An Inspector Calls and Other Plays

by J. B. Priestley

[She is about to turn away, when a revolver shot is heard from outside. It is a startling report. She and DR GÖRTLER give a cry.]

  DR GÖRTLER [urgently]: Ormund! [He hurries to door and goes out.]

  [SALLY stands, a hand pressed to her side, breathing rapidly. SAM comes in hastily. You feel all these people are unusually nervous tonight.]

  SAM [hastily]: What was that, Sally? Who’s playing about wi’ a gun so near t’house?

  SALLY [breathlessly]: I don’t know. Go and see.

  [As SAM begins to cross the room, ORMUND enters followed by DR GÖRTLER. ORMUND looks pale and shaken but tries to be hearty and genial.]

  ORMUND [loudly]: That’s all right. Hello, Sam, did it bring you out? Sorry, Mrs Pratt. Silly thing to do – very silly.

  SALLY: But whatever happened, Mr Ormund?

  ORMUND: Went to the garage to have a look at my car and remembered I had a revolver in the side pocket. Took it out to see if it was all right, and nearly got to the door when something went scampering past, making me jump.

  SAM: A rat, eh?

  ORMUND: Yes. Big brute. And I’ve always hated rats ever since they used to come snuffling over me in the trenches. So I had to have a pop at him.

  SAM: Ay. Did you get him, Mr Ormund?

  ORMUND: Didn’t even get him, Sam. [He pours himself a good drink.] Just made a noise and frightened you all. Sorry, Mrs Pratt. Won’t occur again.

  SAM: Ay, well, I don’t know why it should ha’ bothered so much – but –

  SALLY [cutting him short]: All right, Father, they’ll be wanting you in the bar.

  [She gets him out. ORMUND, no longer bothering to keep up appearances, drops into a chair, takes a huge drink, then rests his head in his hands and rubs his forehead, as if both baffled and depressed.]

  DR GÖRTLER: I am sorry.

  ORMUND [suddenly jumping up, with passion]: Sorry, sorry! Yes, I went into the garage. Now what do I do next? You must have some more amusing ideas. [Going close to DR GÖRTLER.] Who the devil are you to come here and take the lid off my head and stick pins into my guts and say you’re sorry?

  DR GÖRTLER: I am not amusing myself with you, Mr Ormund.

  ORMUND [laying a hand on him, glaring at him]: No? Well what are you doing here? What’s your game?

  DR GÖRTLER [with authority]: It is not a game. [He looks steadily at him. ORMUND drops his hand, moves away.] Tell me what happened. [As ORMUND does not reply.] Please.

  ORMUND: What I told them about the rat was true. But of course that wasn’t all.

  DR GÖRTLER: No, I knew that.

  ORMUND: It wasn’t so bad until I took out the revolver. And I had to take it out – irresistible impulse. But as soon as I stood there with that gun in my hand, I seemed to be falling into black night, and I felt the only thing left for me to do on earth was to put that revolver to my head. How I struggled to the door I don’t know, but then I had to pull the trigger. Luckily there was the rat to fire at. At least I suppose there was a rat. Perhaps not. I’m crazy enough to invent a rat or two. Was there a rat?

  DR GÖRTLER: I do not know.

  ORMUND [rather wildly]: Thank God, there’s something you don’t know. [Tries the bottle, which is empty.] Damn! Look at that. [Calls] Sam, Sam. [Enter SALLY.] Oh – Mrs Pratt – want a drink and this bottle’s dead and done with.

  SALLY [taking it]: Bar’s quieter now, Mr Ormund, if you’d like to go back there.

  ORMUND: I would.

  [Nods to DR GÖRTLER and goes out. SALLY remains behind, collecting ORMUND’s glass and syphon. Then she stands looking at DR GÖRTLER in an unfriendly manner, but hesitating to speak. He has been thinking, but now catches her eye.]

  DR GÖRTLER: Is there something you wish to say to me?

  SALLY [with an effort]: Yes – there is. There seems to have been a misunderstanding about your room, Dr – er –

  DR GÖRTLER [deliberately]: Görtler – Gört-ler. And I think the

  misunderstanding is not about my room, but about me, Mrs Pratt.

  SALLY [heavily]: I said nothing about you.

  DR GÖRTLER: No.

  [While they are looking at one another, they are interrupted by the entrance of JANET. She is dressed for walking and looks tired. She is carrying some wild moorland flowers.]

  SALLY [glad of this interruption]: Well you have had a long day, Mrs Ormund. But I thought Mr Farrant would be with you.

  JANET: No. But he’ll be here soon. Oh – I’m tired.

  [Sits as if almost exhausted.]

  SALLY: I expect you are. Well, I’ll see about your suppers.

  JANET: I don’t want very much, Mrs Pratt.

  SALLY: What! after being out all day! That’s no way of going on. You want a good meal. [Nods, smiles, and goes out.]

  DR GÖRTLER [smiling]: For once, I think, Mrs Pratt is right. You must eat plenty of supper. And it is good too. These people here – not like so many of the English now – they still have good food.

  JANET [lazily]: Yes – when I see it – I’ll probably be quite greedy. But, you know how it is, sometimes when you’re feeling tired, the idea of enormous platefuls of food … isn’t … very attractive….

  DR GÖRTLER: You walked a long way?

  JANET: Farther than I meant to.

  DR GÖRTLER: But it was a good walk?

  JANET [dreamily]: Heavenly … across the moors nearly all the way…. I found a sort of tiny secret glen … with a little water-fall … and mossy rocks … carpets of grass … harebells….

  [The clock chimes.]

  DR GÖRTLER: White harebells again?

  JANET: Yes … white harebells again…. You remember things, don’t you, Dr Görtler?

  DR GÖRTLER: Only sometimes. My wife used to say I remembered nothing. But that was because I always forgot anniversary days or what to take home from shops. [Pauses, smiles across at JANET.] It was peaceful up there?

  JANET: Yes … no people … just larks and curlews … very peaceful, very innocent…. I think there’s something – almost startling – in the innocence one feels about this sort of country –

  DR GÖRTLER: In these high wastelands?

  JANET: Yes. You must have felt it, haven’t you?

  DR GÖRTLER [with great tenderness]: Yes. Every summer I used to walk on the Thuringian mountains – with my family and my friends. Ah! – we did not even know how happy we were, to be together and have such summer days – [His voice drops, he is greatly moved.] I think it would have broken our hearts then to know how happy and fortunate we were –

  JANET [moved with him]: Dr Görtler – I’m so sorry –

  DR GÖRTLER [with an innocent natural pedagogic sense, half pathetic and half comic]: These high places have never been settled by men, so they are still innocent. There is not about them any accumulation of evil. Where men have lived a long time, the very stones are saturated in evil memories. Cruelty and suffering remain in the world, and I think the earth cries out under its load of evil.

  JANET: But the past has gone.

  DR GÖRTLER: Gone where? [Pauses.] So Mr Farrant was not with you?

  JANET: No…. I was alone, all day. I was glad to be.

  DR GÖRTLER [smiling]: To think?

  JANET: No … you wouldn’t call it thinking … almost a sort of day-dreaming….

  DR GÖRTLER [after pause]: You – did not see Mr Farrant today then?

  JANET: Yes…. I saw him….

  DR GÖRTLER: Of course. You told Mrs Pratt he would be here soon.

  JANET: Yes…. I saw him … following … behind me.

  DR GÖRTLER: And he couldn’t catch up to you?

  JANET: He didn’t catch up to me…. I saw him somewhere behind me … usually a long way off … several times … half the day, I suppose….

  DR GÖRTLER: You were glad he stayed behind?

  JANET: Yes, very. [Changing to a more normal, social tone] I suppose Walter – my husband – is in the bar?

  DR GÖRTLER: Yes, he has just gone there. Before that we were t
alking. [Pauses.] He is a man of force, of character, such as most women admire, eh?

  JANET: Yes, he is.

  DR GÖRTLER [slowly]: Also, he is a man with deep secret weaknesses, and I think such weaknesses in such a man arouse a woman’s pity.

  JANET: Yes, I think they might.

  DR GÖRTLER [after pause]: There is much to love in him.

  JANET: Very much.

  DR GÖRTLER [softly]: Then why, Mrs Ormund, do you love him no longer?

  [JANET, both socially offended and really wounded, rises slowly, obviously giving DR GÖRTLER to understand he has been offensive, though she does not say anything. He looks more reproachful than apologetic.]

  You are offended. I am sorry.

  [JANET controls herself, then speaks in a lighter, social tone, itself a rebuke though not a strong one.]

  JANET: Is it true, Dr Görtler, that time is curved? I read somewhere the other day that it is.

  DR GÖRTLER: Yes, it is. But time is not single and universal. It is only the name we give to higher dimensions of things. In our present state of consciousness, we cannot experience these dimensions spatially, but only successively. That we call time. But there are more times than one –

  [SALLY enters and one might detect a certain pleasure she has in interrupting DR GÖRTLER.]

  SALLY: It’s all ready when you are, Mrs Ormund.

  JANET: Right, thank you, Mrs Pratt.

  [DR GÖRTLER, rather annoyed at being interrupted and not very comfortable now with SALLY, crosses to the outside door, opens it and looks out. JANET gives a rather mischievous look at his back, then at SALLY.]

  Dr Görtler is trying to explain to me what time really is.

  SALLY: I can tell him what time is. It’s a woman’s greatest enemy – that’s what it is.

  JANET: It takes a lot away from us.

  SALLY: It does that, and I’m not thinking about the pleasure of looking at yourself in the glass. It can take your man away, turn your baby into a little lad and then into a big lad, off on his own and forgetting you, and soon nothing’s the same, except what you go on feeling, right down in your heart. Time doesn’t take what you feel right down in your heart, Mrs Ormund. If it did, it’ud be kinder than it is. But it leaves you behind – to suffer.

  DR GÖRTLER [turning]: No. All that is an illusion. Nothing has really gone, nothing is really lost.

  SALLY [impatiently]: Isn’t it indeed? You wouldn’t talk like that if you’d lost as much as I have.

  DR GÖRTLER [with dignity]: I have lost more than you have. I have lost everything except the love of knowledge – and faith and hope.

  [He turns to go, and almost bumps into FARRANT, who enters looking dusty and tired and strained. There is a quite definite sense of strain in his manner. DR GÖRTLER smiles at him.]

  So – Mr Farrant, you have had a good walk, eh?

  FARRANT: Not bad. [He passes DR GÖRTLER without a smile or a look. The effect is that of a snub.] Get me a glass of sherry, please, Mrs Pratt.

  DR GÖRTLER [sharply]: Mr Farrant.

  FARRANT [turning]: Yes?

  DR GÖRTLER [rather sadly]: It does not matter.

  [He goes out slowly, the other three looking after him.]

  FARRANT: What’s wrong with Görtler?

  JANET [coldly]: Perhaps he didn’t appreciate your very curt manner.

  FARRANT [rather dryly]: Sorry about that. Didn’t mean to offend him.

  SALLY [as she goes]: Never mind about him, Mr Farrant. [She goes.]

  [There is an awkward silence. Then JANET prepares to move.]

  JANET [with emphasis]: Thank you for not trying to catch up to me.

  FARRANT [confused by this attack]: Oh – were you –

  JANET [cutting in as she goes]: Yes, and you know I was.

  [He stares after her, and mechanically takes out a cigarette and lights it. SALLY enters with a glass of sherry.]

  SALLY: And your supper’s all ready, Mr Farrant.

  FARRANT: Thanks. I’ll come along in a few minutes.

  [He sips his sherry, SALLY looks at him.]

  SALLY: You don’t think you’re overdoing it a bit, do you, Mr Farrant? I mean, walking too much.

  FARRANT [off-handedly]: I’m rather tired today. I slept badly last night.

  SALLY: Yes, well you were sent here for a rest, y’know, and you don’t want to go and overdo it. You’re looking done up tonight, if you don’t mind me saying so.

  [It is now much darker and SALLY begins to switch on the lights and draw the curtains and tidy up a little, doing this slowly as she talks and continuing until SAM enters.]

  FARRANT: Don’t worry, Mrs Pratt. I’ve always been a lot better than I looked.

  SALLY: Well, you mustn’t think I’m fussing at you –

  FARRANT [teasing her, nicely]: Of course you are. And don’t pretend you’re not.

  SALLY: Yes, but I know what it is when folk first comes up here. They do too much. And we can’t have you making yourself poorly again, I don’t know what our Charlie would say to us. He’s depending on you to see him through and so are we. And he thinks the world of you, I’m sure.

  FARRANT [as he goes slowly to the door to his staircase]: And we’ll see him through. We’ll have you nearly bursting with pride over him one day. I must wash.

  SALLY: Shall I get you some hot water?

  FARRANT: No, thanks. [He goes out.]

  [SALLY finishes tidying up the room. SAM looks in.]

  SAM: Well, lass?

  SALLY: What was all that commotion just now in t’bar?

  SAM [grinning, and coming in]: Oh – that wor only Mr Ormund having a bit of a game wi’ owd Watson and Joe.

  SALLY [dropping her voice]: Is he drunk?

  SAM [dropping his]: Who? Mr Ormund? Well – amount he’s taken tonight he ought to be silly drunk or unconscious – I know I’d be – but you can’t say he’s more nor a bit wild like. By gow, he can shift it, that chap.

  SALLY: And I call it a silly way o’ going on. Can’t you stop him?

  SAM: Course I can’t. It’s not as if he wor daft with it. He’s nobbut a bit wild.

  SALLY: Well, I don’t like it, Father.

  SAM: No, happen not. Still –

  SALLY [continuing, unhappily]: I’m right sorry now Miss Holmes and her friends couldn’t come. I can understand them sort o’ folk. I’ve felt uneasy in my mind ever since last night. And I put most of it down to this Dr Görtler. He’s got everybody’s back up.

  SAM: Nay, it’s only ’cos he’s a sort of foreigner and a professor and whatnot, and talks so queer. He means no harm, Sally.

  SALLY [with sudden anger]: Harm or no harm, he leaves here in t’morning. We’ll get on better without him. And I’m going to tell him so.

  SAM: Now steady on, lass, steady on.

  SALLY [angrily]: What’s use of saying ‘steady on’ when we’re all getting on edge –

  [She is interrupted by ORMUND who enters a trifle unsteadily, a glass of whisky in his hand. He has obviously had a lot to drink, but is not conventionally drunk.]

  ORMUND: Sam, Sam, you’re deserting us. And you’ve not told me yet what’s going to happen to you in the next world.

  SALLY [hastily]: Mrs Ormund’s back, Mr Ormund. She’s gone to get her supper.

  ORMUND [perching himself on table]: See that she has a beautiful supper, Mrs Pratt. Including your gooseberry pie. Don’t stand any high-brow nonsense from her on that subject. She must take her share of gooseberry pie. See to it!

  [Waves at SALLY, who nods, smiles faintly, and goes.]

  Now, Sam, what’s going to happen to you in the next world?

  SAM: Nay, he didn’t say t’next world –

  [FARRANT enters from his room. He is tidier than he was, but still looks pale and strained.]

  ORMUND: Hello, Farrant. Did you show my wife the moors today?

  FARRANT [rather shortly]: No.

  ORMUND: Weren’t you together?

  FARRANT: No. I saw her. But we weren
’t together.

  ORMUND: Why didn’t you join up?

  FARRANT [rather stiffly]: I don’t know. I suppose we both preferred our own company.

  ORMUND: That’s not very complimentary of you.

  FARRANT: Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound offensive. Actually, I was feeling – rather dreary, and thought I’d better keep it to myself.

  ORMUND [pleasantly]: Well, well. Sam’s just going to tell me what our friend Dr Görtler says will happen to him when he dies.

  FARRANT: Well, you know what to expect. I believe Görtler’s turning mystical, like so many Germans when things go wrong.

  ORMUND: He’s had a packet, you know.

  FARRANT: Yes, and I think it’s a rotten shame. But even that doesn’t excuse a man of science who’s begun to talk bosh.

  ORMUND: I suppose it is bosh.

  FARRANT: From one or two things he said to me last night, I’m afraid it will be. Perhaps I’m too impatient with that easy, optimistic half-thinking, but it does seem to me to be poor stuff in itself and to get in the way of real thought. We shan’t get out of the muddle we’re in except by thinking hard and realistically. Don’t you agree?

  ORMUND: We shan’t begin to get out of it until we really want to get out. What sort of thinking is going to make us want to get out, that’s the point.

  FARRANT: Well, it won’t be Görtler’s Teutonic mistiness, will it? I must go and eat. [Nods and goes.]

  ORMUND [in a whisper]: Sam, believe it or not, it was I who voted him into that headmastership at Lamberton. And now having met the young man, I don’t like him, and he doesn’t like me.

  SAM [stoutly]: Nay, Mr Ormund, Mr Farrant’s a grand young chap when you get to know him. Before you came, he was great company, but this last day or two, he’s happen been a bit short and sharp. I fancy he’s not so well again.

  ORMUND: Perhaps that’s it. But now then, Sam, let’s hear what’s going to happen to you – let’s have some bosh.

  SAM: Well, it started with me saying last night: ‘If I’d my time over again,’ which seemed to right tickle Dr Görtler. Because he comes to me this afternoon and tells me I’m going to have my time over again. He started on about time going round i’ circles an’ spirals, an’ i’ two minutes, what with his dimensions and eternities and what not, he had me dizzy. He says we all go round and round like dobby-horses.