Plays Pleasant

by George Bernard Shaw

  MRS CLANDON. Has gunnery anything to do with Gloria?

  VALENTINE. A great deal. By way of illustration. During this whole century, my dear Mrs Clandon, the progress of artillery has been a duel between the maker of cannons and the maker of armor plates to keep the cannon balls out. You build a ship proof against the best gun known: somebody makes a better gun and sinks your ship. You build a heavier ship, proof against that gun: somebody makes a heavier gun and sinks you again. And so on. Well, the duel of sex is just like that.

  MRS CLANDON. The duel of sex!

  VALENTINE. Yes: youve heard of the duel of sex, havnt you? Oh, I forgot: youve been in Madeira: the expression has come up since your time. Need I explain it?

  MRS CLANDON [contemptuously] No.

  VALENTINE. Of course not. Now what happens in the duel of sex? The old fashioned daughter received an old fashioned education to protect her against the wiles of man. Well, you know the result: the old fashioned man got round her. The old fashioned mother resolved to protect her daughter more effectually – to find some armor too strong for the old fashioned man. So she gave her daughter a scientific education: your plan. That was a corker for the old fashioned man: he thought it unfair, and tried to howl it down as unwomanly and all the rest of it. But that didnt do him any good. So he had to give up his old fashioned plan of attack: you know: going down on his knees and swearing to love, honor, and obey and so on.

  MRS CLANDON. Excuse me: that was what the woman swore.

  VALENTINE. Was it? Ah, perhaps youre right. Yes: of course it was. Well, what did the man do? Just what the artillery man does: went one better than the woman: educated himself scientifically and beat her at that game just as he had beaten her at the old game. I learnt how to circumvent the Women’s Rights woman before I was twenty-three: it’s all been found out long ago. You see, my methods are thoroughly modern.

  MRS CLANDON [with quiet disgust] No doubt.

  VALENTINE. But for that very reason theres one sort of girl against whom they are of no use.

  MRS CLANDON. Pray which sort?

  VALENTINE. The thoroughly old fashioned girl. If you had brought up Gloria in the old way, it would have taken me eighteen months to get to the point I got to this afternoon in eighteen minutes. Yes, Mrs Clandon: the Higher Education of Women delivered Gloria into my hands; and it was you who taught her to believe in the Higher Education of Women.

  MRS CLANDON [rising] Mr Valentine: you are very clever.

  VALENTINE [rising also] Oh, Mrs Clandon!

  MRS CLANDON. And you have taught me – nothing. Goodbye.

  VALENTINE [horrified] Goodbye! Oh, maynt I see her before I go?

  MRS CLANDON. I am afraid she will not return until you have gone, Mr Valentine. She left the room expressly to avoid you.

  VALENTINE [thoughtfully] Thats a good sign. Goodbye. [He bows and makes for the door, apparently well satisfied].

  MRS CLANDON [alarmed] Why do you think it a good sign?

  VALENTINE [turning near the door] Because I am mortally afraid of her; and it looks as if she were mortally afraid of me.

  He turns to go and finds himself face to face with Gloria, who has just entered. She looks steadfastly at him. He stares helplessly at her; then round at Mrs Clandon; then at Gloria again, completely at a loss.

  GLORIA [white, and controlling herself with difficulty] Mother: is what Dolly told me true?

  MRS CLANDON. What did she tell you, dear?

  GLORIA. That you have been speaking about me to this gentleman?

  VALENTINE [murmuring] This gentleman! Oh!

  MRS CLANDON [sharply] Mr Valentine: can you hold your tongue for a moment?

  He looks piteously at them; then, with a despairing shrug, goes back to the ottoman and throws his hat on it.

  GLORIA [confronting her mother, with deep reproach] Mother: what right had you to do it?

  MRS CLANDON. I dont think I have said anything I have no right to say, Gloria.

  VALENTINE [confirming her officiously] Nothing. Nothing whatever. [The two women look at him crushingly]. I beg your pardon. [He sits down ignominiously on the ottoman].

  GLORIA. I cannot believe that anyone has any right even to think about things that concern me only. [She turns away from them to conceal a painful struggle with her emotion].

  MRS CLANDON. My dear: if I have wounded your pride –

  GLORIA [turning on them for a moment] My pride! My pride!! Oh, it’s gone: I have learnt now that I have no strength to be proud of. [Turning away again] But if a woman cannot protect herself, no one can protect her. No one has any right to try: not even her mother. I know I have lost your confidence, just as I have lost this man’s respect; – [She stops to regain command of her voice].

  VALENTINE. This man! Oh!

  MRS CLANDON. Pray be silent, sir.

  GLORIA [continuing] – but I have at least the right to be left alone in my disgrace. I am one of those weak creatures born to be mastered by the first man whose eye is caught by them; and I must fulfil my destiny, I suppose. At least spare me the humiliation of trying to save me. [She sits down, with her handkerchief to her eyes, at the further end of the table].

  VALENTINE [jumping up] Look here –

  MRS CLANDON [severely] Mr Va –

  VALENTINE [recklessly] No: I will speak: Ive been silent for nearly thirty seconds. [He goes resolutely to Gloria]. Miss Clandon –

  GLORIA [bitterly] Oh, not Miss Clandon: you have found it quite safe to call me Gloria.

  VALENTINE. No I wont: youll throw it in my teeth afterwards and accuse me of disrespect. I say it’s a heartbreaking falsehood that I dont respect you. It’s true that I didnt respect your old pride: why should I? it was nothing but cowardice. I didnt respect your intellect: Ive a better one myself: it’s a masculine speciality. But when the depths stirred! when my moment came! when you made me brave! ah, then! then!! then!!!

  GLORIA. Then you respected me, I suppose.

  VALENTINE. No I didnt: I adored you. [She rises quickly and turns her back on him]. And you can never take that moment away from me. So now I dont care what happens. [He comes back to the ottoman, addressing a cheerful explanation to nobody in particular] I’m perfectly aware that I’m talking nonsense. I cant help it. [To Mrs Clandon] I love Gloria; and theres an end of it.

  MRS CLANDON [emphatically] Mr Valentine: you are a most dangerous man. Gloria: come here. [Gloria, wondering a little at the command, obeys, and stands, with drooping head, on her mother’s right hand, Valentine being on the opposite side. Mrs Clandon then begins, with intense scorn] Ask this man whom you have inspired and made brave, how many women have inspired him before [Gloria looks up suddenly with a flash of jealous anger and amazement] ; how many times he has laid the trap in which he has caught you; how often he has baited it with the same speeches; how much practice it has taken to make him perfect in his chosen part in life as the

  Duellist of Sex.

  VALENTINE. This isnt fair. Youre abusing my confidence, Mrs Clandon.

  MRS CLANDON. Ask him, Gloria.

  GLORIA [in a flush of rage, going over to him with her fists clenched] Is that true?

  VALENTINE. Dont be angry –

  GLORIA [interrupting him implacably] Is it true? Did you ever say that before? Did you ever feel that before? for another woman?

  VALENTINE [bluntly] Yes.

  Gloria raises her clenched hands.

  MRS CLANDON [horrified, catching her uplifted arm] Gloria!! My dear! Youre forgetting yourself.

  Gloria, with a deep expiration, slowly relaxes her threatening attitude.

  VALENTINE. Remember: a man’s power of love and admiration is like any other of his powers: he has to throw it away many times before he learns what is really worthy of it.

  MRS CLANDON. Another of the old speeches, Gloria. Take care.

  VALENTINE [remonstrating] Oh!

  GLORIA [to Mrs Clandon, with contemptuous self-possession] Do you think I need to be warned now? [To Valentine] You h
ave tried to make me love you.

  VALENTINE. I have.

  GLORIA. Well, you have succeeded in making me hate you: passionately.

  VALENTINE [philosophically] It’s surprising how little difference there is between the two. [Gloria turns indignantly away from him. He continues, to Mrs Clandon] I know men whose wives love them; and they go on exactly like that.

  MRS CLANDON. Excuse me, Mr Valentine; but had you not better go?

  GLORIA. You need not send him away on my account, mother. He is nothing to me now; and he will amuse Dolly and Phil. [She sits down with slighting indifference, at the end of the table nearest the window].

  VALENTINE [gaily] Of course: thats the sensible way of looking at it. Come, Mrs Clandon! you cant quarrel with a mere butterfly like me!

  MRS CLANDON. I very greatly mistrust you, Mr Valentine. But I do not like to think that your unfortunate levity of disposition is mere shamelessness and worthlessness; –

  GLORIA [to herself but aloud] It is shameless; and it is worthless.

  MRS CLANDON [continuing] so perhaps we had better send for Phil and Dolly, and allow you to end your visit in the ordinary way.

  VALENTINE [as if she had paid him the highest compliment] You overwhelm me, Mrs Clandon. Thank you.

  The waiter returns.

  WAITER. Mr M’Comas, maam.

  MRS CLANDON. Oh, certainly. Bring him in.

  WAITER. He wishes to see you in the reception room, maam.

  MRS CLANDON. Why not here?

  WAITER. Well, if you will excuse my mentioning it, maam, I think Mr M’Comas feels that he would get fairer play if he could speak to you away from the younger members of your family, maam.

  MRS CLANDON. Tell him they are not here.

  WAITER. They are within sight of the door, maam; and very watchful, for some reason or other.

  MRS CLANDON [going] Oh, very well: I’ll go to him.

  WAITER [holding the door open for her] Thank you, maam. [She goes out. He comes back into the room, and meets the eye of Valentine who wants him to go]. All right, sir. Only the tea-things, sir. [Taking the tray] Excuse me, sir. Thank you, sir. [He goes out].

  VALENTINE [to Gloria] Look here. Youll forgive me, sooner or later. Forgive me now.

  GLORIA [rising to level the declaration more intensely at him] Never! While grass grows or water runs, never! never!! never!!!

  VALENTINE [unabashed] Well, I dont care. I cant be unhappy about anything. I shall never be unhappy again, never, never, never, while grass grows or water runs. The thought of you will always make me wild with joy. [Some quick taunt is on her lips: he interposes swiftly] No: I never said that before: thats new.

  GLORIA. It will not be new when you say it to the next woman.

  VALENTINE. Oh dont, Gloria, dont. [He kneels at her feet].

  GLORIA. Get up! Get up! How dare you?

  Phil and Dolly, racing, as usual, for first place, burst into the room. They check themselves on seeing what is passing. Valentine springs up.

  PHILIP [discreetly] I beg your pardon. Come, Dolly. [He offers her his arm and turns to go].

  GLORIA [annoyed] Mother will be back in a moment, Phil. [Severely] Please wait here for her. [She turns away to the window, where she stands looking out with her back to them].

  PHILIP [significantly] Oh, indeed. Hmhm!

  DOLLY. Ahah!

  PHILIP. You seem in excellent spirits, Valentine.

  VALENTINE. I am. [He comes between them]. Now look here. You both know whats going on: dont you?

  Gloria turns quickly, as if anticipating some fresh outrage.

  DOLLY. Perfectly.

  VALENTINE. Well, it’s all over. Ive been refused. Scorned. I’m here on sufferance only. You understand? it’s all over. Your sister is in no sense entertaining my addresses, or condescending to interest herself in me in any way. [Gloria, satisfied, turns back contemptuously to the window]. Is that clear?

  DOLLY. Serve you right. You were in too great a hurry.

  PHILIP [patting him on the shoulder] Never mind: youd never have been able to call your soul your own if she’d married you. You can now begin a new chapter in your life.

  DOLLY. Chapter seventeen or thereabouts, I should imagine.

  VALENTINE [much put out by this pleasantry] No: dont say things like that. Thats just the sort of thoughtless remark that makes a lot of mischief.

  DOLLY. Oh, indeed? Hmhm!

  PHILIP. Ahah! [He goes to the hearth and plants himself there in his best head-of-the-family attitude].

  M’Comas, looking very serious, comes in quickly with Mrs Clandon, whose first anxiety is about Gloria. She looks round to see where she is, and is going to join her at the window when Gloria comes down to meet her with a marked air of trust and affection. Finally Mrs Clandon takes her former seat, and Gloria posts herself behind it. M’Comas, on his way to the ottoman, is hailed by Dolly.

  DOLLY. What cheer, Finch?

  M’COMAS [sternly] Very serious news from your father, Miss Clandon. Very serious news indeed. [He passes impressively to the ottoman, and sits down].

  Dolly, duly impressed, follows and sits beside him on his right.

  VALENTINE. Perhaps I had better go.

  M’COMAS. By no means, Mr Valentine. You are deeply concerned in this. [Valentine takes a chair from the table and sits astride of it, leaning over the back, near the ottoman]. Mrs Clandon: your husband demands the custody of his two younger children, who are not of age.

  MRS CLANDON [in quick alarm] To take Dolly from me?

  DOLLY [touched] But how nice of him! He likes us, mamma.

  M’COMAS. I am sorry to have to disabuse you of any such illusion, Miss Dorothea.

  DOLLY [cooing ecstatically] Dorothee-ee-ee-a! [Nestling against his shoulder, quite overcome]. Oh, Finch!

  M’COMAS [nervously, shrinking away] No, no, no, no!

  MRS CLANDON. The deed of separation gives me the custody of the children.

  M’COMAS. It also contains a covenant that you are not to approach or molest him in any way.

  MRS CLANDON. Well: have I done so?

  M’COMAS. Whether the behaviour of your younger children amounts to legal molestation is a question on which it may be necessary to take counsel’s opinion. At all events, Mr Crampton not only claims to have been molested; but he believes that he was brought here by a plot in which Mr Valentine acted as your agent.

  VALENTINE. Whats that? Eh?

  M’COMAS. He alleges that you drugged him, Mr Valentine.

  VALENTINE. So I did.

  M’COMAS. But what did you do that for?

  DOLLY. Five shillings extra.

  M’COMAS [to Dolly, short-temperedly] I must really ask you, Miss Clandon, not to interrupt this very serious conversation with irrelevant interjections. [Vehemently] I insist on having earnest matters earnestly and reverently discussed. [This outburst produces an apologetic silence, and puts M’Comas himself out of countenance. He coughs, and starts afresh, addressing himself to Gloria]. Miss Clandon: it is my duty to tell you that your father has also persuaded himself that Mr Valentine wishes to marry you –

  VALENTINE [interposing adroitly] I do.

  M’COMAS [huffily] In that case, sir, you must not be surprised to find yourself regarded by the young lady’s father as a fortune hunter.

  VALENTINE. So I am. Do you expect my wife to live on what I earn? tenpence a week!

  M’COMAS [revolted] I have nothing more to say, sir. I shall return and tell Mr Crampton that this family is no place for a father. [He makes for the door].

  MRS CLANDON [with quiet authority] Finch! [He halts]. If Mr Valentine cannot be serious, you can. Sit down. [M’Comas, after a brief struggle between his dignity and his friendship, succumbs, seating himself this time midway between Dolly and Mrs Clandon]. You know that all this is a made up case – that Fergus does not believe in it any more than you do. Now give me your real advice: your sincere, friendly advice. You know I have always trusted your judgment. I promise y
ou the children will be quiet.

  M’COMAS [resigning himself] Well, well! What I want to say is this. In the old arrangement with your husband, Mrs Clandon, you had him at a terrible disadvantage.

  MRS CLANDON. How so, pray?

  M’COMAS. Well, you were an advanced woman, accustomed to defy public opinion, and with no regard for what the world might say of you.

  MRS CLANDON [proud of it] Yes: that is true.

  Gloria, behind the chair, stoops and kisses her mother’s hair, a demonstration which disconcerts her extremely.

  M’COMAS. On the other hand, Mrs Clandon, your husband had a great horror of anything getting into the papers. There was his business to be considered, as well as the prejudices of an old fashioned family.

  MRS CLANDON. Not to mention his own prejudices.

  M’COMAS. Now no doubt he behaved badly, Mrs Clandon.

  MRS CLANDON [scornfully] No doubt.

  M’COMAS. But was it altogether his fault?

  MRS CLANDON. Was it mine?

  M’COMAS [hastily] No. Of course not.

  GLORIA [observing him attentively] You do not mean that, Mr M’Comas.

  M’COMAS. My dear young lady, you pick me up very sharply. But let me just put this to you. When a man makes an unsuitable marriage (nobody’s fault, you know, but purely accidental incompatibility of tastes); when he is deprived by that misfortune of the domestic sympathy which, I take it, is what a man marries for; when, in short, his wife is rather worse than no wife at all (through no fault of her own, of course), is it to be wondered at if he makes matters worse at first by blaming her, and even, in his desperation, by occasionally drinking himself into a violent condition or seeking sympathy elsewhere?

  MRS CLANDON. I did not blame him: I simply rescued myself and the children from him.

  M’COMAS. Yes; but you made hard terms, Mrs Clandon. You had him at your mercy: you brought him to his knees when you threatened to make the matter public by applying to the Courts for a judicial separation. Suppose he had had that power over you, and used it to take your children away from you and bring them up in ignorance of your very name, how would you feel? what would you do? Well, wont you make some allowance for his feelings? in common humanity.