Sequel
What Happened Afterwards   
   
THE rest of the story need not be shown in action, and indeed, would hardly need telling if our imaginations were not so enfeebled by their lazy dependence on the ready-mades and reach-me-downs of the ragshop in which Romance keeps its stock of "happy endings" to misfit all stories. Now, the history of Eliza Doolittle, though called a romance because of the transfiguration it records seems exceedingly improbable, is common enough. Such transfigurations have been achieved by hundreds of resolutely ambitious young women since Nell Gwynne set them the example by playing queens and fascinating kings in the theatre in which she began by selling oranges. Nevertheless, people in all directions have assumed, for no other reason than that she became the heroine of a romance, that she must have married the hero of it. This is unbearable, not only because her little drama, if acted on such a thoughtless assumption, must be spoiled, but because the true sequel is patent to anyone with a sense of human nature in general, and of feminine instinct in particular.      1   
  Eliza, in telling Higgins she would not marry him if he asked her, was not coquetting: she was announcing a well-considered decision. When a bachelor interests, and dominates, and teaches, and becomes important to a spinster, as Higgins with Eliza, she always, if she has character enough to be capable of it, considers very seriously indeed whether she will play for becoming that bachelor's wife, especially if he is so little interested in marriage that a determined and devoted woman might capture him if she set herself resolutely to do it. Her decision will depend a good deal on whether she is really free to choose; and that, again, will depend on her age and income. If she is at the end of her youth, and has no security for her livelihood, she will marry him because she must marry anybody who will provide for her. But at Eliza's age a good-looking girl does not feel that pressure: she feels free to pick and choose. She is therefore guided by her instinct in the matter. Eliza's instinct tells her not to marry Higgins. It does not tell her to give him up. It is not in the slightest doubt as to his remaining one of the strongest personal interests in her life. It would be very sorely strained if there was another woman likely to supplant her with him. But as she feels sure of him on that last point, she has no doubt at all as to her course, and would not have any, even if the difference of twenty years in age, which seems so great to youth, did not exist between them.   2   
  As our own instincts are not appealed to by her conclusion, let us see whether we cannot discover some reason in it. When Higgins excused his indifference to young women on the ground that they had an irresistible rival in his mother, he gave the clue to his inveterate old-bachelordom. The case is uncommon only to the extent that remarkable mothers are uncommon. If an imaginative boy has a sufficiently rich mother who has intelligence, personal grace, dignity of character without harshness, and a cultivated sense of the best art of her time to enable her to make her house beautiful, she sets a standard for him against which very few women can struggle, besides effecting for him a disengagement of his affections, his sense of beauty, and his idealism from his specifically sexual impulses. This makes him a standing puzzle to the huge number of uncultivated people who have been brought up in tasteless homes by commonplace or disagreeable parents, and to whom, consequently, literature, painting, sculpture, music, and affectionate personal relations come as modes of sex if they come at all. The word passion means nothing else to them; and that Higgins could have a passion for phonetics and idealize his mother instead of Eliza, would seem to them absurd and unnatural. Nevertheless, when we look round and see that hardly anyone is too ugly or disagreeable to find a wife or a husband if he or she wants one, whilst many old maids and bachelors are above the average in quality and culture, we cannot help suspecting that the disentanglement of sex from the associations with which it is so commonly confused, a disentanglement which persons of genius achieve by sheer intellectual analysis, is sometimes produced or aided by parental fascination.   3   
  Now, though Eliza was incapable of thus explaining to herself Higgins's formidable powers of resistance to the charm that prostrated Freddy at the first glance, she was instinctively aware that she could never obtain a complete grip of him, or come between him and his mother (the first necessity of the married woman). To put it shortly, she knew that for some mysterious reason he had not the makings of a married man in him, according to her conception of a husband as one to whom she would be his nearest and fondest and warmest interest. Even had there been no mother-rival, she would still have refused to accept an interest in herself that was secondary to philosophic interests. Had Mrs. Higgins died, there would still have been Milton and the Universal Alphabet. Landor's remark that to those who have the greatest power of loving, love is a secondary affair, would not have recommended Landor to Eliza. Put that along with her resentment of Higgins's domineering superiority, and her mistrust of his coaxing cleverness in getting round her and evading her wrath when he had gone too far with his impetuous bullying, and you will see that Eliza's instinct had good grounds for warning her not to marry her Pygmalion.   4   
  And now, whom did Eliza marry? For if Higgins was a predestinate old bachelor, she was most certainly not a predestinate old maid. Well, that can be told very shortly to those who have not guessed it from the indications she has herself given them.      5   
  Almost immediately after Eliza is stung into proclaiming her considered determination not to marry Higgins, she mentions the fact that young Mr. Frederick Eynsford Hill is pouring out his love for her daily through the post. Now Freddy is young, practically twenty years younger than Higgins: he is a gentleman (or, as Eliza would qualify him, a toff), and speaks like one; he is nicely dressed, is treated by the Colonel as an equal, loves her unaffectedly, and is not her master, nor ever likely to dominate her in spite of his advantage of social standing. Eliza has no use for the foolish romantic tradition that all women love to be mastered, if not actually bullied and beaten. "When you go to women," says Nietzsche, "take your whip with you." Sensible despots have never confined that precaution to women: they have taken their whips with them when they have dealt with men, and been slavishly idealized by the men over whom they have flourished the whip much more than by women. No doubt there are slavish women as well as slavish men; and women, like men, admire those that are stronger than themselves. But to admire a strong person and to live under that strong person's thumb are two different things. The weak may not be admired and hero-worshipped; but they are by no means disliked or shunned; and they never seem to have the least difficulty in marrying people who are too good for them. They may fail in emergencies; but life is not one long emergency: it is mostly a string of situations for which no exceptional strength is needed, and with which even rather weak people can cope if they have a stronger partner to help them out. Accordingly, it is a truth everywhere in evidence that strong people, masculine or feminine, not only do not marry stronger people, but do not shew any preference for them in selecting their friends. When a lion meets another with a louder roar "the first lion thinks the last a bore." The man or woman who feels strong enough for two, seeks for every other quality in a partner than strength.   6   
  The converse is also true. Weak people want to marry strong people who do not frighten them too much; and this often leads them to make the mistake we describe metaphorically as "biting off more than they can chew." They want too much for too little; and when the bargain is unreasonable beyond all bearing, the union becomes impossible: it ends in the weaker party being either discarded or borne as a cross, which is worse. People who are not only weak, but silly or obtuse as well, are often in these difficulties.   7   
  This being the state of human affairs, what is Eliza fairly sure to do when she is placed between Freddy and Higgins? Will she look forward to a lifetime of fetching Higgins's slippers or to a lifetime of Freddy fetching hers? There can be no doubt about the answer. Unless Freddy is biologically repulsive to her, and Higgins biologically attractive to a degree that overwhelms all her other instincts, she will, if she marries either of them, marry Freddy.   8   
  And that is just what Eliza did.   9   
  Complications ensued; but they were economic, not romantic. Freddy had no money and no occupation. His mother's jointure, a last relic of the opulence of Largelady Park, had enabled her to struggle along in Earlscourt with an air of gentility, but not to procure any serious secondary education for her children, much less give the boy a profession. A clerkship at thirty shillings a week was beneath Freddy's dignity, and extremely distasteful to him besides. His prospects consisted of a hope that if he kept up appearances somebody would do something for him. The something appeared vaguely to his imagination as a private secretaryship or a sinecure of some sort. To his mother it perhaps appeared as a marriage to some lady of means who could not resist her boy's niceness. Fancy her feelings when he married a flower girl who had become déclassée under extraordinary circumstances which were now notorious!   10   
  It is true that Eliza's situation did not seem wholly ineligible. Her father, though formerly a dustman, and now fantastically disclassed, had become extremely popular in the smartest society by a social talent which triumphed over every prejudice and every disadvantage. Rejected by the middle class, which he loathed, he had shot up at once into the highest circles by his wit, his dustmanship (which he carried like a banner), and his Nietzschean transcendence of good and evil. At intimate ducal dinners he sat on the right hand of the Duchess; and in country houses he smoked in the pantry and was made much of by the butler when he was not feeding in the dining-room and being consulted by cabinet ministers. But he found it almost as hard to do all this on four thousand a year as Mrs. Eynsford Hill to live in Earlscourt on an income so pitiably smaller that I have not the heart to disclose its exact figure. He absolutely refused to add the last straw to his burden by contributing to Eliza's support.   11   
  Thus Freddy and Eliza, now Mr. and Mrs. Eynsford Hill, would have spent a penniless honeymoon but for a wedding present of £500 from the Colonel to Eliza. It lasted a long time because Freddy did not know how to spend money, never having had any to spend, and Eliza, socially trained by a pair of old bachelors, wore her clothes as long as they held together and looked pretty, without the least regard to their being many months out of fashion. Still, £500 will not last two young people for ever; and they both knew, and Eliza felt as well, that they must shift for themselves in the end. She could quarter herself on Wimpole Street because it had come to be her home; but she was quite aware that she ought not to quarter Freddy there, and that it would not be good for his character if she did.   12   
  Not that the Wimpole Street bachelors objected. When she consulted them, Higgins declined to be bothered about her housing problem when that solution was so simple. Eliza's desire to have Freddy in the house with her seemed of no more importance than if she had wanted an extra piece of bedroom furniture. Pleas as to Freddy's character, and the moral obligation on him to earn his own living, were lost on Higgins. He denied that Freddy had any character, and declared that if he tried to do any useful work some competent person would have the trouble of undoing it: a procedure involving a net loss to the community, and great unhappiness to Freddy himself, who was obviously intended by Nature for such light work as amusing Eliza, which, Higgins declared, was a much more useful and honorable occupation than working in the city. When Eliza referred again to her project of teaching phonetics, Higgins abated not a jot of his violent opposition to it. He said she was not within ten years of being qualified to meddle with his pet subject; and as it was evident that the Colonel agreed with him, she felt she could not go against them in this grave matter, and that she had no right, without Higgins's consent, to exploit the knowledge he had given her; for his knowledge seemed to her as much his private property as his watch: Eliza was no communist. Besides, she was superstitiously devoted to them both, more entirely and frankly after her marriage than before it.   13   
  It was the Colonel who finally solved the problem, which had cost him much perplexed cogitation. He one day asked Eliza, rather shyly, whether she had quite given up her notion of keeping a flower shop. She replied that she had thought of it, but had put it out of her head, because the Colonel had said, that day at Mrs. Higgins's, that it would never do. The Colonel confessed that when he said that, he had not quite recovered from the dazzling impression of the day before. They broke the matter to Higgins that evening. The sole comment vouchsafed by him very nearly led to a serious quarrel with Eliza. It was to the effect that she would have in Freddy an ideal errand boy.   14   
  Freddy himself was next sounded on the subject. He said he had been thinking of a shop himself; though it had presented itself to his pennilessness as a small place in which Eliza should sell tobacco at one counter whilst he sold newspapers at the opposite one. But he agreed that it would be extraordinarily jolly to go early every morning with Eliza to Covent Garden and buy flowers on the scene of their first meeting: a sentiment which earned him many kisses from his wife. He added that he had always been afraid to propose anything of the sort, because Clara would make an awful row about a step that must damage her matrimonial chances, and his mother could not be expected to like it after clinging for so many years to that step of the social ladder on which retail trade is impossible.   15   
  This difficulty was removed by an event highly unexpected by Freddy's mother. Clara, in the course of her incursions into those artistic circles which were the highest within her reach, discovered that her conversational qualifications were expected to include a grounding in the novels of Mr. H. G. Wells. She borrowed them in various directions so energetically that she swallowed them all within two months. The result was a conversion of a kind quite common today. A modern Acts of the Apostles would fill fifty whole Bibles if anyone were capable of writing it.   16   
  Poor Clara, who appeared to Higgins and his mother as a disagreeable and ridiculous person, and to her own mother as in some inexplicable way a social failure, had never seen herself in either light; for, though to some extent ridiculed and mimicked in West Kensington like everybody else there, she was accepted as a rational and normal—or shall we say inevitable?—sort of human being. At worst they called her The Pusher; but to them no more than to herself had it ever occurred that she was pushing the air, and pushing it in a wrong direction. Still, she was not happy. She was growing desperate. Her one asset, the fact that her mother was what the Epsom greengrocer called a carriage lady had no exchange value, apparently. It had prevented her from getting educated, because the only education she could have afforded was education with the Earlscourt greengrocer's daughter. It had led her to seek the society of her mother's class; and that class simply would not have her, because she was much poorer than the greengrocer, and, far from being able to afford a maid, could not afford even a housemaid, and had to scrape along at home with an illiberally treated general servant. Under such circumstances nothing could give her an air of being a genuine product of Largelady Park. And yet its tradition made her regard a marriage with anyone within her reach as an unbearable humiliation. Commercial people and professional people in a small way were odious to her. She ran after painters and novelists; but she did not charm them; and her bold attempts to pick up and practise artistic and literary talk irritated them. She was, in short, an utter failure, an ignorant, incompetent, pretentious, unwelcome, penniless, useless little snob; and though she did not admit these disqualifications (for nobody ever faces unpleasant truths of this kind until the possibility of a way out dawns on them) she felt their effects too keenly to be satisfied with her position.

  Clara had a startling eyeopener when, on being suddenly wakened to enthusiasm by a girl of her own age who dazzled her and produced in her a gushing desire to take her for a model, and gain her friendship, she discovered that this exquisite apparition had graduated from the gutter in a few months' time. It shook her so violently, that when Mr. H. G. Wells lifted her on the point of his puissant pen, and placed her at the angle of view from which the life she was leading and the society to which she clung appeared in its true relation to real human needs and worthy social structure, he effected a conversion and a conviction of sin comparable to the most sensational feats of General Booth or Gypsy Smith. Clara's snobbery went bang. Life suddenly began to move with her. Without knowing how or why, she began to make friends and enemies. Some of the acquaintances to whom she had been a tedious or indifferent or ridiculous affliction, dropped her: others became cordial. To her amazement she found that some "quite nice" people were saturated with Wells, and that this accessibility to ideas was the secret of their niceness. People she had thought deeply religious, and had tried to conciliate on that tack with disastrous results, suddenly took an interest in her, and revealed a hostility to conventional religion which she had never conceived possible except among the most desperate characters. They made her read Galsworthy; and Galsworthy exposed the vanity of Largelady Park and finished her. It exasperated her to think that the dungeon in which she had languished for so many unhappy years had been unlocked all the time, and that the impulses she had so carefully struggled with and stifled for the sake of keeping well with society, were precisely those by which alone she could have come into any sort of sincere human contact. In the radiance of these discoveries, and the tumult of their reaction, she made a fool of herself as freely and conspicuously as when she so rashly adopted Eliza's expletive in Mrs. Higgins's drawing-room; for the new-born Wellsian had to find her bearings almost as ridiculously as a baby; but nobody hates a baby for its ineptitudes, or thinks the worse of it for trying to eat the matches; and Clara lost no friends by her follies. They laughed at her to her face this time; and she had to defend herself and fight it out as best she could.   18   
  When Freddy paid a visit to Earlscourt (which he never did when he could possibly help it) to make the desolating announcement that he and his Eliza were thinking of blackening the Largelady scutcheon by opening a shop, he found the little household already convulsed by a prior announcement from Clara that she also was going to work in an old furniture shop in Dover Street, which had been started by a fellow Wellsian. This appointment Clara owed, after all, to her old social accomplishment of Push. She had made up her mind that, cost what it might, she would see Mr. Wells in the flesh; and she had achieved her end at a garden party. She had better luck than so rash an enterprise deserved. Mr. Wells came up to her expectations. Age had not withered him, nor could custom stale his infinite variety in half an hour. His pleasant neatness and compactness, his small hands and feet, his teeming ready brain, his unaffected accessibility, and a certain fine apprehensiveness which stamped him as susceptible from his topmost hair to his tipmost toe, proved irresistible. Clara talked of nothing else for weeks and weeks afterwards. And as she happened to talk to the lady of the furniture shop, and that lady also desired above all things to know Mr. Wells and sell pretty things to him, she offered Clara a job on the chance of achieving that end through her.   19   
  And so it came about that Eliza's luck held, and the expected opposition to the flower shop melted away. The shop is in the arcade of a railway station not very far from the Victoria and Albert Museum; and if you live in that neighborhood you may go there any day and buy a buttonhole from Eliza.   20   
  Now here is a last opportunity for romance. Would you not like to be assured that the shop was an immense success, thanks to Eliza's charms and her early business experience in Covent Garden? Alas! the truth is the truth: the shop did not pay for a long time, simply because Eliza and her Freddy did not know how to keep it. True, Eliza had not to begin at the very beginning: she knew the names and prices of the cheaper flowers; and her elation was unbounded when she found that Freddy, like all youths educated at cheap, pretentious, and thoroughly inefficient schools, knew a little Latin. It was very little, but enough to make him appear to her a Porson or Bentley, and to put him at his ease with botanical nomenclature. Unfortunately he knew nothing else; and Eliza, though she could count money up to eighteen shillings or so, and had acquired a certain familiarity with the language of Milton from her struggles to qualify herself for winning Higgins's bet, could not write out a bill without utterly disgracing the establishment. Freddy's power of stating in Latin that Balbus built a wall and that Gaul was divided into three parts did not carry with it the slightest knowledge of accounts or business: Colonel Pickering had to explain to him what a cheque book and a bank account meant. And the pair were by no means easily teachable. Freddy backed up Eliza in her obstinate refusal to believe that they could save money by engaging a bookkeeper with some knowledge of the business. How, they argued, could you possibly save money by going to extra expense when you already could not make both ends meet? But the Colonel, after making the ends meet over and over again, at last gently insisted; and Eliza, humbled to the dust by having to beg from him so often, and stung by the uproarious derision of Higgins, to whom the notion of Freddy succeeding at anything was a joke that never palled, grasped the fact that business, like phonetics, has to be learned.   21   
  On the piteous spectacle of the pair spending their evenings in shorthand schools and polytechnic classes, learning bookkeeping and typewriting with incipient junior clerks, male and female, from the elementary schools, let me not dwell. There were even classes at the London School of Economics, and a humble personal appeal to the director of that institution to recommend a course bearing on the flower business. He, being a humorist, explained to them the method of the celebrated Dickensian essay on Chinese Metaphysics by the gentleman who read an article on China and an article on Metaphysics and combined the information. He suggested that they should combine the London School with Kew Gardens. Eliza, to whom the procedure of the Dickensian gentleman seemed perfectly correct (as in fact it was) and not in the least funny (which was only her ignorance) took his advice with entire gravity. But the effort that cost her the deepest humiliation was a request to Higgins, whose pet artistic fancy, next to Milton's verse, was caligraphy, and who himself wrote a most beautiful Italian hand, that he would teach her to write. He declared that she was congenitally incapable of forming a single letter worthy of the least of Milton's words; but she persisted; and again he suddenly threw himself into the task of teaching her with a combination of stormy intensity, concentrated patience, and occasional bursts of interesting disquisition on the beauty and nobility, the august mission and destiny, of human handwriting. Eliza ended by acquiring an extremely uncommercial script which was a positive extension of her personal beauty, and spending three times as much on stationery as anyone else because certain qualities and shapes of paper became indispensable to her. She could not even address an envelope in the usual way because it made the margins all wrong.   22   
  Their commercial school days were a period of disgrace and despair for the young couple. They seemed to be learning nothing about flower shops. At last they gave it up as hopeless, and shook the dust of the shorthand schools, and the polytechnics, and the London School of Economics from their feet for ever. Besides, the business was in some mysterious way beginning to take care of itself. They had somehow forgotten their objections to employing other people. They came to the conclusion that their own way was the best, and that they had really a remarkable talent for business. The Colonel, who had been compelled for some years to keep a sufficient sum on current account at his bankers to make up their deficits, found that the provision was unnecessary: the young people were prospering. It is true that there was not quite fair play between them and their competitors in trade. Their week-ends in the country cost them nothing, and saved them the price of their Sunday dinners; for the motor car was the Colonel's; and he and Higgins paid the hotel bills. Mr. F. Hill, florist and greengrocer (they soon discovered that there was money in asparagus; and asparagus led to other vegetables), had an air which stamped the business as classy; and in private life he was still Frederick Eynsford Hill, Esquire. Not that there was any swank about him: nobody but Eliza knew that he had been christened Frederick Challoner. Eliza herself swanked like anything.   23   
  That is all. That is how it has turned out. It is astonishing how much Eliza still manages to meddle in the housekeeping at Wimpole Street in spite of the shop and her own family. And it is notable that though she never nags her husband, and frankly loves the Colonel as if she were his favorite daughter, she has never got out of the habit of nagging Higgins that was established on the fatal night when she won his bet for him. She snaps his head off on the faintest provocation, or on none. He no longer dares to tease her by assuming an abysmal inferiority of Freddy's mind to his own. He storms and bullies and derides; but she stands up to him so ruthlessly that the Colonel has to ask her from time to time to be kinder to Higgins; and it is the only request of his that brings a mulish expression into her face. Nothing but some emergency or calamity great enough to break down all likes and dislikes, and throw them both back on their common humanity—and may they be spared any such trial!—will ever alter this. She knows that Higgins does not need her, just as her father did not need her. The very scrupulousness with which he told her that day that he had become used to having her there, and dependent on her for all sorts of little services, and that he should miss her if she went away (it would never have occurred to Freddy or the Colonel to say anything of the sort) deepens her inner certainty that she is "no more to him than them slippers", yet she has a sense, too, that his indifference is deeper than the infatuation of commoner souls. She is immensely interested in him. She has even secret mischievous moments in which she wishes she could get him alone, on a desert island, away from all ties and with nobody else in the world to consider, and just drag him off his pedestal and see him making love like any common man. We all have private imaginations of that sort. But when it comes to business, to the life that she really leads as distinguished from the life of dreams and fancies, she likes Freddy and she likes the Colonel; and she does not like Higgins and Mr. Doolittle. Galatea never does quite like Pygmalion: his relation to her is too godlike to be altogether agreeable.

Androcles and the Lion



Prologue

Overture; forest sounds, roaring of lions, Christian hymn
faintly.

A jungle path. A lion's roar, a melancholy suffering roar, comes
from the jungle. It is repeated nearer. The lion limps from the
jungle on three legs, holding up his right forepaw, in which a
huge thorn sticks. He sits down and contemplates it. He licks it.
He shakes it. He tries to extract it by scraping it along the
ground, and hurts himself worse. He roars piteously. He licks it
again. Tears drop from his eyes. He limps painfully off the path
and lies down under the trees, exhausted with pain. Heaving a
long sigh, like wind in a trombone, he goes to sleep.

Androcles and his wife Megaera come along the path. He is a
small, thin, ridiculous little man who might be any age from
thirty to fifty-five. He has sandy hair, watery compassionate
blue eyes, sensitive nostrils, and a very presentable forehead;
but his good points go no further; his arms and legs and back,
though wiry of their kind, look shrivelled and starved. He
carries a big bundle, is very poorly clad, and seems tired and
hungry.

His wife is a rather handsome pampered slattern, well fed and in
the prime of life. She has nothing to carry, and has a stout
stick to help her along.

MEGAERA (suddenly throwing down her stick) I won't go another
step.

ANDROCLES (pleading wearily) Oh, not again, dear. What's the good
of stopping every two miles and saying you won't go another step?
We must get on to the next village before night. There are wild
beasts in this wood: lions, they say.

MEGAERA. I don't believe a word of it. You are always threatening
me with wild beasts to make me walk the very soul out of my body
when I can hardly drag one foot before another. We haven't seen a
single lion yet.

ANDROCLES. Well, dear, do you want to see one?

MEGAERA (tearing the bundle from his back) You cruel beast, you
don't care how tired I am, or what becomes of me (she throws the
bundle on the ground): always thinking of yourself. Self! self!
self! always yourself! (She sits down on the bundle).

ANDROCLES (sitting down sadly on the ground with his elbows on
his knees and his head in his hands) We all have to think of
ourselves occasionally, dear.

MEGAERA. A man ought to think of his wife sometimes.

ANDROCLES. He can't always help it, dear. You make me think of
you a good deal. Not that I blame you.

MEGAERA. Blame me! I should think not indeed. Is it my fault that
I'm married to you?

ANDROCLES. No, dear: that is my fault.

MEGAERA. That's a nice thing to say to me. Aren't you happy with
me?

ANDROCLES. I don't complain, my love.

MEGAERA. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

ANDROCLES. I am, my dear.

MEGAERA. You're not: you glory in it.

ANDROCLES. In what, darling?

MEGAERA. In everything. In making me a slave, and making yourself
a laughing-stock. Its not fair. You get me the name of being a
shrew with your meek ways, always talking as if butter wouldn't
melt in your mouth. And just because I look a big strong woman,
and because I'm good-hearted and a bit hasty, and because you're
always driving me to do things I'm sorry for afterwards, people
say "Poor man: what a life his wife leads him!" Oh, if they only
knew! And you think I don't know. But I do, I do, (screaming) I
do.

ANDROCLES. Yes, my dear: I know you do.

MEGAERA. Then why don't you treat me properly and be a good
husband to me?

ANDROCLES. What can I do, my dear?

MEGAERA. What can you do! You can return to your duty, and come
back to your home and your friends, and sacrifice to the gods as
all respectable people do, instead of having us hunted out of
house and home for being dirty, disreputable, blaspheming
atheists.

ANDROCLES. I'm not an atheist, dear: I am a Christian.

MEGAERA. Well, isn't that the same thing, only ten times worse?
Everybody knows that the Christians are the very lowest of the
low.

ANDROCLES. Just like us, dear.

MEGAERA. Speak for yourself. Don't you dare to compare me to
common people. My father owned his own public-house; and
sorrowful was the day for me when you first came drinking in our
bar.

ANDROCLES. I confess I was addicted to it, dear. But I gave it
up when I became a Christian.

MEGAERA. You'd much better have remained a drunkard. I can
forgive a man being addicted to drink: its only natural; and I
don't deny I like a drop myself sometimes. What I can't stand is
your being addicted to Christianity. And what's worse again, your
being addicted to animals. How is any woman to keep her house
clean when you bring in every stray cat and lost cur and lame
duck in the whole countryside? You took the bread out of my mouth
to feed them: you know you did: don't attempt to deny it.

ANDROCLES. Only when they were hungry and you were getting too
stout, dearie.

MEGAERA. Yes, insult me, do. (Rising) Oh! I won't bear it another
moment. You used to sit and talk to those dumb brute beasts for
hours, when you hadn't a word for me.

ANDROCLES. They never answered back, darling. (He rises and again
shoulders the bundle).

MEGAERA. Well, if you're fonder of animals than of your own wife,
you can live with them here in the jungle. I've had enough of
them and enough of you. I'm going back. I'm going home.

ANDROCLES (barring the way back) No, dearie: don't take on like
that. We can't go back. We've sold everything: we should starve;
and I should be sent to Rome and thrown to the lions--

MEGAERA. Serve you right! I wish the lions joy of you.
(Screaming) Are you going to get out of my way and let me go
home?

ANDROCLES. No, dear--

MEGAERA. Then I'll make my way through the forest; and when I'm
eaten by the wild beasts you'll know what a wife you've lost.
(She dashes into the jungle and nearly falls over the sleeping
lion). Oh! Oh! Andy! Andy! (She totters back and collapses into
the arms of Androcles, who, crushed by her weight, falls on his
bundle).

ANDROCLES (extracting himself from beneath her and slapping her
hands in great anxiety) What is it, my precious, my pet? What's
the matter? (He raises her head. Speechless with terror, she
points in the direction of the sleeping lion. He steals
cautiously towards the spot indicated by Megaera. She rises with
an effort and totters after him).

MEGAERA. No, Andy: you'll be killed. Come back.

The lion utters a long snoring sigh. Androcles sees the lion and
recoils fainting into the arms of Megaera, who falls back on the
bundle. They roll apart and lie staring in terror at one another.
The lion is heard groaning heavily in the jungle.

ANDROCLES (whispering) Did you see? A lion.

MEGAERA (despairing) The gods have sent him to punish us because
you're a Christian. Take me away, Andy. Save me.

ANDROCLES (rising) Meggy: there's one chance for you. It'll take
him pretty nigh twenty minutes to eat me (I'm rather stringy and
tough) and you can escape in less time than that.

MEGAERA. Oh, don't talk about eating. (The lion rises with a
great groan and limps towards them). Oh! (She faints).

ANDROCLES (quaking, but keeping between the lion and Megaera)
Don't you come near my wife, do you hear? (The lion groans.
Androcles can hardly stand for trembling). Meggy: run. Run for
your life. If I take my eye off him, its all up. (The lion holds
up his wounded paw and flaps it piteously before Androcles). Oh,
he's lame, poor old chap! He's got a thorn in his paw. A
frightfully big thorn. (Full of sympathy) Oh, poor old man! Did
um get an awful thorn into um's tootsums wootsums? Has it made um
too sick to eat a nice little Christian man for um's breakfast?
Oh, a nice little Christian man will get um's thorn out for um;
and then um shall eat the nice Christian man and the nice
Christian man's nice big tender wifey pifey. (The lion responds
by moans of self-pity). Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Now, now (taking
the paw in his hand) um is not to bite and not to scratch, not
even if it hurts a very, very little. Now make velvet paws.
That's right. (He pulls gingerly at the thorn. The lion, with an
angry yell of pain, jerks back his paw so abruptly that Androcles
is thrown on his back). Steadeee! Oh, did the nasty cruel little
Christian man hurt the sore paw? (The lion moans assentingly but
apologetically). Well, one more little pull and it will be all
over. Just one little, little, leetle pull; and then um will live
happily ever after. (He gives the thorn another pull. The lion
roars and snaps his jaws with a terrifying clash). Oh, mustn't
frighten um's good kind doctor, um's affectionate nursey. That
didn't hurt at all: not a bit. Just one more. Just to show how
the brave big lion can bear pain, not like the little crybaby
Christian man. Oopsh! (The thorn comes out. The lion yells with
pain, and shakes his paw wildly). That's it! (Holding up the
thorn). Now it's out. Now lick um's paw to take away the nasty
inflammation. See? (He licks his own hand. The lion nods
intelligently and licks his paw industriously). Clever little
liony-piony!  Understands um's dear old friend Andy Wandy. (The
lion licks his face). Yes, kissums Andy Wandy. (The lion,
wagging his tail violently, rises on his hind legs and embraces
Androcles, who makes a wry face and cries) Velvet paws! Velvet
paws! (The lion draws in his claws). That's right. (He embraces
the lion, who finally takes the end of his tail in one paw,
places that tight around Androcles' waist, resting it on his hip.
Androcles takes the other paw in his hand, stretches out his arm,
and the two waltz rapturously round and round and finally away
through the jungle).

MEGAERA (who has revived during the waltz) Oh, you coward, you
haven't danced with me for years; and now you go off dancing with
a great brute beast that you haven't known for ten minutes and
that wants to eat your own wife. Coward! Coward! Coward! (She
rushes off after them into the jungle).

Act I



Evening. The end of three converging roads to Rome. Three
triumphal arches span  them where they debouch on a square at the
gate of the city. Looking north through the arches one can see
the campagna threaded by the three long dusty tracks. On the east
and west sides of the square are long stone benches. An old
beggar sits on the east side of the square, his bowl at his feet.
Through the eastern arch a squad of Roman soldiers tramps along
escorting a batch of Christian prisoners of both sexes and all
ages, among them one Lavinia, a goodlooking resolute young woman,
apparently of higher social standing than her fellow-prisoners. A
centurion, carrying his vinewood cudgel, trudges alongside the
squad, on its right, in command of it. All are tired and dusty;
but the soldiers are dogged and indifferent, the Christians
light-hearted and determined to treat their hardships as a joke
and encourage one another.

A bugle is heard far behind on the road, where the rest of the
cohort is following.

CENTURION (stopping) Halt! Orders from the Captain. (They halt
and wait). Now then, you Christians, none of your larks. The
captain's coming. Mind you behave yourselves. No singing. Look
respectful. Look serious, if you're capable of it. See that big
building over there? That's the Coliseum. That's where you'll be
thrown to the lions or set to fight the gladiators presently.
Think of that; and it'll help you to behave properly before the
captain. (The Captain arrives). Attention! Salute! (The soldiers
salute).

A CHRISTIAN (cheerfully) God bless you, Captain.

THE CENTURION (scandalised) Silence!

The Captain, a patrician, handsome, about thirty-five, very cold
and distinguished, very superior and authoritative, steps up on a
stone seat at the west side of the square, behind the centurion,
so as to dominate the others more effectually.

THE CAPTAIN. Centurion.

THE CENTURION. (standing at attention and saluting) Sir?

THE CAPTAIN (speaking stiffly and officially) You will remind
your men, Centurion, that we are now entering Rome. You will
instruct them that once inside the gates of Rome they are in the
presence of the Emperor. You will make them understand that the
lax discipline of the march cannot be permitted here. You will
instruct them to shave every day, not every week. You will
impress on them particularly that there must be an end to the
profanity and blasphemy of singing Christian hymns on the march.
I have to reprimand you, Centurion, for not only allowing this,
but actually doing it yourself.

THE CENTURION. The men march better, Captain.

THE CAPTAIN. No doubt. For that reason an exception is made in
the case of the march called Onward Christian Soldiers. This may
be sung, except when marching through the forum or within hearing
of the Emperor's palace; but the words must be altered to "Throw
them to the Lions."

The Christians burst into shrieks of uncontrollable laughter, to
the great scandal of the Centurion.

CENTURION. Silence! Silen-n-n-n-nce! Where's your behavior? Is
that the way to listen to an officer? (To the Captain) That's
what we have to put up with from these Christians every day, sir.
They're always laughing and joking something scandalous. They've
no religion: that's how it is.

LAVINIA. But I think the Captain meant us to laugh, Centurion. It
was so funny.

CENTURION. You'll find out how funny it is when you're thrown to
the lions to-morrow. (To the Captain, who looks displeased) Beg
pardon, Sir. (To the Christians) Silennnnce!

THE CAPTAIN. You are to instruct your men that all intimacy with
Christian prisoners must now cease. The men have fallen into
habits of dependence upon the prisoners, especially the female
prisoners, for cooking, repairs to uniforms, writing letters, and
advice in their private affairs. In a Roman soldier such
dependence is inadmissible. Let me see no more of it whilst we
are in the city. Further, your orders are that in addressing
Christian prisoners, the manners and tone of your men must
express abhorrence and contempt. Any shortcoming in this respect
will be regarded as a breach of discipline.(He turns to the
prisoners) Prisoners.

CENTURION (fiercely) Prisonerrrrrs! Tention! Silence!

THE CAPTAIN. I call your attention, prisoners, to the fact that
you may be called on to appear in the Imperial Circus at any time
from tomorrow onwards according to the requirements of the
managers. I may inform you that as there is a shortage of
Christians just now, you may expect to be called on very soon.

LAVINIA. What will they do to us, Captain?

CENTURION. Silence!

THE CAPTAIN. The women will be conducted into the arena with the
wild beasts of the Imperial Menagerie, and will suffer the
consequences. The men, if of an age to bear arms, will be given
weapons to defend themselves, if they choose, against the
Imperial Gladiators.

LAVINIA. Captain: is there no hope that this cruel persecution--

CENTURION (shocked) Silence! Hold your tongue, there.
Persecution, indeed!

THE CAPTAIN (unmoved and somewhat sardonic) Persecution is not a
term applicable to the acts of the Emperor. The Emperor is the
Defender of the Faith. In throwing you to the lions he will be
upholding the interests of religion in Rome. If you were to throw
him to the lions, that would no doubt be persecution.

The Christians again laugh heartily.

CENTURION (horrified) Silence, I tell you! Keep silence there.
Did anyone ever hear the like of this?

LAVINIA. Captain: there will be nobody to appreciate your jokes
when we are gone.

THE CAPTAIN (unshaken in his official delivery) I call the
attention of the female prisoner Lavinia to the fact that as the
Emperor is a divine personage, her imputation of cruelty is not
only treason, but sacrilege. I point out to her further that
there is no foundation for the charge, as the Emperor does not
desire that any prisoner should suffer; nor can any Christian be
harmed save through his or her own obstinacy. All that is
necessary is to sacrifice to the gods: a simple and convenient
ceremony effected by dropping a pinch of incense on the altar,
after which the prisoner is at once set free. Under such
circumstances you have only your own perverse folly to blame if
you suffer. I suggest to you that if you cannot burn a morsel of
incense as a matter of conviction, you might at least do so as a
matter of good taste, to avoid shocking the religious convictions
of your fellow citizens. I am aware that these considerations do
not weigh with Christians; but it is my duty to call your
attention to them in order that you may have no ground for
complaining of your treatment, or of accusing the Emperor of
cruelty when he is showing you the most signal clemency.
Looked at from this point of view, every Christian who has
perished in the arena has really committed suicide.

LAVINIA. Captain: your jokes are too grim. Do not think it is
easy for us to die. Our faith makes life far stronger and more
wonderful in us than when we walked in darkness and had nothing
to live for. Death is harder for us than for you: the martyr's
agony is as bitter as his triumph is glorious.

THE CAPTAIN (rather troubled, addressing her personally and
gravely) A martyr, Lavinia, is a fool. Your death will prove
nothing.

LAVINIA. Then why kill me?

THE CAPTAIN. I mean that truth, if there be any truth, needs no
martyrs.

LAVINIA. No; but my faith, like your sword, needs testing. Can
you test your sword except by staking your life on it?

THE CAPTAIN (suddenly resuming his official tone) I call the
attention of the female prisoner to the fact that Christians are
not allowed to draw the Emperor's officers into arguments and put
questions to them for which the military regulations provide no
answer. (The Christians titter).

LAVINIA. Captain: how CAN you?

THE CAPTAIN. I call the female prisoner's attention specially to
the fact that four comfortable homes have been offered her by
officers of this regiment, of which she can have her choice the
moment she chooses to sacrifice as all well-bred Roman ladies do.
I have no more to say to the prisoners.

CENTURION. Dismiss! But stay where you are.

THE CAPTAIN. Centurion: you will remain here with your men in
charge of the prisoners until the arrival of three Christian
prisoners in the custody of a cohort of the tenth legion. Among
these prisoners you will particularly identify an armorer named
Ferrovius, of dangerous character and great personal strength,
and a Greek tailor reputed to be a sorcerer, by name Androcles.
You will add the three to your charge here and march them all to
the Coliseum, where you will deliver them into the custody of the
master of the gladiators and take his receipt, countersigned by
the keeper of the beasts and the acting manager. You understand
your instructions?

CENTURION. Yes, Sir.

THE CAPTAIN. Dismiss. (He throws off his air of parade, and
descends down from the perch. The Centurion seats on it and
prepares for a nap, whilst his men stand at ease. The Christians
sit down on the west side of the square, glad to rest. Lavinia
alone remains standing to speak to the Captain).

LAVINIA. Captain: is this man who is to join us the famous
Ferrovius, who has made such wonderful conversions in the
northern cities?

THE CAPTAIN. Yes. We are warned that he has the strength of an
elephant and the temper of a mad bull. Also that he is stark mad.
Not a model Christian, it would seem.

LAVINIA. You need not fear him if he is a Christian, Captain.

THE CAPTAIN (coldly) I shall not fear him in any case, Lavinia.

LAVINIA (her eyes dancing) How brave of you, Captain!

THE CAPTAIN. You are right: it was silly thing to say. (In a
lower tone, humane and urgent) Lavinia: do Christians know how to
love?

LAVINIA (composedly) Yes, Captain: they love even their enemies.

THE CAPTAIN. Is that easy?

LAVINIA. Very easy, Captain, when their enemies are as handsome
as you.

THE CAPTAIN. Lavinia: you are laughing at me.

LAVINIA. At you, Captain! Impossible.

THE CAPTAIN. Then you are flirting with me, which is worse. Don't
be foolish.

LAVINIA. But such a very handsome captain.

THE CAPTAIN. Incorrigible! (Urgently) Listen to me. The men in
that audience tomorrow will be the vilest of voluptuaries: men in
whom the only passion excited by a beautiful woman is a lust to
see her tortured and torn shrieking limb from limb. It is a crime
to dignify that passion. It is offering yourself for violation by
the whole rabble of the streets and the riff-raff of the court at
the same time. Why will you not choose rather a kindly love and
an honorable alliance?

LAVINIA. They cannot violate my soul. I alone can do that by
sacrificing to false gods.

THE CAPTAIN. Sacrifice then to the true God. What does his name
matter? We call him Jupiter. The Greeks call him Zeus. Call him
what you will as you drop the incense on the altar flame: He will
understand.

LAVINIA. No. I couldn't. That is the strange thing, Captain, that
a little pinch of incense should make all that difference.
Religion is such a great thing that when I meet really religious
people we are friends at once, no matter what name we give to the
divine will that made us and moves us. Oh, do you think that I, a
woman, would quarrel with you for sacrificing to a woman god like
Diana, if Diana meant to you what Christ means to me? No: we
should kneel side by side before her altar like two children. But
when men who believe neither in my god nor in their own--men who
do not know the meaning of the word religion--when these men drag
me to the foot of an iron statue that has become the symbol of
the terror and darkness through which they walk, of their cruelty
and greed, of their hatred of God and their oppression of man--
when they ask me to pledge my soul before the people that this
hideous idol is God, and that all this wickedness and falsehood
is divine truth, I cannot do it, not if they could put a thousand
cruel deaths on me. I tell you, it is physically impossible.
Listen, Captain: did you ever try to catch a mouse in your hand?
Once there was a dear little mouse that used to come out and play
on my table as I was reading. I wanted to take him in my hand and
caress him; and sometimes he got among my books so that he could
not escape me when I stretched out my hand. And I did stretch out
my hand; but it always came back in spite of me. I was not afraid
of him in my heart; but my hand refused: it is not in the nature
of my hand to touch a mouse. Well, Captain, if I took a pinch of
incense in my hand and stretched it out over the altar fire, my
hand would come back. My body would be true to my faith even if
you could corrupt my mind. And all the time I should believe more
in Diana than my persecutors have ever believed in anything. Can
you understand that?

THE CAPTAIN (simply) Yes: I understand that. But my hand would
not come back. The hand that holds the sword has been trained not
to come back from anything but victory.

LAVINIA. Not even from death?

THE CAPTAIN. Least of all from death.

LAVINIA. Then I must not come back either. A woman has to be
braver than a soldier.

THE CAPTAIN. Prouder, you mean.

LAVINIA (startled) Prouder! You call our courage pride!

THE CAPTAIN. There is no such thing as courage: there is only
pride. You Christians are the proudest devils on earth.

LAVINIA (hurt) Pray God then my pride may never become a false
pride. (She turns away as if she did not wish to continue the
conversation, but softens and says to him with a smile) Thank you
for trying to save me from death

THE CAPTAIN. I knew it was no use; but one tries in spite of
one's knowledge.

LAVINIA. Something stirs, even in the iron breast of a Roman
soldier!

THE CAPTAIN. It will soon be iron again. I have seen many women
die, and forgotten them in a week.

LAVINIA. Remember me for a fortnight, handsome Captain. I shall
be watching you, perhaps.

THE CAPTAIN. From the skies? Do not deceive yourself, Lavinia.
There is no future for you beyond the grave.

LAVINIA. What does that matter? Do you think I am only running
away from the terrors of life into the comfort of heaven? If
there were no future, or if the future were one of torment, I
should have to go just the same. The hand of God is upon me.

THE CAPTAIN. Yes: when all is said, we are both patricians,
Lavinia, and must die for our beliefs. Farewell. (He offers her
his hand. She takes it and presses it. He walks away, trim and
calm. She looks after him for a moment, and cries a little as he
disappears through the eastern arch. A trumpet-call is heard from
the road through the western arch).

CENTURION (waking up and rising) Cohort of the tenth with
prisoners. Two file out with me to receive them. (He goes out
through the western arch, followed by four soldiers in two
files).

Lentulus and Metellus come into the square from the west side
with a little retinue of servants. Both are young courtiers,
dressed in the extremity of fashion. Lentulus is slender,
fair-haired, epicene. Metellus is manly, compactly built, olive
skinned, not a talker.

LENTULUS. Christians, by Jove! Let's chaff them.

METELLUS. Awful brutes. If you knew as much about them as I do
you wouldn't want to chaff them. Leave them to the lions.

LENTULUS (indicating Lavinia, who is still looking towards the
arches after the captain). That woman's got a figure. (He walks
past her, staring at her invitingly, but she is preoccupied and
is not conscious of him). Do you turn the other cheek when they
kiss you?

LAVINIA (starting) What?

LENTULus. Do you turn the other cheek when they kiss you,
fascinating Christian?

LAVINIA. Don't be foolish. (To Metellus, who has remained on her
right, so that she is between them) Please don't let your friend
behave like a cad before the soldiers. How are they to respect
and obey patricians if they see them behaving like street boys?
(Sharply to Lentulus) Pull yourself together, man. Hold your head
up. Keep the corners of your mouth firm; and treat me
respectfully. What do you take me for?

LENTULUS (irresolutely) Look here, you know: I--you--I--

LAVINIA. Stuff! Go about your business. (She turns decisively
away and sits down with her comrades, leaving him disconcerted).

METELLUS. You didn't get much out of that. I told you they were
brutes.

LENTULUS. Plucky little filly! I suppose she thinks I care. (With
an air of indifference he strolls with Metellus to the east side
of the square, where they stand watching the return of the
Centurion through the western arch with his men, escorting three
prisoners: Ferrovius, Androcles, and Spintho. Ferrovius is a
powerful, choleric man in the prime of life, with large nostrils,
staring eyes, and a thick neck: a man whose sensibilities are
keen and violent to the verge of madness. Spintho is a debauchee,
the wreck of a good-looking man gone hopelessly to the bad.
Androcles is overwhelmed with grief, and is restraining his tears
with great difficulty).

THE CENTURION (to Lavinia) Here are some pals for you. This
little bit is Ferrovius that you talk so much about. (Ferrovius
turns on him threateningly. The Centurion holds up his left
forefinger in admonition). Now remember that you're a Christian,
and that you've got to return good for evil. (Ferrovius controls
himself convulsively; moves away from temptation to the east side
near Lentulus; clasps his hands in silent prayer; and throws
himself on his knees). That's the way to manage them, eh! This
fine fellow (indicating Androcles, who comes to his left, and
makes Lavinia a heartbroken salutation) is a sorcerer. A Greek
tailor, he is. A real sorcerer, too: no mistake about it. The
tenth marches with a leopard at the head of the column. He made a
pet of the leopard; and now he's crying at being parted from it.
(Androcles sniffs lamentably). Ain't you, old chap? Well, cheer
up, we march with a Billy goat (Androcles brightens up) that's
killed two leopards and ate a turkey-cock. You can have him for a
pet if you like. (Androcles, quite consoled, goes past the
Centurion to Lavinia, and sits down contentedly on the ground on
her left). This dirty dog (collaring Spintho) is a real
Christian. He mobs the temples, he does (at each accusation he
gives the neck of Spintho's tunic a twist); he goes smashing
things mad drunk, he does; he steals the gold vessels, he does;
he assaults the priestesses, he does pah! (He flings Spintho into
the middle of the group of prisoners). You're the sort that makes
duty a pleasure, you are.

SPINTHO (gasping) That's it: strangle me. Kick me. Beat me.
Revile me. Our Lord was beaten and reviled. That's my way to
heaven. Every martyr goes to heaven, no matter what he's done.
That is so, isn't it, brother?

CENTURION. Well, if you're going to heaven, _I_ don't want to go
there. I wouldn't be seen with you.

LENTULUS. Haw! Good! (Indicating the kneeling Ferrovius). Is this
one of the turn-the-other-cheek gentlemen, Centurion?

CENTURION. Yes, sir. Lucky for you too, sir, if you want to take
any liberties with him.

LENTULUS (to Ferrovius) You turn the other cheek when you're
struck, I'm told.

FERROVIUS (slowly turning his great eyes on him) Yes, by the
grace of  God, I do, NOW.

LENTULUS. Not that you're a coward, of course; but out of pure
piety.

FERROVIUS. I fear God more than man; at least I try to.

LENTULUS. Let's see. (He strikes him on the cheek. Androcles
makes a wild movement to rise and interfere; but Lavinia holds
him down, watching Ferrovius intently. Ferrovius, without
flinching, turns the other cheek. Lentulus, rather out of
countenance, titters foolishly, and strikes him again feebly).
You know, I should feel ashamed if I let myself be struck like
that, and took it lying down. But then I'm not a Christian: I'm a
man. (Ferrovius rises impressively and towers over him. Lentulus
becomes white with terror; and a shade of green flickers in his
cheek for a moment).

FERROVIUS (with the calm of a steam hammer) I have not always
been faithful. The first man who struck me as you have just
struck me was a stronger man than you: he hit me harder than I
expected. I was tempted and fell; and it was then that I first
tasted bitter shame. I never had a happy moment after that until
I had knelt and asked his forgiveness by his bedside in the
hospital. (Putting his hands on Lentulus's shoulders with
paternal weight). But now I have learnt to resist with a strength
that is not my own. I am not ashamed now, nor angry.

LENTULUS (uneasily) Er--good evening. (He tries to move away).

FERROVIUS (gripping his shoulders) Oh, do not harden your heart,
young man. Come: try for yourself whether our way is not better
than yours. I will now strike you on one cheek; and you will turn
the other and learn how much better you will feel than if you
gave way to the promptings of anger. (He holds him with one hand
and clenches the other fist).

LENTULUS. Centurion: I call on you to protect me.

CENTURION. You asked for it, sir. It's no business of ours.
You've had two whacks at him. Better pay him a trifle and square
it that way.

LENTULUS. Yes, of course. (To Ferrovius) It was only a bit of
fun, I assure you: I meant no harm. Here. (He proffers a gold
coin).

FERROVIUS (taking it and throwing it to the old beggar, who
snatches it up eagerly, and hobbles off to spend it) Give all
thou hast to the poor. Come, friend: courage! I may hurt your
body for a moment; but your soul will rejoice in the victory of
the spirit over the flesh. (He prepares to strike).

ANDROCLES. Easy, Ferrovius, easy: you broke the last man's jaw.

Lentulus, with a moan of terror, attempts to fly; but Ferrovius
holds him ruthlessly.

FERROVIUS. Yes; but I saved his soul. What matters a broken jaw?

LENTULUS. Don't touch me, do you hear? The law--

FERROVIUS. The law will throw me to the lions tomorrow: what
worse could it do were I to slay you? Pray for strength; and it
shall be given to you.

LENTULUS. Let me go. Your religion forbids you to strike me.

FERROVIUS. On the contrary, it commands me to strike you. How can
you turn the other cheek, if you are not first struck on the one
cheek?

LENTULUS (almost in tears) But I'm convinced already that what
you said is quite right. I apologize for striking you.

FERROVIUS (greatly pleased) My son: have I softened your heart?
Has the good seed fallen in a fruitful place? Are your feet
turning towards a better path?

LENTULUS (abjectly) Yes, yes. There's a great deal in what you
say.

FERROVIUS (radiant) Join us. Come to the lions. Come to suffering
and death.

LENTULUS (falling on his knees and bursting into tears) Oh, help
me. Mother! mother!

FERROVIUS. These tears will water your soul and make it bring
forth good fruit, my son. God has greatly blessed my efforts at
conversion. Shall I tell you a miracle--yes, a miracle--wrought
by me in Cappadocia? A young man--just such a one as you, with
golden hair like yours--scoffed at and struck me as you scoffed
at and struck me. I sat up all night with that youth wrestling
for his soul; and in the morning not only was he a Christian, but
his hair was as white as snow. (Lentulus falls in a dead faint).
There, there: take him away. The spirit has overwrought him, poor
lad. Carry him gently to his house; and leave the rest to heaven.

CENTURION. Take him home. (The servants, intimidated, hastily
carry him out. Metellus is about to follow when Ferrovius lays
his hand on his shoulder).

FERROVIUS. You are his friend, young man. You will see that he
is taken safely home.

METELLUS (with awestruck civility) Certainly, sir. I shall do
whatever you think best. Most happy to have made your
acquaintance, I'm sure. You may depend on me. Good evening, sir.

FERROVIUS (with unction) The blessing of heaven upon you and him.

Metellus follows Lentulus. The Centurion returns to his seat to
resume his interrupted nap. The deepest awe has settled on the
spectators. Ferrovius, with a long sigh of happiness, goes to
Lavinia, and offers her his hand.

LAVINIA (taking it) So that is how you convert people, Ferrovius.

FERROVIUS. Yes: there has been a blessing on my work in spite of
my unworthiness and my backslidings--all through my wicked,
devilish temper. This man--

ANDROCLES (hastily) Don't slap me on the back, brother. She knows
you mean me.

FERROVIUS. How I wish I were weak like our brother here! for then
I should perhaps be meek and gentle like him. And yet there seems
to be a special providence that makes my trials less than his. I
hear tales of the crowd scoffing and casting stones and reviling
the brethren; but when I come, all this stops: my influence calms
the passions of the mob: they listen to me in silence; and
infidels are often converted by a straight heart-to-heart talk
with me. Every day I feel happier, more confident. Every day
lightens the load of the great terror.

LAVINIA. The great terror? What is that?

Ferrovius shakes his head and does not answer. He sits down
beside her on her left, and buries his face in his hands in
gloomy meditation.

ANDROCLES. Well, you see, sister, he's never quite sure of
himself. Suppose at the last moment in the arena, with the
gladiators there to fight him, one of them was to say anything to
annoy him, he might forget himself and lay that gladiator out.

LAVINIA. That would be splendid.

FERROVIUS (springing up in horror) What!

ANDROCLES. Oh, sister!

FERROVIUS. Splendid to betray my master, like Peter! Splendid to
act like any common blackguard in the day of my proving! Woman:
you are no Christian. (He moves away from her to the middle of
the square, as if her neighborhood contaminated him).

LAVINIA (laughing) You know, Ferrovius, I am not always a
Christian. I don't think anybody is. There are moments when I
forget all about it, and something comes out quite naturally, as
it did then.

SPINTHO. What does it matter? If you die in the arena, you'll be
a martyr; and all martyrs go to heaven, no matter what they have
done. That's so, isn't it, Ferrovius?

FERROVIUS. Yes: that is so, if we are faithful to the end.

LAVINIA. I'm not so sure.

SPINTHO. Don't say that. That's blasphemy. Don't say that, I tell
you. We shall be saved, no matter WHAT we do.

LAVINIA. Perhaps you men will all go into heaven bravely and in
triumph, with your heads erect and golden trumpets sounding for
you. But I am sure I shall only be allowed to squeeze myself in
through a little crack in the gate after a great deal of begging.
I am not good always: I have moments only.

SPINTHO. You're talking nonsense, woman. I tell you, martyrdom
pays all scores.

ANDROCLES. Well, let us hope so, brother, for your sake. You've
had a gay time, haven't you? with your raids on the temples. I
can't help thinking that heaven will be very dull for a man of
your temperament. (Spintho snarls). Don't be angry: I say it only
to console you in case you should die in your bed tonight in the
natural way. There's a lot of plague about.

SPINTHO (rising and running about in abject terror) I never
thought of that. O Lord, spare me to be martyred. Oh, what a
thought to put into the mind of a brother! Oh, let me be martyred
today, now. I shall die in the night and go to hell. You're a
sorcerer: you've put death into my mind. Oh, curse you, curse
you! (He tries to seize Androcles by the throat).

FERROVIUS (holding him in a grip of iron) What's this, brother?
Anger! Violence! Raising your hand to a brother Christian!

SPINTHO. It's easy for you. You're strong. Your nerves are all
right. But I'm full of disease. (Ferrovius takes his hand from
him with instinctive disgust). I've drunk all my nerves away. I
shall have the horrors all night.

ANDROCLES (sympathetic) Oh, don't take on so, brother. We're all
sinners.

SPINTHO (snivelling, trying to feel consoled). Yes: I daresay if
the truth were known, you're all as bad as I am.

LAVINIA (contemptuously) Does THAT comfort you?

FERROVIUS (sternly) Pray, man, pray.

SPINTHO. What's the good of praying? If we're martyred we shall
go to heaven, shan't we, whether we pray or not?

FERROVIUS. What's that? Not pray! (Seizing him again) Pray this
instant, you dog, you rotten hound, you slimy snake, you beastly
goat, or--

SPINTHO. Yes: beat me: kick me. I forgive you: mind that.

FERROVIUS (spurning him with loathing) Yah! (Spintho reels away
and falls in front of Ferrovius).

ANDROCLES (reaching out and catching the skirt of Ferrovius's
tunic) Dear brother: if you wouldn't mind--just for my sake--

FERROVIUS. Well?

ANDROCLES. Don't call him by the names of the animals. We've no
right to. I've had such friends in dogs. A pet snake is the best
of company. I was nursed on goat's milk. Is it fair to them to
call the like of him a dog or a snake or a goat?

FERROVIUS. I only meant that they have no souls.

ANDROCLES (anxiously protesting) Oh, believe me, they have. Just
the same as you and me. I really don't think I could consent to
go to heaven if I thought there were to be no animals there.
Think of what they suffer here.

FERROVIUS. That's true. Yes: that is just. They will have their
share in heaven.

SPINTHO (who has picked himself up and is sneaking past Ferrovius
on his left, sneers derisively)!!

FERROVIUS (turning on him fiercely) What's that you say?

SPINTHO (cornering). Nothing.

FERROVIUS (clenching his fist) Do animals go to heaven or not?

SPINTHO. I never said they didn't.

FERROVIUS (implacable) Do they or do they not?

SPINTHO. They do: they do. (Scrambling out of Ferrovius's reach).
Oh, curse you for frightening me!

A bugle call is heard.

CENTURION (waking up) Tention! Form as before. Now then,
prisoners, up with you and trot along spry. (The soldiers fall
in. The Christians rise).

A man with an ox goad comes running through the central arch.

THE OX DRIVER. Here, you soldiers! clear out of the way for the
Emperor.

THE CENTURION. Emperor! Where's the Emperor? You ain't the
Emperor, are you?

THE OX DRIVER. It's the menagerie service. My team of oxen is
drawing the new lion to the Coliseum. You clear the road.

CENTURION. What! Go in after you in your dust, with half the town
at the heels of you and your lion! Not likely. We go first.

THE OX DRIVER. The menagerie service is the Emperor's personal
retinue. You clear out, I tell you.

CENTURION. You tell me, do you? Well, I'll tell you something. If
the lion is menagerie service, the lion's dinner is menagerie
service too. This (pointing to the Christians) is the lion's
dinner. So back with you to your bullocks double quick; and learn
your place. March. (The soldiers start). Now then, you
Christians, step out there.

LAVINIA (marching) Come along, the rest of the dinner. I shall be
the olives and anchovies.

ANOTHER CHRISTIAN (laughing) I shall be the soup.

ANOTHER. I shall be the fish.

ANOTHER. Ferrovius shall be the roast boar.

FERROVIUS (heavily) I see the joke. Yes, yes: I shall be the
roast boar. Ha! ha! (He laughs conscientiously and marches out
with them).

ANDROCLES. I shall be the mince pie. (Each announcement is
received with a louder laugh by all the rest as the joke catches
on).

CENTURION (scandalised) Silence! Have some sense of your
situation. Is this the way for martyrs to behave? (To Spintho,
who is quaking and loitering) I know what YOU'LL be at that
dinner. You'll be the emetic. (He shoves him rudely along).

SPINTHO. It's too dreadful: I'm not fit to die.

CENTURION. Fitter than you are to live, you swine.

They pass from the square westward. The oxen, drawing a waggon
with a great wooden cage and the lion in it, arrive through the
central arch.

Act II



Behind the Emperor's box at the Coliseum, where the performers
assemble before entering the arena. In the middle a wide passage
leading to the arena descends from the floor level under the
imperial box. On both sides of this passage steps ascend to a
landing at the back entrance to the box. The landing forms a
bridge across the passage. At the entrance to the passage are two
bronze mirrors, one on each side.

On the west side of this passage, on the right hand of any one
coming from the box and standing on the bridge, the martyrs are
sitting on the steps. Lavinia is seated half-way up, thoughtful,
trying to look death in the face. On her left Androcles consoles
himself by nursing a cat. Ferrovius stands behind them, his eyes
blazing, his figure stiff with intense resolution. At the foot of
the steps crouches Spintho, with his head clutched in his hands,
full of horror at the approach of martyrdom.

On the east side of the passage the gladiators are standing and
sitting at ease, waiting, like the Christians, for their turn in
the arena. One (Retiarius) is a nearly naked man with a net and a
trident. Another (Secutor) is in armor with a sword. He carries a
helmet with a barred visor. The editor of the gladiators sits on
a chair a little apart from them.

The Call Boy enters from the passage.

THE CALL Boy. Number six. Retiarius versus Secutor.

The gladiator with the net picks it up. The gladiator with the
helmet puts it on; and the two go into the arena, the net thrower
taking out a little brush and arranging his hair as he goes, the
other tightening his straps and shaking his shoulders loose. Both
look at themselves in the mirrors before they enter the passage.

LAVINIA. Will they really kill one another?

SPINTHO. Yes, if the people turn down their thumbs.

THE EDITOR. You know nothing about it. The people indeed! Do you
suppose we would kill a man worth perhaps fifty talents to please
the riffraff? I should like to catch any of my men at it.

SPINTHO. I thought--

THE EDITOR (contemptuously) You thought! Who cares what you
think? YOU'LL be killed all right enough.

SPINTHO (groans and again hides his face)!!! Then is nobody ever
killed except us poor--

LAVINIA. Christians?

THE EDITOR. If the vestal virgins turn down their thumbs, that's
another matter. They're ladies of rank.

LAVINIA. Does the Emperor ever interfere?

THE EDITOR. Oh, yes: he turns his thumbs up fast enough if the
vestal virgins want to have one of his pet fighting men killed.

ANDROCLES. But don't they ever just only pretend to kill one
another? Why shouldn't you pretend to die, and get dragged out as
if you were dead; and then get up and go home, like an actor?

THE EDITOR. See here: you want to know too much. There will be no
pretending about the new lion: let that be enough for you. He's
hungry.

SPINTHO (groaning with horror) Oh, Lord! Can't you stop talking
about it? Isn't it bad enough for us without that?

ANDROCLES. I'm glad he's hungry. Not that I want him to suffer,
poor chap! but then he'll enjoy eating me so much more. There's a
cheerful side to everything.

THE EDITOR (rising and striding over to Androcles) Here: don't
you be obstinate. Come with me and drop the pinch of incense on
the altar. That's all you need do to be let off.

ANDROCLES. No: thank you very much indeed; but I really mustn't.

THE EDITOR. What! Not to save your life?

ANDROCLES. I'd rather not. I couldn't sacrifice to Diana: she's a
huntress, you know, and kills things.

THE EDITOR. That don't matter. You can choose your own altar.
Sacrifice to Jupiter: he likes animals: he turns himself into an
animal when he goes off duty.

ANDROCLES. No: it's very kind of you; but I feel I can't save
myself that way.

THE EDITOR. But I don't ask you to do it to save yourself: I ask
you to do it to oblige me personally.

ANDROCLES (scrambling up in the greatest agitation) Oh, please
don't say that. That is dreadful. You mean so kindly by me that
it seems quite horrible to disoblige you. If you could arrange
for me to sacrifice when there's nobody looking, I shouldn't
mind. But I must go into the arena with the rest. My honor, you
know.

THE EDITOR. Honor! The honor of a tailor?

ANDROCLES (apologetically) Well, perhaps honor is too strong an
expression. Still, you know, I couldn't allow the tailors to get
a bad name through me.

THE EDITOR. How much will you remember of all that when you smell
the beast's breath and see his jaws opening to tear out your
throat?

SPINTHO (rising with a yell of terror) I can't bear it. Where's
the altar? I'll sacrifice.

FERROVIUS. Dog of an apostate. Iscariot!

SPINTHO. I'll repent afterwards. I fully mean to die in the arena
I'll die a martyr and go to heaven; but not this time, not now,
not until my nerves are better. Besides, I'm too young: I want to
have just one more good time. (The gladiators laugh at him). Oh,
will no one tell me where the altar is? (He dashes into the
passage and vanishes).

ANDROCLES (to the Editor, pointing after Spintho) Brother: I
can't do that, not even to oblige you. Don't ask me.

THE EDITOR. Well, if you're determined to die, I can't help you.
But I wouldn't be put off by a swine like that.

FERROVIUS. Peace, peace: tempt him not. Get thee behind him,
Satan.

THE EDITOR (flushing with rage) For two pins I'd take a turn in
the arena myself to-day, and pay you out for daring to talk to me
like that.

Ferrovius springs forward.

LAVINIA (rising quickly and interposing) Brother, brother: you
forget.

FERROVIUS (curbing himself by a mighty effort) Oh, my temper, my
wicked temper! (To the Editor, as Lavinia sits down again,
reassured). Forgive me, brother. My heart was full of wrath: I
should have been thinking of your dear precious soul.

THE EDITOR. Yah! (He turns his back on Ferrovius contemptuously,
and goes back to his seat).

FERROVIUS (continuing) And I forgot it all: I thought of nothing
but offering to fight you with one hand tied behind me.

THE EDITOR (turning pugnaciously) What!

FERROVIUS (on the border line between zeal and ferocity) Oh,
don't give way to pride and wrath, brother. I could do it so
easily. I could--

They are separated by the Menagerie Keeper, who rushes in from
the passage, furious.

THE KEEPER. Here's a nice business! Who let that Christian out of
here down to the dens when we were changing the lion into the
cage next the arena?

THE EDITOR. Nobody let him. He let himself.

THE KEEPER. Well, the lion's ate him.

Consternation. The Christians rise, greatly agitated. The
gladiators sit callously, but are highly amused. All speak or cry
out or laugh at once. Tumult.


LAVINIA. Oh, poor wretch! FERROVIUS. The apostate has perished.
Praise be to God's justice! ANDROCLES. The poor beast was
starving. It couldn't help itself. THE CHRISTIANS. What! Ate him!
How frightful! How terrible! Without a moment to repent! God be
merciful to him, a sinner! Oh, I can't bear to think of it! In
the midst of his sin! Horrible, horrible! THE EDITOR. Serve the
rotter right! THE GLADIATORS. Just walked into it, he did. He's
martyred all right enough. Good old lion! Old Jock doesn't like
that: look at his face. Devil a better! The Emperor will laugh
when he hears of it. I can't help smiling. Ha ha ha!!!!!

THE KEEPER. Now his appetite's taken off, he won't as much as
look at another Christian for a week.

ANDROCLES. Couldn't you have saved him brother?

THE KEEPER. Saved him! Saved him from a lion that I'd just got
mad with hunger! a wild one that came out of the forest not four
weeks ago! He bolted him before you could say Balbus.

LAVINIA (sitting down again) Poor Spintho! And it won't even
count as martyrdom!

THE KEEPER. Serve him right! What call had he to walk down the
throat of one of my lions before he was asked?

ANDROCLES. Perhaps the lion won't eat me now.

THE KEEPER. Yes: that's just like a Christian: think only of
yourself! What am I to do? What am I to say to the Emperor when
he sees one of my lions coming into the arena half asleep?

THE EDITOR. Say nothing. Give your old lion some bitters and a
morsel of fried fish to wake up his appetite. (Laughter).

THE KEEPER. Yes: it's easy for you to talk; but--

THE EDITOR (scrambling to his feet) Sh! Attention there! The
Emperor. (The Keeper bolts precipitately into the passage. The
gladiators rise smartly and form into line).

The Emperor enters on the Christians' side, conversing with
Metellus, and followed by his suite.

THE GLADIATORS. Hail, Caesar! those about to die salute thee.

CAESAR. Good morrow, friends.

Metellus shakes hands with the Editor, who accepts  his
condescension with bluff respect.

LAVINIA. Blessing, Caesar, and forgiveness!

CAESAR (turning in some surprise at the salutation) There is no
forgiveness for Christianity.

LAVINIA. I did not mean that, Caesar. I mean that WE forgive YOU.

METELLUS. An inconceivable liberty! Do you not know, woman, that
the Emperor can do no wrong and therefore cannot be forgiven?

LAVINIA. I expect the Emperor knows better. Anyhow, we forgive
him.

THE CHRISTIANS. Amen!

CAESAR. Metellus: you see now the disadvantage of too much
severity. These people have no hope; therefore they have nothing
to restrain them from saying what they like to me. They are
almost as impertinent as the gladiators. Which is the Greek
sorcerer?

ANDROCLES (humbly touching his forelock) Me, your Worship.

CAESAR. My Worship! Good! A new title. Well, what miracles can
you perform?

ANDROCLES. I can cure warts by rubbing them with my tailor's
chalk; and I can live with my wife without beating her.

CAESAR. Is that all?

ANDROCLES. You don't know her, Caesar, or you wouldn't say that.

CAESAR. Ah, well, my friend, we shall no doubt contrive a happy
release for you. Which is Ferrovius?

FERROVIUS. I am he.

CAESAR. They tell me you can fight.

FERROVIUS. It is easy to fight. I can die, Caesar.

CAESAR. That is still easier, is it not?

FERROVIUS. Not to me, Caesar. Death comes hard to my flesh; and
fighting comes very easily to my spirit (beating his breast and
lamenting) O sinner that I am! (He throws himself down on the
steps, deeply discouraged).

CAESAR. Metellus: I should like to have this man in the Pretorian
Guard.

METELLUS. I should not, Caesar. He looks a spoilsport. There are
men in whose presence it is impossible to have any fun: men who
are a sort of walking conscience. He would make us all
uncomfortable.

CAESAR. For that reason, perhaps, it might be well to have him.
An Emperor can hardly have too many consciences. (To Ferrovius)
Listen, Ferrovius. (Ferrovius shakes his head and will not look
up). You and your friends shall not be outnumbered to-day in the
arena. You shall have arms; and there will be no more than one
gladiator to each Christian. If you come out of the arena alive,
I will consider favorably any request of yours, and give you a
place in the Pretorian Guard. Even if the request be that no
questions be asked about your faith I shall perhaps not refuse
it.

FERROVIUS. I will not fight. I will die. Better stand with the
archangels than with the Pretorian Guard.

CAESAR. I cannot believe that the archangels--whoever they may
be--would not prefer to be recruited from the Pretorian Guard.
However, as you please. Come: let us see the show.

As the Court ascends the steps, Secutor and the Retiarius return
from the arena through the passage; Secutor covered with dust and
very angry: Retiarius grinning.

SECUTOR. Ha, the Emperor. Now we shall see. Caesar: I ask you
whether it is fair for the Retiarius, instead of making a fair
throw of his net at me, to swish it along the ground and throw
the dust in my eyes, and then catch me when I'm blinded. If the
vestals had not turned up their thumbs I should have been a dead
man.

CAESAR (halting on the stair) There is nothing in the rules
against it.

SECUTOR (indignantly) Caesar: is it a dirty trick or is it not?

CAESAR. It is a dusty one, my friend. (Obsequious laughter). Be
on your guard next time.

SECUTOR. Let HIM be on his guard. Next time I'll throw my sword
at his heels and strangle him with his own net before he can hop
off. (To Retiarius) You see if I don't. (He goes out past the
gladiators, sulky and furious).

CAESAR (to the chuckling Retiarius). These tricks are not wise,
my friend. The audience likes to see a dead man in all his beauty
and splendor. If you smudge his face and spoil his armor they
will show their displeasure by not letting you kill him. And when
your turn comes, they will remember it against you and turn their
thumbs down.

THE RETIARIUS. Perhaps that is why I did it, Caesar. He bet me
ten sesterces that he would vanquish me. If I had had to kill
him I should not have had the money.

CAESAR (indulgent, laughing) You rogues: there is no end to your
tricks. I'll dismiss you all and have elephants to fight. They
fight fairly. (He goes up to his box, and knocks at it. It is
opened from within by the Captain, who stands as on parade to let
him pass). The Call Boy comes from the passage, followed by
three attendants carrying respectively a bundle of swords, some
helmets, and some breastplates and pieces of armor which they
throw down in a heap.

THE CALL BOY. By your leave, Caesar. Number eleven! Gladiators
and Christians!

Ferrovius springs up, ready for martyrdom. The other Christians
take the summons as best they can, some joyful and brave, some
patient and dignified, some tearful and helpless, some embracing
one another with emotion. The Call Boy goes back into the
passage.

CAESAR (turning at the door of the box) The hour has come,
Ferrovius. I shall go into my box and see you killed, since you
scorn the Pretorian Guard. (He goes into the box. The Captain
shuts the door, remaining inside with the Emperor. Metellus and
the rest of the suite disperse to their seats. The Christians,
led by Ferrovius, move towards the passage).

LAVINIA (to Ferrovius) Farewell.

THE EDITOR. Steady there. You Christians have got to fight. Here!
arm yourselves.

FERROVIUS (picking up a sword) I'll die sword in hand to show
people that I could fight if it were my Master's will, and that I
could kill the man who kills me if I chose.

THE EDITOR. Put on that armor.

FERROVIUS. No armor.

THE EDITOR (bullying him) Do what you're told. Put on that armor.

FERROVIUS (gripping the sword and looking dangerous) I said, No
armor.

THE EDITOR. And what am I to say when I am accused of sending a
naked man in to fight my men in armor?

FERROVIUS. Say your prayers, brother; and have no fear of the
princes of this world.

THE EDITOR. Tsha! You obstinate fool! (He bites his lips
irresolutely, not knowing exactly what to do).

ANDROCLES (to Ferrovius) Farewell, brother, till we meet in the
sweet by-and-by.

THE EDITOR (to Androcles) You are going too. Take a sword there;
and put on any armor you can find to fit you.

ANDROCLES. No, really: I can't fight: I never could. I can't
bring myself to dislike anyone enough. I'm to be thrown to the
lions with the lady.

THE EDITOR. Then get out of the way and hold your noise.
(Androcles steps aside with cheerful docility). Now then! Are you
all ready there? A trumpet is heard from the arena.

FERROVIUS (starting convulsively) Heaven give me strength!

THE EDITOR. Aha! That frightens you, does it?

FERROVIUS. Man: there is no terror like the terror of that sound
to me. When I hear a trumpet or a drum or the clash of steel or
the hum of the catapult as the great stone flies, fire runs
through my veins: I feel my blood surge up hot behind my eyes: I
must charge: I must strike: I must conquer: Caesar himself will
not be safe in his imperial seat if once that spirit gets loose
in me. Oh, brothers, pray! exhort me! remind me that if I raise
my sword my honor falls and my Master is crucified afresh.

ANDROCLES. Just keep thinking how cruelly you might hurt the poor
gladiators.

FERROVIUS. It does not hurt a man to kill him.

LAVINIA. Nothing but faith can save you.

FERROVIUS. Faith! Which faith? There are two faiths. There is our
faith. And there is the warrior's faith, the faith in fighting,
the faith that sees God in the sword. How if that faith should
overwhelm me?

LAVINIA. You will find your real faith in the hour of trial.

FERROVIUS. That is what I fear. I know that I am a fighter. How
can I feel sure that I am a Christian?

ANDROCLES. Throw away the sword, brother.

FERROVIUS. I cannot. It cleaves to my hand. I could as easily
throw a woman I loved from my arms. (Starting) Who spoke that
blasphemy? Not I.

LAVINIA. I can't help you, friend. I can't tell you not to save
your own life. Something wilful in me wants to see you fight your
way into heaven.

FERROVIUS. Ha!

ANDROCLES. But if you are going to give up our faith, brother,
why not do it without hurting anybody? Don't fight them. Burn the
incense.

FERROVIUS. Burn the incense! Never.

LAVINIA. That is only pride, Ferrovius.

FERROVIUS. ONLY pride! What is nobler than pride? (Conscience
stricken) Oh, I'm steeped in sin. I'm proud of my pride.

LAVINIA. They say we Christians are the proudest devils on earth
--that only the weak are meek. Oh, I am worse than you. I ought
to send you to death; and I am tempting you.

ANDROCLES. Brother, brother: let THEM rage and kill: let US be
brave and suffer. You must go as a lamb to the slaughter.

FERROVIUS. Aye, aye: that is right. Not as a lamb is slain by the
butcher; but as a butcher might let himself be slain by a
(looking at the Editor) by a silly ram whose head he could fetch
off in one twist.

Before the Editor can retort, the Call Boy rushes up through the
passage; and the Captain comes from the Emperor's box and
descends the steps.

THE CALL BOY. In with you: into the arena. The stage is waiting.

THE CAPTAIN. The Emperor is waiting. (To the Editor) What are you
dreaming of, man? Send your men in at once.

THE EDITOR. Yes, Sir: it's these Christians hanging back.

FERROVIUS (in a voice of thunder) Liar!

THE EDITOR (not heeding him) March. (The gladiators told off to
fight with the Christians march down the passage) Follow up
there, you.

THE CHRISTIAN MEN AND WOMEN (as they part) Be steadfast, brother.
Farewell. Hold up the faith, brother. Farewell. Go to glory,
dearest. Farewell. Remember: we are praying for you. Farewell. Be
strong, brother. Farewell. Don't forget that the divine love and
our love surround you. Farewell. Nothing can hurt you: remember
that, brother. Farewell. Eternal glory, dearest. Farewell.

THE EDITOR (out of patience) Shove them in, there.

The remaining gladiators and the Call Boy make a movement towards
them.

FERROVIUS (interposing) Touch them, dogs; and we die here, and
cheat the heathen of their spectacle. (To his fellow Christians)
Brothers: the great moment has come. That passage is your hill to
Calvary. Mount it bravely, but meekly; and remember! not a word
of reproach, not a blow nor a struggle. Go. (They go out through
the passage. He turns to Lavinia) Farewell.

LAVINIA. You forget: I must follow before you are cold.

FERROVIUS. It is true. Do not envy me because I pass before you
to glory. (He goes through the passage).

THE EDITOR (to the Call Boy) Sickening work, this. Why can't they
all be thrown to the lions? It's not a man's job. (He throws
himself moodily into his chair).

The remaining gladiators go back to their former places
indifferently. The Call Boy shrugs his shoulders and squats down
at the entrance to the passage, near the Editor.

Lavinia and the Christian women sit down again, wrung with grief,
some weeping silently, some praying, some calm and steadfast.
Androcles sits down at Lavinia's feet. The Captain stands on the
stairs, watching her curiously.

ANDROCLES. I'm glad I haven't to fight. That would really be an
awful martyrdom. I AM lucky.

LAVINIA (looking at him with a pang of remorse). Androcles: burn
the incense: you'll be forgiven. Let my death atone for both. I
feel as if I were killing you.

ANDROCLES. Don't think of me, sister. Think of yourself. That
will keep your heart up.

The Captain laughs sardonically.

LAVINIA (startled: she had forgotten his presence) Are you there,
handsome Captain? Have you come to see me die?

THE CAPTAIN (coming to her side) I am on duty with the Emperor,
Lavinia.

LAVINIA. Is it part of your duty to laugh at us?

THE CAPTAIN. No: that is part of my private pleasure. Your friend
here is a humorist. I laughed at his telling you to think of
yourself to keep up your heart. I say, think of yourself and burn
the incense.

LAVINIA. He is not a humorist: he was right. You ought to know
that, Captain: you have been face to face with death.

THE CAPTAIN. Not with certain death, Lavinia. Only death in
battle, which spares more men than death in bed. What you are
facing is certain death. You have nothing left now but your faith
in this craze of yours: this Christianity. Are your Christian
fairy stories any truer than our stories about Jupiter and Diana,
in which, I may tell you, I believe no more than the Emperor
does, or any educated man in Rome?

LAVINIA. Captain: all that seems nothing to me now. I'll not say
that death is a terrible thing; but I will say that it is so real
a thing that when it comes close, all the imaginary things--all
the stories, as you call them--fade into mere dreams beside that
inexorable reality. I know now that I am not dying for stories or
dreams. Did you hear of the dreadful thing that happened here
while we were waiting?

THE CAPTAIN. I heard that one of your fellows bolted,, and ran
right into the jaws of the lion. I laughed. I still laugh.

LAVINIA. Then you don't understand what that meant?

THE CAPTAIN. It meant that the lion had a cur for his breakfast.

LAVINIA. It meant more than that, Captain. It meant that a man
cannot die for a story and a dream. None of us believed the
stories and the dreams more devoutly than poor Spintho; but he
could not face the great reality. What he would have called my
faith has been oozing away minute by minute whilst I've been
sitting here, with death coming nearer and nearer, with reality
becoming realler and realler, with stories and dreams fading away
into nothing.

THE CAPTAIN. Are you then going to die for nothing?

LAVINIA. Yes: that is the wonderful thing. It is since all the
stories and dreams have gone that I have now no doubt at all that
I must die for something greater than dreams or stories.

THE CAPTAIN. But for what?

LAVINIA. I don't know. If it were for anything small enough to
know, it would be too small to die for. I think I'm going to die
for God. Nothing else is real enough to die for.

THE CAPTAIN. What is God?

LAVINIA. When we know that, Captain, we shall be gods ourselves.

THE CAPTAIN. Lavinia; come down to earth. Burn the incense and
marry me.

LAVINIA. Handsome Captain: would you marry me if I hauled down
the flag in the day of battle and burnt the incense? Sons take
after their mothers, you know. Do you want your son to be a
coward?

THE CAPTAIN (strongly moved). By great Diana, I think I would
strangle you if you gave in now.

LAVINIA (putting her hand on the head of Androcles) The hand of
God is on us three, Captain.

THE CAPTAIN. What nonsense it all is! And what a monstrous thing
that you should die for such nonsense, and that I should look on
helplessly when my whole soul cries out against it! Die then if
you must; but at least I can cut the Emperor's throat and then my
own when I see your blood.

The Emperor throws open the door of his box angrily, and appears
in wrath on the threshold. The Editor, the Call Boy, and the
gladiators spring to their feet.

THE EMPEROR. The Christians will not fight; and your curs cannot
get their blood up to attack them. It's all that fellow with the
blazing eyes. Send for the whip. (The Call Boy rushes out on the
east side for the whip). If that will not move them, bring the
hot irons. The man is like a mountain. (He returns angrily into
the box and slams the door).

The Call Boy returns with a man in a hideous Etruscan mask,
carrying a whip. They both rush down the passage into the arena.

LAVINIA (rising) Oh, that is unworthy. Can they not kill him
without dishonoring him?

ANDROCLES (scrambling to his feet and running into the middle of
the space between the staircases) It's dreadful. Now I want to
fight. I can't bear the sight of a whip. The only time I ever hit
a man was when he lashed an old horse with a whip. It was
terrible: I danced on his face when he was on the ground. He
mustn't strike Ferrovius: I'll go into the arena and kill him
first. (He makes a wild dash into the passage. As he does so a
great clamor is heard from the arena, ending in wild
applause. The gladiators listen and look inquiringly at one
another).

THE EDITOR. What's up now?

LAVINIA (to the Captain) What has happened, do you think?

THE CAPTAIN. What CAN happen? They are killing them, I suppose.

ANDROCLES (running in through the passage, screaming with horror
and hiding his eyes)!!!

LAVINIA. Androcles, Androcles: what's the matter?

ANDROCLES. Oh, don't ask me, don't ask me. Something too
dreadful. Oh! (He crouches by her and hides his face in her robe,
sobbing).

THE CALL Boy (rushing through from the passage as before) Ropes
and hooks there! Ropes and hooks.

THE EDITOR. Well, need you excite yourself about it? (Another
burst of applause).

Two slaves in Etruscan masks, with ropes and drag hooks, hurry
in.

ONE OF THE SLAVES. How many dead?

THE CALL Boy. Six. (The slave blows a whistle twice; and four
more masked slaves rush through into the arena with the same
apparatus) And the basket. Bring the baskets. (The slave whistles
three times, and runs through the passage with his companion).

THE CAPTAIN. Who are the baskets for?

THE CALL Boy. For the whip. He's in pieces. They're all in
pieces, more or less. (Lavinia hides her face).

(Two more masked slaves come in with a basket and follow the
others into the arena, as the Call Boy turns to the gladiators
and exclaims, exhausted) Boys, he's killed the lot.

THE EMPEROR (again bursting from his box, this time in an ecstasy
of delight) Where is he? Magnificent! He shall have a laurel
crown.

Ferrovius, madly waving his bloodstained sword, rushes through
the passage in despair, followed by his co-religionists, and by
the menagerie keeper, who goes to the gladiators. The gladiators
draw their swords nervously.

FERROVIUs. Lost! lost forever! I have betrayed my Master. Cut off
this right hand: it has offended. Ye have swords, my brethren:
strike.

LAVINIA. No, no. What have you done, Ferrovius?

FERROVIUS. I know not; but there was blood behind my eyes; and
there's blood on my sword. What does that mean?

THE EMPEROR (enthusiastically, on the landing outside his box)
What does it mean? It means that you are the greatest man in
Rome. It means that you shall have a laurel crown of gold. Superb
fighter, I could almost yield you my throne. It is a record for
my reign: I shall live in history. Once, in Domitian's time, a
Gaul slew three men in the arena and gained his freedom. But when
before has one naked man slain six armed men of the bravest and
best? The persecution shall cease: if Christians can fight like
this, I shall have none but Christians to fight for me. (To the
Gladiators) You are ordered to become Christians, you there: do
you hear?

RETIARIUS. It is all one to us, Caesar. Had I been there with my
net, the story would have been different.

THE CAPTAIN (suddenly seizing Lavinia by the wrist and dragging
her up the steps to the Emperor) Caesar this woman is the sister
of Ferrovius. If she is thrown to the lions he will fret. He will
lose weight; get out of condition

THE EMPEROR. The lions? Nonsense! (To Lavinia) Madam: I am proud
to have the honor of making your acquaintance. Your brother is
the glory of Rome.

LAVINIA. But my friends here. Must they die?

THE EMPEROR. Die! Certainly not. There has never been the
slightest idea of harming them. Ladies and gentlemen: you are all
free. Pray go into the front of the house and enjoy the spectacle
to which your brother has so splendidly contributed. Captain:
oblige me by conducting them to the seats reserved for my
personal friends.

THE MENAGERIE KEEPER. Caesar: I must have one Christian for the
lion. The people have been promised it; and they will tear the
decorations to bits if they are disappointed.

THE EMPEROR. True, true: we must have somebody for the new lion.

FERROVIUS. Throw me to him. Let the apostate perish.

THE EMPEROR. No, no: you would tear him in pieces, my friend; and
we cannot afford to throw away lions as if they were mere slaves.
But we must have somebody. This is really extremely awkward.

THE MENAGERIE KEEPER. Why not that little Greek chap? He's not a
Christian: he's a sorcerer.

THE EMPEROR. The very thing: he will do very well.

THE CALL Boy (issuing from the passage) Number twelve. The
Christian for the new lion.

ANDROCLES (rising, and pulling himself sadly together) Well, it
was to be, after all.

LAVINIA. I'll go in his place, Caesar. Ask the Captain whether
they do not like best to see a woman torn to pieces. He told me
so yesterday.

THE EMPEROR. There is something in that: there is certainly
something in that--if only I could feel sure that your brother
would not fret.

ANDROCLES. No: I should never have another happy hour. No: on the
faith of a Christian and the honor of a tailor, I accept the lot
that has fallen on me. If my wife turns up, give her my love and
say that my wish was that she should be happy with her next, poor
fellow! Caesar: go to your box and see how a tailor can die. Make
way for number twelve there. (He marches out along the passage).

The vast audience in the amphitheatre now sees the Emperor
re-enter his box and take his place as Androcles, desperately
frightened, but still marching with piteous devotion, emerges
from the other end of the passage, and finds himself at the focus
of thousands of eager eyes. The lion's cage, with a heavy
portcullis grating, is on his left. The Emperor gives a signal. A
gong sounds. Androcles shivers at the sound; then falls on his
knees and prays.

The grating rises with a clash. The lion bounds into the arena.
He rushes round frisking in his freedom. He sees Androcles. He
stops; rises stiffly by straightening his legs; stretches out his
nose forward and his tail in a horizontal line behind, like a
pointer, and utters an appalling roar. Androcles crouches and
hides his face in his hands. The lion gathers himself for a
spring, swishing his tail to and fro through the dust in an
ecstasy of anticipation. Androcles throws up his hands in
supplication to heaven. The lion checks at the sight of
Androcles's face. He then steals towards him; smells him; arches
his back; purrs like a motor car; finally rubs himself against
Androcles, knocking him over. Androcles, supporting himself on
his wrist, looks affrightedly at the lion. The lion limps on
three paws, holding up the other as if it was wounded. A flash of
recognition lights up the face of Androcles. He flaps his hand as
if it had a thorn in it, and pretends to pull the thorn out and
to hurt himself. The lion nods repeatedly. Androcles holds out
his hands to the lion, who gives him both paws, which
he shakes with enthusiasm. They embrace rapturously, finally
waltz round the arena amid a sudden burst of deafening applause,
and out through the passage, the Emperor watching them in
breathless astonishment until they disappear, when he rushes from
his box and descends the steps in frantic excitement.

THE EMPEROR. My friends, an incredible! an amazing thing! has
happened. I can no longer doubt the truth of Christianity. (The
Christians press to him joyfully) This Christian sorcerer--(with
a yell, he breaks off as he sees Androcles and the lion emerge
from the passage, waltzing. He bolts wildly up the steps into his
box, and slams the door. All, Christians and gladiators' alike,
fly for their lives, the gladiators bolting into the arena, the
others in all directions. The place is emptied with magical
suddenness).

ANDROCLES (naively) Now I wonder why they all run away from us
like that. (The lion combining a series of yawns, purrs, and
roars, achieves something very like a laugh).

THE EMPEROR (standing on a chair inside his box and looking over
the wall) Sorcerer: I command you to put that lion to death
instantly. It is guilty of high treason. Your conduct is most
disgra-- (the lion charges at him up the stairs) help! (He
disappears. The lion rears against the box; looks over the
partition at him, and roars. The Emperor darts out through the
door and down to Androcles, pursued by the lion.)

ANDROCLES. Don't run away, sir: he can't help springing if you
run. (He seizes the Emperor and gets between him and the lion,
who stops at once). Don't be afraid of him.

THE EMPEROR. I am NOT afraid of him. (The lion crouches,
growling. The Emperor clutches Androcles) Keep between us.

ANDROCLES. Never be afraid of animals, your Worship: that's the
great secret. He'll be as gentle as a lamb when he knows that you
are his friend. Stand quite still; and smile; and let him smell
you all over just to reassure him; for, you see, he's afraid of
you; and he must examine you thoroughly before he gives you his
confidence. (To the lion) Come now, Tommy; and speak nicely to
the Emperor, the great, good Emperor who has power to have all
our heads cut off if we don't behave very, VERY respectfully to
him.

The lion utters a fearful roar. The Emperor dashes madly up the
steps, across the landing, and down again on the other side, with
the lion in hot pursuit. Androcles rushes after the lion;
overtakes him as he is descending; and throws himself on his
back, trying to use his toes as a brake. Before he can stop him
the lion gets hold of the trailing end of the Emperor's robe.

ANDROCLES. Oh bad wicked Tommy, to chase the Emperor like that!
Let go the Emperor's robe at once, sir: where's your manners?
(The lion growls and worries the robe). Don't pull it away from
him, your worship. He's only playing. Now I shall be really angry
with you, Tommy, if you don't let go. (The lion growls again)
I'll tell you what it is, sir: he thinks you and I are not
friends.

THE EMPEROR (trying to undo the clasp of his brooch) Friends! You
infernal scoundrel (the lion growls)don't let him go. Curse this
brooch! I can't get it loose.

ANDROCLES. We mustn't let him lash himself into a rage. You must
show him that you are my particular friend--if you will have the
condescension. (He seizes the Emperor's hands, and shakes them
cordially), Look, Tommy: the nice Emperor is the dearest friend
Andy Wandy has in the whole world: he loves him like a brother.

THE EMPEROR. You little brute, you damned filthy little dog of a
Greek tailor: I'll have you burnt alive for daring to touch the
divine person of the Emperor. (The lion roars).

ANDROCLES. Oh don't talk like that, sir. He understands every
word you say: all animals do: they take it from the tone of your
voice. (The lion growls and lashes his tail). I think he's going
to spring at your worship. If you wouldn't mind saying something
affectionate. (The lion roars).

THE EMPEROR (shaking Androcles' hands frantically) My dearest Mr.
Androcles, my sweetest friend, my long lost brother, come to my
arms. (He embraces Androcles). Oh, what an abominable smell of
garlic!

The lion lets go the robe and rolls over on his back, clasping
his forepaws over one another coquettishly above his nose.

ANDROCLES. There! You see, your worship, a child might play with
him now. See! (He tickles the lion's belly. The lion wriggles
ecstatically). Come and pet him.

THE EMPEROR. I must conquer these unkingly terrors. Mind you
don't go away from him, though. (He pats the lion's chest).

ANDROCLES. Oh, sir, how few men would have the courage to do
that--

THE EMPEROR. Yes: it takes a bit of nerve. Let us invite the
Court in and frighten them. Is he safe, do you think?

ANDROCLES. Quite safe now, sir.

THE EMPEROR (majestically) What ho, there! All who are within
hearing, return without fear. Caesar has tamed the lion. (All the
fugitives steal cautiously in. The menagerie keeper comes from
the passage with other keepers armed with iron bars and
tridents). Take those things away. I have subdued the beast. (He
places his foot on it).

FERROVIUS (timidly approaching the Emperor and looking down with
awe on the lion) It is strange that I, who fear no man, should
fear a lion.

THE CAPTAIN. Every man fears something, Ferrovius.

THE EMPEROR. How about the Pretorian Guard now?

FERROVIUS. In my youth I worshipped Mars, the God of War. I
turned from him to serve the Christian god; but today the
Christian god forsook me; and Mars overcame me and took back his
own. The Christian god is not yet. He will come when Mars and I
are dust; but meanwhile I must serve the gods that are, not the
God that will be. Until then I accept service in the Guard,
Caesar.

THE EMPEROR. Very wisely said. All really sensible men agree that
the prudent course is to be neither bigoted in our attachment to
the old nor rash and unpractical in keeping an open mind for the
new, but to make the best of both dispensations.

THE CAPTAIN. What do you say, Lavinia? Will you too be prudent?

LAVINIA (on the stair) No: I'll strive for the coming of the God
who is not yet.

THE CAPTAIN. May I come and argue with you occasionally?

LAVINIA. Yes, handsome Captain: you may. (He kisses her hands).

THE EMPEROR. And now, my friends, though I do not, as you see,
fear this lion, yet the strain of his presence is considerable;
for none of us can feel quite sure what he will do next.

THE MENAGERIE KEEPER. Caesar: give us this Greek sorcerer to be a
slave in the menagerie. He has a way with the beasts.

ANDROCLES (distressed). Not if they are in cages. They should not
be kept in cages. They must all be let out.

THE EMPEROR. I give this sorcerer to be a slave to the first man
who lays hands on him. (The menagerie keepers and the gladiators
rush for Androcles. The lion starts up and faces them. They surge
back). You see how magnanimous we Romans are, Androcles. We
suffer you to go in peace.

ANDROCLES. I thank your worship. I thank you all, ladies and
gentlemen. Come, Tommy. Whilst we stand together, no cage for
you: no slavery for me. (He goes out with the lion, everybody
crowding away to give him as wide a berth as possible)

In this play I have represented one of the Roman persecutions of
the early Christians, not as the conflict of a false theology
with a true, but as what all such persecutions essentially are:
an attempt to suppress a propaganda that seemed to threaten the
interests involved in the established law and order, organized
and maintained in the name of religion and justice by politicians
who are pure opportunist Have-and-Holders. People who are shown
by their inner light the possibility of a better world based on
the demand of the spirit for a nobler and more abundant life, not
for themselves at the expense of others, but for everybody, are
naturally dreaded and therefore hated by the Have-and-Holders,
who keep always in reserve two sure weapons against them. The
first is a persecution effected by the provocation, organization,
and arming of that herd instinct which makes men abhor all
departures from custom, and, by the most cruel punishments and
the wildest calumnies, force eccentric people to behave and
profess exactly as other people do. The second is by leading the
herd to war, which immediately and infallibly makes them forget
everything, even their most cherished and hardwon public
liberties and private interests, in the irresistible surge of
their pugnacity and the tense pre-occupation of their terror.

There is no reason to believe that there was anything more in the
Roman persecutions than this. The attitude of the Roman Emperor
and the officers of his staff towards the opinions at issue were
much the same as those of a modern British Home Secretary towards
members of the lower middle classes when some pious policeman
charges them with Bad Taste, technically called blasphemy: Bad
Taste being a violation of Good Taste, which in such matters
practically means Hypocrisy. The Home Secretary and the judges
who try the case are usually far more sceptical and blasphemous
than the poor men whom they persecute; and their professions of
horror at the blunt utterance of their own opinions are revolting
to those behind the scenes who have any genuine religious
sensibility; but the thing is done because the governing classes,
provided only the law against blasphemy is not applied to
themselves, strongly approve of such persecution because it
enables them to represent their own privileges as part of the
religion of the country.

Therefore my martyrs are the martyrs of all time, and my
persecutors the persecutors of all time. My Emperor, who has no
sense of the value of common people's lives, and amuses himself
with killing as carelessly as with sparing, is the sort of
monster you can make of any silly-clever gentleman by idolizing
him. We are still so easily imposed on by such idols that one of
the leading pastors of the Free Churches in London denounced my
play on the ground that my persecuting Emperor is a very fine
fellow, and the persecuted Christians ridiculous. From which I
conclude that a popular pulpit may be as perilous to a man's soul
as an imperial throne.

All my articulate Christians, the reader will notice, have
different enthusiasms, which they accept as the same religion
only because it involves them in a common opposition to the
official religion and consequently in a common doom. Androcles is
a humanitarian naturalist, whose views surprise everybody.
Lavinia, a clever and fearless freethinker, shocks the Pauline
Ferrovius, who is comparatively stupid and conscience ridden.
Spintho, the blackguardly debauchee, is presented as one of the
typical Christians of that period on the authority of St.
Augustine, who seems to have come to the conclusion at one period
of his development that most Christians were what we call wrong
uns. No doubt he was to some extent right: I have had occasion
often to point out that revolutionary movements attract those who
are not good enough for established institutions as well as those
who are too good for them.

But the most striking aspect of the play at this moment is the
terrible topicality given it by the war. We were at peace when I
pointed out, by the mouth of Ferrovius, the path of an honest man
who finds out, when the trumpet sounds, that he cannot follow
Jesus. Many years earlier, in The Devil's Disciple, I touched the
same theme even more definitely, and showed the minister throwing
off his black coat for ever when he discovered, amid the thunder
of the captains and the shouting, that he was a born fighter.
Great numbers of our clergy have found themselves of late in the
position of Ferrovius and Anthony Anderson. They have discovered
that they hate not only their enemies but everyone who does not
share their hatred, and that they want to fight and to force
other people to fight. They have turned their churches into
recruiting stations and their vestries into munition workshops.
But it has never occurred to them to take off their black coats
and say quite simply, "I find in the hour of trial that the
Sermon on the Mount is tosh, and that I am not a Christian. I
apologize for all the unpatriotic nonsense I have been preaching
all these years. Have the goodness to give me a revolver and a
commission in a regiment which has for its chaplain a priest of
the god Mars: my God." Not a bit of it. They have stuck to their
livings and served Mars in the name of Christ, to the scandal of
all religious mankind. When the Archbishop of York behaved like a
gentleman and the Head Master of Eton preached a Christian
sermon, and were reviled by the rabble, the Martian parsons
encouraged the rabble. For this they made no apologies or
excuses, good or bad. They simple indulged their passions, just
as they had always indulged their class prejudices and commercial
interests, without troubling themselves for a moment as to
whether they were Christians or not. They did not protest even
when a body calling itself the AntiGerman League (not having
noticed, apparently, that it had been anticipated by the British
Empire, the French Republic, and the Kingdoms of Italy, Japan,
and Serbia) actually succeeded in closing a church at Forest Hill
in which God was worshipped in the German language. One would
have supposed that this grotesque outrage on the commonest
decencies of religion would have provoked a remonstrance from
even the worldliest bench of bishops. But no: apparently it
seemed to the bishops as natural that the House of God should be
looted when He allowed German to be spoken in it as that a
baker's shop with a German name over the door should be pillaged.
Their verdict was, in effect, "Serve God right, for creating the
Germans!" The incident would have been impossible in a country
where the Church was as powerful as the Church of England, had it
had at the same time a spark of catholic as distinguished from
tribal religion in it. As it is, the thing occurred; and as far
as I have observed, the only people who gasped were the
Freethinkers. Thus we see that even among men who make a
profession of religion the great majority are as Martian as the
majority of their congregations. The average clergyman is an
official who makes his living by christening babies, marrying
adults, conducting a ritual, and making the best he can (when he
has any conscience about it) of a certain routine of school
superintendence, district visiting, and organization of
almsgiving, which does not necessarily touch Christianity at any
point except the point of the tongue. The exceptional or
religious clergyman may be an ardent Pauline salvationist, in
which case his more cultivated parishioners dislike him, and say
that he ought to have joined the Methodists. Or he may be an
artist expressing religious emotion without intellectual
definition by means of poetry, music, vestments and architecture,
also producing religious ecstacy by physical expedients, such as
fasts and vigils, in which case he is denounced as a Ritualist.
Or he may be either a Unitarian Deist like Voltaire or Tom Paine,
or the more modern sort of Anglican Theosophist to whom the Holy
Ghost is the Elan Vital of Bergson, and the Father and Son are an
expression of the fact that our functions and aspects are
manifold, and that we are all sons and all either potential or
actual parents, in which case he is strongly suspected by the
straiter Salvationists of being little better than an Atheist.
All these varieties, you see, excite remark. They may be very
popular with their congregations; but they are regarded by the
average man as the freaks of the Church. The Church, like the
society of which it is an organ, is balanced and steadied by the
great central Philistine mass above whom theology looms as a
highly spoken of and doubtless most important thing, like Greek
Tragedy, or classical music, or the higher mathematics, but who
are very glad when church is over and they can go home to lunch
or dinner, having in fact, for all practical purposes, no
reasoned convictions at all, and being equally ready to persecute
a poor Freethinker for saying that St. James was not infallible,
and to send one of the Peculiar People to prison for being so
very peculiar as to take St. James seriously.

In short, a Christian martyr was thrown to the lions not because
he was a Christian, but because he was a crank: that is, an
unusual sort of person. And multitudes of people, quite as
civilized and amiable as we, crowded to see the lions eat him
just as they now crowd the lion-house in the Zoo at feeding-time,
not because they really cared two-pence about Diana or Christ, or
could have given you any intelligent or correct account of the
things Diana and Christ stood against one another for, but simply
because they wanted to see a curious and exciting spectacle. You,
dear reader, have probably run to see a fire; and if somebody
came in now and told you that a lion was chasing a man down the
street you would rush to the window. And if anyone were to say
that you were as cruel as the people who let the lion loose on
the man, you would be justly indignant. Now that we may no longer
see a man hanged, we assemble outside the jail to see the black
flag run up. That is our duller method of enjoying ourselves in
the old Roman spirit. And if the Government decided to throw
persons of unpopular or eccentric views to the lions in the
Albert Hall or the Earl's Court stadium tomorrow, can you doubt
that all the seats would be crammed, mostly by people who could
not give you the most superficial account of the views
in question. Much less unlikely things have happened. It is true
that if such a revival does take place soon, the martyrs will not
be members of heretical religious sects: they will be Peculiars,
Anti-Vivisectionists, Flat-Earth men, scoffers at the
laboratories, or infidels who refuse to kneel down when a
procession of doctors goes by. But the lions will hurt them just
as much, and the spectators will enjoy themselves just as much,
as the Roman lions and spectators used to do.

It was currently reported in the Berlin newspapers that when
Androcles was first performed in Berlin, the Crown Prince rose
and left the house, unable to endure the (I hope) very clear and
fair exposition of autocratic Imperialism given by the Roman
captain to his Christian prisoners. No English Imperialist was
intelligent and earnest enough to do the same in London. If the
report is correct, I confirm the logic of the Crown Prince, and
am glad to find myself so well understood. But I can assure him
that the Empire which served for my model when I wrote Androcles
was, as he is now finding to his cost, much nearer my home than
the German one.

Annajanska, The Bolshevik Empress



The General's office in a military station on the east front in
Beotia. An office table with a telephone, writing materials,
official papers, etc., is set across the room. At the end of the
table, a comfortable chair for the General. Behind the chair, a
window. Facing it at the other end of the table, a plain wooden
bench. At the side of the table, with its back to the door, a
common chair, with a typewriter before it. Beside the door, which
is opposite the end of the bench, a rack for caps and coats.
There is nobody in the room.

General Strammfest enters, followed by Lieutenant Schneidekind.
They hang up their cloaks and caps. Schneidekind takes a little
longer than Strammfest, who comes to the table.

STRAMMFEST. Schneidekind.

SCHNEIDEKIND. Yes, sir.

STRAMMFEST. Have you sent my report yet to the government? [He
sits down.]

SCHNEIDEKIND [coming to the table]. Not yet, sir. Which
government do you wish it sent to? [He sits down.]

STRAMMFEST. That depends. What's the latest? Which of them do you
think is most likely to be in power tomorrow morning?

SCHNEIDEKIND. Well, the provisional government was going strong
yesterday. But today they say that the Prime Minister has shot
himself, and that the extreme left fellow has shot all the
others.

STRAMMFEST. Yes: that's all very well; but these fellows always
shoot themselves with blank cartridge.

SCHNEIDEKIND. Still, even the blank cartridge means backing down.
I should send the report to the Maximilianists.

STRAMMFEST. They're no stronger than the Oppidoshavians; and in
my own opinion the Moderate Red Revolutionaries are as likely to
come out on top as either of them.

SCHNEIDEKIND. I can easily put a few carbon sheets in the
typewriter and send a copy each to the lot.

STRAMMFEST. Waste of paper. You might as well send reports to an
infant school. [He throws his head on the table with a groan.]

SCHNEIDEKIND. Tired out, Sir?

STRAMMFEST. O Schneidekind, Schneidekind, how can you bear to
live?

SCHNEIDEKIND. At my age, sir, I ask myself how can I bear to die?

STRAMMFEST. You are young, young and heartless. You are excited
by the revolution: you are attached to abstract things like
liberty. But my family has served the Panjandrums of Beotia
faithfully for seven centuries. The Panjandrums have kept our
place for us at their courts, honored us, promoted us, shed their
glory on us, made us what we are. When I hear you young men
declaring that you are fighting for civilization, for democracy,
for the overthrow of militarism, I ask myself how can a man shed
his blood for empty words used by vulgar tradesmen and common
laborers: mere wind and stink. [He rises, exalted by his theme.]
A king is a splendid reality, a man raised above us like a god.
You can see him; you can kiss his hand; you can be cheered by his
smile and terrified by his frown. I would have died for my
Panjandrum as my father died for his father. Your toiling
millions were only too honored to receive the toes of our boots
in the proper spot for them when they displeased their betters.
And now what is left in life for me? [He relapses into his chair
discouraged.] My Panjandrum is deposed and transported to herd
with convicts. The army, his pride and glory, is paraded to hear
seditious speeches from penniless rebels, with the colonel
actually forced to take the chair and introduce the speaker. I
myself am made Commander-in-Chief by my own solicitor: a Jew,
Schneidekind! a Hebrew Jew! It seems only yesterday that these
things would have been the ravings of a madman: today they are
the commonplaces of the gutter press. I live now for three
objects only: to defeat the enemy, to restore the Panjandrum, and
to hang my solicitor.

SCHNEIDEKIND. Be careful, sir: these are dangerous views to utter
nowadays. What if I were to betray you?

STRAMMFEST. What!

SCHNEIDEKIND. I won't, of course: my own father goes on just like
that; but suppose I did?

STRAMMFEST [chuckling]. I should accuse you of treason to the
Revolution, my lad; and they would immediately shoot you, unless
you cried and asked to see your mother before you died, when they
would probably change their minds and make you a brigadier.
Enough. [He rises and expands his chest.] I feel the better for
letting myself go. To business. [He takes up a telegram: opens
it: and is thunderstruck by its contents.] Great heaven! [He
collapses into his chair. This is the worst blow of all.

SCHNEIDEKIND. What has happened? Are we beaten?

STRAMMFEST. Man, do you think that a mere defeat could strike me
down as this news does: I, who have been defeated thirteen times
since the war began? O, my master, my master, my Panjandrum! [he
is convulsed with sobs.]

SCHNEIDEKIND. They have killed him?

STRAMMFEST. A dagger has been struck through his heart--

SCHNEIDEKIND. Good God!

STRAMMFEST. --and through mine, through mine.

SCHNEIDEKIND [relieved]. Oh, a metaphorical dagger! I thought you
meant a real one. What has happened?

STRAMMFEST. His daughter the Grand Duchess Annajanska, she whom
the Panjandrina loved beyond all her other children, has--has--
[he cannot finish.]

SCHNEIDEKIND. Committed suicide?

STRAMMFEST. No. Better if she had. Oh, far far better.

SCHNEIDEKIND [in hushed tones]. Left the Church?

STRAMMFEST [shocked]. Certainly not. Do not blaspheme, young man.

SCHNEIDEKIND. Asked for the vote?

STRAMMFEST. I would have given it to her with both hands to save
her from this.

SCHNEIDEKIND. Save her from what? Dash it, sir, out with it.

STRAMMFEST. She has joined the Revolution.

SCHNEIDEKIND. But so have you, sir. We've all joined the
Revolution. She doesn't mean it any more than we do.

STRAMMFEST. Heaven grant you may be right! But that is not the
worst. She had eloped with a young officer. Eloped, Schneidekind,
eloped!

SCHNEIDEKIND [not particularly impressed]. Yes, Sir.

STRAMMFEST. Annajanska, the beautiful, the innocent, my master's
daughter! [He buries his face in his hands.]

The telephone rings.

SCHNEIDEKIND [taking the receiver]. Yes: G.H.Q. Yes...Don't bawl:
I'm not a general. Who is it speaking?...Why didn't you say so?
don't you know your duty? Next time you will lose your
stripe...Oh, they've made you a colonel, have they? Well, they've
made me a field-marshal: now what have you to say?...Look here:
what did you ring up for? I can't spend the day here listening to
your cheek...What! the Grand Duchess [Strammfest starts.] Where
did you catch her?

STRAMMFEST [snatching the telephone and listening for the
answer]. Speak louder, will you: I am a General I know that, you
dolt. Have you captured the officer that was with her?...
Damnation! You shall answer for this: you let him go: he bribed
you. You must have seen him: the fellow is in the full dress
court uniform of the Panderobajensky Hussars. I give you twelve
hours to catch him or...what's that you say about the devil? Are
you swearing at me, you...Thousand thunders! [To Schneidekind.]
The swine says that the Grand Duchess is a devil incarnate. [Into
the telephone.] Filthy traitor: is that the way you dare speak of
the daughter of our anointed Panjandrum? I'll--

SCHNEIDEKIND [pulling the telephone from his lips]. Take care,
sir.

STRAMMFEST. I won't take care: I'll have him shot. Let go that
telephone.

SCHNEIDEKIND. But for her own sake, sir--

STRAMMFEST. Eh?--

SCHNEIDEKIND. For her own sake they had better send her here. She
will be safe in your hands.

STRAMMFEST [yielding the receiver]. You are right. Be civil to
him. I should choke [he sits down].

SCHNEIDEKIND [into the telephone]. Hullo. Never mind all that:
it's only a fellow here who has been fooling with the telephone.
I had to leave the room for a moment. Wash out: and send the girl
along. We'll jolly soon teach her to behave herself here...Oh,
you've sent her already. Then why the devil didn't you say so,
you--[he hangs up the telephone angrily]. Just fancy: they
started her off this morning: and all this is because the fellow
likes to get on the telephone and hear himself talk now that he
is a colonel. [The telephone rings again. He snatches the
receiver furiously.] What's the matter now?...[To the General.]
It's our own people downstairs. [Into the receiver.] Here! do you
suppose I've nothing else to do than to hang on to the telephone
all day?...What's that? Not men enough to hold her! What do you
mean? [To the General.] She is there, sir.

STRAMMFEST. Tell them to send her up. I shall have to receive her
without even rising, without kissing her hand, to keep up
appearances before the escort. It will break my heart.

SCHNEIDEKIND [into the receiver]. Send her up...Tcha! [He hangs
up the receiver.] He says she is halfway up already: they
couldn't hold her.

The Grand Duchess bursts into the room, dragging with her two
exhausted soldiers hanging on desperately to her arms. She is
enveloped from head to foot by a fur-lined cloak, and wears a fur
cap.

SCHNEIDEKIND [pointing to the bench]. At the word Go, place your
prisoner on the bench in a sitting posture; and take your seats
right and left of her. Go.

The two soldiers make a supreme effort to force her to sit down.
She flings them back so that they are forced to sit on the bench
to save themselves from falling backwards over it, and is herself
dragged into sitting between them. The second soldier, holding on
tight to the Grand Duchess with one hand, produces papers with
the other, and waves them towards Schneidekind, who takes them
from him and passes them on to the General. He opens them and
reads them with a grave expression.

SCHNEIDEKIN. Be good enough to wait, prisoner, until the General
has read the papers on your case.

THE GRAND DUCHESS [to the soldiers]. Let go. [To Strammfest].
Tell them to let go, or I'll upset the bench backwards and bash
our three heads on the floor.

FIRST SOLDIER. No, little mother. Have mercy on the poor.

STRAMMFEST [growling over the edge of the paper he is reading].
Hold your tongue.

THE GRAND DUCHESS [blazing]. Me, or the soldier?

STRAMMFEST [horrified]. The soldier, madam.

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Tell him to let go.

STRAMMFEST. Release the lady.

The soldiers take their hands off her. One of them wipes his
fevered brow. The other sucks his wrist.

SCHNEIDKIND [fiercely]. 'ttention!

The two soldiers sit up stiffly.

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Oh, let the poor man suck his wrist. It may be
poisoned. I bit it.

STRAMMFEST [shocked]. You bit a common soldier!

GRAND DUCHESS. Well, I offered to cauterize it with the poker in
the office stove. But he was afraid. What more could I do?

SCHNEIDEKIND. Why did you bite him, prisoner?

THE GRAND DUCHESS. He would not let go.

STRAMMFEST. Did he let go when you bit him?

THE GRAND DUCHESS. No. [Patting the soldier on the back]. You
should give the man a cross for his devotion. I could not go on
eating him; so I brought him along with me.

STRAMMFEST. Prisoner--

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Don't call me prisoner, General Strammfest. My
grandmother dandled you on her knee.

STRAMMFEST [bursting into tears]. O God, yes. Believe me, my
heart is what it was then.

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Your brain also is what it was then. I will
not be addressed by you as prisoner.

STRAMMFEST. I may not, for your own sake, call you by your
rightful and most sacred titles. What am I to call you?

THE GRAND DUCHESS. The Revolution has made us comrades. Call me
comrade.

STRAMMFEST. I had rather die.

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Then call me Annajanska; and I will call you
Peter Piper, as grandmamma did.

STRAMMFEST [painfully agitated]. Schneidekind, you must speak to
her: I cannot--[he breaks down.]

SCHNEIDEKIND [officially]. The Republic of Beotia has been
compelled to confine the Panjandrum and his family, for their own
safety, within certain bounds. You have broken those bounds.

STRAMMFEST [taking the word from him]. You are I must say it--a
prisoner. What am I to do with you?

THE GRAND DUCHESS. You should have thought of that before you
arrested me.

STRAMMFEST. Come, come, prisoner! do you know what will happen to
you if you compel me to take a sterner tone with you?

THE GRAND DUCHESS. No. But I know what will happen to you.

STRAMAIFEST. Pray what, prisoner?

THE GLAND DUCHESS. Clergyman's sore throat.

Schneidekind splutters; drops a paper: and conceals his laughter
under the table.

STRAMMFEST [thunderously]. Lieutenant Schneidekind.

SCHNEIDEKIND [in a stifled voice]. Yes, Sir. [The table vibrates
visibly.]

STRAMMFEST. Come out of it, you fool: you're upsetting the ink.

Schneidekind emerges, red in the face with suppressed mirth.

STRAMMFEST. Why don't you laugh? Don't you appreciate Her
Imperial Highness's joke?

SCHNEIDEKIND [suddenly becoming solemn]. I don't want to, sir.

STRAMMFEST. Laugh at once, sir. I order you to laugh.

SCHNEIDEKIND [with a touch of temper]. I really can't, sir. [He
sits down decisively.]

STRAMMFEST [growling at him]. Yah! [He turns impressively to the
Grand Duchess.] Your Imperial Highness desires me to address you
as comrade?

THE GRAND DUCHESS [rising and waving a red handkerchief]. Long
live the Revolution, comrade!

STRAMMFEST [rising and saluting]. Proletarians of all lands,
unite. Lieutenant Schneidekind, you will rise and sing the
Marseillaise.

SCHNEIDEKIND [rising]. But I cannot, sir. I have no voice, no
ear.

STRAMMFEST. Then sit down; and bury your shame in your
typewriter. [Schneidekind sits down.] Comrade Annajanska, you
have eloped with a young officer.

THE GRAND DUCHESS [astounded]. General Strammfest, you lie.

STRAMMFEST. Denial, comrade, is useless. It is through that
officer that your movements have been traced. [The Grand Duchess
is suddenly enlightened, and seems amused. Strammfest continues
an a forensic manner.] He joined you at the Golden Anchor in
Hakonsburg. You gave us the slip there; but the officer was
traced to Potterdam, where you rejoined him and went alone to
Premsylople. What have you done with that unhappy young man?
Where is he?

THE GRAND DUCHESS [pretending to whisper an important secret].
Where he has always been.

STRAMMFEST [eagerly]. Where is that?

THE GRAND DUCHESS [impetuously]. In your imagination. I came
alone. I am alone. Hundreds of officers travel every day from
Hakonsburg to Potterdam. What do I know about them?

STRAMMFEST. They travel in khaki. They do not travel in full
dress court uniform as this man did.

SCHNEIDEKIND. Only officers who are eloping with grand duchesses
wear court uniform: otherwise the grand duchesses could not be
seen with them.

STRAMMFEST. Hold your tongue. [Schneidekind, in high dudgeon,
folds his arms and retires from the conversation. The General
returns to his paper and to his examination of the Grand
Duchess.] This officer travelled with your passport. What have
you to say to that?

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Bosh! How could a man travel with a woman's
passport?

STRAMMFEST. It is quite simple, as you very well know. A dozen
travellers arrive at the boundary. The official collects their
passports. He counts twelve persons; then counts the passports.
If there are twelve, he is satisfied.

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Then how do you know that one of the passports
was mine?

STRAMMFEST. A waiter at the Potterdam Hotel looked at the
officer's passport when he was in his bath. It was your passport.

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Stuff! Why did he not have me arrested?

STRAMMFEST. When the waiter returned to the hotel with the police
the officer had vanished; and you were there with your own
passport. They knouted him.

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Oh! Strammfest, send these men away. I must
speak to you alone.

STRAMMFEST [rising in horror]. No: this is the last straw: I
cannot consent. It is impossible, utterly, eternally impossible,
that a daughter of the Imperial House should speak to any one
alone, were it even her own husband.

THE GRAND DUCHESS. You forget that there is an exception. She may
speak to a child alone. [She rises.] Strammfest, you have been
dandled on my grandmother's knee. By that gracious action the
dowager Panjandrina made you a child forever. So did Nature, by
the way. I order you to speak to me alone. Do you hear? I order
you. For seven hundred years no member of your family has ever
disobeyed an order from a member of mine. Will you disobey me?

STRAMMFEST. There is an alternative to obedience. The dead cannot
disobey. [He takes out his pistol and places the muzzle against
his temple.]

SCHNEIDEKIND [snatching the pistol from him]. For God's sake,
General--

STRAMMFEST [attacking him furiously to recover the weapon]. Dog
of a subaltern, restore that pistol and my honor.

SCHNEIDEKIND [reaching out with the pistol to the Grand Duchess].
Take it: quick: he is as strong as a bull.

THE GRAND DUCHESS [snatching it]. Aha! Leave the room, all of you
except the General. At the double! lightning! electricity! [She
fires shot after shot, spattering the bullets about the ankles of
the soldiers. They fly precipitately. She turns to Schneidekind,
who has by this time been flung on the floor by the General.] You
too. [He scrambles up.] March. [He flies to the door.]

SCHNEIDEKIND [turning at the door]. For your own sake, comrade--

THE GRAND DUCHESS [indignantly]. Comrade! You!!! Go. [She fires
two more shots. He vanishes.]

STRAMMFEST [making an impulsive movement towards her]. My
Imperial Mistress--

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Stop. I have one bullet left, if you attempt
to take this from me [putting the pistol to her temple].

STRAMMFEST [recoiling, and covering his eyes with his hands]. No
no: put it down: put it down. I promise everything: I swear
anything; but put it down, I implore you.

THE GRAND DUCHESS [throwing it on the table]. There!

STRAMMFEST [uncovering his eyes]. Thank God!

THE GRAND DUCHESS [gently]. Strammfest: I am your comrade. Am I
nothing more to you?

STRAMMFEST [falling on his knee]. You are, God help me, all that
is left to me of the only power I recognize on earth [he kisses
her hand].

THE GRAND DUCHESS [indulgently]. Idolater! When will you learn
that our strength has never been in ourselves, but in your
illusions about us? [She shakes off her kindliness, and sits down
in his chair.] Now tell me, what are your orders? And do you mean
to obey them?

STRAMMFEST [starting like a goaded ox, and blundering fretfully
about the room]. How can I obey six different dictators, and not
one gentleman among the lot of them? One of them orders me to
make peace with the foreign enemy. Another orders me to offer all
the neutral countries 48 hours to choose between adopting his
views on the single tax and being instantly invaded and
annihilated. A third orders me to go to a damned Socialist
Conference and explain that Beotia will allow no annexations and
no indemnities, and merely wishes to establish the Kingdom of
Heaven on Earth throughout the universe. [He finishes behind
Schneidekind's chair.]

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Damn their trifling!

STRAMMFEST. I thank Your Imperial Highness from the bottom of my
heart for that expression. Europe thanks you.

THE GRAND DUCHESS. M'yes; but--[rising]. Strammfest, you know
that your cause--the cause of the dynasty--is lost.

STRAMMFEST. You must not say so. It is treason, even from you.
[He sinks, discouraged, into the chair, and covers his face with
his hand.]

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Do not deceive yourself, General: never again
will a Panjandrum reign in Beotia. [She walks slowly across the
room, brooding bitterly, and thinking aloud.] We are so decayed,
so out of date, so feeble, so wicked in our own despite, that we
have come at last to will our own destruction.

STRAMMFEST. You are uttering blasphemy.

THE GRAND DUCHESS. All great truths begin as blasphemies. All the
king's horses and all the king's men cannot set up my father's
throne again. If they could, you would have done it, would you
not?

STRAMMFEST. God knows I would!

THE GRAND DUCHESS. You really mean that? You would keep the
people in their hopeless squalid misery? you would fill those
infamous prisons again with the noblest spirits in the land? you
would thrust the rising sun of liberty back into the sea of blood
from which it has risen? And all because there was in the middle
of the dirt and ugliness and horror a little patch of court
splendor in which you could stand with a few orders on your
uniform, and yawn day after day and night after night in
unspeakable boredom until your grave yawned wider still, and you
fell into it because you had nothing better to do. How can you be
so stupid, so heartless?

STRAMMFEST. You must be mad to think of royalty in such a way. I
never yawned at court. The dogs yawned; but that was because they
were dogs: they had no imagination, no ideals, no sense of honor
and dignity to sustain them.

THE GRAND DUCHESS. My poor Strammfest: you were not often enough
at court to tire of it. You were mostly soldiering; and when you
came home to have a new order pinned on your breast, your
happiness came through looking at my father and mother and at me,
and adoring us. Was that not so?

STRAMMFEST. Do YOU reproach me with it? I am not ashamed of it.

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Oh, it was all very well for you, Strammfest.
But think of me, of me! standing there for you to gape at, and
knowing that I was no goddess, but only a girl like any other
girl! It was cruelty to animals: you could have stuck up a wax
doll or a golden calf to worship; it would not have been bored.

STRAMMFEST. Stop; or I shall renounce my allegiance to you. I
have had women flogged for such seditious chatter as this.

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Do not provoke me to send a bullet through
your head for reminding me of it.

STRAMMFEST. You always had low tastes. You are no true daughter
of the Panjandrums: you are a changeling, thrust into the
Panjandrina's bed by some profligate nurse. I have heard stories
of your childhood: of how--

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Ha, ha! Yes: they took me to the circus when I
was a child. It was my first moment of happiness, my first
glimpse of heaven. I ran away and joined the troupe. They caught
me and dragged me back to my gilded cage; but I had tasted
freedom; and they never could make me forget it.

STRAMMFEST. Freedom! To be the slave of an acrobat! to be
exhibited to the public! to--

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Oh, I was trained to that. I had learnt that
part of the business at court.

STRAMMFEST. You had not been taught to strip yourself half naked
and turn head over heels--

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Man, I WANTED to get rid of my swaddling
clothes and turn head over heels. I wanted to, I wanted to, I
wanted to. I can do it still. Shall I do it now?

STRAMMFEST. If you do, I swear I will throw myself from the
window so that I may meet your parents in heaven without having
my medals torn from my breast by them.

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Oh, you are incorrigible. You are mad,
infatuated. You will not believe that we royal divinities are
mere common flesh and blood even when we step down from our
pedestals and tell you ourselves what a fool you are. I will
argue no more with you: I will use my power. At a word from me
your men will turn against you: already half of them do not
salute you; and you dare not punish them: you have to pretend not
to notice it.

STRAMMFEST. It is not for you to taunt me with that if it is so.

THE GRAND DUCHESS. [haughtily]. Taunt! I condescend to taunt! To
taunt a common General! You forget yourself, sir.

STRAMMFEST [dropping on his knee submissively]. Now at last you
speak like your royal self.

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Oh, Strammfest, Strammfest, they have driven
your slavery into your very bones. Why did you not spit in my
face?.

STRAMMFEST [rising with a shudder]. God forbid!

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Well, since you will be my slave, take your
orders from me. I have not come here to save our wretched family
and our bloodstained crown. I am come to save the Revolution.

STRAMMFEST. Stupid as I am, I have come to think that I had
better save that than save nothing. But what will the Revolution
do for the people? Do not be deceived by the fine speeches of the
revolutionary leaders and the pamphlets of the revolutionary
writers. How much liberty is there where they have gained the
upper hand? Are they not hanging, shooting, imprisoning as much
as ever we did? Do they ever tell the people the truth? No: if
the truth does not suit them they spread lies instead, and make
it a crime to tell the truth.

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Of course they do. Why should they not?

STRAMMFEST [hardly able to believe his ears]. Why should they
not?

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Yes: why should they not? We did it. You did
it, whip in hand: you flogged women for teaching children to
read.

STRAMMFEST. To read sedition. To read Karl Marx.

THP GRAND DUCHESS. Pshaw! How could they learn to read the Bible
without learning to read Karl Marx? Why do you not stand to your
guns and justify what you did, instead of making silly excuses?
Do you suppose I think flogging a woman worse than flogging a
man? I, who am a woman myself!

STRAMMFEST. I am at a loss to understand your Imperial Highness.
You seem to me to contradict yourself.

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Nonsense! I say that if the people cannot
govern themselves, they must be governed by somebody. If they
will not do their duty without being half forced and half
humbugged, somebody must force them and humbug them. Some
energetic and capable minority must always be in power. Well, I
am on the side of the energetic minority whose principles I agree
with. The Revolution is as cruel as we were; but its aims are my
aims. Therefore I stand for the Revolution.

STRAMMFEST. You do not know what you are saying. This is pure
Bolshevism. Are you, the daughter of a Panjandrum, a Bolshevist?

THE GRAND DUCHESS. I am anything that will make the world less
like a prison and more like a circus.

STRAMMFEST. Ah! You still want to be a circus star.

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Yes, and be billed as the Bolshevik Empress.
Nothing shall stop me. You have your orders, General Strammfest:
save the Revolution.

STRAMMFEST. What Revolution? Which Revolution? No two of your
rabble of revolutionists mean the same thing by the Revolution
What can save a mob in which every man is rushing in a different
direction?

THE GRAND DUCHESS. I will tell you. The war can save it.

STRAMMFEST. The war?

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Yes, the war. Only a great common danger and a
great common duty can unite us and weld these wrangling factions
into a solid commonwealth.

STRAMMFEST. Bravo! War sets everything right: I have always said
so. But what is a united people without a united army? And what
can I do? I am only a soldier. I cannot make speeches: I have won
no victories: they will not rally to my call [again he sinks into
his chair with his former gesture of discouragement].

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Are you sure they will not rally to mine?

STRAMMFEST. Oh, if only you were a man and a soldier!

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Suppose I find you a man and a soldier?

STRAMMFEST [rising in a fury]. Ah! the scoundrel you eloped with!
You think you will shove this fellow into an army command, over
my head. Never.

THE GRAND DUCHESS. You promised everything. You swore anything.
[She marches as if in front of a regiment.] I know that this man
alone can rouse the army to enthusiasm.

STRAMMFEST. Delusion! Folly! He is some circus acrobat; and you
are in love with him.

THE GRAND DUCHESS. I swear I am not in love with him. I swear I
will never marry him.

STRAMMFEST. Then who is he?

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Anybody in the world but you would have
guessed long ago. He is under your very eyes.

STRAMMFEST [staring past her right and left]. Where?

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Look out of the window.

He rushes to the window, looking for the officer. The Grand
Duchess takes off her cloak and appears in the uniform of the
Panderobajensky Hussars.

STRAMMFEST [peering through the window]. Where is he? I can see
no one.

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Here, silly.

STRAMMFEST [turning]. You! Great Heavens! The Bolshevik Empress

Arms and the Man



Introduction

To the irreverent--and which of us will claim entire exemption from that
comfortable classification?--there is something very amusing in the
attitude of the orthodox criticism toward Bernard Shaw. He so obviously
disregards all the canons and unities and other things which every
well-bred dramatist is bound to respect that his work is really unworthy
of serious criticism (orthodox). Indeed he knows no more about the
dramatic art than, according to his own story in "The Man of Destiny,"
Napoleon at Tavazzano knew of the Art of War. But both men were
successes each in his way--the latter won victories and the former
gained audiences, in the very teeth of the accepted theories of war and
the theatre. Shaw does not know that it is unpardonable sin to have his
characters make long speeches at one another, apparently thinking that
this embargo applies only to long speeches which consist mainly of
bombast and rhetoric. There never was an author who showed less
predilection for a specific medium by which to accomplish his results.
He recognized, early in his days, many things awry in the world and he
assumed the task of mundane reformation with a confident spirit. It
seems such a small job at twenty to set the times aright. He began as an
Essayist, but who reads essays now-a-days?--he then turned novelist with
no better success, for no one would read such preposterous stuff as he
chose to emit. He only succeeded in proving that absolutely rational men
and women--although he has created few of the latter--can be most
extremely disagreeable to our conventional way of thinking.

As a last resort, he turned to the stage, not that he cared for the
dramatic art, for no man seems to care less about "Art for Art's sake,"
being in this a perfect foil to his brilliant compatriot and
contemporary, Wilde. He cast his theories in dramatic forms merely
because no other course except silence or physical revolt was open to
him. For a long time it seemed as if this resource too was doomed to
fail him. But finally he has attained a hearing and now attempts at
suppression merely serve to advertise their victim.

It will repay those who seek analogies in literature to compare Shaw
with Cervantes. After a life of heroic endeavor, disappointment,
slavery, and poverty, the author of "Don Quixote" gave the world a
serious work which caused to be laughed off the world's stage forever
the final vestiges of decadent chivalry.

The institution had long been outgrown, but its vernacular continued to
be the speech and to express the thought "of the world and among the
vulgar," as the quaint, old novelist puts it, just as to-day the novel
intended for the consumption of the unenlightened must deal with peers
and millionaires and be dressed in stilted language. Marvellously he
succeeded, but in a way he least intended. We have not yet, after so
many years, determined whether it is a work to laugh or cry over. "It is
our joyfullest modern book," says Carlyle, while Landor thinks that
"readers who see nothing more than a burlesque in 'Don Quixote' have but
shallow appreciation of the work."

Shaw in like manner comes upon the scene when many of our social usages
are outworn. He sees the fact, announces it, and we burst into guffaws.
The continuous laughter which greets Shaw's plays arises from a real
contrast in the point of view of the dramatist and his audiences. When
Pinero or Jones describes a whimsical situation we never doubt for a
moment that the author's point of view is our own and that the abnormal
predicament of his characters appeals to him in the same light as to his
audience. With Shaw this sense of community of feeling is wholly
lacking. He describes things as he sees them, and the house is in a
roar. Who is right? If we were really using our own senses and not
gazing through the glasses of convention and romance and make-believe,
should we see things as Shaw does?

Must it not cause Shaw to doubt his own or the public's sanity to hear
audiences laughing boisterously over tragic situations? And yet, if they
did not come to laugh, they would not come at all. Mockery is the price
he must pay for a hearing. Or has he calculated to a nicety the power of
reaction? Does he seek to drive us to aspiration by the portrayal of
sordidness, to disinterestedness by the picture of selfishness, to
illusion by disillusionment? It is impossible to believe that he is
unconscious of the humor of his dramatic situations, yet he stoically
gives no sign. He even dares the charge, terrible in proportion to its
truth, which the most serious of us shrinks from--the lack of a sense of
humor. Men would rather have their integrity impugned.

In "Arms and the Man" the subject which occupies the dramatist's
attention is that survival of barbarity--militarism--which raises its
horrid head from time to time to cast a doubt on the reality of our
civilization. No more hoary superstition survives than that the donning
of a uniform changes the nature of the wearer. This notion pervades
society to such an extent that when we find some soldiers placed upon
the stage acting rationally, our conventionalized senses are shocked.
The only men who have no illusions about war are those who have recently
been there, and, of course, Mr. Shaw, who has no illusions about
anything.

It is hard to speak too highly of "Candida." No equally subtle and
incisive study of domestic relations exists in the English drama. One
has to turn to George Meredith's "The Egoist" to find such character
dissection. The central note of the play is, that with the true woman,
weakness which appeals to the maternal instinct is more powerful than
strength which offers protection. Candida is quite unpoetic, as, indeed,
with rare exceptions, women are prone to be. They have small delight in
poetry, but are the stuff of which poems and dreams are made. The
husband glorying in his strength but convicted of his weakness, the poet
pitiful in his physical impotence but strong in his perception of truth,
the hopelessly de-moralized manufacturer, the conventional and hence
emotional typist make up a group which the drama of any language may be
challenged to rival.

In "The Man of Destiny" the object of the dramatist is not so much the
destruction as the explanation of the Napoleonic tradition, which has so
powerfully influenced generation after generation for a century. However
the man may be regarded, he was a miracle. Shaw shows that he achieved
his extraordinary career by suspending, for himself, the pressure of the
moral and conventional atmosphere, while leaving it operative for
others. Those who study this play--extravaganza, that it is--will attain
a clearer comprehension of Napoleon than they can get from all the
biographies.

"You Never Can Tell" offers an amusing study of the play of social
conventions. The "twins" illustrate the disconcerting effects of that
perfect frankness which would make life intolerable. Gloria demonstrates
the powerlessness of reason to overcome natural instincts. The idea that
parental duties and functions can be fulfilled by the light of such
knowledge as man and woman attain by intuition is brilliantly lampooned.
Crampton, the father, typifies the common superstition that among the
privileges of parenthood are inflexibility, tyranny, and respect, the
last entirely regardless of whether it has been deserved.

The waiter, William, is the best illustration of the man "who knows his
place" that the stage has seen. He is the most pathetic figure of the
play. One touch of verisimilitude is lacking; none of the guests gives
him a tip, yet he maintains his urbanity. As Mr. Shaw has not yet
visited America he may be unaware of the improbability of this
situation.

To those who regard literary men merely as purveyors of amusement for
people who have not wit enough to entertain themselves, Ibsen and Shaw,
Maeterlinck and Gorky must remain enigmas. It is so much pleasanter to
ignore than to face unpleasant realities--to take Riverside Drive and
not Mulberry Street as the exponent of our life and the expression of
our civilization. These men are the sappers and miners of the advancing
army of justice. The audience which demands the truth and despises the
contemptible conventions that dominate alike our stage and our life is
daily growing. Shaw and men like him--if indeed he is not absolutely
unique--will not for the future lack a hearing.

Act I



    Night. A lady's bedchamber in Bulgaria, in a small
    town near the Dragoman Pass. It is late in
    November in the year 1885, and through an open
    window with a little balcony on the left can be
    seen a peak of the Balkans, wonderfully white and
    beautiful in the starlit snow. The interior of the
    room is not like anything to be seen in the east
    of Europe. It is half rich Bulgarian, half cheap
    Viennese. The counterpane and hangings of the bed,
    the window curtains, the little carpet, and all
    the ornamental textile fabrics in the room are
    oriental and gorgeous: the paper on the walls is
    occidental and paltry. Above the head of the bed,
    which stands against a little wall cutting off the
    right hand corner of the room diagonally, is a
    painted wooden shrine, blue and gold, with an
    ivory image of Christ, and a light hanging before
    it in a pierced metal ball suspended by three
    chains. On the left, further forward, is an
    ottoman. The washstand, against the wall on the
    left, consists of an enamelled iron basin with a
    pail beneath it in a painted metal frame, and a
    single towel on the rail at the side. A chair near
    it is Austrian bent wood, with cane seat. The
    dressing table, between the bed and the window, is
    an ordinary pine table, covered with a cloth of
    many colors, but with an expensive toilet mirror
    on it. The door is on the right; and there is a
    chest of drawers between the door and the bed.
    This chest of drawers is also covered by a
    variegated native cloth, and on it there is a pile
    of paper backed novels, a box of chocolate creams,
    and a miniature easel, on which is a large
    photograph of an extremely handsome officer, whose
    lofty bearing and magnetic glance can be felt even
    from the portrait. The room is lighted by a candle
    on the chest of drawers, and another on the
    dressing table, with a box of matches beside it.

    The window is hinged doorwise and stands wide
    open, folding back to the left. Outside a pair of
    wooden shutters, opening outwards, also stand
    open. On the balcony, a young lady, intensely
    conscious of the romantic beauty of the night, and
    of the fact that her own youth and beauty is a part
    of it, is on the balcony, gazing at the snowy
    Balkans. She is covered by a long mantle of furs,
    worth, on a moderate estimate, about three times
    the furniture of her room.

    Her reverie is interrupted by her mother,
    Catherine Petkoff, a woman over forty, imperiously
    energetic, with magnificent black hair and eyes,
    who might be a very splendid specimen of the wife
    of a mountain farmer, but is determined to be a
    Viennese lady, and to that end wears a fashionable
    tea gown on all occasions.

CATHERINE (entering hastily, full of good news). Raina--(she
pronounces it Rah-eena, with the stress on the ee) Raina--(she
goes to the bed, expecting to find Raina there.) Why,
where--(Raina looks into the room.) Heavens! child, are you out
in the night air instead of in your bed? You'll catch your
death. Louka told me you were asleep.

RAINA (coming in). I sent her away. I wanted to be alone. The
stars are so beautiful! What is the matter?

CATHERINE. Such news. There has been a battle!

RAINA (her eyes dilating). Ah! (She throws the cloak on the
ottoman, and comes eagerly to Catherine in her nightgown, a
pretty garment, but evidently the only one she has on.)

CATHERINE. A great battle at Slivnitza! A victory! And it was
won by Sergius.

RAINA (with a cry of delight). Ah! (Rapturously.) Oh, mother!
(Then, with sudden anxiety) Is father safe?

CATHERINE. Of course: he sent me the news. Sergius is the hero
of the hour, the idol of the regiment.

RAINA. Tell me, tell me. How was it! (Ecstatically) Oh, mother,
mother, mother! (Raina pulls her mother down on the ottoman; and
they kiss one another frantically.)

CATHERINE (with surging enthusiasm). You can't guess how
splendid it is. A cavalry charge--think of that! He defied our
Russian commanders--acted without orders--led a charge on his
own responsibility--headed it himself--was the first man to
sweep through their guns. Can't you see it, Raina; our gallant
splendid Bulgarians with their swords and eyes flashing,
thundering down like an avalanche and scattering the wretched
Servian dandies like chaff. And you--you kept Sergius waiting a
year before you would be betrothed to him. Oh, if you have a
drop of Bulgarian blood in your veins, you will worship him when
he comes back.

RAINA. What will he care for my poor little worship after the
acclamations of a whole army of heroes? But no matter: I am so
happy--so proud! (She rises and walks about excitedly.) It
proves that all our ideas were real after all.

CATHERINE (indignantly). Our ideas real! What do you mean?

RAINA. Our ideas of what Sergius would do--our patriotism--our
heroic ideals. Oh, what faithless little creatures girls are!--I
sometimes used to doubt whether they were anything but dreams.
When I buckled on Sergius's sword he looked so noble: it was
treason to think of disillusion or humiliation or failure. And
yet--and yet--(Quickly.) Promise me you'll never tell him.

CATHERINE. Don't ask me for promises until I know what I am
promising.

RAINA. Well, it came into my head just as he was holding me in
his arms and looking into my eyes, that perhaps we only had our
heroic ideas because we are so fond of reading Byron and
Pushkin, and because we were so delighted with the opera that
season at Bucharest. Real life is so seldom like that--indeed
never, as far as I knew it then. (Remorsefully.) Only think,
mother, I doubted him: I wondered whether all his heroic
qualities and his soldiership might not prove mere imagination
when he went into a real battle. I had an uneasy fear that he
might cut a poor figure there beside all those clever Russian
officers.

CATHERINE. A poor figure! Shame on you! The Servians have
Austrian officers who are just as clever as our Russians; but we
have beaten them in every battle for all that.

RAINA (laughing and sitting down again). Yes, I was only a
prosaic little coward. Oh, to think that it was all true--that
Sergius is just as splendid and noble as he looks--that the
world is really a glorious world for women who can see its glory
and men who can act its romance! What happiness! what
unspeakable fulfilment! Ah! (She throws herself on her knees
beside her mother and flings her arms passionately round her.
They are interrupted by the entry of Louka, a handsome, proud
girl in a pretty Bulgarian peasant's dress with double apron, so
defiant that her servility to Raina is almost insolent. She is
afraid of Catherine, but even with her goes as far as she dares.
She is just now excited like the others; but she has no sympathy
for Raina's raptures and looks contemptuously at the ecstasies
of the two before she addresses them.)

LOUKA. If you please, madam, all the windows are to be closed
and the shutters made fast. They say there may be shooting in
the streets. (Raina and Catherine rise together, alarmed.) The
Servians are being chased right back through the pass; and they
say they may run into the town. Our cavalry will be after them;
and our people will be ready for them you may be sure, now that
they are running away. (She goes out on the balcony and pulls
the outside shutters to; then steps back into the room.)

RAINA. I wish our people were not so cruel. What glory is there
in killing wretched fugitives?

CATHERINE (business-like, her housekeeping instincts aroused).
I must see that everything is made safe downstairs.

RAINA (to Louka). Leave the shutters so that I can just close
them if I hear any noise.

CATHERINE (authoritatively, turning on her way to the door).
Oh, no, dear, you must keep them fastened. You would be sure to
drop off to sleep and leave them open. Make them fast, Louka.

LOUKA. Yes, madam. (She fastens them.)

RAINA. Don't be anxious about me. The moment I hear a shot, I
shall blow out the candles and roll myself up in bed with my
ears well covered.

CATHERINE. Quite the wisest thing you can do, my love.
Good-night.

RAINA. Good-night. (They kiss one another, and Raina's emotion
comes back for a moment.) Wish me joy of the happiest night of
my life--if only there are no fugitives.

CATHERINE. Go to bed, dear; and don't think of them. (She goes
out.)

LOUKA (secretly, to Raina). If you would like the shutters
open, just give them a push like this. (She pushes them: they
open: she pulls them to again.) One of them ought to be bolted
at the bottom; but the bolt's gone.

RAINA (with dignity, reproving her). Thanks, Louka; but we must
do what we are told. (Louka makes a grimace.) Good-night.

LOUKA (carelessly). Good-night. (She goes out, swaggering.)

   (Raina, left alone, goes to the chest of drawers,
    and adores the portrait there with feelings that
    are beyond all expression. She does not kiss it or
    press it to her breast, or shew it any mark of
    bodily affection; but she takes it in her hands
    and elevates it like a priestess.)

RAINA (looking up at the picture with worship.) Oh, I shall
never be unworthy of you any more, my hero--never, never, never.

    (She replaces it reverently, and selects a novel
    from the little pile of books. She turns over the
    leaves dreamily; finds her page; turns the book
    inside out at it; and then, with a happy sigh,
    gets into bed and prepares to read herself to
    sleep. But before abandoning herself to fiction,
    she raises her eyes once more, thinking of the
    blessed reality and murmurs)

My hero! my hero!

    (A distant shot breaks the quiet of the night
    outside. She starts, listening; and two more
    shots, much nearer, follow, startling her so that
    she scrambles out of bed, and hastily blows out
    the candle on the chest of drawers. Then, putting
    her fingers in her ears, she runs to the
    dressing-table and blows out the light there, and
    hurries back to bed. The room is now in darkness:
    nothing is visible but the glimmer of the light in
    the pierced ball before the image, and the
    starlight seen through the slits at the top of the
    shutters. The firing breaks out again: there is a
    startling fusillade quite close at hand. Whilst it
    is still echoing, the shutters disappear, pulled
    open from without, and for an instant the
    rectangle of snowy starlight flashes out with the
    figure of a man in black upon it. The shutters
    close immediately and the room is dark again. But
    the silence is now broken by the sound of panting.
    Then there is a scrape; and the flame of a match
    is seen in the middle of the room.)

RAINA (crouching on the bed). Who's there? (The match is out
instantly.) Who's there? Who is that?

A MAN'S VOICE (in the darkness, subduedly, but threateningly).
Sh--sh! Don't call out or you'll be shot. Be good; and no harm
will happen to you. (She is heard leaving her bed, and making
for the door.) Take care, there's no use in trying to run away.
Remember, if you raise your voice my pistol will go off.
(Commandingly.) Strike a light and let me see you. Do you hear?
(Another moment of silence and darkness. Then she is heard
retreating to the dressing-table. She lights a candle, and the
mystery is at an end. A man of about 35, in a deplorable plight,
bespattered with mud and blood and snow, his belt and the strap
of his revolver case keeping together the torn ruins of the blue
coat of a Servian artillery officer. As far as the candlelight
and his unwashed, unkempt condition make it possible to judge,
he is a man of middling stature and undistinguished appearance,
with strong neck and shoulders, a roundish, obstinate looking
head covered with short crisp bronze curls, clear quick blue
eyes and good brows and mouth, a hopelessly prosaic nose like
that of a strong-minded baby, trim soldierlike carriage and
energetic manner, and with all his wits about him in spite of
his desperate predicament--even with a sense of humor of it,
without, however, the least intention of trifling with it or
throwing away a chance. He reckons up what he can guess about
Raina--her age, her social position, her character, the extent
to which she is frightened--at a glance, and continues, more
politely but still most determinedly) Excuse my disturbing you;
but you recognise my uniform--Servian. If I'm caught I shall be
killed. (Determinedly.) Do you understand that?

RAINA. Yes.

MAN. Well, I don't intend to get killed if I can help it. (Still
more determinedly.) Do you understand that? (He locks the door
with a snap.)

RAINA (disdainfully). I suppose not. (She draws herself up
superbly, and looks him straight in the face, saying with
emphasis) Some soldiers, I know, are afraid of death.

MAN (with grim goodhumor). All of them, dear lady, all of them,
believe me. It is our duty to live as long as we can, and kill
as many of the enemy as we can. Now if you raise an alarm--

RAINA (cutting him short). You will shoot me. How do you know
that I am afraid to die?

MAN (cunningly). Ah; but suppose I don't shoot you, what will
happen then? Why, a lot of your cavalry--the greatest
blackguards in your army--will burst into this pretty room of
yours and slaughter me here like a pig; for I'll fight like a
demon: they shan't get me into the street to amuse themselves
with: I know what they are. Are you prepared to receive that
sort of company in your present undress? (Raina, suddenly
conscious of her nightgown, instinctively shrinks and gathers it
more closely about her. He watches her, and adds, pitilessly)
It's rather scanty, eh? (She turns to the ottoman. He raises his
pistol instantly, and cries) Stop! (She stops.) Where are you
going?

RAINA (with dignified patience). Only to get my cloak.

MAN (darting to the ottoman and snatching the cloak). A good
idea. No: I'll keep the cloak: and you will take care that
nobody comes in and sees you without it. This is a better weapon
than the pistol. (He throws the pistol down on the ottoman.)

RAINA (revolted). It is not the weapon of a gentleman!

MAN. It's good enough for a man with only you to stand between
him and death. (As they look at one another for a moment, Raina
hardly able to believe that even a Servian officer can be so
cynically and selfishly unchivalrous, they are startled by a
sharp fusillade in the street. The chill of imminent death
hushes the man's voice as he adds) Do you hear? If you are going
to bring those scoundrels in on me you shall receive them as you
are. (Raina meets his eye with unflinching scorn. Suddenly he
starts, listening. There is a step outside. Someone tries the
door, and then knocks hurriedly and urgently at it. Raina looks
at the man, breathless. He throws up his head with the gesture
of a man who sees that it is all over with him, and, dropping
the manner which he has been assuming to intimidate her, flings
the cloak to her, exclaiming, sincerely and kindly) No use: I'm
done for. Quick! wrap yourself up: they're coming!

RAINA (catching the cloak eagerly). Oh, thank you. (She wraps
herself up with great relief. He draws his sabre and turns to
the door, waiting.)

LOUKA (outside, knocking). My lady, my lady! Get up, quick, and
open the door.

RAINA (anxiously). What will you do?

MAN (grimly). Never mind. Keep out of the way. It will not last
long.

RAINA (impulsively). I'll help you. Hide yourself, oh, hide
yourself, quick, behind the curtain. (She seizes him by a torn
strip of his sleeve, and pulls him towards the window.)

MAN (yielding to her). There is just half a chance, if you keep
your head. Remember: nine soldiers out of ten are born fools.
(He hides behind the curtain, looking out for a moment to say,
finally) If they find me, I promise you a fight--a devil of a
fight! (He disappears. Raina takes of the cloak and throws it
across the foot of the bed. Then with a sleepy, disturbed air,
she opens the door. Louka enters excitedly.)

LOUKA. A man has been seen climbing up the water-pipe to your
balcony--a Servian. The soldiers want to search for him; and
they are so wild and drunk and furious. My lady says you are to
dress at once.

RAINA (as if annoyed at being disturbed). They shall not search
here. Why have they been let in?

CATHERINE (coming in hastily). Raina, darling, are you safe?
Have you seen anyone or heard anything?

RAINA. I heard the shooting. Surely the soldiers will not dare
come in here?

CATHERINE. I have found a Russian officer, thank Heaven: he
knows Sergius. (Speaking through the door to someone outside.)
Sir, will you come in now! My daughter is ready.

    (A young Russian officer, in Bulgarian uniform,
     enters, sword in hand.)

THE OFFICER. (with soft, feline politeness and stiff military
carriage). Good evening, gracious lady; I am sorry to intrude,
but there is a fugitive hiding on the balcony. Will you and the
gracious lady your mother please to withdraw whilst we search?

RAINA (petulantly). Nonsense, sir, you can see that there is no
one on the balcony. (She throws the shutters wide open and
stands with her back to the curtain where the man is hidden,
pointing to the moonlit balcony. A couple of shots are fired
right under the window, and a bullet shatters the glass opposite
Raina, who winks and gasps, but stands her ground, whilst
Catherine screams, and the officer rushes to the balcony.)

THE OFFICER. (on the balcony, shouting savagely down to the
street). Cease firing there, you fools: do you hear? Cease
firing, damn you. (He glares down for a moment; then turns to
Raina, trying to resume his polite manner.) Could anyone have
got in without your knowledge? Were you asleep?

RAINA. No, I have not been to bed.

THE OFFICER. (impatiently, coming back into the room). Your
neighbours have their heads so full of runaway Servians that
they see them everywhere. (Politely.) Gracious lady, a thousand
pardons. Good-night. (Military bow, which Raina returns coldly.
Another to Catherine, who follows him out. Raina closes the
shutters. She turns and sees Louka, who has been watching the
scene curiously.)

RAINA. Don't leave my mother, Louka, whilst the soldiers are
here. (Louka glances at Raina, at the ottoman, at the curtain;
then purses her lips secretively, laughs to herself, and goes
out. Raina follows her to the door, shuts it behind her with a
slam, and locks it violently. The man immediately steps out from
behind the curtain, sheathing his sabre, and dismissing the
danger from his mind in a businesslike way.)

MAN. A narrow shave; but a miss is as good as a mile. Dear young
lady, your servant until death. I wish for your sake I had
joined the Bulgarian army instead of the Servian. I am not a
native Servian.

RAINA (haughtily). No, you are one of the Austrians who set the
Servians on to rob us of our national liberty, and who officer
their army for them. We hate them!

MAN. Austrian! not I. Don't hate me, dear young lady. I am only
a Swiss, fighting merely as a professional soldier. I joined
Servia because it was nearest to me. Be generous: you've beaten
us hollow.

RAINA. Have I not been generous?

MAN. Noble!--heroic! But I'm not saved yet. This particular rush
will soon pass through; but the pursuit will go on all night by
fits and starts. I must take my chance to get off during a quiet
interval. You don't mind my waiting just a minute or two, do
you?

RAINA. Oh, no: I am sorry you will have to go into danger again.
(Motioning towards ottoman.) Won't you sit--(She breaks off
with an irrepressible cry of alarm as she catches sight of the
pistol. The man, all nerves, shies like a frightened horse.)

MAN (irritably). Don't frighten me like that. What is it?

RAINA. Your pistol! It was staring that officer in the face all
the time. What an escape!

MAN (vexed at being unnecessarily terrified). Oh, is that all?

RAINA (staring at him rather superciliously, conceiving a
poorer and poorer opinion of him, and feeling proportionately
more and more at her ease with him). I am sorry I frightened
you. (She takes up the pistol and hands it to him.) Pray take it
to protect yourself against me.

MAN (grinning wearily at the sarcasm as he takes the pistol).
No use, dear young lady: there's nothing in it. It's not loaded.
(He makes a grimace at it, and drops it disparagingly into his
revolver case.)

RAINA. Load it by all means.

MAN. I've no ammunition. What use are cartridges in battle? I
always carry chocolate instead; and I finished the last cake of
that yesterday.

RAINA (outraged in her most cherished ideals of manhood).
Chocolate! Do you stuff your pockets with sweets--like a
schoolboy--even in the field?

MAN. Yes. Isn't it contemptible?

   (Raina stares at him, unable to utter her
    feelings. Then she sails away scornfully to the
    chest of drawers, and returns with the box of
    confectionery in her hand.)

RAINA. Allow me. I am sorry I have eaten them all except these.
(She offers him the box.)

MAN (ravenously). You're an angel! (He gobbles the comfits.)
Creams! Delicious! (He looks anxiously to see whether there are
any more. There are none. He accepts the inevitable with
pathetic goodhumor, and says, with grateful emotion) Bless you,
dear lady. You can always tell an old soldier by the inside of
his holsters and cartridge boxes. The young ones carry pistols
and cartridges; the old ones, grub. Thank you. (He hands back
the box. She snatches it contemptuously from him and throws it
away. This impatient action is so sudden that he shies again.)
Ugh! Don't do things so suddenly, gracious lady. Don't revenge
yourself because I frightened you just now.

RAINA (superbly). Frighten me! Do you know, sir, that though I
am only a woman, I think I am at heart as brave as you.

MAN. I should think so. You haven't been under fire for three
days as I have. I can stand two days without shewing it much;
but no man can stand three days: I'm as nervous as a mouse. (He
sits down on the ottoman, and takes his head in his hands.)
Would you like to see me cry?

RAINA (quickly). No.

MAN. If you would, all you have to do is to scold me just as if
I were a little boy and you my nurse. If I were in camp now
they'd play all sorts of tricks on me.

RAINA (a little moved). I'm sorry. I won't scold you. (Touched
by the sympathy in her tone, he raises his head and looks
gratefully at her: she immediately draws hack and says stiffly)
You must excuse me: our soldiers are not like that. (She moves
away from the ottoman.)

MAN. Oh, yes, they are. There are only two sorts of soldiers:
old ones and young ones. I've served fourteen years: half of
your fellows never smelt powder before. Why, how is it that
you've just beaten us? Sheer ignorance of the art of war,
nothing else. (Indignantly.) I never saw anything so
unprofessional.

RAINA (ironically). Oh, was it unprofessional to beat you?

MAN. Well, come, is it professional to throw a regiment of
cavalry on a battery of machine guns, with the dead certainty
that if the guns go off not a horse or man will ever get within
fifty yards of the fire? I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw
it.

RAINA (eagerly turning to him, as all her enthusiasm and her
dream of glory rush back on her). Did you see the great cavalry
charge? Oh, tell me about it. Describe it to me.

MAN. You never saw a cavalry charge, did you?

RAINA. How could I?

MAN. Ah, perhaps not--of course. Well, it's a funny sight. It's
like slinging a handful of peas against a window pane: first one
comes; then two or three close behind him; and then all the rest
in a lump.

RAINA (her eyes dilating as she raises her clasped hands
ecstatically). Yes, first One!--the bravest of the brave!

MAN (prosaically). Hm! you should see the poor devil pulling at
his horse.

RAINA. Why should he pull at his horse?

MAN (impatient of so stupid a question). It's running away with
him, of course: do you suppose the fellow wants to get there
before the others and be killed? Then they all come. You can
tell the young ones by their wildness and their slashing. The
old ones come bunched up under the number one guard: they know
that they are mere projectiles, and that it's no use trying to
fight. The wounds are mostly broken knees, from the horses
cannoning together.

RAINA. Ugh! But I don't believe the first man is a coward. I
believe he is a hero!

MAN (goodhumoredly). That's what you'd have said if you'd seen
the first man in the charge to-day.

RAINA (breathless). Ah, I knew it! Tell me--tell me about him.

MAN. He did it like an operatic tenor--a regular handsome
fellow, with flashing eyes and lovely moustache, shouting a
war-cry and charging like Don Quixote at the windmills. We
nearly burst with laughter at him; but when the sergeant ran up
as white as a sheet, and told us they'd sent us the wrong
cartridges, and that we couldn't fire a shot for the next ten
minutes, we laughed at the other side of our mouths. I never
felt so sick in my life, though I've been in one or two very
tight places. And I hadn't even a revolver cartridge--nothing
but chocolate. We'd no bayonets--nothing. Of course, they just
cut us to bits. And there was Don Quixote flourishing like a
drum major, thinking he'd done the cleverest thing ever known,
whereas he ought to be courtmartialled for it. Of all the fools
ever let loose on a field of battle, that man must be the very
maddest. He and his regiment simply committed suicide--only the
pistol missed fire, that's all.

RAINA (deeply wounded, but steadfastly loyal to her ideals).
Indeed! Would you know him again if you saw him?

MAN. Shall I ever forget him. (She again goes to the chest of
drawers. He watches her with a vague hope that she may have
something else for him to eat. She takes the portrait from its
stand and brings it to him.)

RAINA. That is a photograph of the gentleman--the patriot and
hero--to whom I am betrothed.

MAN (looking at it). I'm really very sorry. (Looking at her.)
Was it fair to lead me on? (He looks at the portrait again.)
Yes: that's him: not a doubt of it. (He stifles a laugh.)

RAINA (quickly). Why do you laugh?

MAN (shamefacedly, but still greatly tickled). I didn't laugh,
I assure you. At least I didn't mean to. But when I think of him
charging the windmills and thinking he was doing the finest
thing--(chokes with suppressed laughter).

RAINA (sternly). Give me back the portrait, sir.

MAN (with sincere remorse). Of course. Certainly. I'm really
very sorry. (She deliberately kisses it, and looks him straight
in the face, before returning to the chest of drawers to replace
it. He follows her, apologizing.) Perhaps I'm quite wrong, you
know: no doubt I am. Most likely he had got wind of the
cartridge business somehow, and knew it was a safe job.

RAINA. That is to say, he was a pretender and a coward! You did
not dare say that before.

MAN (with a comic gesture of despair). It's no use, dear lady:
I can't make you see it from the professional point of view. (As
he turns away to get back to the ottoman, the firing begins
again in the distance.)

RAINA (sternly, as she sees him listening to the shots). So
much the better for you.

MAN (turning). How?

RAINA. You are my enemy; and you are at my mercy. What would I
do if I were a professional soldier?

MAN. Ah, true, dear young lady: you're always right. I know how
good you have been to me: to my last hour I shall remember those
three chocolate creams. It was unsoldierly; but it was angelic.

RAINA (coldly). Thank you. And now I will do a soldierly thing.
You cannot stay here after what you have just said about my
future husband; but I will go out on the balcony and see whether
it is safe for you to climb down into the street. (She turns to
the window.)

MAN (changing countenance). Down that waterpipe! Stop! Wait! I
can't! I daren't! The very thought of it makes me giddy. I came
up it fast enough with death behind me. But to face it now in
cold blood!--(He sinks on the ottoman.) It's no use: I give up:
I'm beaten. Give the alarm. (He drops his head in his hands in
the deepest dejection.)

RAINA (disarmed by pity). Come, don't be disheartened. (She
stoops over him almost maternally: he shakes his head.) Oh, you
are a very poor soldier--a chocolate cream soldier. Come, cheer
up: it takes less courage to climb down than to face
capture--remember that.

MAN (dreamily, lulled by her voice). No, capture only means
death; and death is sleep--oh, sleep, sleep, sleep, undisturbed
sleep! Climbing down the pipe means doing something--exerting
myself--thinking! Death ten times over first.

RAINA (softly and wonderingly, catching the rhythm of his
weariness). Are you so sleepy as that?

MAN. I've not had two hours' undisturbed sleep since the war
began. I'm on the staff: you don't know what that means. I
haven't closed my eyes for thirty-six hours.

RAINA (desperately). But what am I to do with you.

MAN (staggering up). Of course I must do something. (He shakes
himself; pulls himself together; and speaks with rallied vigour
and courage.) You see, sleep or no sleep, hunger or no hunger,
tired or not tired, you can always do a thing when you know it
must be done. Well, that pipe must be got down--(He hits himself
on the chest, and adds)--Do you hear that, you chocolate cream
soldier? (He turns to the window.)

RAINA (anxiously). But if you fall?

MAN. I shall sleep as if the stones were a feather bed.
Good-bye. (He makes boldly for the window, and his hand is on
the shutter when there is a terrible burst of firing in the
street beneath.)

RAINA (rushing to him). Stop! (She catches him by the shoulder,
and turns him quite round.) They'll kill you.

MAN (coolly, but attentively). Never mind: this sort of thing
is all in my day's work. I'm bound to take my chance.
(Decisively.) Now do what I tell you. Put out the candles, so
that they shan't see the light when I open the shutters. And
keep away from the window, whatever you do. If they see me,
they're sure to have a shot at me.

RAINA (clinging to him). They're sure to see you: it's bright
moonlight. I'll save you--oh, how can you be so indifferent? You
want me to save you, don't you?

MAN. I really don't want to be troublesome. (She shakes him in
her impatience.) I am not indifferent, dear young lady, I assure
you. But how is it to be done?

RAINA. Come away from the window--please. (She coaxes him back
to the middle of the room. He submits humbly. She releases him,
and addresses him patronizingly.) Now listen. You must trust to
our hospitality. You do not yet know in whose house you are. I
am a Petkoff.

MAN. What's that?

RAINA (rather indignantly). I mean that I belong to the family
of the Petkoffs, the richest and best known in our country.

MAN. Oh, yes, of course. I beg your pardon. The Petkoffs, to be
sure. How stupid of me!

RAINA. You know you never heard of them until this minute. How
can you stoop to pretend?

MAN. Forgive me: I'm too tired to think; and the change of
subject was too much for me. Don't scold me.

RAINA. I forgot. It might make you cry. (He nods, quite
seriously. She pouts and then resumes her patronizing tone.) I
must tell you that my father holds the highest command of any
Bulgarian in our army. He is (proudly) a Major.

MAN (pretending to be deeply impressed). A Major! Bless me!
Think of that!

RAINA. You shewed great ignorance in thinking that it was
necessary to climb up to the balcony, because ours is the only
private house that has two rows of windows. There is a flight of
stairs inside to get up and down by.

MAN. Stairs! How grand! You live in great luxury indeed, dear
young lady.

RAINA. Do you know what a library is?

MAN. A library? A roomful of books.

RAINA. Yes, we have one, the only one in Bulgaria.

MAN. Actually a real library! I should like to see that.

RAINA (affectedly). I tell you these things to shew you that
you are not in the house of ignorant country folk who would kill
you the moment they saw your Servian uniform, but among
civilized people. We go to Bucharest every year for the opera
season; and I have spent a whole month in Vienna.

MAN. I saw that, dear young lady. I saw at once that you knew
the world.

RAINA. Have you ever seen the opera of Ernani?

MAN. Is that the one with the devil in it in red velvet, and a
soldier's chorus?

RAINA (contemptuously). No!

MAN (stifling a heavy sigh of weariness). Then I don't know it.

RAINA. I thought you might have remembered the great scene where
Ernani, flying from his foes just as you are tonight, takes
refuge in the castle of his bitterest enemy, an old Castilian
noble. The noble refuses to give him up. His guest is sacred to
him.

MAN (quickly waking up a little). Have your people got that
notion?

RAINA (with dignity). My mother and I can understand that
notion, as you call it. And if instead of threatening me with
your pistol as you did, you had simply thrown yourself as a
fugitive on our hospitality, you would have been as safe as in
your father's house.

MAN. Quite sure?

RAINA (turning her back on him in disgust.) Oh, it is useless
to try and make you understand.

MAN. Don't be angry: you see how awkward it would be for me if
there was any mistake. My father is a very hospitable man: he
keeps six hotels; but I couldn't trust him as far as that. What
about YOUR father?

RAINA. He is away at Slivnitza fighting for his country. I
answer for your safety. There is my hand in pledge of it. Will
that reassure you? (She offers him her hand.)

MAN (looking dubiously at his own hand). Better not touch my
hand, dear young lady. I must have a wash first.

RAINA (touched). That is very nice of you. I see that you are a
gentleman.

MAN (puzzled). Eh?

RAINA. You must not think I am surprised. Bulgarians of really
good standing--people in OUR position--wash their hands nearly
every day. But I appreciate your delicacy. You may take my hand.
(She offers it again.)

MAN (kissing it with his hands behind his back). Thanks,
gracious young lady: I feel safe at last. And now would you mind
breaking the news to your mother? I had better not stay here
secretly longer than is necessary.

RAINA. If you will be so good as to keep perfectly still whilst
I am away.

MAN. Certainly. (He sits down on the ottoman.)

   (Raina goes to the bed and wraps herself in the
    fur cloak. His eyes close. She goes to the door,
    but on turning for a last look at him, sees that
    he is dropping of to sleep.)

RAINA (at the door). You are not going asleep, are you?
(He murmurs inarticulately: she runs to him and shakes him.)
Do you hear? Wake up: you are falling asleep.

MAN. Eh? Falling aslee--? Oh, no, not the least in
the world: I was only thinking. It's all right: I'm wide
awake.

RAINA (severely). Will you please stand up while I am
away. (He rises reluctantly.) All the time, mind.

MAN (standing unsteadily). Certainly--certainly: you
may depend on me.

    (Raina looks doubtfully at him. He smiles
     foolishly. She goes reluctantly, turning
     again at the door, and almost catching him
     in the act of yawning. She goes out.)

MAN (drowsily). Sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, slee--(The
words trail of into a murmur. He wakes again with a
shock on the point of falling.) Where am I? That's what
I want to know: where am I? Must keep awake. Nothing
keeps me awake except danger--remember that--(intently)
danger, danger, danger, dan-- Where's danger? Must
find it. (He starts of vaguely around the room in search of
it.) What am I looking for? Sleep--danger--don't know.
(He stumbles against the bed.) Ah, yes: now I know. All
right now. I'm to go to bed, but not to sleep--be sure
not to sleep--because of danger. Not to lie down, either,
only sit down. (He sits on the bed. A blissful expression
comes into his face.) Ah! (With a happy sigh he sinks back
at full length; lifts his boots into the bed with a final
effort; and falls fast asleep instantly.)

    (Catherine comes in, followed by Raina.)

RAINA (looking at the ottoman). He's gone! I left him
here.

CATHERINE, Here! Then he must have climbed down from the--

RAINA (seeing him). Oh! (She points.)

CATHERINE (scandalized). Well! (She strides to the left
side of the bed, Raina following and standing opposite her on
the right.) He's fast asleep. The brute!

RAINA (anxiously). Sh!

CATHERINE (shaking him). Sir! (Shaking him again,
harder.) Sir!! (Vehemently shaking very bard.) Sir!!!

RAINA (catching her arm). Don't, mamma: the poor dear
is worn out. Let him sleep.

CATHERINE (letting him go and turning amazed to Raina).
The poor dear! Raina!!! (She looks sternly at her
daughter. The man sleeps profoundly.)

Act II



    The sixth of March, 1886. In the garden of major
    Petkoff's house. It is a fine spring morning; and
    the garden looks fresh and pretty. Beyond the
    paling the tops of a couple of minarets can he
    seen, shewing that there it a valley there, with
    the little town in it. A few miles further the
    Balkan mountains rise and shut in the view. Within
    the garden the side of the house is seen on the
    right, with a garden door reached by a little
    flight of steps. On the left the stable yard, with
    its gateway, encroaches on the garden. There are
    fruit bushes along the paling and house, covered
    with washing hung out to dry. A path runs by the
    house, and rises by two steps at the corner where
    it turns out of the right along the front. In the
    middle a small table, with two bent wood chairs at
    it, is laid for breakfast with Turkish coffee pot,
    cups, rolls, etc.; but the cups have been used and
    the bread broken. There is a wooden garden seat
    against the wall on the left.

    Louka, smoking a cigaret, is standing between the
    table and the house, turning her back with angry
    disdain on a man-servant who is lecturing her. He
    is a middle-aged man of cool temperament and low
    but clear and keen intelligence, with the
    complacency of the servant who values himself on
    his rank in servility, and the imperturbability of
    the accurate calculator who has no illusions. He
    wears a white Bulgarian costume jacket with
    decorated harder, sash, wide knickerbockers, and
    decorated gaiters. His head is shaved up to the
    crown, giving him a high Japanese forehead. His
    name is Nicola.

NICOLA. Be warned in time, Louka: mend your manners. I know the
mistress. She is so grand that she never dreams that any servant
could dare to be disrespectful to her; but if she once suspects
that you are defying her, out you go.

LOUKA. I do defy her. I will defy her. What do I care for her?

NICOLA. If you quarrel with the family, I never can marry you.
It's the same as if you quarrelled with me!

LOUKA. You take her part against me, do you?

NICOLA (sedately). I shall always be dependent on the good will
of the family. When I leave their service and start a shop in
Sofea, their custom will be half my capital: their bad word
would ruin me.

LOUKA. You have no spirit. I should like to see them dare say a
word against me!

NICOLA (pityingly). I should have expected more sense from you,
Louka. But you're young, you're young!

LOUKA. Yes; and you like me the better for it, don't you? But I
know some family secrets they wouldn't care to have told, young
as I am. Let them quarrel with me if they dare!

NICOLA (with compassionate superiority). Do you know what they
would do if they heard you talk like that?

LOUKA. What could they do?

NICOLA. Discharge you for untruthfulness. Who would believe any
stories you told after that? Who would give you another
situation? Who in this house would dare be seen speaking to you
ever again? How long would your father be left on his little
farm? (She impatiently throws away the end of her cigaret, and
stamps on it.) Child, you don't know the power such high people
have over the like of you and me when we try to rise out of our
poverty against them. (He goes close to her and lowers his
voice.) Look at me, ten years in their service. Do you think I
know no secrets? I know things about the mistress that she
wouldn't have the master know for a thousand levas. I know
things about him that she wouldn't let him hear the last of for
six months if I blabbed them to her. I know things about Raina
that would break off her match with Sergius if--

LOUKA (turning on him quickly). How do you know? I never told
you!

NICOLA (opening his eyes cunningly). So that's your little
secret, is it? I thought it might be something like that. Well,
you take my advice, and be respectful; and make the mistress
feel that no matter what you know or don't know, they can depend
on you to hold your tongue and serve the family faithfully.
That's what they like; and that's how you'll make most out of
them.

LOUKA (with searching scorn). You have the soul of a servant,
Nicola.

NICOLA (complacently). Yes: that's the secret of success in
service.

    (A loud knocking with a whip handle on a wooden
     door, outside on the left, is heard.)

MALE VOICE OUTSIDE. Hollo! Hollo there! Nicola!

LOUKA. Master! back from the war!

NICOLA (quickly). My word for it, Louka, the war's over. Off
with you and get some fresh coffee. (He runs out into the stable
yard.)

LOUKA (as she puts the coffee pot and the cups upon the tray,
and carries it into the house). You'll never put the soul of a
servant into me.

   (Major Petkoff comes from the stable yard,
    followed by Nicola. He is a cheerful, excitable,
    insignificant, unpolished man of about 50,
    naturally unambitious except as to his income and
    his importance in local society, but just now
    greatly pleased with the military rank which the
    war has thrust on him as a man of consequence in
    his town. The fever of plucky patriotism which the
    Servian attack roused in all the Bulgarians has
    pulled him through the war; but he is obviously
    glad to be home again.)

PETKOFF (pointing to the table with his whip). Breakfast out
here, eh?

NICOLA. Yes, sir. The mistress and Miss Raina have just gone in.

PETKOFF (fitting down and taking a roll). Go in and say I've
come; and get me some fresh coffee.

NICOLA. It's coming, sir. (He goes to the house door. Louka,
with fresh coffee, a clean cup, and a brandy bottle on her tray
meets him.) Have you told the mistress?

LOUKA. Yes: she's coming.

    (Nicola goes into the house. Louka brings the
     coffee to the table.)

PETKOFF. Well, the Servians haven't run away with you, have
they?

LOUKA. No, sir.

PETKOFF. That's right. Have you brought me some cognac?

LOUKA (putting the bottle on the table). Here, sir.

PETKOFF. That's right. (He pours some into his coffee.)

   (Catherine who has at this early hour made only a
    very perfunctory toilet, and wears a Bulgarian
    apron over a once brilliant, but now half worn out
    red dressing gown, and a colored handkerchief tied
    over her thick black hair, with Turkish slippers
    on her bare feet, comes from the house, looking
    astonishingly handsome and stately under all the
    circumstances. Louka goes into the house.)

CATHERINE. My dear Paul, what a surprise for us. (She stoops
over the back of his chair to kiss him.) Have they brought you
fresh coffee?

PETKOFF. Yes, Louka's been looking after me. The war's over. The
treaty was signed three days ago at Bucharest; and the decree
for our army to demobilize was issued yesterday.

CATHERINE (springing erect, with flashing eyes). The war over!
Paul: have you let the Austrians force you to make peace?

PETKOFF (submissively). My dear: they didn't consult me. What
could _I_ do? (She sits down and turns away from him.) But of
course we saw to it that the treaty was an honorable one. It
declares peace--

CATHERINE (outraged). Peace!

PETKOFF (appeasing her).--but not friendly relations: remember
that. They wanted to put that in; but I insisted on its being
struck out. What more could I do?

CATHERINE. You could have annexed Servia and made Prince
Alexander Emperor of the Balkans. That's what I would have done.

PETKOFF. I don't doubt it in the least, my dear. But I should
have had to subdue the whole Austrian Empire first; and that
would have kept me too long away from you. I missed you greatly.

CATHERINE (relenting). Ah! (Stretches her hand affectionately
across the table to squeeze his.)

PETKOFF. And how have you been, my dear?

CATHERINE. Oh, my usual sore throats, that's all.

PETKOFF (with conviction). That comes from washing your neck
every day. I've often told you so.

CATHERINE. Nonsense, Paul!

PETKOFF (over his coffee and cigaret). I don't believe in going
too far with these modern customs. All this washing can't be
good for the health: it's not natural. There was an Englishman
at Phillipopolis who used to wet himself all over with cold
water every morning when he got up. Disgusting! It all comes
from the English: their climate makes them so dirty that they
have to be perpetually washing themselves. Look at my father: he
never had a bath in his life; and he lived to be ninety-eight,
the healthiest man in Bulgaria. I don't mind a good wash once a
week to keep up my position; but once a day is carrying the
thing to a ridiculous extreme.

CATHERINE. You are a barbarian at heart still, Paul. I hope you
behaved yourself before all those Russian officers.

PETKOFF. I did my best. I took care to let them know that we had
a library.

CATHERINE. Ah; but you didn't tell them that we have an electric
bell in it? I have had one put up.

PETKOFF. What's an electric bell?

CATHERINE. You touch a button; something tinkles in the kitchen;
and then Nicola comes up.

PETKOFF. Why not shout for him?

CATHERINE. Civilized people never shout for their servants. I've
learnt that while you were away.

PETKOFF. Well, I'll tell you something I've learnt, too.
Civilized people don't hang out their washing to dry where
visitors can see it; so you'd better have all that (indicating
the clothes on the bushes) put somewhere else.

CATHERINE. Oh, that's absurd, Paul: I don't believe really
refined people notice such things.

    (Someone is heard knocking at the stable gates.)

PETKOFF. There's Sergius. (Shouting.) Hollo, Nicola!

CATHERINE. Oh, don't shout, Paul: it really isn't nice.

PETKOFF. Bosh! (He shouts louder than before.) Nicola!

NICOLA (appearing at the house door). Yes, sir.

PETKOFF. If that is Major Saranoff, bring him round this way.
(He pronounces the name with the stress on the second
syllable--Sarah-noff.)

NICOLA. Yes, sir. (He goes into the stable yard.)

PETKOFF. You must talk to him, my dear, until Raina takes him
off our hands. He bores my life out about our not promoting
him--over my head, mind you.

CATHERINE. He certainly ought to be promoted when he marries
Raina. Besides, the country should insist on having at least one
native general.

PETKOFF. Yes, so that he could throw away whole brigades instead
of regiments. It's no use, my dear: he has not the slightest
chance of promotion until we are quite sure that the peace will
be a lasting one.

NICOLA (at the gate, announcing). Major Sergius Saranoff! (He
goes into the house and returns presently with a third chair,
which he places at the table. He then withdraws.)

   (Major Sergius Saranoff, the original of the
    portrait in Raina's room, is a tall, romantically
    handsome man, with the physical hardihood, the
    high spirit, and the susceptible imagination of an
    untamed mountaineer chieftain. But his remarkable
    personal distinction is of a characteristically
    civilized type. The ridges of his eyebrows,
    curving with a ram's-horn twist round the marked
    projections at the outer corners, his jealously
    observant eye, his nose, thin, keen, and
    apprehensive in spite of the pugnacious high
    bridge and large nostril, his assertive chin,
    would not be out of place in a Paris salon. In
    short, the clever, imaginative barbarian has an
    acute critical faculty which has been thrown into
    intense activity by the arrival of western
    civilization in the Balkans; and the result is
    precisely what the advent of nineteenth-century
    thought first produced in England: to-wit,
    Byronism. By his brooding on the perpetual
    failure, not only of others, but of himself, to
    live up to his imaginative ideals, his consequent
    cynical scorn for humanity, the jejune credulity
    as to the absolute validity of his ideals and the
    unworthiness of the world in disregarding them,
    his wincings and mockeries under the sting of the
    petty disillusions which every hour spent among
    men brings to his infallibly quick observation, he
    has acquired the half tragic, half ironic air, the
    mysterious moodiness, the suggestion of a strange
    and terrible history that has left him nothing but
    undying remorse, by which Childe Harold fascinated
    the grandmothers of his English contemporaries.
    Altogether it is clear that here or nowhere is
    Raina's ideal hero. Catherine is hardly less
    enthusiastic, and much less reserved in shewing
    her enthusiasm. As he enters from the stable gate,
    she rises effusively to greet him. Petkoff is
    distinctly less disposed to make a fuss about
    him.)

PETKOFF. Here already, Sergius. Glad to see you!

CATHERINE. My dear Sergius!(She holds out both her hands.)

SERGIUS (kissing them with scrupulous gallantry). My dear
mother, if I may call you so.

PETKOFF (drily). Mother-in-law, Sergius; mother-in-law! Sit
down, and have some coffee.

SERGIUS. Thank you, none for me. (He gets away from the table
with a certain distaste for Petkoff's enjoyment of it, and posts
himself with conscious grace against the rail of the steps
leading to the house.)

CATHERINE. You look superb--splendid. The campaign has improved
you. Everybody here is mad about you. We were all wild with
enthusiasm about that magnificent cavalry charge.

SERGIUS (with grave irony). Madam: it was the cradle and the
grave of my military reputation.

CATHERINE. How so?

SERGIUS. I won the battle the wrong way when our worthy Russian
generals were losing it the right way. That upset their plans,
and wounded their self-esteem. Two of their colonels got their
regiments driven back on the correct principles of scientific
warfare. Two major-generals got killed strictly according to
military etiquette. Those two colonels are now major-generals;
and I am still a simple major.

CATHERINE. You shall not remain so, Sergius. The women are on
your side; and they will see that justice is done you.

SERGIUS. It is too late. I have only waited for the peace to
send in my resignation.

PETKOFF (dropping his cup in his amazement). Your resignation!

CATHERINE. Oh, you must withdraw it!

SERGIUS (with resolute, measured emphasis, folding his arms). I
never withdraw!

PETKOFF (vexed). Now who could have supposed you were going to
do such a thing?

SERGIUS (with fire). Everyone that knew me. But enough of
myself and my affairs. How is Raina; and where is Raina?

RAINA (suddenly coming round the corner of the house and
standing at the top of the steps in the path). Raina is here.
(She makes a charming picture as they all turn to look at her.
She wears an underdress of pale green silk, draped with an
overdress of thin ecru canvas embroidered with gold. On her head
she wears a pretty Phrygian cap of gold tinsel. Sergius, with an
exclamation of pleasure, goes impulsively to meet her. She
stretches out her hand: he drops chivalrously on one knee and
kisses it.)

PETKOFF (aside to Catherine, beaming with parental pride).
Pretty, isn't it? She always appears at the right moment.

CATHERINE (impatiently). Yes: she listens for it. It is an
abominable habit.

    (Sergius leads Raina forward with splendid gallantry,
     as if she were a queen. When they come to the
     table, she turns to him with a bend of the head;
     he bows; and thus they separate, he coming to his
     place, and she going behind her father's chair.)

RAINA (stooping and kissing her father). Dear father! Welcome
home!

PETKOFF (patting her cheek). My little pet girl. (He kisses
her; she goes to the chair left by Nicola for Sergius, and sits
down.)

CATHERINE. And so you're no longer a soldier, Sergius.

SERGIUS. I am no longer a soldier. Soldiering, my dear madam, is
the coward's art of attacking mercilessly when you are strong,
and keeping out of harm's way when you are weak. That is the
whole secret of successful fighting. Get your enemy at a
disadvantage; and never, on any account, fight him on equal
terms. Eh, Major!

PETKOFF. They wouldn't let us make a fair stand-up fight of it.
However, I suppose soldiering has to be a trade like any other
trade.

SERGIUS. Precisely. But I have no ambition to succeed as a
tradesman; so I have taken the advice of that bagman of a
captain that settled the exchange of prisoners with us at
Peerot, and given it up.

PETKOFF. What, that Swiss fellow? Sergius: I've often thought of
that exchange since. He over-reached us about those horses.

SERGIUS. Of course he over-reached us. His father was a hotel
and livery stable keeper; and he owed his first step to his
knowledge of horse-dealing. (With mock enthusiasm.) Ah, he was a
soldier--every inch a soldier! If only I had bought the horses
for my regiment instead of foolishly leading it into danger, I
should have been a field-marshal now!

CATHERINE. A Swiss? What was he doing in the Servian army?

PETKOFF. A volunteer of course--keen on picking up his
profession. (Chuckling.) We shouldn't have been able to begin
fighting if these foreigners hadn't shewn us how to do it: we
knew nothing about it; and neither did the Servians. Egad,
there'd have been no war without them.

RAINA. Are there many Swiss officers in the Servian Army?

PETKOFF. No--all Austrians, just as our officers were all
Russians. This was the only Swiss I came across. I'll never
trust a Swiss again. He cheated us--humbugged us into giving
him fifty able bodied men for two hundred confounded worn out
chargers. They weren't even eatable!

SERGIUS. We were two children in the hands of that consummate
soldier, Major: simply two innocent little children.

RAINA. What was he like?

CATHERINE. Oh, Raina, what a silly question!

SERGIUS. He was like a commercial traveller in uniform.
Bourgeois to his boots.

PETKOFF (grinning). Sergius: tell Catherine that queer story
his friend told us about him--how he escaped after Slivnitza.
You remember?--about his being hid by two women.

SERGIUS (with bitter irony). Oh, yes, quite a romance. He was
serving in the very battery I so unprofessionally charged. Being
a thorough soldier, he ran away like the rest of them, with our
cavalry at his heels. To escape their attentions, he had the
good taste to take refuge in the chamber of some patriotic young
Bulgarian lady. The young lady was enchanted by his persuasive
commercial traveller's manners. She very modestly entertained
him for an hour or so and then called in her mother lest her
conduct should appear unmaidenly. The old lady was equally
fascinated; and the fugitive was sent on his way in the morning,
disguised in an old coat belonging to the master of the house,
who was away at the war.

RAINA (rising with marked stateliness). Your life in the camp
has made you coarse, Sergius. I did not think you would have
repeated such a story before me. (She turns away coldly.)

CATHERINE (also rising). She is right, Sergius. If such women
exist, we should be spared the knowledge of them.

PETKOFF. Pooh! nonsense! what does it matter?

SERGIUS (ashamed). No, Petkoff: I was wrong. (To Raina, with
earnest humility.) I beg your pardon. I have behaved abominably.
Forgive me, Raina. (She bows reservedly.) And you, too, madam.
(Catherine bows graciously and sits down. He proceeds solemnly,
again addressing Raina.) The glimpses I have had of the seamy
side of life during the last few months have made me cynical;
but I should not have brought my cynicism here--least of all
into your presence, Raina. I--(Here, turning to the others, he
is evidently about to begin a long speech when the Major
interrupts him.)

PETKOFF. Stuff and nonsense, Sergius. That's quite enough fuss
about nothing: a soldier's daughter should be able to stand up
without flinching to a little strong conversation. (He rises.)
Come: it's time for us to get to business. We have to make up
our minds how those three regiments are to get back to
Phillipopolis:--there's no forage for them on the Sophia route.
(He goes towards the house.) Come along. (Sergius is about to
follow him when Catherine rises and intervenes.)

CATHERINE. Oh, Paul, can't you spare Sergius for a few moments?
Raina has hardly seen him yet. Perhaps I can help you to settle
about the regiments.

SERGIUS (protesting). My dear madam, impossible: you--

CATHERINE (stopping him playfully). You stay here, my dear
Sergius: there's no hurry. I have a word or two to say to Paul.
(Sergius instantly bows and steps back.) Now, dear (taking
Petkoff's arm), come and see the electric bell.

PETKOFF. Oh, very well, very well. (They go into the house
together affectionately. Sergius, left alone with Raina, looks
anxiously at her, fearing that she may be still offended. She
smiles, and stretches out her arms to him.)

    (Exit R. into house, followed by Catherine.)

SERGIUS (hastening to her, but refraining from touching her
without express permission). Am I forgiven?

RAINA (placing her hands on his shoulder as she looks up at him
with admiration and worship). My hero! My king.

SERGIUS. My queen! (He kisses her on the forehead with holy
awe.)

RAINA. How I have envied you, Sergius! You have been out in the
world, on the field of battle, able to prove yourself there
worthy of any woman in the world; whilst I have had to sit at
home inactive,--dreaming--useless--doing nothing that could
give me the right to call myself worthy of any man.

SERGIUS. Dearest, all my deeds have been yours. You inspired me.
I have gone through the war like a knight in a tournament with
his lady looking on at him!

RAINA. And you have never been absent from my thoughts for a
moment. (Very solemnly.) Sergius: I think we two have found the
higher love. When I think of you, I feel that I could never do a
base deed, or think an ignoble thought.

SERGIUS. My lady, and my saint! (Clasping her reverently.)

RAINA (returning his embrace). My lord and my g--

SERGIUS. Sh--sh! Let me be the worshipper, dear. You little know
how unworthy even the best man is of a girl's pure passion!

RAINA. I trust you. I love you. You will never disappoint me,
Sergius. (Louka is heard singing within the house. They quickly
release each other.) Hush! I can't pretend to talk indifferently
before her: my heart is too full. (Louka comes from the house
with her tray. She goes to the table, and begins to clear it,
with her back turned to them.) I will go and get my hat; and
then we can go out until lunch time. Wouldn't you like that?

SERGIUS. Be quick. If you are away five minutes, it will seem
five hours. (Raina runs to the top of the steps and turns there
to exchange a look with him and wave him a kiss with both hands.
He looks after her with emotion for a moment, then turns slowly
away, his face radiant with the exultation of the scene which
has just passed. The movement shifts his field of vision, into
the corner of which there now comes the tail of Louka's double
apron. His eye gleams at once. He takes a stealthy look at her,
and begins to twirl his moustache nervously, with his left hand
akimbo on his hip. Finally, striking the ground with his heels
in something of a cavalry swagger, he strolls over to the left
of the table, opposite her, and says) Louka: do you know what
the higher love is?

LOUKA (astonished). No, sir.

SERGIUS. Very fatiguing thing to keep up for any length of time,
Louka. One feels the need of some relief after it.

LOUKA (innocently). Perhaps you would like some coffee, sir?
(She stretches her hand across the table for the coffee pot.)

SERGIUS (taking her hand). Thank you, Louka.

LOUKA (pretending to pull). Oh, sir, you know I didn't mean
that. I'm surprised at you!

SERGIUS (coming clear of the table and drawing her with him). I
am surprised at myself, Louka. What would Sergius, the hero of
Slivnitza, say if he saw me now? What would Sergius, the apostle
of the higher love, say if he saw me now? What would the half
dozen Sergiuses who keep popping in and out of this handsome
figure of mine say if they caught us here? (Letting go her hand
and slipping his arm dexterously round her waist.) Do you
consider my figure handsome, Louka?

LOUKA. Let me go, sir. I shall be disgraced. (She struggles: he
holds her inexorably.) Oh, will you let go?

SERGIUS (looking straight into her eyes). No.

LOUKA. Then stand back where we can't be seen. Have you no
common sense?

SERGIUS. Ah, that's reasonable. (He takes her into the
stableyard gateway, where they are hidden from the house.)

LOUKA (complaining). I may have been seen from the windows:
Miss Raina is sure to be spying about after you.

SERGIUS (stung--letting her go). Take care, Louka. I may be
worthless enough to betray the higher love; but do not you
insult it.

LOUKA (demurely). Not for the world, sir, I'm sure. May I go on
with my work please, now?

SERGIUS (again putting his arm round her). You are a provoking
little witch, Louka. If you were in love with me, would you spy
out of windows on me?

LOUKA. Well, you see, sir, since you say you are half a dozen
different gentlemen all at once, I should have a great deal to
look after.

SERGIUS (charmed). Witty as well as pretty. (He tries to kiss
her.)

LOUKA (avoiding him). No, I don't want your kisses. Gentlefolk
are all alike--you making love to me behind Miss Raina's back,
and she doing the same behind yours.

SERGIUS (recoiling a step). Louka!

LOUKA. It shews how little you really care!

SERGIUS (dropping his familiarity and speaking with freezing
politeness). If our conversation is to continue, Louka, you will
please remember that a gentleman does not discuss the conduct of
the lady he is engaged to with her maid.

LOUKA. It's so hard to know what a gentleman considers right. I
thought from your trying to kiss me that you had given up being
so particular.

SERGIUS (turning from her and striking his forehead as he comes
back into the garden from the gateway). Devil! devil!

LOUKA. Ha! ha! I expect one of the six of you is very like me,
sir, though I am only Miss Raina's maid. (She goes back to her
work at the table, taking no further notice of him.)

SERGIUS (speaking to himself). Which of the six is the real
man?--that's the question that torments me. One of them is a
hero, another a buffoon, another a humbug, another perhaps a
bit of a blackguard. (He pauses and looks furtively at Louka, as
he adds with deep bitterness) And one, at least, is a
coward--jealous, like all cowards. (He goes to the table.)
Louka.

LOUKA. Yes?

SERGIUS. Who is my rival?

LOUKA. You shall never get that out of me, for love or money.

SERGIUS. Why?

LOUKA. Never mind why. Besides, you would tell that I told you;
and I should lose my place.

SERGIUS (holding out his right hand in affirmation). No; on the
honor of a--(He checks himself, and his hand drops nerveless as
he concludes, sardonically)--of a man capable of behaving as I
have been behaving for the last five minutes. Who is he?

LOUKA. I don't know. I never saw him. I only heard his voice
through the door of her room.

SERGIUS. Damnation! How dare you?

LOUKA (retreating). Oh, I mean no harm: you've no right to take
up my words like that. The mistress knows all about it. And I
tell you that if that gentleman ever comes here again, Miss
Raina will marry him, whether he likes it or not. I know the
difference between the sort of manner you and she put on before
one another and the real manner. (Sergius shivers as if she had
stabbed him. Then, setting his face like iron, he strides grimly
to her, and grips her above the elbows with both bands.)

SERGIUS. Now listen you to me!

LOUKA (wincing). Not so tight: you're hurting me!

SERGIUS. That doesn't matter. You have stained my honor by
making me a party to your eavesdropping. And you have betrayed
your mistress--

LOUKA (writhing). Please--

SERGIUS. That shews that you are an abominable little clod of
common clay, with the soul of a servant. (He lets her go as if
she were an unclean thing, and turns away, dusting his hands of
her, to the bench by the wall, where he sits down with averted
head, meditating gloomily.)

LOUKA (whimpering angrily with her hands up her sleeves,
feeling her bruised arms). You know how to hurt with your tongue
as well as with your hands. But I don't care, now I've found out
that whatever clay I'm made of, you're made of the same. As for
her, she's a liar; and her fine airs are a cheat; and I'm worth
six of her. (She shakes the pain off hardily; tosses her head;
and sets to work to put the things on the tray. He looks
doubtfully at her once or twice. She finishes packing the tray,
and laps the cloth over the edges, so as to carry all out
together. As she stoops to lift it, he rises.)

SERGIUS. Louka! (She stops and looks defiantly at him with the
tray in her hands.) A gentleman has no right to hurt a woman
under any circumstances. (With profound humility, uncovering his
head.) I beg your pardon.

LOUKA. That sort of apology may satisfy a lady. Of what use is
it to a servant?

SERGIUS (thus rudely crossed in his chivalry, throws it off
with a bitter laugh and says slightingly). Oh, you wish to be
paid for the hurt? (He puts on his shako, and takes some money
from his pocket.)

LOUKA (her eyes filling with tears in spite of herself). No, I
want my hurt made well.

SERGIUS (sobered by her tone). How?

   (She rolls up her left sleeve; clasps her arm with
    the thumb and fingers of her right hand; and looks
    down at the bruise. Then she raises her head and
    looks straight at him. Finally, with a superb
    gesture she presents her arm to be kissed. Amazed,
    he looks at her; at the arm; at her again;
    hesitates; and then, with shuddering intensity,
    exclaims)

SERGIUS. Never! (and gets away as far as possible from her.)

   (Her arm drops. Without a word, and with unaffected
    dignity, she takes her tray, and is approaching
    the house when Raina returns wearing a hat and
    jacket in the height of the Vienna fashion of the
    previous year, 1885. Louka makes way proudly for
    her, and then goes into the house.)

RAINA. I'm ready! What's the matter? (Gaily.) Have you been
flirting with Louka?

SERGIUS (hastily). No, no. How can you think such a thing?

RAINA (ashamed of herself). Forgive me, dear: it was only a
jest. I am so happy to-day.

    (He goes quickly to her, and kisses her hand
     remorsefully. Catherine comes out and calls
     to them from the top of the steps.)

CATHERINE (coming down to them). I am sorry to disturb you,
children; but Paul is distracted over those three regiments. He
does not know how to get them to Phillipopolis; and he objects
to every suggestion of mine. You must go and help him, Sergius.
He is in the library.

RAINA (disappointed). But we are just going out for a walk.

SERGIUS. I shall not be long. Wait for me just five minutes. (He
runs up the steps to the door.)

RAINA (following him to the foot of the steps and looking up at
him with timid coquetry). I shall go round and wait in full view
of the library windows. Be sure you draw father's attention to
me. If you are a moment longer than five minutes, I shall go in
and fetch you, regiments or no regiments.

SERGIUS (laughing). Very well. (He goes in. Raina watches him
until he is out of her right. Then, with a perceptible
relaxation of manner, she begins to pace up and down about the
garden in a brown study.)

CATHERINE. Imagine their meeting that Swiss and hearing the
whole story! The very first thing your father asked for was the
old coat we sent him off in. A nice mess you have got us into!

RAINA (gazing thoughtfully at the gravel as she walks). The
little beast!

CATHERINE. Little beast! What little beast?

RAINA. To go and tell! Oh, if I had him here, I'd stuff him with
chocolate creams till he couldn't ever speak again!

CATHERINE. Don't talk nonsense. Tell me the truth, Raina. How
long was he in your room before you came to me?

RAINA (whisking round and recommencing her march in the
opposite direction). Oh, I forget.

CATHERINE. You cannot forget! Did he really climb up after the
soldiers were gone, or was he there when that officer searched
the room?

RAINA. No. Yes, I think he must have been there then.

CATHERINE. You think! Oh, Raina, Raina! Will anything ever make
you straightforward? If Sergius finds out, it is all over
between you.

RAINA (with cool impertinence). Oh, I know Sergius is your pet.
I sometimes wish you could marry him instead of me. You would
just suit him. You would pet him, and spoil him, and mother him
to perfection.

CATHERINE (opening her eyes very widely indeed). Well, upon my
word!

RAINA (capriciously--half to herself). I always feel a longing
to do or say something dreadful to him--to shock his
propriety--to scandalize the five senses out of him! (To
Catherine perversely.) I don't care whether he finds out about
the chocolate cream soldier or not. I half hope he may. (She
again turns flippantly away and strolls up the path to the
corner of the house.)

CATHERINE. And what should I be able to say to your father,
pray?

RAINA (over her shoulder, from the top of the two steps). Oh,
poor father! As if he could help himself! (She turns the corner
and passes out of sight.)

CATHERINE (looking after her, her fingers itching). Oh, if you
were only ten years younger! (Louka comes from the house with a
salver, which she carries hanging down by her side.) Well?

LOUKA. There's a gentleman just called, madam--a Servian
officer--

CATHERINE (flaming). A Servian! How dare he--(Checking herself
bitterly.) Oh, I forgot. We are at peace now. I suppose we shall
have them calling every day to pay their compliments. Well, if
he is an officer why don't you tell your master? He is in the
library with Major Saranoff. Why do you come to me?

LOUKA. But he asks for you, madam. And I don't think he knows
who you are: he said the lady of the house. He gave me this
little ticket for you. (She takes a card out of her bosom; puts
it on the salver and offers it to Catherine.)

CATHERINE (reading). "Captain Bluntschli!" That's a German
name.

LOUKA. Swiss, madam, I think.

CATHERINE (with a bound that makes Louka jump back). Swiss!
What is he like?

LOUKA (timidly). He has a big carpet bag, madam.

CATHERINE. Oh, Heavens, he's come to return the coat! Send him
away--say we're not at home--ask him to leave his address and
I'll write to him--Oh, stop: that will never do. Wait! (She
throws herself into a chair to think it out. Louka waits.) The
master and Major Saranoff are busy in the library, aren't they?

LOUKA. Yes, madam.

CATHERINE (decisively). Bring the gentleman out here at once.
(Imperatively.) And be very polite to him. Don't delay. Here
(impatiently snatching the salver from her): leave that here;
and go straight back to him.

LOUKA. Yes, madam. (Going.)

CATHERINE. Louka!

LOUKA (stopping). Yes, madam.

CATHERINE. Is the library door shut?

LOUKA. I think so, madam.

CATHERINE. If not, shut it as you pass through.

LOUKA. Yes, madam. (Going.)

CATHERINE. Stop! (Louka stops.) He will have to go out that way
(indicating the gate of the stable yard). Tell Nicola to bring
his bag here after him. Don't forget.

LOUKA (surprised). His bag?

CATHERINE. Yes, here, as soon as possible. (Vehemently.) Be
quick! (Louka runs into the house. Catherine snatches her apron
off and throws it behind a bush. She then takes up the salver
and uses it as a mirror, with the result that the handkerchief
tied round her head follows the apron. A touch to her hair and a
shake to her dressing gown makes her presentable.) Oh,
how--how--how can a man be such a fool! Such a moment to select!
(Louka appears at the door of the house, announcing "Captain
Bluntschli;" and standing aside at the top of the steps to let
him pass before she goes in again. He is the man of the
adventure in Raina's room. He is now clean, well brushed,
smartly uniformed, and out of trouble, but still unmistakably
the same man. The moment Louka's back is turned, Catherine
swoops on him with hurried, urgent, coaxing appeal.) Captain
Bluntschli, I am very glad to see you; but you must leave this
house at once. (He raises his eyebrows.) My husband has just
returned, with my future son-in-law; and they know nothing. If
they did, the consequences would be terrible. You are a
foreigner: you do not feel our national animosities as we do. We
still hate the Servians: the only effect of the peace on my
husband is to make him feel like a lion baulked of his prey. If
he discovered our secret, he would never forgive me; and my
daughter's life would hardly be safe. Will you, like the
chivalrous gentleman and soldier you are, leave at once before
he finds you here?

BLUNTSCHLI (disappointed, but philosophical). At once, gracious
lady. I only came to thank you and return the coat you lent me.
If you will allow me to take it out of my bag and leave it with
your servant as I pass out, I need detain you no further. (He
turns to go into the house.)

CATHERINE (catching him by the sleeve). Oh, you must not think
of going back that way. (Coaxing him across to the stable
gates.) This is the shortest way out. Many thanks. So glad to
have been of service to you. Good-bye.

BLUNTSCHLI. But my bag?

CATHERINE. It will be sent on. You will leave me your address.

BLUNTSCHLI. True. Allow me. (He takes out his card-case, and
stops to write his address, keeping Catherine in an agony of
impatience. As he hands her the card, Petkoff, hatless, rushes
from the house in a fluster of hospitality, followed by
Sergius.)

PETKOFF (as he hurries down the steps). My dear Captain
Bluntschli--

CATHERINE. Oh Heavens! (She sinks on the seat against the wall.)

PETKOFF (too preoccupied to notice her as he shakes
Bluntschli's hand heartily). Those stupid people of mine thought
I was out here, instead of in the--haw!--library. (He cannot
mention the library without betraying how proud he is of it.) I
saw you through the window. I was wondering why you didn't come
in. Saranoff is with me: you remember him, don't you?

SERGIUS (saluting humorously, and then offering his hand with
great charm of manner). Welcome, our friend the enemy!

PETKOFF. No longer the enemy, happily. (Rather anxiously.) I
hope you've come as a friend, and not on business.

CATHERINE. Oh, quite as a friend, Paul. I was just asking
Captain Bluntschli to stay to lunch; but he declares he must go
at once.

SERGIUS (sardonically). Impossible, Bluntschli. We want you
here badly. We have to send on three cavalry regiments to
Phillipopolis; and we don't in the least know how to do it.

BLUNTSCHLI (suddenly attentive and business-like).
Phillipopolis! The forage is the trouble, eh?

PETKOFF (eagerly). Yes, that's it. (To Sergius.) He sees the
whole thing at once.

BLUNTSCHLI. I think I can shew you how to manage that.

SERGIUS. Invaluable man! Come along! (Towering over Bluntschli,
he puts his hand on his shoulder and takes him to the steps,
Petkoff following. As Bluntschli puts his foot on the first
step, Raina comes out of the house.)

RAINA (completely losing her presence of mind). Oh, the
chocolate cream soldier!

    (Bluntschli stands rigid. Sergius, amazed, looks
     at Raina, then at Petkoff, who looks back at him
     and then at his wife.)

CATHERINE (with commanding presence of mind). My dear Raina,
don't you see that we have a guest here--Captain Bluntschli, one
of our new Servian friends?

    (Raina bows; Bluntschli bows.)

RAINA. How silly of me! (She comes down into the centre of the
group, between Bluntschli and Petkoff) I made a beautiful
ornament this morning for the ice pudding; and that stupid
Nicola has just put down a pile of plates on it and spoiled it.
(To Bluntschli, winningly.) I hope you didn't think that you
were the chocolate cream soldier, Captain Bluntschli.

BLUNTSCHLI (laughing). I assure you I did. (Stealing a
whimsical glance at her.) Your explanation was a relief.

PETKOFF (suspiciously, to Raina). And since when, pray, have
you taken to cooking?

CATHERINE. Oh, whilst you were away. It is her latest fancy.

PETKOFF (testily). And has Nicola taken to drinking? He used to
be careful enough. First he shews Captain Bluntschli out here
when he knew quite well I was in the--hum!--library; and then
he goes downstairs and breaks Raina's chocolate soldier. He
must--(At this moment Nicola appears at the top of the steps R.,
with a carpet bag. He descends; places it respectfully before
Bluntschli; and waits for further orders. General amazement.
Nicola, unconscious of the effect he is producing, looks
perfectly satisfied with himself. When Petkoff recovers his
power of speech, he breaks out at him with) Are you mad, Nicola?

NICOLA (taken aback). Sir?

PETKOFF. What have you brought that for?

NICOLA. My lady's orders, sir. Louka told me that--

CATHERINE (interrupting him). My orders! Why should I order you
to bring Captain Bluntschli's luggage out here? What are you
thinking of, Nicola?

NICOLA (after a moment's bewilderment, picking up the bag as he
addresses Bluntschli with the very perfection of servile
discretion). I beg your pardon, sir, I am sure. (To Catherine.)
My fault, madam! I hope you'll overlook it! (He bows, and is
going to the steps with the bag, when Petkoff addresses him
angrily.)

PETKOFF. You'd better go and slam that bag, too, down on Miss
Raina's ice pudding! (This is too much for Nicola. The bag drops
from his hands on Petkoff's corns, eliciting a roar of anguish
from him.) Begone, you butter-fingered donkey.

NICOLA (snatching up the bag, and escaping into the house).
Yes, sir.

CATHERINE. Oh, never mind, Paul, don't be angry!

PETKOFF (muttering). Scoundrel. He's got out of hand while I
was away. I'll teach him. (Recollecting his guest.) Oh, well,
never mind. Come, Bluntschli, lets have no more nonsense about
you having to go away. You know very well you're not going back
to Switzerland yet. Until you do go back you'll stay with us.

RAINA. Oh, do, Captain Bluntschli.

PETKOFF (to Catherine). Now, Catherine, it's of you that he's
afraid. Press him and he'll stay.

CATHERINE. Of course I shall be only too delighted if
(appealingly) Captain Bluntschli really wishes to stay. He knows
my wishes.

BLUNTSCHLI (in his driest military manner). I am at madame's
orders.

SERGIUS (cordially). That settles it!

PETKOFF (heartily). Of course!

RAINA. You see, you must stay!

BLUNTSCHLI (smiling). Well, If I must, I must!
(Gesture of despair from Catherine.)