Pygmalion and Three Other Plays

by George Bernard Shaw

  CAPTAIN SHOTOVER What then is to be done? Are we to be kept forever in the mud by these hogs to whom the universe is nothing but a machine for greasing their bristles and filling their snouts?

  HECTOR Are Mangan’s bristles worse than Randall’s love-locks? [307]

  CAPTAIN SHOTOVER We must win powers of life and death over them both. I refuse to die until I have invented the means.

  HECTOR Who are we that we should judge them?

  CAPTAIN SHOTOVER What are they that they should judge us? Yet they do, unhesitatingly. There is enmity between our seed and their seed. They know it and act on it, strangling our souls. They believe in themselves. When we believe in ourselves, we shall kill them.

  HECTOR It is the same seed.You forget that your pirate has a very nice daughter. Mangan’s son may be a Plato: Randall’s a Shelley. What was my father?

  CAPTAIN SHOTOVER The damndest scoundrel I ever met. [He replaces the drawing-board: sits down at the table; and begins to mix a wash of color.]

  HECTOR Precisely. Well, dare you kill his innocent grand-children?

  CAPTAIN SHOTOVER They are mine also.

  HECTOR Just so. We are members one of another. [He throws himself carelessly on the sofa.] I I tell you I have often thought of this killing of human vermin. Many men have thought of it. Decent men are like Daniel in the lion’s den: their survival is a miracle; and they do not always survive. We live among the Mangans and Randalls and Billie Dunns as they, poor devils, live among the disease germs and the doctors and the lawyers and the parsons and the restaurant chefs and the tradesmen and the servants and all the rest of the parasites and blackmailers. What are our terrors to theirs? Give me the power to kill them; and I’ll spare them in sheer —

  CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [cutting in sharply] Fellow feeling?

  HECTOR No. I should kill myself if I believed that. I must believe that my spark, small as it is, is divine, and that the red light over their door is hell fire. I should spare them in simple magnanimous pity.

  CAPTAIN SHOTOVER You can’t spare them until you have the power to kill them. At present they have the power to kill you. There are millions of blacks over the water for them to train and let loose on us. They’re going to do it. They’re doing it already.

  HECTOR They are too stupid to use their power. CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [throwing down his brush and coming to the end of the sofa] Do not deceive yourself: they do use it. We kill the better half of ourselves every day to propitiate them. The knowledge that these people are there to render all our aspirations barren prevents us having the aspirations. And when we are tempted to seek their destruction they bring forth demons to delude us, disguised as pretty daughters, and singers and poets and the like, for whose sake we spare them.

  HECTOR [sitting up and leaning towards him] May not Hesione be such a demon, brought forth by you lest I should slay you? CAPTAIN SHOTOVER That is possible. She has used you up, and left you nothing but dreams, as some women do. HECTOR Vampire women, demon women.

  CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Men think the world well lost for them, and lose it accordingly. Who are the men that do things? The husbands of the shrew and of the drunkard, the men with the thorn in the flesh. [Walking distractedly away towards the pantry.] I must think these things out. [Turning suddenly.] But I go on with the dynamite none the less. I will discover a ray mightier than any X-ray: a mind ray that will explode the ammunition in the belt of my adversary before he can point his gun at me. And I must hurry. I am old: I have no time to waste in talk [he is about to go into the pantry, and HECTOR is making for the hall, when HESIONE comes back].

  MRS HUSHABYE Daddiest, you and Hector must come and help me to entertain all these people. What on earth were you shouting about?

  HECTOR [stopping in the act of turning the door handle] He is madder than usual.

  MRS HUSHABYE We all are.

  HECTOR I must change [he resumes his door opening].

  MRS HUSHABYE Stop, stop. Come back, both of you. Come back. [They return, reluctantly.] Money is running short.

  HECTOR Money! Where are my April dividends?

  MRS HUSHABYE Where is the snow that fell last year?

  CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Where is all the money you had for that patent lifeboat I invented?

  MRS HUSHABYE Five hundred pounds; and I have made it last since Easter!

  CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Since Easter! Barely four months! Monstrous extravagance! I could live for seven years on £500.

  MRS HUSHABYE Not keeping open house as we do here, daddiest.

  CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Only £500 for that lifeboat! I got twelve thousand for the invention before that.

  MRS HUSHABYE Yes, dear; but that was for the ship with the magnetic keel that sucked up submarines. Living at the rate we do, you cannot afford life-saving inventions. Can’t you think of something that will murder half Europe at one bang?

  CAPTAIN SHOTOVER No. I am ageing fast. My mind does not dwell on slaughter as it did when I was a boy. Why doesn’t your husband invent something? He does nothing but tell lies to women.

  HECTOR Well, that is a form of invention, is it not? However, you are right: I ought to support my wife.

  MRS HUSHABYE Indeed you shall do nothing of the sort: I should never see you from breakfast to dinner. I want my husband.

  HECTOR [bitterly] I might as well be your lapdog.

  MRS HUSHABYE Do you want to be my breadwinner, like the other poor husbands?

  HECTOR No, by thunder! What a damned creature a husband is anyhow!

  MRS HUSHABYE [to the captain] What about that harpoon cannon?

  CAPTAIN SHOTOVER No use. It kills whales, not men.

  MRS HUSHABYE Why not?You fire the harpoon out of a cannon, it sticks in the enemy’s general; you wind him in; and there you are.

  HECTOR You are your father’s daughter, Hesione.

  CAPTAIN SHOTOVER There is something in it. Not to wind in generals: they are not dangerous. But one could fire a grapnel and wind in a machine gun or even a tank. I will think it out.

  MRS HUSHABYE [squeezing the captain’s arm affectionately] Saved! You are a darling, daddiest. Now we must go back to these dreadful people and entertain them.

  CAPTAIN SHOTOVER They have had no dinner. Don’t forget that.

  HECTOR Neither have I. And it is dark: it must be all hours.

  MRS HUSHABYE Oh, Guinness will produce some sort of dinner for them. The servants always take jolly good care that there is food in the house.

  CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [raising a strange wail in the darkness] What a house! What a daughter!

  MRS HUSHABYE [raving] What a father!

  HECTOR [following suit] What a husband!

  CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Is there no thunder in heaven?

  HECTOR Is there no beauty, no bravery, on earth?

  MRS HUSHABYE What do men want? They have their food, their firesides, their clothes mended, and our love at the end of the day. Why are they not satisfied? Why do they envy us the pain with which we bring them into the world, and make strange dangers and torments for themselves to be even with us?

  CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [weirdly chanting]

  I builded a house for my daughters, and opened the doors thereof,

  That men might come for their choosing, and their betters spring from their love;

  But one of them married a numskull;

  HECTOR [taking up the rhythm]

  The other a liar wed;

  MRS HUSHABYE [completing the stanza]

  And now must she lie beside him, even as she made her bed.

  LADY UTTERWORD [calling from the garden] Hesione! Hesione! Where are you?

  HECTOR The cat is on the tiles.[308]

  MRS HUSHABYE Coming, darling, coming [she goes quickly into the garden].

  The captain goes back to his place at the table.

  HECTOR [going out into the hall] Shall I turn up the lights for you?

  CAPTAIN SHOTOVER No. Give me deeper darkness. Money is not made in the light.

  ACT II

  The same room
, with the lights turned up and the curtains drawn. Ellie comes in, followed by Mangan. Both are dressed for dinner. She strolls to the drawing-table. He comes between the table and the wicker chair.

  MANGAN What a dinner! I don’t call it a dinner: I call it a meal.

  ELLIE I am accustomed to meals, Mr Mangan, and very lucky to get them. Besides, the captain cooked some maccaroni for me.

  MANGAN [shuddering liverishly] Too rich: I can’t eat such things. I suppose it’s because I have to work so much with my brain. That’s the worst of being a man of business: you are always thinking, thinking, thinking. By the way, now that we are alone, may I take the opportunity to come to a little understanding with you?

  ELLIE [settling into the draughtsman seat] Certainly. I should like to.

  MANGAN [taken aback] Should you? That surprises me; for I thought I noticed this afternoon that you avoided me all you could. Not for the first time either.

  ELLIE I was very tired and upset. I wasn’t used to the ways of this extraordinary house. Please forgive me.

  MANGAN Oh, that’s all right: I don’t mind. But Captain Shotover has been talking to me about you. You and me, you know.

  ELLIE [interested] The captain! What did he say?

  MANGAN Well, he noticed the difference between our ages.

  ELLIE He notices everything.

  MANGAN You don’t mind, then?

  ELLIE Of course I know quite well that our engagement —

  MANGAN Oh! you call it an engagement.

  ELLIE Well, isn’t it?

  MANGAN Oh, yes, yes: no doubt it is if you hold to it. This is the first time you’ve used the word; and I didn’t quite know where we stood: that’s all. [He sits down in the wicker chair; and resigns himself to allow her to lead the conversation.] You were saying — ?

  ELLIE Was I? I forget. Tell me. Do you like this part of the country? I heard you ask Mr Hushabye at dinner whether there are any nice houses to let down here.

  MANGAN I like the place. The air suits me. I shouldn’t be surprised if I settled down here.

  ELLIE Nothing would please me better. The air suits me too. And I want to be near Hesione.

  MANGAN [with growing uneasiness] The air may suit us; but the question is, should we suit one another? Have you thought about that?

  ELLIE Mr Mangan, we must be sensible, mustn’t we? It’s no use pretending that we are Romeo and Juliet. But we can get on very well together if we choose to make the best of it. Your kindness of heart will make it easy for me.

  MANGAN [leaning forward, with the beginning of something like deliberate unpleasantness in his voice] Kindness of heart, eh? I ruined your father, didn’t I?

  ELLIE Oh, not intentionally.

  MANGAN Yes I did. Ruined him on purpose.

  ELLIE On purpose!

  MANGAN Not out of ill-nature, you know. And you’ll admit that I kept a job for him when I had finished with him. But business is business; and I ruined him as a matter of business.

  ELLIE I don’t understand how that can be. Are you trying to make me feel that I need not be grateful to you, so that I may choose freely?

  MANGAN [rising aggressively] No. I mean what I say.

  ELLIE But how could it possibly do you any good to ruin my father? The money he lost was yours.

  MANGAN [with a sour laugh] Was mine! It is mine, Miss Ellie, and all the money the other fellows lost too. [He shoves his hands into his pockets and shows his teeth.] I just smoked them out like a hive of bees. What do you say to that? A bit of shock, eh?

  ELLIE It would have been, this morning. Now! you can’t think how little it matters. But it’s quite interesting. Only, you must explain it to me. I don’t understand it. [Propping her elbows on the drawing-board and her chin on her hands, she composes herself to listen with a combination of conscious curiosity with unconscious contempt which provokes him to more and more unpleasantness, and an attempt at patronage of her ignorance.]

  MANGAN Of course you don’t understand: what do you know about business?You just listen and learn. Your father’s business was a new business; and I don’t start new businesses: I let other fellows start them. They put all their money and their friends’ money into starting them. They wear out their souls and bodies trying to make a success of them. They’re what you call enthusiasts. But the first dead lift of the thing is too much for them; and they haven’t enough financial experience. In a year or so they have either to let the whole show go bust, or sell out to a new lot of fellows for a few deferred ordinary shares:[309] that is, if they’re lucky enough to get anything at all. As likely as not the very same thing happens to the new lot. They put in more money and a couple of years more work; and then perhaps they have to sell out to a third lot. If it’s really a big thing the third lot will have to sell out too, and leave their work and their money behind them. And that’s where the real business man comes in: where I come in. But I’m cleverer than some: I don’t mind dropping a little money to start the process. I took your father’s measure. I saw that he had a sound idea, and that he would work himself silly for it if he got the chance. I saw that he was a child in business, and was dead certain to outrun his expenses and be in too great a hurry to wait for his market. I knew that the surest way to ruin a man who doesn’t know how to handle money is to give him some. I explained my idea to some friends in the city, and they found the money; for I take no risks in ideas, even when they’re my own. Your father and the friends that ventured their money with him were no more to me than a heap of squeezed lemons. You’ve been wasting your gratitude: my kind heart is all rot. I’m sick of it. When I see your father beaming at me with his moist, grateful eyes, regularly wallowing in gratitude, I sometimes feel I must tell him the truth or burst. What stops me is that I know he wouldn’t believe me. He’d think it was my modesty, as you did just now. He’d think anything rather than the truth, which is that he’s a blamed fool, and I am a man that knows how to take care of himself. [He throws himself back into the big chair with large self-approval. ] Now what do you think of me, Miss Ellie?

  ELLIE [dropping her hands] How strange! that my mother, who knew nothing at all about business, should have been quite right about you! She always said — not before papa, of course, but to us children — that you were just that sort of man.

  MANGAN [sitting up, much hurt] Oh! did she? And yet she’d have let you marry me.

  ELLIE Well, you see, Mr Mangan, my mother married a very good man — for whatever you may think of my father as a man of business, he is the soul of goodness — and she is not at all keen on my doing the same.

  MANGAN Anyhow, you don’t want to marry me now, do you?

  ELLIE [very calmly] Oh, I think so. Why not?

  MANGAN [rising aghast] Why not!

  ELLIE I don’t see why we shouldn’t get on very well together.

  MANGAN Well, but look here, you know — [he stops, quite at a loss].

  ELLIE [patiently] Well?

  MANGAN Well, I thought you were rather particular about people’s characters.

  ELLIE If we women were particular about men’s characters, we should never get married at all, Mr Mangan.

  MANGAN A child like you talking of “we women”! What next! You’re not in earnest?

  ELLIE Yes, I am. Aren’t you?

  MANGAN You mean to hold me to it?

  ELLIE Do you wish to back out of it?

  MANGAN Oh, no. Not exactly back out of it.

  ELLIE Well?

  He has nothing to say. With a long whispered whistle, he drops into the wicker chair and stares before him like a beggared gambler. But a cunning look soon comes into his face. He leans over towards her on his right elbow, and speaks in a low steady voice.

  MANGAN Suppose I told you I was in love with another woman!

  ELLIE [echoing him] Suppose I told you I was in love with another man!

  MANGAN [bouncing angrily out of his chair] I’m not joking.

  ELLIE Who told you I was?

  MANGAN I tell
you I’m serious.You’re too young to be serious; but you’ll have to believe me. I want to be near your friend Mrs Hushabye. I’m in love with her. Now the murder’s out.

  ELLIE I want to be near your friend Mr Hushabye. I’m in love with him. [She rises and adds with a frank air] Now we are in one another’s confidence, we shall be real friends. Thank you for telling me.

  MANGAN [almost beside himself] Do you think I’ll be made a convenience of like this?

  ELLIE Come, Mr Mangan! you made a business convenience of my father. Well, a woman’s business is marriage. Why shouldn’t I make a domestic convenience of you?

  MANGAN Because I don’t choose, see? Because I’m not a silly gull like your father. That’s why.

  ELLIE [with serene contempt] You are not good enough to clean my father’s boots, Mr Mangan; and I am paying you a great compliment in condescending to make a convenience of you, as you call it. Of course you are free to throw over our engagement if you like; but, if you do, you’ll never enter Hesione’ s house again: I will take care of that.

  MANGAN [gasping] You little devil, you’ve done me. [On the point of collapsing into the big chair again he recovers himself.] Wait a bit, though: you’re not so cute as you think. You can’t beat Boss Mangan as easy as that. Suppose I go straight to Mrs Hushabye and tell her that you’re in love with her husband.

  ELLIE She knows it.

  MANGAN You told her!!!

  ELLIE She told me.

  MANGAN [clutching at his bursting temples] Oh, this is a crazy house. Or else I’m going clean off my chump. Is she making a swop with you — she to have your husband and you to have hers?

  ELLIE Well, you don’t want us both, do you?

  MANGAN [throwing himself into the chair distractedly] My brain won’t stand it. My head’s going to split. Help! Help me to hold it. Quick: hold it: squeeze it. Save me. [ELLIE comes behind his chair; clasps his head hard for a moment; then begins to draw her hands from his forehead back to his ears.] Thank you. [Drowsily.] That’s very refreshing. [Waking a little.] Don’t you hypnotize me, though. I’ve seen men made fools of by hypnotism.

  ELLIE [steadily] Be quiet. I’ve seen men made fools of without hypnotism.