressive, only factious; not imaginative, only superstitious; not just, only vindictive; not generous, onlypropitiatory; not disciplined, only cowed; and not truthful atall--liars every one of them, to the very backbone of their souls. 

THE STATUE. Your flow of words is simply amazing, Juan. How I wish Icould have talked like that to my soldiers. 

THE DEVIL. It is mere talk, though. It has all been said before; butwhat change has it ever made? What notice has the world ever taken ofit?

DON JUAN. Yes, it is mere talk. But why is it mere talk? Because, my friend, beauty, purity, respectability, religion, morality, art, patriotism, bravery and the rest are nothing but words which I or anyoneelse can turn inside out like a glove. Were they realities, youwould have to plead guilty to my indictment; but fortunately for yourself-respect, my diabolical friend, they are not realities. As yousay, they are mere words, useful for duping barbarians into adoptingcivilization, or the civilized poor into submitting to be robbed andenslaved. That is the family secret of the governing caste; and if wewho are of that caste aimed at more Life for the world instead of atmore power and luxury for our miserable selves, that secret would makeus great. Now, since I, being a nobleman, am in the secret too, thinkhow tedious to me must be your unending cant about all these moralisticfigments, and how squalidly disastrous your sacrifice of your lives tothem! If you even believed in your moral game enough to play it fairly, it would be interesting to watch; but you don't: you cheat at everytrick; and if your opponent outcheats you, you upset the table and tryto murder him. 

THE DEVIL. On earth there may be some truth in this, because the peopleare uneducated and cannot appreciate my religion of love and beauty; buthere--

DON JUAN. Oh yes: I know. Here there is nothing but love and beauty. Ugh! it is like sitting for all eternity at the first act of afashionable play, before the complications begin. Never in my worstmoments of superstitious terror on earth did I dream that Hell was sohorrible. I live, like a hairdresser, in the continual contemplationof beauty, toying with silken tresses. I breathe an atmosphere ofsweetness, like a confectioner's shopboy. Commander: are there anybeautiful women in Heaven?

THE STATUE. None. Absolutely none. All dowdies. Not two pennorth ofjewellery among a dozen of them. They might be men of fifty. 

DON JUAN. I am impatient to get there. Is the word beauty evermentioned; and are there any artistic people?

THE STATUE. I give you my word they won't admire a fine statue even whenit walks past them. 

DON JUAN. I go. 

THE DEVIL. Don Juan: shall I be frank with you?

DON JUAN. Were you not so before?

THE DEVIL. As far as I went, yes. But I will now go further, and confessto you that men get tired of everything, of heaven no less than of hell;and that all history is nothing but a record of the oscillations ofthe world between these two extremes. An epoch is but a swing of thependulum; and each generation thinks the world is progressing becauseit is always moving. But when you are as old as I am; when you have athousand times wearied of heaven, like myself and the Commander, anda thousand times wearied of hell, as you are wearied now, you will nolonger imagine that every swing from heaven to hell is an emancipation, every swing from hell to heaven an evolution. Where you now see reform, progress, fulfilment of upward tendency, continual ascent by Man onthe stepping stones of his dead selves to higher things, you willsee nothing but an infinite comedy of illusion. You will discoverthe profound truth of the saying of my friend Koheleth, that there isnothing new under the sun. Vanitas vanitatum--

DON JUAN. [out of all patience] By Heaven, this is worse than your cantabout love and beauty. Clever dolt that you are, is a man no better thana worm, or a dog than a wolf, because he gets tired of everything?Shall he give up eating because he destroys his appetite in the actof gratifying it? Is a field idle when it is fallow? Can the Commanderexpend his hellish energy here without accumulating heavenly energy forhis next term of blessedness? Granted that the great Life Force has hiton the device of the clockmaker's pendulum, and uses the earth for itsbob; that the history of each oscillation, which seems so novel to usthe actors, is but the history of the last oscillation repeated; naymore, that in the unthinkable infinitude of time the sun throws off theearth and catches it again a thousand times as a circus rider throws upa ball, and that the total of all our epochs is but the moment betweenthe toss and the catch, has the colossal mechanism no purpose?

THE DEVIL. None, my friend. You think, because you have a purpose, Nature must have one. You might as well expect it to have fingers andtoes because you have them. 

DON JUAN. But I should not have them if they served no purpose. And I, my friend, am as much a part of Nature as my own finger is a part of me. If my finger is the organ by which I grasp the sword and the mandoline, my brain is the organ by which Nature strives to understand itself. My dog's brain serves only my dog's purposes; but my brain labors at aknowledge which does nothing for me personally but make my body bitterto me and my decay and death a calamity. Were I not possessed with apurpose beyond my own I had better be a ploughman than a philosopher;for the ploughman lives as long as the philosopher, eats more, sleepsbetter, and rejoices in the wife of his bosom with less misgiving. Thisis because the philosopher is in the grip of the Life Force. This LifeForce says to him "I have done a thousand wonderful things unconsciouslyby merely willing to live and following the line of least resistance:now I want to know myself and my destination, and choose my path; soI have made a special brain--a philosopher's brain--to grasp thisknowledge for me as the husbandman's hand grasps the plough for me. Andthis" says the Life Force to the philosopher "must thou strive to dofor me until thou diest, when I will make another brain and anotherphilosopher to carry on the work. "

THE DEVIL. What is the use of knowing?

DON JUAN. Why, to be able to choose the line of greatest advantageinstead of yielding in the direction of the least resistance. Does aship sail to its destination no better than a log drifts nowhither? Thephilosopher is Nature's pilot. And there you have our difference: to bein hell is to drift: to be in heaven is to steer. 

THE DEVIL. On the rocks, most likely. 

DON JUAN. Pooh! which ship goes oftenest on the rocks or to thebottom--the drifting ship or the ship with a pilot on board?

THE DEVIL. Well, well, go your way, Senor Don Juan. I prefer to be myown master and not the tool of any blundering universal force. I knowthat beauty is good to look at; that music is good to hear; that love isgood to feel; and that they are all good to think about and talk about. I know that to be well exercised in these sensations, emotions, andstudies is to be a refined and cultivated being. Whatever they may sayof me in churches on earth, I know that it is universally admitted ingood society that the prince of Darkness is a gentleman; and that isenough for me. As to your Life Force, which you think irresistible, itis the most resistible thing in the world for a person of any character. But if you are naturally vulgar and credulous, as all reformers are, itwill thrust you first into religion, where you will sprinkle water onbabies to save their souls from me; then it will drive you from religioninto science, where you will snatch the babies from the watersprinkling and inoculate them with disease to save them from catching itaccidentally; then you will take to politics, where you will become thecatspaw of corrupt functionaries and the henchman of ambitious humbugs;and the end will be despair and decrepitude, broken nerve andshattered hopes, vain regrets for that worst and silliest of wastesand sacrifices, the waste and sacrifice of the power of enjoyment: ina word, the punishment of the fool who pursues the better before he hassecured the good. 

DON JUAN. But at least I shall not be bored. The service of the LifeForce has that advantage, at all events. So fare you well, Senor Satan. 

THE DEVIL. [amiably] Fare you well, Don Juan. I shall often think of ourinteresting chats about things in general. I wish you every happiness:Heaven, as I said before, suits some people. But if you should changeyour mind, do not forget that the gates are always open here to therepentant prodigal. If you feel at any time that warmth of heart, sincere unforced affection, innocent enjoyment, and warm, breathing, palpitating reality--

DON JUAN. Why not say flesh and blood at once, though we have left thosetwo greasy commonplaces behind us?

THE DEVIL. [angrily] You throw my friendly farewell back in my teeth, then, Don Juan?

DON JUAN. By no means. But though there is much to be learnt from acynical devil, I really cannot stand a sentimental one. Senor Commander:you know the way to the frontier of hell and heaven. Be good enough todirect me. 

THE STATUE. Oh, the frontier is only the difference between two ways oflooking at things. Any road will take you across it if you really wantto get there. 

DON JUAN. Good. [saluting Dona Ana] Senora: your servant. 

ANA. But I am going with you. 

DON JUAN. I can find my own way to heaven, Ana; but I cannot find yours[he vanishes]. 

ANA. How annoying!

THE STATUE. [calling after him] Bon voyage, Juan! [He wafts a finalblast of his great rolling chords after him as a parting salute. A faintecho of the first ghostly melody comes back in acknowledgment]. Ah!there he goes. [Puffing a long breath out through his lips] Whew! How hedoes talk! They'll never stand it in heaven. 

THE DEVIL. [gloomily] His going is a political defeat. I cannot keepthese Life Worshippers: they all go. This is the greatest loss I havehad since that Dutch painter went--a fellow who would paint a hag of 70with as much enjoyment as a Venus of 20. 

THE STATUE. I remember: he came to heaven. Rembrandt. 

THE DEVIL. Ay, Rembrandt. There a something unnatural about thesefellows. Do not listen to their gospel, Senor Commander: it isdangerous. Beware of the pursuit of the Superhuman: it leads to anindiscriminate contempt for the Human. To a man, horses and dogs andcats are mere species, outside the moral world. Well, to the Superman, men and women are a mere species too, also outside the moral world. ThisDon Juan was kind to women and courteous to men as your daughter herewas kind to her pet cats and dogs; but such kindness is a denial of theexclusively human character of the soul. 

THE STATUE. And who the deuce is the Superman?

THE DEVIL. Oh, the latest fashion among the Life Force fanatics. Didyou not meet in Heaven, among the new arrivals, that German Polishmadman--what was his name? Nietzsche?

THE STATUE. Never heard of him. 

THE DEVIL. Well, he came here first, before he recovered his wits. I hadsome hopes of him; but he was a confirmed Life Force worshipper. It washe who raked up the Superman, who is as old as Prometheus; and the 20thcentury will run after this newest of the old crazes when it gets tiredof the world, the flesh, and your humble servant. 

THE STATUE. Superman is a good cry; and a good cry is half the battle. Ishould like to see this Nietzsche. 

THE DEVIL. Unfortunately he met Wagner here, and had a quarrel with him. 

THE STATUE. Quite right, too. Mozart for me!

THE DEVIL. Oh, it was not about music. Wagner once drifted into LifeForce worship, and invented a Superman called Siegfried. But he came tohis senses afterwards. So when they met here, Nietzsche denounced himas a renegade; and Wagner wrote a pamphlet to prove that Nietzsche wasa Jew; and it ended in Nietzsche's going to heaven in a huff. And agood riddance too. And now, my friend, let us hasten to my palace andcelebrate your arrival with a grand musical service. 

THE STATUE. With pleasure: you're most kind. 

THE DEVIL. This way, Commander. We go down the old trap [he placeshimself on the grave trap]. 

THE STATUE. Good. [Reflectively] All the same, the Superman is a fineconception. There is something statuesque about it. [He places himselfon the grave trap beside The Devil. It begins to descend slowly. Redglow from the abyss]. Ah, this reminds me of old times. 

THE DEVIL. And me also. 

ANA. Stop! [The trap stops]. 

THE DEVIL. You, Senora, cannot come this way. You will have anapotheosis. But you will be at the palace before us. 

ANA. That is not what I stopped you for. Tell me where can I find theSuperman?

THE DEVIL. He is not yet created, Senora. 

THE STATUE. And never will be, probably. Let us proceed: the red firewill make me sneeze. [They descend]. 

ANA. Not yet created! Then my work is not yet done. [Crossing herselfdevoutly] I believe in the Life to Come. [Crying to the universe] Afather--a father for the Superman!

She vanishes into the void; and again there is nothing: all existenceseems suspended infinitely. Then, vaguely, there is a live human voicecrying somewhere. One sees, with a shock, a mountain peak showingfaintly against a lighter background. The sky has returned from afar;and we suddenly remember where we were. The cry becomes distinct andurgent: it says Automobile, Automobile. The complete reality comesback with a rush: in a moment it is full morning in the Sierra; and thebrigands are scrambling to their feet and making for the road as thegoatherd runs down from the hill, warning them of the approach ofanother motor. Tanner and Mendoza rise amazedly and stare at one anotherwith scattered wits. Straker sits up to yawn for a moment before he getson his feet, making it a point of honor not to show any undue interestin the excitement of the bandits. Mendoza gives a quick look to see thathis followers are attending to the alarm; then exchanges a private wordwith Tanner. 

MENDOZA. Did you dream?

TANNER. Damnably. Did you?

MENDOZA. Yes. I forget what. You were in it. 

TANNER. So were you. Amazing

MENDOZA. I warned you. [a shot is heard from the road]. Dolts! they willplay with that gun. [The brigands come running back scared]. Who firedthat shot? [to Duval] Was it you?

DUVAL. [breathless] I have not shoot. Dey shoot first. 

ANARCHIST. I told you to begin by abolishing the State. Now we are alllost. 

THE ROWDY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT. [stampeding across the amphitheatre] Run, everybody. 

MENDOZA. [collaring him; throwing him on his back; and drawing a knife]I stab the man who stirs. [He blocks the way. The stampede it checked]. What has happened?

THE SULKY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT, A motor--

THE ANARCHIST. Three men--

DUVAL. Deux femmes--

MENDOZA. Three men and two women! Why have you not brought them here?Are you afraid of them?

THE ROWDY ONE. [getting up] Thyve a hescort. Ow, de-ooh lut's ook it, Mendowza. 

THE SULKY ONE. Two armored cars full o soldiers at the end o the valley. 

ANARCHIST. The shot was fired in the air. It was a signal. 

Straker whistles his favorite air, which falls on the ears of thebrigands like a funeral march. 

TANNER. It is not an escort, but an expedition to capture you. We wereadvised to wait for it; but I was in a hurry. 

THE ROWDY ONE. [in an agony of apprehension] And Ow my good Lord, ere weare, wytin for em! Lut's tike to the mahntns. 

MENDOZA. Idiot, what do you know about the mountains? Are you aSpaniard? You would be given up by the first shepherd you met. Besides, we are already within range of their rifles. 

THE ROWDY ONE. Bat--

MENDOZA. Silence. Leave this to me. [To Tanner] Comrade: you will notbetray us. 

STRAKER. Oo are you callin comrade?

MENDOZA. Last night the advantage was with me. The robber of the poorwas at the mercy of the robber of the rich. You offered your hand: Itook it. 

TANNER. I bring no charge against you, comrade. We have spent a pleasantevening with you: that is all. 

STRAKER. I gev my and to nobody, see?

MENDOZA. [turning on him impressively] Young man, if I am tried, I shallplead guilty, and explain what drove me from England, home and duty. Doyou wish to have the respectable name of Straker dragged through the mudof a Spanish criminal court? The police will search me. They will findLouisa's portrait. It will be published in the illustrated papers. Youblench. It will be your doing, remember. 

STRAKER. [with baffled rage] I don't care about the court. It's avin ourname mixed up with yours that I object to, you blackmailin swine, you. 

MENDOZA. Language unworthy of Louisa's brother! But no matter: you aremuzzled: that is enough for us. [He turns to face his own men, who backuneasily across the amphitheatre towards the cave to take refuge behindhim, as a fresh party, muffled for motoring, comes from the road inriotous spirits. Ann, who makes straight for Tanner, comes first; thenViolet, helped over the rough ground by Hector holding her right handand Ramsden her left. Mendoza goes to his presidential block and seatshimself calmly with his rank and file grouped behind him, and hisStaff, consisting of Duval and the Anarchist on his right and the twoSocial-Democrats on his left, supporting him in flank]. 

ANN. It's Jack!

TANNER. Caught!

HECTOR. Why, certainly it is. I said it was you, Tanner, We've just beenstopped by a puncture: the road is full of nails. 

VIOLET. What are you doing here with all these men?

ANN. Why did you leave us without a word of warning?

HECTOR. I want that bunch of roses, Miss Whitefield. [To Tanner] Whenwe found you were gone, Miss Whitefield bet me a bunch of roses my carwould not overtake yours before you reached Monte Carlo. 

TANNER. But this is not the road to Monte Carlo. 

HECTOR. No matter. Miss Whitefield tracked you at every stopping place:she is a regular Sherlock Holmes. 

TANNER. The Life Force! I am lost. 

OCTAVIUS. [Bounding gaily down from the road into the amphitheatre, andcoming between Tanner and Straker] I am so glad you are safe, old chap. We were afraid you had been captured by brigands. 

RAMSDEN. [who has been staring at Mendoza] I seem to remember the faceof your friend here. [Mendoza rises politely and advances with a smilebetween Ann and Ramsden]. 

HECTOR. Why, so do I. 

OCTAVIUS. I know you perfectly well, Sir; but I can't think where I havemet you. 

MENDOZA. [to Violet] Do YOU remember me, madam?

VIOLET. Oh, quite well; but I am so stupid about names. 

MENDOZA. It was at the Savoy Hotel. [To Hector] You, sir, used to comewith this lady [Violet] to lunch. [To Octavius] You, sir, often broughtthis lady [Ann] and her mother to dinner on your way to the LyceumTheatre. [To Ramsden] You, sir, used to come to supper, with [droppinghis voice to a confidential but perfectly audible whisper] severaldifferent ladies. 

RAMSDEN. [angrily] Well, what is that to you, pray?

OCTAVIUS. Why, Violet, I thought you hardly knew one another before thistrip, you and Malone!

VIOLET. [vexed] I suppose this person was the manager. 

MENDOZA. The waiter, madam. I have a grateful recollection of you all. I gathered from the bountiful way in which you treated me that you allenjoyed your visits very much. 

VIOLET. What impertinence! [She turns her back on him, and goes up thehill with Hector]. 

RAMSDEN. That will do, my friend. You do not expect these ladies totreat you as an acquaintance, I suppose, because you have waited on themat table. 

MENDOZA. Pardon me: it was you who claimed my acquaintance. The ladiesfollowed your example. However, this display of the unfortunate mannersof your class closes the incident. For the future, you will pleaseaddress me with the respect due to a stranger and fellow traveller. [Heturns haughtily away and resumes his presidential seat]. 

TANNER. There! I have found one man on my journey capable of reasonableconversation; and you all instinctively insult him. Even the New Manis as bad as any of you. Enry: you have behaved just like a miserablegentleman. 

STRAKER. Gentleman! Not me. 

RAMSDEN. Really, Tanner, this tone--

ANN. Don't mind him, Granny: you ought to know him by this time [shetakes his arm and coaxes him away to the hill to join Violet and Hector. Octavius follows her, doglike]. 

VIOLET. [calling from the hill] Here are the soldiers. They are gettingout of their motors. 

DUVAL. [panicstricken] Oh, nom de Dieu!

THE ANARCHIST. Fools: the State is about to crush you because you sparedit at the prompting of the political hangers-on of the bourgeoisie. 

THE SULKY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT. [argumentative to the last] On the contrary, only by capturing the State machine--

THE ANARCHIST. It is going to capture you. 

THE ROWDY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT. [his anguish culminating] Ow, chock it. Wotare we ere for? WOT are we wytin for?

MENDOZA. [between his teeth] Goon. Talk politics, you idiots: nothingsounds more respectable. Keep it up, I tell you. 

The soldiers line the road, commanding the amphitheatre with theirrifles. The brigands, struggling with an over-whelming impulse to hidebehind one another, look as unconcerned as they can. Mendoza risessuperbly, with undaunted front. The officer in command steps down fromthe road in to the amphitheatre; looks hard at the brigands; and theninquiringly at Tanner. 

THE OFFICER. Who are these men, Senor Ingles?

TANNER. My escort. 

Mendoza, with a Mephistophelean smile, bows profoundly. An irrepressiblegrin runs from face to face among the brigands. They touch their hats, except the Anarchist, who defies the State with folded arms. 

ACT IV

The garden of a villa in Granada. Whoever wishes to know what it is likemust go to Granada and see. One may prosaically specify a group of hillsdotted with villas, the Alhambra on the top of one of the hills, anda considerable town in the valley, approached by dusty white roads inwhich the children, no matter what they are doing or thinking about, automatically whine for halfpence and reach out little clutching brownpalms for them; but there is nothing in this description except theAlhambra, the begging, and the color of the roads, that does not fitSurrey as well as Spain. The difference is that the Surrey hills arecomparatively small and ugly, and should properly be called the SurreyProtuberances; but these Spanish hills are of mountain stock: theamenity which conceals their size does not compromise their dignity. 

This particular garden is on a hill opposite the Alhambra; and the villais as expensive and pretentious as a villa must be if it is to be letfurnished by the week to opulent American and English visitors. If westand on the lawn at the foot of the garden and look uphill, our horizonis the stone balustrade of a flagged platform on the edge of infinitespace at the top of the hill. Between us and this platform is a flowergarden with a circular basin and fountain in the centre, surroundedby geometrical flower beds, gravel paths, and clipped yew trees in thegenteelest order. The garden is higher than our lawn; so we reach itby a few steps in the middle of its embankment. The platform is higheragain than the garden, from which we mount a couple more steps to lookover the balustrade at a fine view of the town up the valley and of thehills that stretch away beyond it to where, in the remotest distance, they become mountains. On our left is the villa, accessible by stepsfrom the left hand corner of the garden. Returning from the platformthrough the garden and down again to the lawn (a movement which leavesthe villa behind us on our right) we find evidence of literary interestson the part of the tenants in the fact that there is no tennis net norset of croquet hoops, but, on our left, a little iron garden table withbooks on it, mostly yellow-backed, and a chair beside it. A chair on theright has also a couple of open books upon it. There are no newspapers, a circumstance which, with the absence of games, might lead anintelligent spectator to the most far reaching conclusions as to thesort of people who live in the villa. Such speculations are checked, however, on this delightfully fine afternoon, by the appearance ata little gate in a paling an our left, of Henry Straker in hisprofessional costume. He opens the gate for an elderly gentleman, andfollows him on to the lawn. 

This elderly gentleman defies the Spanish sun in a black frock coat, tall silk bat, trousers in which narrow stripes of dark grey and lilacblend into a highly respectable color, and a black necktie tied into abow over spotless linen. Probably therefore a man whose social positionneeds constant and scrupulous affirmation without regard to climate:one who would dress thus for the middle of the Sahara or the top of MontBlanc. And since he has not the stamp of the class which accepts as itslife-mission the advertizing and maintenance of first rate tailoring andmillinery, he looks vulgar in his finery, though in a working dress ofany kind he would look dignified enough. He is a bullet cheeked man witha red complexion, stubbly hair, smallish eyes, a hard mouth that foldsdown at the corners, and a dogged chin. The looseness of skin that comeswith age has attacked his throat and the laps of his cheeks; but he isstill hard as an apple above the mouth; so that the upper half of hisface looks younger than the lower. He has the self-confidence of one whohas made money, and something of the truculence of one who has made itin a brutalizing struggle, his civility having under it a perceptiblemenace that he has other methods in reserve if necessary. Withal, a manto be rather pitied when he is not to be feared; for there is somethingpathetic about him at times, as if the huge commercial machine which hasworked him into his frock coat had allowed him very little of his ownway and left his affections hungry and baffled. At the first wordthat falls from him it is clear that he is an Irishman whose nativeintonation has clung to him through many changes of place and rank. Onecan only guess that the original material of his speech was perhaps thesurly Kerry brogue; but the degradation of speech that occurs in London, Glasgow, Dublin and big cities generally has been at work on it so longthat nobody but an arrant cockney would dream of calling it a broguenow; for its music is almost gone, though its surliness is stillperceptible. Straker, as a very obvious cockney, inspires him withimplacable contempt, as a stupid Englishman who cannot even speak hisown language properly. Straker, on the other hand, regards the oldgentleman's accent as a joke thoughtfully provided by Providenceexpressly for the amusement of the British race, and treats himnormally with the indulgence due to an inferior and unlucky species, butoccasionally with indignant alarm when the old gentleman shows signs ofintending his Irish nonsense to be taken seriously. 

STRAKER. I'll go tell the young lady. She said you'd prefer to stay here[he turns to go up through the garden to the villa]. 

MALONE. [who has been looking round him with lively curiosity] The younglady? That's Miss Violet, eh?

STRAKER. [stopping on the steps with sudden suspicion] Well, you know, don't you?

MALONE. Do I?

STRAKER. [his temper rising] Well, do you or don't you?

MALONE. What business is that of yours?

Straker, now highly indignant, comes back from the steps and confrontsthe visitor. 

STRAKER. I'll tell you what business it is of mine. Miss Robinson--

MALONE. [interrupting] Oh, her name is Robinson, is it? Thank you. 

STRAKER. Why, you don't know even her name?

MALONE. Yes I do, now that you've told me. 

STRAKER. [after a moment of stupefaction at the old man's readiness inrepartee] Look here: what do you mean by gittin into my car and lettinme bring you here if you're not the person I took that note to?

MALONE. Who else did you take it to, pray?

STRAKER. I took it to Mr Ector Malone, at Miss Robinson's request, see?Miss Robinson is not my principal: I took it to oblige her. I know MrMalone; and he ain't you, not by a long chalk. At the hotel they told methat your name is Ector Malone. 

MALONE. Hector Malone. 

STRAKER. [with calm superiority] Hector in your own country: that's whatcomes o livin in provincial places like Ireland and America. Over hereyou're Ector: if you avn't noticed it before you soon will. 

The growing strain of the conversation is here relieved by Violet, whohas sallied from the villa and through the garden to the steps, whichshe now descends, coming very opportunely between Malone and Straker. 

VIOLET. [to Straker] Did you take my message?

STRAKER. Yes, miss. I took it to the hotel and sent it up, expecting tosee young Mr Malone. Then out walks this gent, and says it's all rightand he'll come with me. So as the hotel people said he was Mr EctorMalone, I fetched him. And now he goes back on what he said. But if heisn't the gentleman you meant, say the word: it's easy enough to fetchhim back again. 

MALONE. I should esteem it a great favor if I might have a shortconversation with you, madam. I am Hector's father, as this brightBritisher would have guessed in the course of another hour or so. 

STRAKER. [coolly defiant] No, not in another year or so. When we've adyou as long to polish up as we've ad im, perhaps you'll begin to look alittle bit up to is mark. At present you fall a long way short. You'vegot too many aitches, for one thing. [To Violet, amiably] All right, Miss: you want to talk to him: I shan't intrude. [He nods affably toMalone and goes out through the little gate in the paling]. 

VIOLET. [very civilly] I am so sorry, Mr Malone, if that man has beenrude to you. But what can we do? He is our chauffeur. 

MALONE. Your what?

VIOLET. The driver of our automobile. He can drive a motor car atseventy miles an hour, and mend it when it breaks down. We are dependenton our motor cars; and our motor cars are dependent on him; so of coursewe are dependent on him. 

MALONE. I've noticed, madam, that every thousand dollars an Englishmangets seems to add one to the number of people he's dependent on. However, you needn't apologize for your man: I made him talk on purpose. By doing so I learnt that you're staying here in Grannida with a partyof English, including my son Hector. 

VIOLET. [conversationally] Yes. We intended to go to Nice; but we had tofollow a rather eccentric member of our party who started first and camehere. Won't you sit down? [She clears the nearest chair of the two bookson it]. 

MALONE. [impressed by this attention] Thank you. [He sits down, examining her curiously as she goes to the iron table to put down thebooks. When she turns to him again, he says] Miss Robinson, I believe?

VIOLET. [sitting down] Yes. 

MALONE. [Taking a letter from his pocket] Your note to Hector runs asfollows [Violet is unable to repress a start. He pauses quietly to takeout and put on his spectacles, which have gold rims]: "Dearest: theyhave all gone to the Alhambra for the afternoon. I have shammed headacheand have the garden all to myself. Jump into Jack's motor: Straker willrattle you here in a jiffy. Quick, quick, quick. Your loving Violet. "[He looks at her; but by this time she has recovered herself, and meetshis spectacles with perfect composure. He continues slowly] Now I don'tknow on what terms young people associate in English society; but inAmerica that note would be considered to imply a very considerabledegree of affectionate intimacy between the parties. 

VIOLET. Yes: I know your son very well, Mr Malone. Have you anyobjection?

MALONE. [somewhat taken aback] No, no objection exactly. Provided it isunderstood that my son is altogether dependent on me, and that I have tobe consulted in any important step he may propose to take. 

VIOLET. I am sure you would not be unreasonable with him, Mr Malone. 

MALONE. I hope not, Miss Robinson; but at your age you might think manythings unreasonable that don't seem so to me. 

VIOLET. [with a little shrug] Oh well, I suppose there's no use ourplaying at cross purposes, Mr Malone. Hector wants to marry me. 

MALONE. I inferred from your note that he might. Well, Miss Robinson, he is his own master; but if he marries you he shall not have a rap fromme. [He takes off his spectacles and pockets them with the note]. 

VIOLET. [with some severity] That is not very complimentary to me, MrMalone. 

MALONE. I say nothing against you, Miss Robinson: I daresay you are anamiable and excellent young lady. But I have other views for Hector. 

VIOLET. Hector may not have other views for himself, Mr Malone. 

MALONE. Possibly not. Then he does without me: that's all. I daresay youare prepared for that. When a young lady writes to a young man tocome to her quick, quick, quick, money seems nothing and love seemseverything. 

VIOLET. [sharply] I beg your pardon, Mr Malone: I do not think anythingso foolish. Hector must have money. 

MALONE. [staggered] Oh, very well, very well. No doubt he can work forit. 

VIOLET. What is the use of having money if you have to work for it? [Sherises impatiently]. It's all nonsense, Mr Malone: you must enable yourson to keep up his position. It is his right. 

MALONE. [grimly] I should not advise you to marry him on the strength ofthat right, Miss Robinson. 

Violet, who has almost lost her temper, controls herself with an effort;unclenches her fingers; and resumes her seat with studied tranquillityand reasonableness. 

VIOLET. What objection have you to me, pray? My social position is asgood as Hector's, to say the least. He admits it. 

MALONE. [shrewdly] You tell him so from time to time, eh? Hector'ssocial position in England, Miss Robinson, is just what I choose tobuy for him. I have made him a fair offer. Let him pick out the mosthistoric house, castle or abbey that England contains. The day that hetells me he wants it for a wife worthy of its traditions, I buy it forhim, and give him the means of keeping it up. 

VIOLET. What do you mean by a wife worthy of its traditions? Cannot anywell bred woman keep such a house for him?

MALONE. No: she must be born to it. 

VIOLET. Hector was not born to it, was he?

MALONE. His granmother was a barefooted Irish girl that nursed me by aturf fire. Let him marry another such, and I will not stint her marriageportion. Let him raise himself socially with my money or raise somebodyelse so long as there is a social profit somewhere, I'll regard myexpenditure as justified. But there must be a profit for someone. Amarriage with you would leave things just where they are. 

VIOLET. Many of my relations would object very much to my marrying thegrandson of a common woman, Mr Malone. That may be prejudice; but so isyour desire to have him marry a title prejudice. 

MALONE. [rising, and approaching her with a scrutiny in which there isa good deal of reluctant respect] You seem a pretty straightforwarddownright sort of a young woman. 

VIOLET. I do not see why I should be made miserably poor because Icannot make profits for you. Why do you want to make Hector unhappy?

MALONE. He will get over it all right enough. Men thrive better ondisappointments in love than on disappointments in money. I daresay youthink that sordid; but I know what I'm talking about. My father died ofstarvation in Ireland in the black 47, Maybe you've heard of it. 

VIOLET. The Famine?

MALONE. [with smouldering passion] No, the starvation. When a countryis full of food, and exporting it, there can be no famine. My fatherwas starved dead; and I was starved out to America in my mother'sarms. English rule drove me and mine out of Ireland. Well, you can keepIreland. I and my like are coming back to buy England; and we'll buy thebest of it. I want no middle class properties and no middle class womenfor Hector. That's straightforward isn't it, like yourself?

VIOLET. [icily pitying his sentimentality] Really, Mr Malone, I amastonished to hear a man of your age and good sense talking in thatromantic way. Do you suppose English noblemen will sell their places toyou for the asking?

MALONE. I have the refusal of two of the oldest family mansions inEngland. One historic owner can't afford to keep all the rooms dusted:the other can't afford the death duties. What do you say now?

VIOLET. Of course it is very scandalous; but surely you know that theGovernment will sooner or later put a stop to all these Socialisticattacks on property. 

MALONE. [grinning] D'y' think they'll be able to get that done before Ibuy the house--or rather the abbey? They're both abbeys. 

VIOLET. [putting that aside rather impatiently] Oh, well, let us talksense, Mr Malone. You must feel that we haven't been talking sense sofar. 

MALONE. I can't say I do. I mean all I say. 

VIOLET. Then you don't know Hector as I do. He is romantic and faddy--hegets it from you, I fancy--and he wants a certain sort of wife to takecare of him. Not a faddy sort of person, you know. 

MALONE. Somebody like you, perhaps?

VIOLET. [quietly] Well, yes. But you cannot very well ask me toundertake this with absolutely no means of keeping up his position. 

MALONE. [alarmed] Stop a bit, stop a bit. Where are we getting to? I'mnot aware that I'm asking you to undertake anything. 

VIOLET. Of course, Mr Malone, you can make it very difficult for me tospeak to you if you choose to misunderstand me. 

MALONE. [half bewildered] I don't wish to take any unfair advantage; butwe seem to have got off the straight track somehow. 

Straker, with the air of a man who has been making haste, opens thelittle gate, and admits Hector, who, snorting with indignation, comesupon the lawn, and is making for his father when Violet, greatlydismayed, springs up and intercepts him. Straker doer not wait; at leasthe does not remain visibly within earshot. 

VIOLET. Oh, how unlucky! Now please, Hector, say nothing. Go away untilI have finished speaking to your father. 

HECTOR. [inexorably] No, Violet: I mean to have this thing out, rightaway. [He puts her aside; passes her by; and faces his father, whosecheeks darken as his Irish blood begins to simmer]. Dad: you've notplayed this hand straight. 

MALONE. Hwat d'y'mean?

HECTOR. You've opened a letter addressed to me. You've impersonated meand stolen a march on this lady. That's dishonorable. 

MALONE. [threateningly] Now you take care what you're saying, Hector. Take care, I tell you. 

HECTOR. I have taken care. I am taking care. I'm taking care of my honorand my position in English society. 

MALONE. [hotly] Your position has been got by my money: do you knowthat?

HECTOR. Well, you've just spoiled it all by opening that letter. Aletter from an English lady, not addressed to you--a confidentialletter! a delicate letter! a private letter opened by my father! That'sa sort of thing a man can't struggle against in England. The soonerwe go back together the better. [He appeals mutely to the heavens towitness the shame and anguish of two outcasts]. 

VIOLET. [snubbing him with an instinctive dislike for scene making]Don't be unreasonable, Hector. It was quite natural of Mr Malone to openmy letter: his name was on the envelope. 

MALONE. There! You've no common sense, Hector. I thank you, MissRobinson. 

HECTOR. I thank you, too. It's very kind of you. My father knows nobetter. 

MALONE. [furiously clenching his fists] Hector--

HECTOR. [with undaunted moral force] Oh, it's no use hectoring me. Aprivate letter's a private letter, dad: you can't get over that. 

MALONE [raising his voice] I won't be talked back to by you, d'y' hear?

VIOLET. Ssh! please, please. Here they all come. 

Father and son, checked, glare mutely at one another as Tanner comes inthrough the little gate with Ramsden, followed by Octavius and Ann. 

VIOLET. Back already!

TANNER. The Alhambra is not open this afternoon. 

VIOLET. What a sell!

Tanner passes on, and presently finds himself between Hector and astrange elder, both apparently on the verge of personal combat. He looksfrom one to the other for an explanation. They sulkily avoid his eye, and nurse their wrath in silence. 

RAMSDEN. Is it wise for you to be out in the sunshine with such aheadache, Violet?

TANNER. Have you recovered too, Malone?

VIOLET. Oh, I forgot. We have not all met before. Mr Malone: won't youintroduce your father?

HECTOR. [with Roman firmness] No, I will not. He is no father of mine. 

MALONE. [very angry] You disown your dad before your English friends, doyou?

VIOLET. Oh please don't make a scene. 

Ann and Octavius, lingering near the gate, exchange an astonishedglance, and discreetly withdraw up the steps to the garden, where theycan enjoy the disturbance without intruding. On their way to the stepsAnn sends a little grimace of mute sympathy to Violet, who is standingwith her back to the little table, looking on in helpless annoyance asher husband soars to higher and higher moral eminences without the leastregard to the old man's millions. 

HECTOR. I'm very sorry, Miss Robinson; but I'm contending for aprinciple. I am a son, and, I hope, a dutiful one; but before everythingI'm a Man!!! And when dad treats my private letters as his own, andtakes it on himself to say that I shan't marry you if I am happy andfortunate enough to gain your consent, then I just snap my fingers andgo my own way. 

TANNER. Marry Violet!

RAMSDEN. Are you in your senses?

TANNER. Do you forget what we told you?

HECTOR. [recklessly] I don't care what you told me. 

RAMSDEN. [scandalized] Tut tut, sir! Monstrous! [he flings away towardsthe gate, his elbows quivering with indignation]

TANNER. Another madman! These men in love should be locked up. [He givesHector up as hopeless, and turns away towards the garden, but Malone, taking offence in a new direction, follows him and compels him, by theaggressivenes of his tone, to stop]. 

MALONE. I don't understand this. Is Hector not good enough for thislady, pray?

TANNER. My dear sir, the lady is married already. Hector knows it; andyet he persists in his infatuation. Take him home and lock him up. 

MALONE. [bitterly] So this is the high-born social tone I've spoilt bymy ignorant, uncultivated behavior! Makin love to a married woman! [Hecomes angrily between Hector and Violet, and almost bawls into Hector'sleft ear] You've picked up that habit of the British aristocracy, haveyou?

HECTOR. That's all right. Don't you trouble yourself about that. I'llanswer for the morality of what I'm doing. 

TANNER. [coming forward to Hector's right hand with flashing eyes] Wellsaid, Malone! You also see that mere marriage laws are not morality! Iagree with you; but unfortunately Violet does not. 

MALONE. I take leave to doubt that, sir. [Turning on Violet] Let me tellyou, Mrs Robinson, or whatever your right name is, you had no right tosend that letter to my son when you were the wife of another man. 

HECTOR. [outraged] This is the last straw. Dad: you have insulted mywife. 

MALONE. YOUR wife!

TANNER. YOU the missing husband! Another moral impostor! [He smites hisbrow, and collapses into Malone's chair]. 

MALONE. You've married without my consent!

RAMSDEN. You have deliberately humbugged us, sir!

HECTOR. Here: I have had just about enough of being badgered. Violet andI are married: that's the long and the short of it. Now what have yougot to say--any of you?

MALONE. I know what I've got to say. She's married a beggar. 

HECTOR. No; she's married a Worker [his American pronunciation impartsan overwhelming intensity to this simple and unpopular word]. I start toearn my own living this very afternoon. 

MALONE. [sneering angrily] Yes: you're very plucky now, because you gotyour remittance from me yesterday or this morning, I reckon. Wait tilit's spent. You won't be so full of cheek then. 

HECTOR. [producing a letter from his pocketbook] Here it is [thrustingit on his father]. Now you just take your remittance and yourself out ofmy life. I'm done with remittances; and I'm done with you. I don't sellthe privilege of insulting my wife for a thousand dollars. 

MALONE. [deeply wounded and full of concern] Hector: you don't know whatpoverty is. 

HECTOR. [fervidly] Well, I want to know what it is. I want'be a Man. Violet: you come along with me, to your own home: I'll see you through. 

OCTAVIUS. [jumping down from the garden to the lawn and running toHector's left hand] I hope you'll shake hands with me before you go, Hector. I admire and respect you more than I can say. [He is affectedalmost to tears as they shake hands]. 

VIOLET. [also almost in tears, but of vexation] Oh don't be an idiot, Tavy. Hector's about as fit to become a workman as you are. 

TANNER. [rising from his chair on the other ride of Hector] Never fear:there's no question of his becoming a navvy, Mrs Malone. [To Hector]There's really no difficulty about capital to start with. Treat me as afriend: draw on me. 

OCTAVIUS. [impulsively] Or on me. 

MALONE. [with fierce jealousy] Who wants your dirty money? Who should hedraw on but his own father? [Tanner and Octavius recoil, Octavius ratherhurt, Tanner consoled by the solution of the money difficulty. Violetlooks up hopefully]. Hector: don't be rash, my boy. I'm sorry for what Isaid: I never meant to insult Violet: I take it all back. She's just thewife you want: there!

HECTOR. [Patting him on the shoulder] Well, that's all right, dad. Sayno more: we're friends again. Only, I take no money from anybody. 

MALONE. [pleading abjectly] Don't be hard on me, Hector. I'd rather youquarrelled and took the money than made friends and starved. You don'tknow what the world is: I do. 

HECTOR. No, no, NO. That's fixed: that's not going to change. [He passeshis father inexorably by, and goes to Violet]. Come, Mrs Malone: you'vegot to move to the hotel with me, and take your proper place before theworld. 

VIOLET. But I must go in, dear, and tell Davis to pack. Won't you go onand make them give you a room overlooking the garden for me? I'll joinyou in half an hour. 

HECTOR. Very well. You'll dine with us, Dad, won't you?

MALONE. [eager to conciliate him] Yes, yes. 

HECTOR. See you all later. [He waves his hand to Ann, who has now beenjoined by Tanner, Octavius, and Ramsden in the garden, and goes outthrough the little gate, leaving his father and Violet together on thelawn]. 

MALONE. You'll try to bring him to his senses, Violet: I know you will. 

VIOLET. I had no idea he could be so headstrong. If he goes on likethat, what can I do?

MALONE. Don't be discurridged: domestic pressure may be slow; but it'ssure. You'll wear him down. Promise me you will. 

VIOLET. I will do my best. Of course I think it's the greatest nonsensedeliberately making us poor like that. 

MALONE. Of course it is. 

VIOLET. [after a moment's reflection] You had better give me theremittance. He will want it for his hotel bill. I'll see whether I caninduce him to accept it. Not now, of course, but presently. 

MALONE. [eagerly] Yes, yes, yes: that's just the thing [he hands her thethousand dollar bill, and adds cunningly] Y'understand that this is onlya bachelor allowance. 

VIOLET. [Coolly] Oh, quite. [She takes it]. Thank you. By the way, MrMalone, those two houses you mentioned--the abbeys. 

MALONE. Yes?

VIOLET. Don't take one of them until I've seen it. One never knows whatmay be wrong with these places. 

MALONE. I won't. I'll do nothing without consulting you, never fear. 

VIOLET. [politely, but without a ray of gratitude] Thanks: that willbe much the best way. [She goes calmly back to the villa, escortedobsequiously by Malone to the upper end of the garden]. 

TANNER. [drawing Ramsden's attention to Malone's cringing attitude as hetakes leave of Violet] And that poor devil is a billionaire! one of themaster spirits of the age! Led on a string like a pug dog by the firstgirl who takes the trouble to despise him. I wonder will it ever come tothat with me. [He comes down to the lawn. ]

RAMSDEN. [following him] The sooner the better for you. 

MALONE. [clapping his hands as he returns through the garden] That'll bea grand woman for Hector. I wouldn't exchange her for ten duchesses. [Hedescends to the lawn and comes between Tanner and Ramsden]. 

RAMSDEN. [very civil to the billionaire] It's an unexpected pleasure tofind you in this corner of the world, Mr Malone. Have you come to buy upthe Alhambra?

MALONE. Well, I don't say I mightn't. I think I could do better with itthan the Spanish government. But that's not what I came about. To tellyou the truth, about a month ago I overheard a deal between two men overa bundle of shares. They differed about the price: they were young andgreedy, and didn't know that if the shares were worth what was bid forthem they must be worth what was asked, the margin being too small tobe of any account, you see. To amuse meself, I cut in and bought theshares. Well, to this day I haven't found out what the business is. Theoffice is in this town; and the name is Mendoza, Limited. Now whetherMendoza's a mine, or a steamboat line, or a bank, or a patent article--

TANNER. He's a man. I know him: his principles are thoroughlycommercial. Let us take you round the town in our motor, Mr Malone, andcall on him on the way. 

MALONE. If you'll be so kind, yes. And may I ask who--

TANNER. Mr Roebuck Ramsden, a very old friend of your daughter-in-law. 

MALONE. Happy to meet you, Mr Ramsden. 

RAMSDEN. Thank you. Mr Tanner is also one of our circle. 

MALONE. Glad to know you also, Mr Tanner. 

TANNER. Thanks. [Malone and Ramsden go out very amicably through thelittle gate. Tanner calls to Octavius, who is wandering in the gardenwith Ann] Tavy! [Tavy comes to the steps, Tanner whispers loudly tohim] Violet has married a financier of brigands. [Tanner hurries awayto overtake Malone and Ramsden. Ann strolls to the steps with an idleimpulse to torment Octavius]. 

ANN. Won't you go with them, Tavy?

OCTAVIUS. [tears suddenly flushing his eyes] You cut me to the heart, Ann, by wanting me to go [he comes down on the lawn to hide his facefrom her. She follows him caressingly]. 

ANN. Poor Ricky Ticky Tavy! Poor heart!

OCTAVIUS. It belongs to you, Ann. Forgive me: I must speak of it. I loveyou. You know I love you. 

ANN. What's the good, Tavy? You know that my mother is determined that Ishall marry Jack. 

OCTAVIUS. [amazed] Jack!

ANN. It seems absurd, doesn't it?

OCTAVIUS. [with growing resentment] Do you mean to say that Jack hasbeen playing with me all this time? That he has been urging me not tomarry you because he intends to marry you himself?

ANN. [alarmed] No no: you mustn't lead him to believe that I said that:I don't for a moment think that Jack knows his own mind. But it's clearfrom my father's will that he wished me to marry Jack. And my mother isset on it. 

OCTAVIUS. But you are not bound to sacrifice yourself always to thewishes of your parents. 

ANN. My father loved me. My mother loves me. Surely their wishes are abetter guide than my own selfishness. 

OCTAVIUS. Oh, I know how unselfish you are, Ann. But believe me--thoughI know I am speaking in my own interest--there is another side to thisquestion. Is it fair to Jack to marry him if you do not love him? Isit fair to destroy my happiness as well as your own if you can bringyourself to love me?

ANN. [looking at him with a faint impulse of pity] Tavy, my dear, youare a nice creature--a good boy. 

OCTAVIUS. [humiliated] Is that all?

ANN. [mischievously in spite of her pity] That's a great deal, I assureyou. You would always worship the ground I trod on, wouldn't you?

OCTAVIUS. I do. It sounds ridiculous; but it's no exaggeration. I do;and I always shall. 

ANN. Always is a long word, Tavy. You see, I shall have to live upalways to your idea of my divinity; and I don't think I could do that ifwe were married. But if I marry Jack, you'll never be disillusioned--atleast not until I grow too old. 

OCTAVIUS. I too shall grow old, Ann. And when I am eighty, one whitehair of the woman I love will make me tremble more than the thickestgold tress from the most beautiful young head. 

ANN. [quite touched] Oh, that's poetry, Tavy, real poetry. It givesme that strange sudden sense of an echo from a former existence whichalways seems to me such a striking proof that we have immortal souls. 

OCTAVIUS. Do you believe that is true?

ANN. Tavy, if it is to become true you must lose me as well as love me. 

OCTAVIUS. Oh! [he hastily sits down at the little table and covers hisface with his hands]. 

ANN. [with conviction] Tavy: I wouldn't for worlds destroy yourillusions. I can neither take you nor let you go. I can see exactly whatwill suit you. You must be a sentimental old bachelor for my sake. 

OCTAVIUS. [desperately] Ann: I'll kill myself. 

ANN. Oh no you won't: that wouldn't be kind. You won't have a bad time. You will be very nice to women; and you will go a good deal to theopera. A broken heart is a very pleasant complaint for a man in Londonif he has a comfortable income. 

OCTAVIUS. [considerably cooled, but believing that he is only recoveringhis self-control] I know you mean to be kind, Ann. Jack has persuadedyou that cynicism is a good tonic for me. [He rises with quiet dignity]. 

ANN. [studying him slyly] You see, I'm disillusionizing you already. That's what I dread. 

OCTAVIUS. You do not dread disillusionizing Jack. 

ANN. [her face lighting up with mischievous ecstasy--whispering] Ican't: he has no illusions about me. I shall surprise Jack the otherway. Getting over an unfavorable impression is ever so much easier thanliving up to an ideal. Oh, I shall enrapture Jack sometimes!

OCTAVIUS. [resuming the calm phase of despair, and beginning to enjoyhis broken heart and delicate attitude without knowing it] I don't doubtthat. You will enrapture him always. And he--the fool!--thinks you wouldmake him wretched. 

ANN. Yes: that's the difficulty, so far. 

OCTAVIUS. [heroically] Shall I tell him that you love?

ANN. [quickly] Oh no: he'd run away again. 

OCTAVIUS. [shocked] Ann: would you marry an unwilling man?

ANN. What a queer creature you are, Tavy! There's no such thing as awilling man when you really go for him. [She laughs naughtily]. I'mshocking you, I suppose. But you know you are really getting a sort ofsatisfaction already in being out of danger yourself. 

OCTAVIUS [startled] Satisfaction! [Reproachfully] You say that to me!

ANN. Well, if it were really agony, would you ask for more of it?

OCTAVIUS. Have I asked for more of it?

ANN. You have offered to tell Jack that I love him. That'sself-sacrifice, I suppose; but there must be some satisfaction in it. Perhaps it's because you're a poet. You are like the bird that pressesits breast against the sharp thorn to make itself sing. 

OCTAVIUS. It's quite simple. I love you; and I want you to be happy. Youdon't love me; so I can't make you happy myself; but I can help anotherman to do it. 

ANN. Yes: it seems quite simple. But I doubt if we ever know why we dothings. The only really simple thing is to go straight for what you wantand grab it. I suppose I don't love you, Tavy; but sometimes I feelas if I should like to make a man of you somehow. You are very foolishabout women. 

OCTAVIUS. [almost coldly] I am content to be what I am in that respect. 

ANN. Then you must keep away from them, and only dream about them. Iwouldn't marry you for worlds, Tavy. 

OCTAVIUS. I have no hope, Ann: I accept my ill luck. But I don't thinkyou quite know how much it hurts. 

ANN. You are so softhearted! It's queer that you should be so differentfrom Violet. Violet's as hard as nails. 

OCTAVIUS. Oh no. I am sure Violet is thoroughly womanly at heart. 

ANN. [with some impatience] Why do you say that? Is it unwomanly to bethoughtful and businesslike and sensible? Do you want Violet to be anidiot--or something worse, like me?

OCTAVIUS. Something worse--like you! What do you mean, Ann?

ANN. Oh well, I don't mean that, of course. But I have a great respectfor Violet. She gets her own way always. 

OCTAVIUS. [sighing] So do you. 

ANN. Yes; but somehow she gets it without coaxing--without having tomake people sentimental about her. 

OCTAVIUS. [with brotherly callousness] Nobody could get very sentimentalabout Violet, I think, pretty as she is. 

ANN. Oh yes they could, if she made them. 

OCTAVIUS. But surely no really nice woman would deliberately practise onmen's instincts in that way. 

ANN. [throwing up her hands] Oh Tavy, Tavy, Ricky Ticky Tavy, heavenhelp the woman who marries you!

OCTAVIUS. [his passion reviving at the name] Oh why, why, why do you saythat? Don't torment me. I don't understand. 

ANN. Suppose she were to tell fibs, and lay snares for men?

OCTAVIUS. Do you think I could marry such a woman--I, who have known andloved you?

ANN. Hm! Well, at all events, she wouldn't let you if she were wise. Sothat's settled. And now I can't talk any more. Say you forgive me, andthat the subject is closed. 

OCTAVIUS. I have nothing to forgive; and the subject is closed. And ifthe wound is open, at least you shall never see it bleed. 

ANN. Poetic to the last, Tavy. Goodbye, dear. [She pats his check;has an impulse to kiss him and then another impulse of distaste whichprevents her; finally runs away through the garden and into the villa]. 

Octavius again takes refuge at the table, bowing his head on his armsand sobbing softly. Mrs Whitefield, who has been pottering round theGranada shops, and has a net full of little parcels in her hand, comesin through the gate and sees him. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [running to him and lifting his head] What's the matter, Tavy? Are you ill?

OCTAVIUS. No, nothing, nothing. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [still holding his head, anxiously] But you're crying. Is it about Violet's marriage?

OCTAVIUS. No, no. Who told you about Violet?

MRS WHITEFIELD. [restoring the head to its owner] I met Roebuck and thatawful old Irishman. Are you sure you're not ill? What's the matter?

OCTAVIUS. [affectionately] It's nothing--only a man's broken heart. Doesn't that sound ridiculous?

MRS WHITEFIELD. But what is it all about? Has Ann been doing anything toyou?

OCTAVIUS. It's not Ann's fault. And don't think for a moment that Iblame you. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [startled] For what?

OCTAVIUS. [pressing her hand consolingly] For nothing. I said I didn'tblame you. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. But I haven't done anything. What's the matter?

OCTAVIUS. [smiling sadly] Can't you guess? I daresay you are right toprefer Jack to me as a husband for Ann; but I love Ann; and it hurtsrather. [He rises and moves away from her towards the middle of thelawn]. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [following him hastily] Does Ann say that I want her tomarry Jack?

OCTAVIUS. Yes: she has told me. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [thoughtfully] Then I'm very sorry for you, Tavy. It'sonly her way of saying SHE wants to marry Jack. Little she cares what Isay or what I want!

OCTAVIUS. But she would not say it unless she believed it. Surely youdon't suspect Ann of--of DECEIT!!

MRS WHITEFIELD. Well, never mind, Tavy. I don't know which is best for ayoung man: to know too little, like you, or too much, like Jack. 

Tanner returns. 

TANNER. Well, I've disposed of old Malone. I've introduced him toMendoza, Limited; and left the two brigands together to talk it out. Hullo, Tavy! anything wrong?

OCTAVIUS. I must go wash my face, I see. [To Mrs Whitefield] Tell himwhat you wish. [To Tanner] You may take it from me, Jack, that Annapproves of it. 

TANNER. [puzzled by his manner] Approves of what?

OCTAVIUS. Of what Mrs Whitefield wishes. [He goes his way with saddignity to the villa]. 

TANNER. [to Mrs Whitefield] This is very mysterious. What is it youwish? It shall be done, whatever it is. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [with snivelling gratitude] Thank you, Jack. [She sitsdown. Tanner brings the other chair from the table and sits close to herwith his elbows on his knees, giving her his whole attention]. I don'tknow why it is that other people's children are so nice to me, and thatmy own have so little consideration for me. It's no wonder I don't seemable to care for Ann and Rhoda as I do for you and Tavy and Violet. It'sa very queer world. It used to be so straightforward and simple; andnow nobody seems to think and feel as they ought. Nothing has been rightsince that speech that Professor Tyndall made at Belfast. 

TANNER. Yes: life is more complicated than we used to think. But what amI to do for you?

MRS WHITEFIELD. That's just what I want to tell you. Of course you'llmarry Ann whether I like it myself or not--

TANNER. [starting] It seems to me that I shall presently be married toAnn whether I like it myself or not. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [peacefully] Oh, very likely you will: you know what sheis when she has set her mind on anything. But don't put it on me: that'sall I ask. Tavy has just let out that she's been saying that I am makingher marry you; and the poor boy is breaking his heart about it; for heis in love with her himself, though what he sees in her so wonderful, goodness knows: I don't. It's no use telling Tavy that Ann puts thingsinto people's heads by telling them that I want them when the thought ofthem never crossed my mind. It only sets Tavy against me. But you knowbetter than that. So if you marry her, don't put the blame on me. 

TANNER. [emphatically] I haven't the slightest intention of marryingher. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [slyly] She'd suit you better than Tavy. She'd meet hermatch in you, Jack. I'd like to see her meet her match. 

TANNER. No man is a match for a woman, except with a poker and a pair ofhobnailed boots. Not always even then. Anyhow, I can't take the poker toher. I should be a mere slave. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. No: she's afraid of you. At all events, you would tellher the truth about herself. She wouldn't be able to slip out of it asshe does with me. 

TANNER. Everybody would call me a brute if I told Ann the truth aboutherself in terms of her own moral code. To begin with, Ann says thingsthat are not strictly true. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. I'm glad somebody sees she is not an angel. 

TANNER. In short--to put it as a husband would put it when exasperatedto the point of speaking out--she is a liar. And since she has plungedTavy head over ears in love with her without any intention of marryinghim, she is a coquette, according to the standard definition ofa coquette as a woman who rouses passions she has no intention ofgratifying. And as she has now reduced you to the point of being willingto sacrifice me at the altar for the mere satisfaction of getting me tocall her a liar to her face, I may conclude that she is a bully aswell. She can't bully men as she bullies women; so she habituallyand unscrupulously uses her personal fascination to make men give herwhatever she wants. That makes her almost something for which I know nopolite name. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [in mild expostulation] Well, you can't expectperfection, Jack. 

TANNER. I don't. But what annoys me is that Ann does. I know perfectlywell that all this about her being a liar and a bully and a coquette andso forth is a trumped-up moral indictment which might be brought againstanybody. We all lie; we all bully as much as we dare; we all bid foradmiration without the least intention of earning it; we all get as muchrent as we can out of our powers of fascination. If Ann would admit thisI shouldn't quarrel with her. But she won't. If she has children she'lltake advantage of their telling lies to amuse herself by whacking them. If another woman makes eyes at me, she'll refuse to know a coquette. Shewill do just what she likes herself whilst insisting on everybody elsedoing what the conventional code prescribes. In short, I can standeverything except her confounded hypocrisy. That's what beats me. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [carried away by the relief of hearing her own opinionso eloquently expressed] Oh, she is a hypocrite. She is: she is. Isn'tshe?

TANNER. Then why do you want to marry me to her?

MRS WHITEFIELD. [querulously] There now! put it on me, of course. Inever thought of it until Tavy told me she said I did. But, you know, I'm very fond of Tavy: he's a sort of son to me; and I don't want him tobe trampled on and made wretched. 

TANNER. Whereas I don't matter, I suppose. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. Oh, you are different, somehow: you are able to takecare of yourself. You'd serve her out. And anyhow, she must marrysomebody. 

TANNER. Aha! there speaks the life instinct. You detest her; but youfeel that you must get her married. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [rising, shocked] Do you mean that I detest my owndaughter! Surely you don't believe me to be so wicked and unnatural asthat, merely because I see her faults. 

TANNER. [cynically] You love her, then?

MRS WHITEFIELD. Why, of course I do. What queer things you say, Jack! Wecan't help loving our own blood relations. 

TANNER. Well, perhaps it saves unpleasantness to say so. But for mypart, I suspect that the tables of consanguinity have a natural basis ina natural repugnance [he rises]. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. You shouldn't say things like that, Jack. I hope youwon't tell Ann that I have been speaking to you. I only wanted toset myself right with you and Tavy. I couldn't sit mumchance and haveeverything put on me. 

TANNER. [politely] Quite so. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [dissatisfied] And now I've only made matters worse. Tavy's angry with me because I don't worship Ann. And when it's been putinto my head that Ann ought to marry you, what can I say except that itwould serve her right?

TANNER. Thank you. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. Now don't be silly and twist what I say into something Idon't mean. I ought to have fair play--

Ann comes from the villa, followed presently by Violet, who is dressedfor driving. 

ANN. [coming to her mother's right hand with threatening suavity] Well, mamma darling, you seem to be having a delightful chat with Jack. We canhear you all over the place. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [appalled] Have you overheard--

TANNER. Never fear: Ann is only--well, we were discussing that habit ofhers just now. She hasn't heard a word. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [stoutly] I don't care whether she has or not: I have aright to say what I please. 

VIOLET. [arriving on the lawn and coming between Mrs Whitefield andTanner] I've come to say goodbye. I'm off for my honeymoon. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [crying] Oh don't say that, Violet. And no wedding, nobreakfast, no clothes, nor anything. 

VIOLET. [petting her] It won't be for long. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. Don't let him take you to America. Promise me that youwon't. 

VIOLET. [very decidedly] I should think not, indeed. Don't cry, dear:I'm only going to the hotel. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. But going in that dress, with your luggage, makes onerealize--[she chokes, and then breaks out again] How I wish you were mydaughter, Violet!

VIOLET. [soothing her] There, there: so I am. Ann will be jealous. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. Ann doesn't care a bit for me. 

ANN. Fie, mother! Come, now: you mustn't cry any more: you know Violetdoesn't like it [Mrs Whitefzeld dries her eyes, and subsides]. 

VIOLET. Goodbye, Jack. 

TANNER. Goodbye, Violet. 

VIOLET. The sooner you get married too, the better. You will be muchless misunderstood. 

TANNER. [restively] I quite expect to get married in the course of theafternoon. You all seem to have set your minds on it. 

VIOLET. You might do worse. [To Mrs Whitefield: putting her arm roundher] Let me take you to the hotel with me: the drive will do you good. Come in and get a wrap. [She takes her towards the villa]. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [as they go up through the garden] I don't know what Ishall do when you are gone, with no one but Ann in the house; and shealways occupied with the men! It's not to be expected that your husbandwill care to be bothered with an old woman like me. Oh, you needn'ttell me: politeness is all very well; but I know what people think--[Shetalks herself and Violet out of sight and hearing]. 

Ann, musing on Violet's opportune advice, approaches Tanner; examineshim humorously for a moment from toe to top; and finally delivers heropinion. 

ANN. Violet is quite right. You ought to get married. 

TANNER. [explosively] Ann: I will not marry you. Do you hear? I won't, won't, won't, won't, WON'T marry you. 

ANN. [placidly] Well, nobody axd you, sir she said, sir she said, sirshe said. So that's settled. 

TANNER. Yes, nobody has asked me; but everybody treats the thing assettled. It's in the air. When we meet, the others go away on absurdpretexts to leave us alone together. Ramsden no longer scowls at me: hiseye beams, as if he were already giving you away to me in church. Tavyrefers me to your mother and gives me his blessing. Straker openlytreats you as his future employer: it was he who first told me of it. 

ANN. Was that why you ran away?

TANNER. Yes, only to be stopped by a lovesick brigand and run down likea truant schoolboy. 

ANN. Well, if you don't want to be married, you needn't be [she turnsaway from him and sits down, much at her ease]. 

TANNER. [following her] Does any man want to be hanged? Yet men letthemselves be hanged without a struggle for life, though they could atleast give the chaplain a black eye. We do the world's will, not ourown. I have a frightful feeling that I shall let myself be marriedbecause it is the world's will that you should have a husband. 

ANN. I daresay I shall, someday. 

TANNER. But why me--me of all men? Marriage is to me apostasy, profanation of the sanctuary of my soul, violation of my manhood, sale of my birthright, shameful surrender, ignominious capitulation, acceptance of defeat. I shall decay like a thing that has served itspurpose and is done with; I shall change from a man with a future toa man with a past; I shall see in the greasy eyes of all the otherhusbands their relief at the arrival of a new prisoner to share theirignominy. The young men will scorn me as one who has sold out: to theyoung women I, who have always been an enigma and a possibility, shall be merely somebody else's property--and damaged goods at that: asecondhand man at best. 

ANN. Well, your wife can put on a cap and make herself ugly to keep youin countenance, like my grandmother. 

TANNER. So that she may make her triumph more insolent by publiclythrowing away the bait the moment the trap snaps on the victim!

ANN. After all, though, what difference would it make? Beauty is allvery well at first sight; but who ever looks at it when it has beenin the house three days? I thought our pictures very lovely when papabought them; but I haven't looked at them for years. You never botherabout my looks: you are too well used to me. I might be the umbrellastand. 

TANNER. You lie, you vampire: you lie. 

ANN. Flatterer. Why are you trying to fascinate me, Jack, if you don'twant to marry me?

TANNER. The Life Force. I am in the grip of the Life Force. 

ANN. I don't understand in the least: it sounds like the Life Guards. 

TANNER. Why don't you marry Tavy? He is willing. Can you not besatisfied unless your prey struggles?

ANN. [turning to him as if to let him into a secret] Tavy will nevermarry. Haven't you noticed that that sort of man never marries?

TANNER. What! a man who idolizes women who sees nothing in nature butromantic scenery for love duets! Tavy, the chivalrous, the faithful, thetenderhearted and true! Tavy never marry! Why, he was born to be sweptup by the first pair of blue eyes he meets in the street. 

ANN. Yes, I know. All the same, Jack, men like that always live incomfortable bachelor lodgings with broken hearts, and are adoredby their landladies, and never get married. Men like you always getmarried. 

TANNER. [Smiting his brow] How frightfully, horribly true! It has beenstaring me in the face all my life; and I never saw it before. 

ANN. Oh, it's the same with women. The poetic temperament's a very nicetemperament, very amiable, very harmless and poetic, I daresay; but it'san old maid's temperament. 

TANNER. Barren. The Life Force passes it by. 

ANN. If that's what you mean by the Life Force, yes. 

TANNER. You don't care for Tavy?

ANN. [looking round carefully to make sure that Tavy is not withinearshot] No. 

TANNER. And you do care for me?

ANN. [rising quietly and shaking her finger at him] Now Jack! Behaveyourself. 

TANNER. Infamous, abandoned woman! Devil!

ANN. Boa-constrictor! Elephant!

TANNER. Hypocrite!

ANN. [Softly] I must be, for my future husband's sake. 

TANNER. For mine! [Correcting himself savagely] I mean for his. 

ANN. [ignoring the correction] Yes, for yours. You had better marry whatyou call a hypocrite, Jack. Women who are not hypocrites go about inrational dress and are insulted and get into all sorts of hot water. Andthen their husbands get dragged in too, and live in continual dread offresh complications. Wouldn't you prefer a wife you could depend on?

TANNER. No, a thousand times no: hot water is the revolutionist'selement. You clean men as you clean milkpails, by scalding them. 

ANN. Cold water has its uses too. It's healthy. 

TANNER. [despairingly] Oh, you are witty: at the supreme moment the LifeForce endows you with every quality. Well, I too can be a hypocrite. Your father's will appointed me your guardian, not your suitor. I shallbe faithful to my trust. 

ANN. [in low siren tones] He asked me who would I have as my guardianbefore he made that will. I chose you!

TANNER. The will is yours then! The trap was laid from the beginning. 

ANN. [concentrating all her magic] From the beginning from ourchildhood--for both of us--by the Life Force. 

TANNER. I will not marry you. I will not marry you. 

ANN. Oh; you will, you will. 

TANNER. I tell you, no, no, no. 

ANN. I tell you, yes, yes, yes. 

TANNER. NO. 

ANN. [coaxing--imploring--almost exhausted] Yes. Before it is too latefor repentance. Yes. 

TANNER. [struck by the echo from the past] When did all this happen tome before? Are we two dreaming?

ANN. [suddenly losing her courage, with an anguish that she does notconceal] No. We are awake; and you have said no: that is all. 

TANNER. [brutally] Well?

ANN. Well, I made a mistake: you do not love me. 

TANNER. [seizing her in his arms] It is false: I love you. The LifeForce enchants me: I have the whole world in my arms when I clasp you. But I am fighting for my freedom, for my honor, for myself, one andindivisible. 

ANN. Your happiness will be worth them all. 

TANNER. You would sell freedom and honor and self for happiness?

ANN. It will not be all happiness for me. Perhaps death. 

TANNER. [groaning] Oh, that clutch holds and hurts. What have yougrasped in me? Is there a father's heart as well as a mother's?

ANN. Take care, Jack: if anyone comes while we are like this, you willhave to marry me. 

TANNER. If we two stood now on the edge of a precipice, I would hold youtight and jump. 

ANN. [panting, failing more and more under the strain] Jack: let me go. I have dared so frightfully--it is lasting longer than I thought. Let mego: I can't bear it. 

TANNER. Nor I. Let it kill us. 

ANN. Yes: I don't care. I am at the end of my forces. I don't care. Ithink I am going to faint. 

At this moment Violet and Octavius come from the villa with MrsWhitefield, who is wrapped up for driving. Simultaneously Malone andRamsden, followed by Mendoza and Straker, come in through the littlegate in the paling. Tanner shamefacedly releases Ann, who raises herhand giddily to her forehead. 

MALONE. Take care. Something's the matter with the lady. 

RAMSDEN. What does this mean?

VIOLET. [running between Ann and Tanner] Are you ill?

ANN. [reeling, with a supreme effort] I have promised to marry Jack. [She swoons. Violet kneels by her and chafes her band. Tanner runs roundto her other hand, and tries to lift her bead. Octavius goes to Violet'sassistance, but does not know what to do. Mrs Whitefield hurries backinto the villa. Octavius, Malone and Ramsden run to Ann and crowd roundher, stooping to assist. Straker coolly comes to Ann's feet, and Mendozato her head, both upright and self-possessed]. 

STRAKER. Now then, ladies and gentlemen: she don't want a crowd roundher: she wants air--all the air she can git. If you please, gents--[Malone and Ramsden allow him to drive them gently past Ann and upthe lawn towards the garden, where Octavius, who has already becomeconscious of his uselessness, joins them. Straker, following them up, pauses for a moment to instruct Tanner]. Don't lift er ed, Mr Tanner:let it go flat so's the blood can run back into it. 

MENDOZA. He is right, Mr Tanner. Trust to the air of the Sierra. [Hewithdraws delicately to the garden steps]. 

TANNER. [rising] I yield to your superior knowledge of physiology, Henry. [He withdraws to the corner of the lawn; and Octavius immediatelyhurries down to him]. 

TAVY. [aside to Tanner, grasping his hand] Jack: be very happy. 

TANNER. [aside to Tavy] I never asked her. It is a trap for me. [He goesup the lawn towards the garden. Octavius remains petrified]. 

MENDOZA. [intercepting Mrs Whitefield, who comes from the villa with aglass of brandy] What is this, madam [he takes it from her]?

MRS WHITEFIELD. A little brandy. 

MENDOZA. The worst thing you could give her. Allow me. [He swallows it]. Trust to the air of the Sierra, madam. 

For a moment the men all forget Ann and stare at Mendoza. 

ANN. [in Violet's ear, clutching her round the neck] Violet, did Jacksay anything when I fainted?

VIOLET. No. 

ANN. Ah! [with a sigh of intense relief she relapses]. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. Oh, she's fainted again. 

They are about to rush back to her; but Mendoza stops them with awarning gesture. 

ANN. [supine] No I haven't. I'm quite happy. 

TANNER. [suddenly walking determinedly to her, and snatching her handfrom Violet to feel her pulse] Why, her pulse is positively bounding. Come, getup. What nonsense! Up with you. [He gets her up summarily]. 

ANN. Yes: I feel strong enough now. But you very nearly killed me, Jack, for all that. 

MALONE. A rough wooer, eh? They're the best sort, Miss Whitefield. I congratulate Mr Tanner; and I hope to meet you and him as frequentguests at the Abbey. 

ANN. Thank you. [She goes past Malone to Octavius] Ricky Ticky Tavy:congratulate me. [Aside to him] I want to make you cry for the lasttime. 

TAVY. [steadfastly] No more tears. I am happy in your happiness. And Ibelieve in you in spite of everything. 

RAMSDEN. [coming between Malone and Tanner] You are a happy man, JackTanner. I envy you. 

MENDOZA. [advancing between Violet and Tanner] Sir: there are twotragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other isto get it. Mine and yours, sir. 

TANNER. Mr Mendoza: I have no heart's desires. Ramsden: it is very easyfor you to call me a happy man: you are only a spectator. I am one ofthe principals; and I know better. Ann: stop tempting Tavy, and comeback to me. 

ANN. [complying] You are absurd, Jack. [She takes his proffered arm]. 

TANNER. [continuing] I solemnly say that I am not a happy man. Ann lookshappy; but she is only triumphant, successful, victorious. That is nothappiness, but the price for which the strong sell their happiness. Whatwe have both done this afternoon is to renounce tranquillity, above allrenounce the romantic possibilities of an unknown future, for the caresof a household and a family. I beg that no man may seize the occasion toget half drunk and utter imbecile speeches and coarse pleasantries at myexpense. We propose to furnish our own house according to our own taste;and I hereby give notice that the seven or eight travelling clocks, the four or five dressing cases, the salad bowls, the carvers andfish slices, the copy of Tennyson in extra morocco, and all the otherarticles you are preparing to heap upon us, will be instantly sold, andthe proceeds devoted to circulating free copies of the Revolutionist'sHandbook. The wedding will take place three days after our returnto England, by special license, at the office of the districtsuperintendent registrar, in the presence of my solicitor and his clerk, who, like his clients, will be in ordinary walking dress. 

VIOLET. [with intense conviction] You are a brute, Jack. 

ANN. [looking at him with fond pride and caressing his arm] Never mindher, dear. Go on talking. 

TANNER. Talking!

Universal laughter.