Books: Heartbreak House
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GEORGE BERNARD SHAW >> Heartbreak House
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HECTOR } [speaking { Please don't tell me.
RANDALL } together] { I'll not stand it--
LADY UTTERWORD. Randall the Rotter: that is his name in good
society.
RANDALL [shouting]. I'll not bear it, I tell you. Will you listen
to me, you infernal--[he chokes].
LADY UTTERWORD. Well: go on. What were you going to call me? An
infernal what? Which unpleasant animal is it to be this time?
RANDALL [foaming]. There is no animal in the world so hateful as
a woman can be. You are a maddening devil. Hushabye, you will not
believe me when I tell you that I have loved this demon all my
life; but God knows I have paid for it [he sits down in the
draughtsman's chair, weeping].
LADY UTTERWORD [standing over him with triumphant contempt].
Cry-baby!
HECTOR [gravely, coming to him]. My friend, the Shotover sisters
have two strange powers over men. They can make them love; and
they can make them cry. Thank your stars that you are not married
to one of them.
LADY UTTERWORD [haughtily]. And pray, Hector--
HECTOR [suddenly catching her round the shoulders: swinging her
right round him and away from Randall: and gripping her throat
with the other hand]. Ariadne, if you attempt to start on me,
I'll choke you: do you hear? The cat-and-mouse game with the
other sex is a good game; but I can play your head off at it. [He
throws her, not at all gently, into the big chair, and proceeds,
less fiercely but firmly]. It is true that Napoleon said that
woman is the occupation of the idle man. But he added that she is
the relaxation of the warrior. Well, I am the warrior. So take
care.
LADY UTTERWORD [not in the least put out, and rather pleased by
his violence]. My dear Hector, I have only done what you asked me
to do.
HECTOR. How do you make that out, pray?
LADY UTTERWORD. You called me in to manage Randall, didn't you?
You said you couldn't manage him yourself.
HECTOR. Well, what if I did? I did not ask you to drive the man
mad.
LADY UTTERWORD. He isn't mad. That's the way to manage him. If
you were a mother, you'd understand.
HECTOR. Mother! What are you up to now?
LADY UTTERWORD. It's quite simple. When the children got nerves
and were naughty, I smacked them just enough to give them a good
cry and a healthy nervous shock. They went to sleep and were
quite good afterwards. Well, I can't smack Randall: he is too
big; so when he gets nerves and is naughty, I just rag him till
he cries. He will be all right now. Look: he is half asleep
already [which is quite true].
RANDALL [waking up indignantly]. I'm not. You are most cruel,
Ariadne. [Sentimentally]. But I suppose I must forgive you, as
usual [he checks himself in the act of yawning].
LADY UTTERWORD [to Hector]. Is the explanation satisfactory,
dread warrior?
HECTOR. Some day I shall kill you, if you go too far. I thought
you were a fool.
LADY UTTERWORD [laughing]. Everybody does, at first. But I am not
such a fool as I look. [She rises complacently]. Now, Randall, go
to bed. You will be a good boy in the morning.
RANDALL [only very faintly rebellious]. I'll go to bed when I
like. It isn't ten yet.
LADY UTTERWORD. It is long past ten. See that he goes to bed at
once, Hector. [She goes into the garden].
HECTOR. Is there any slavery on earth viler than this slavery of
men to women?
RANDALL [rising resolutely]. I'll not speak to her tomorrow. I'll
not speak to her for another week. I'll give her such a lesson.
I'll go straight to bed without bidding her good-night. [He makes
for the door leading to the hall].
HECTOR. You are under a spell, man. Old Shotover sold himself to
the devil in Zanzibar. The devil gave him a black witch for a
wife; and these two demon daughters are their mystical progeny. I
am tied to Hesione's apron-string; but I'm her husband; and if I
did go stark staring mad about her, at least we became man and
wife. But why should you let yourself be dragged about and beaten
by Ariadne as a toy donkey is dragged about and beaten by a
child? What do you get by it? Are you her lover?
RANDALL. You must not misunderstand me. In a higher sense--in a
Platonic sense--
HECTOR. Psha! Platonic sense! She makes you her servant; and when
pay-day comes round, she bilks you: that is what you mean.
RANDALL [feebly]. Well, if I don't mind, I don't see what
business it is of yours. Besides, I tell you I am going to punish
her. You shall see: I know how to deal with women. I'm really
very sleepy. Say good-night to Mrs Hushabye for me, will you,
like a good chap. Good-night. [He hurries out].
HECTOR. Poor wretch! Oh women! women! women! [He lifts his fists
in invocation to heaven]. Fall. Fall and crush. [He goes out into
the garden].
ACT III
In the garden, Hector, as he comes out through the glass door of
the poop, finds Lady Utterword lying voluptuously in the hammock
on the east side of the flagstaff, in the circle of light cast by
the electric arc, which is like a moon in its opal globe. Beneath
the head of the hammock, a campstool. On the other side of the
flagstaff, on the long garden seat, Captain Shotover is asleep,
with Ellie beside him, leaning affectionately against him on his
right hand. On his left is a deck chair. Behind them in the
gloom, Hesione is strolling about with Mangan. It is a fine still
night, moonless.
LADY UTTERWORD. What a lovely night! It seems made for us.
HECTOR. The night takes no interest in us. What are we to the
night? [He sits down moodily in the deck chair].
ELLIE [dreamily, nestling against the captain]. Its beauty soaks
into my nerves. In the night there is peace for the old and hope
for the young.
HECTOR. Is that remark your own?
ELLIE. No. Only the last thing the captain said before he went to
sleep.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I'm not asleep.
HECTOR. Randall is. Also Mr Mazzini Dunn. Mangan, too, probably.
MANGAN. No.
HECTOR. Oh, you are there. I thought Hesione would have sent you
to bed by this time.
MRS HUSHABYE [coming to the back of the garden seat, into the
light, with Mangan]. I think I shall. He keeps telling me he has
a presentiment that he is going to die. I never met a man so
greedy for sympathy.
MANGAN [plaintively]. But I have a presentiment. I really have.
And you wouldn't listen.
MRS HUSHABYE. I was listening for something else. There was a
sort of splendid drumming in the sky. Did none of you hear it? It
came from a distance and then died away.
MANGAN. I tell you it was a train.
MRS HUSHABYE. And I tell you, Alf, there is no train at this
hour. The last is nine forty-five.
MANGAN. But a goods train.
MRS HUSHABYE. Not on our little line. They tack a truck on to the
passenger train. What can it have been, Hector?
HECTOR. Heaven's threatening growl of disgust at us useless
futile creatures. [Fiercely]. I tell you, one of two things must
happen. Either out of that darkness some new creation will come
to supplant us as we have supplanted the animals, or the heavens
will fall in thunder and destroy us.
LADY UTTERWORD [in a cool instructive manner, wallowing
comfortably in her hammock]. We have not supplanted the animals,
Hector. Why do you ask heaven to destroy this house, which could
be made quite comfortable if Hesione had any notion of how to
live? Don't you know what is wrong with it?
HECTOR. We are wrong with it. There is no sense in us. We are
useless, dangerous, and ought to be abolished.
LADY UTTERWORD. Nonsense! Hastings told me the very first day he
came here, nearly twenty-four years ago, what is wrong with the
house.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What! The numskull said there was something
wrong with my house!
LADY UTTERWORD. I said Hastings said it; and he is not in the
least a numskull.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What's wrong with my house?
LADY UTTERWORD. Just what is wrong with a ship, papa. Wasn't it
clever of Hastings to see that?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The man's a fool. There's nothing wrong with a
ship.
LADY UTTERWORD. Yes, there is.
MRS HUSHABYE. But what is it? Don't be aggravating, Addy.
LADY UTTERWORD. Guess.
HECTOR. Demons. Daughters of the witch of Zanzibar. Demons.
LADY UTTERWORD. Not a bit. I assure you, all this house needs to
make it a sensible, healthy, pleasant house, with good appetites
and sound sleep in it, is horses.
MRS HUSHABYE. Horses! What rubbish!
LADY UTTERWORD. Yes: horses. Why have we never been able to let
this house? Because there are no proper stables. Go anywhere in
England where there are natural, wholesome, contented, and really
nice English people; and what do you always find? That the
stables are the real centre of the household; and that if any
visitor wants to play the piano the whole room has to be upset
before it can be opened, there are so many things piled on it. I
never lived until I learned to ride; and I shall never ride
really well because I didn't begin as a child. There are only two
classes in good society in England: the equestrian classes and
the neurotic classes. It isn't mere convention: everybody can see
that the people who hunt are the right people and the people who
don't are the wrong ones.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. There is some truth in this. My ship made a man
of me; and a ship is the horse of the sea.
LADY UTTERWORD. Exactly how Hastings explained your being a
gentleman.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Not bad for a numskull. Bring the man here with
you next time: I must talk to him.
LADY UTTERWORD. Why is Randall such an obvious rotter? He is well
bred; he has been at a public school and a university; he has
been in the Foreign Office; he knows the best people and has
lived all his life among them. Why is he so unsatisfactory, so
contemptible? Why can't he get a valet to stay with him longer
than a few months? Just because he is too lazy and
pleasure-loving to hunt and shoot. He strums the piano, and
sketches, and runs after married women, and reads literary books
and poems. He actually plays the flute; but I never let him bring
it into my house. If he would only--[she is interrupted by the
melancholy strains of a flute coming from an open window above.
She raises herself indignantly in the hammock]. Randall, you have
not gone to bed. Have you been listening? [The flute replies
pertly]. How vulgar! Go to bed instantly, Randall: how dare you?
[The window is slammed down. She subsides]. How can anyone care
for such a creature!
MRS HUSHABYE. Addy: do you think Ellie ought to marry poor Alfred
merely for his money?
MANGAN [much alarmed]. What's that? Mrs Hushabye, are my affairs
to be discussed like this before everybody?
LADY UTTERWORD. I don't think Randall is listening now.
MANGAN. Everybody is listening. It isn't right.
MRS HUSHABYE. But in the dark, what does it matter? Ellie doesn't
mind. Do you, Ellie?
ELLIE. Not in the least. What is your opinion, Lady Utterword?
You have so much good sense.
MANGAN. But it isn't right. It--[Mrs Hushabye puts her hand on
his mouth]. Oh, very well.
LADY UTTERWORD. How much money have you, Mr. Mangan?
MANGAN. Really--No: I can't stand this.
LADY UTTERWORD. Nonsense, Mr Mangan! It all turns on your income,
doesn't it?
MANGAN. Well, if you come to that, how much money has she?
ELLIE. None.
LADY UTTERWORD. You are answered, Mr Mangan. And now, as you have
made Miss Dunn throw her cards on the table, you cannot refuse to
show your own.
MRS HUSHABYE. Come, Alf! out with it! How much?
MANGAN [baited out of all prudence]. Well, if you want to know, I
have no money and never had any.
MRS HUSHABYE. Alfred, you mustn't tell naughty stories.
MANGAN. I'm not telling you stories. I'm telling you the raw
truth.
LADY UTTERWORD. Then what do you live on, Mr Mangan?
MANGAN. Travelling expenses. And a trifle of commission.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What more have any of us but travelling
expenses for our life's journey?
MRS HUSHABYE. But you have factories and capital and things?
MANGAN. People think I have. People think I'm an industrial
Napoleon. That's why Miss Ellie wants to marry me. But I tell you
I have nothing.
ELLIE. Do you mean that the factories are like Marcus's tigers?
That they don't exist?
MANGAN. They exist all right enough. But they're not mine. They
belong to syndicates and shareholders and all sorts of lazy
good-for-nothing capitalists. I get money from such people to
start the factories. I find people like Miss Dunn's father to
work them, and keep a tight hand so as to make them pay. Of
course I make them keep me going pretty well; but it's a dog's
life; and I don't own anything.
MRS HUSHABYE. Alfred, Alfred, you are making a poor mouth of it
to get out of marrying Ellie.
MANGAN. I'm telling the truth about my money for the first time
in my life; and it's the first time my word has ever been
doubted.
LADY UTTERWORD. How sad! Why don't you go in for politics, Mr
Mangan?
MANGAN. Go in for politics! Where have you been living? I am in
politics.
LADY UTTERWORD. I'm sure I beg your pardon. I never heard of you.
MANGAN. Let me tell you, Lady Utterword, that the Prime Minister
of this country asked me to join the Government without even
going through the nonsense of an election, as the dictator of a
great public department.
LADY UTTERWORD. As a Conservative or a Liberal?
MANGAN. No such nonsense. As a practical business man. [They all
burst out laughing]. What are you all laughing at?
MRS HUSHARYE. Oh, Alfred, Alfred!
ELLIE. You! who have to get my father to do everything for you!
MRS HUSHABYE. You! who are afraid of your own workmen!
HECTOR. You! with whom three women have been playing cat and
mouse all the evening!
LADY UTTERWORD. You must have given an immense sum to the party
funds, Mr Mangan.
MANGAN. Not a penny out of my own pocket. The syndicate found the
money: they knew how useful I should be to them in the
Government.
LADY UTTERWORD. This is most interesting and unexpected, Mr
Mangan. And what have your administrative achievements been, so
far?
MANGAN. Achievements? Well, I don't know what you call
achievements; but I've jolly well put a stop to the games of the
other fellows in the other departments. Every man of them thought
he was going to save the country all by himself, and do me out of
the credit and out of my chance of a title. I took good care that
if they wouldn't let me do it they shouldn't do it themselves
either. I may not know anything about my own machinery; but I
know how to stick a ramrod into the other fellow's. And now they
all look the biggest fools going.
HECTOR. And in heaven's name, what do you look like?
MANGAN. I look like the fellow that was too clever for all the
others, don't I? If that isn't a triumph of practical business,
what is?
HECTOR. Is this England, or is it a madhouse?
LADY UTTERWORD. Do you expect to save the country, Mr Mangan?
MANGAN. Well, who else will? Will your Mr Randall save it?
LADY UTTERWORD. Randall the rotter! Certainly not.
MANGAN. Will your brother-in-law save it with his moustache and
his fine talk?
HECTOR. Yes, if they will let me.
MANGAN [sneering]. Ah! Will they let you?
HECTOR. No. They prefer you.
MANGAN. Very well then, as you're in a world where I'm
appreciated and you're not, you'd best be civil to me, hadn't
you? Who else is there but me?
LADY UTTERWORD. There is Hastings. Get rid of your ridiculous
sham democracy; and give Hastings the necessary powers, and a
good supply of bamboo to bring the British native to his senses:
he will save the country with the greatest ease.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It had better be lost. Any fool can govern with
a stick in his hand. I could govern that way. It is not God's
way. The man is a numskull.
LADY UTTERWORD. The man is worth all of you rolled into one. What
do you say, Miss Dunn?
ELLIE. I think my father would do very well if people did not put
upon him and cheat him and despise him because he is so good.
MANGAN [contemptuously]. I think I see Mazzini Dunn getting into
parliament or pushing his way into the Government. We've not come
to that yet, thank God! What do you say, Mrs Hushabye?
MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, I say it matters very little which of you
governs the country so long as we govern you.
HECTOR. We? Who is we, pray?
MRS HUSHABYE. The devil's granddaughters, dear. The lovely women.
HECTOR [raising his hands as before]. Fall, I say, and deliver us
from the lures of Satan!
ELLIE. There seems to be nothing real in the world except my
father and Shakespeare. Marcus's tigers are false; Mr Mangan's
millions are false; there is nothing really strong and true about
Hesione but her beautiful black hair; and Lady Utterword's is too
pretty to be real. The one thing that was left to me was the
Captain's seventh degree of concentration; and that turns out to
be--
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Rum.
LADY UTTERWORD [placidly]. A good deal of my hair is quite
genuine. The Duchess of Dithering offered me fifty guineas for
this [touching her forehead] under the impression that it was a
transformation; but it is all natural except the color.
MANGAN [wildly]. Look here: I'm going to take off all my clothes
[he begins tearing off his coat].
LADY UTTERWORD. } [in { Mr. Mangan!
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER } consterna- { What's that?
HECTOR. } tion] { Ha! Ha! Do. Do
ELLIE } { Please don't.
MRS HUSHABYE [catching his arm and stopping him]. Alfred, for
shame! Are you mad?
MANGAN. Shame! What shame is there in this house? Let's all strip
stark naked. We may as well do the thing thoroughly when we're
about it. We've stripped ourselves morally naked: well, let us
strip ourselves physically naked as well, and see how we like it.
I tell you I can't bear this. I was brought up to be respectable.
I don't mind the women dyeing their hair and the men drinking:
it's human nature. But it's not human nature to tell everybody
about it. Every time one of you opens your mouth I go like this
[he cowers as if to avoid a missile], afraid of what will come
next. How are we to have any self-respect if we don't keep it up
that we're better than we really are?
LADY UTTERWORD. I quite sympathize with you, Mr Mangan. I have
been through it all; and I know by experience that men and women
are delicate plants and must be cultivated under glass. Our
family habit of throwing stones in all directions and letting the
air in is not only unbearably rude, but positively dangerous.
Still, there is no use catching physical colds as well as moral
ones; so please keep your clothes on.
MANGAN. I'll do as I like: not what you tell me. Am I a child or
a grown man? I won't stand this mothering tyranny. I'll go back
to the city, where I'm respected and made much of.
MRS HUSHABYE. Goodbye, Alf. Think of us sometimes in the city.
Think of Ellie's youth!
ELLIE. Think of Hesione's eyes and hair!
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Think of this garden in which you are not a dog
barking to keep the truth out!
HECTOR. Think of Lady Utterword's beauty! her good sense! her
style!
LADY UTTERWORD. Flatterer. Think, Mr. Mangan, whether you can
really do any better for yourself elsewhere: that is the
essential point, isn't it?
MANGAN [surrendering]. All right: all right. I'm done. Have it
your own way. Only let me alone. I don't know whether I'm on my
head or my heels when you all start on me like this. I'll stay.
I'll marry her. I'll do anything for a quiet life. Are you
satisfied now?
ELLIE. No. I never really intended to make you marry me, Mr
Mangan. Never in the depths of my soul. I only wanted to feel my
strength: to know that you could not escape if I chose to take
you.
MANGAN [indignantly]. What! Do you mean to say you are going to
throw me over after my acting so handsome?
LADY UTTERWORD. I should not be too hasty, Miss Dunn. You can
throw Mr Mangan over at any time up to the last moment. Very few
men in his position go bankrupt. You can live very comfortably on
his reputation for immense wealth.
ELLIE. I cannot commit bigamy, Lady Utterword.
MRS HUSHABYE. } { Bigamy! Whatever on earth are you
} { talking about, Ellie?
LADY UTTERWORD } [exclaiming { Bigamy! What do you mean, Miss
} { Dunn?
MANGAN } altogether] { Bigamy! Do you mean to say you're
} { married already?
HECTOR } { Bigamy! This is some enigma.
ELLIE. Only half an hour ago I became Captain Shotover's white
wife.
MRS HUSHABYE. Ellie! What nonsense! Where?
ELLIE. In heaven, where all true marriages are made.
LADY UTTERWORD. Really, Miss Dunn! Really, papa!
MANGAN. He told me I was too old! And him a mummy!
HECTOR [quoting Shelley].
"Their altar the grassy earth outspreads
And their priest the muttering wind."
ELLIE. Yes: I, Ellie Dunn, give my broken heart and my strong
sound soul to its natural captain, my spiritual husband and
second father.
She draws the captain's arm through hers, and pats his hand. The
captain remains fast asleep.
MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, that's very clever of you, pettikins. Very
clever. Alfred, you could never have lived up to Ellie. You must
be content with a little share of me.
MANGAN [snifflng and wiping his eyes]. It isn't kind--[his
emotion chokes him].
LADY UTTERWORD. You are well out of it, Mr Mangan. Miss Dunn is
the most conceited young woman I have met since I came back to
England.
MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, Ellie isn't conceited. Are you, pettikins?
ELLIE. I know my strength now, Hesione.
MANGAN. Brazen, I call you. Brazen.
MRS HUSHABYE. Tut, tut, Alfred: don't be rude. Don't you feel how
lovely this marriage night is, made in heaven? Aren't you happy,
you and Hector? Open your eyes: Addy and Ellie look beautiful
enough to please the most fastidious man: we live and love and
have not a care in the world. We women have managed all that for
you. Why in the name of common sense do you go on as if you were
two miserable wretches?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I tell you happiness is no good. You can be
happy when you are only half alive. I am happier now I am half
dead than ever I was in my prime. But there is no blessing on my
happiness.
ELLIE [her face lighting up]. Life with a blessing! that is what
I want. Now I know the real reason why I couldn't marry Mr
Mangan: there would be no blessing on our marriage. There is a
blessing on my broken heart. There is a blessing on your beauty,
Hesione. There is a blessing on your father's spirit. Even on the
lies of Marcus there is a blessing; but on Mr Mangan's money
there is none.
MANGAN. I don't understand a word of that.
ELLIE. Neither do I. But I know it means something.
MANGAN. Don't say there was any difficulty about the blessing. I
was ready to get a bishop to marry us.
MRS HUSHABYE. Isn't he a fool, pettikins?
HECTOR [fiercely]. Do not scorn the man. We are all fools.
Mazzini, in pyjamas and a richly colored silk dressing gown,
comes from the house, on Lady Utterword's side.
MRS HUSHABYE. Oh! here comes the only man who ever resisted me.
What's the matter, Mr Dunn? Is the house on fire?
MAZZINI. Oh, no: nothing's the matter: but really it's impossible
to go to sleep with such an interesting conversation going on
under one's window, and on such a beautiful night too. I just had
to come down and join you all. What has it all been about?
MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, wonderful things, soldier of freedom.
HECTOR. For example, Mangan, as a practical business man, has
tried to undress himself and has failed ignominiously; whilst
you, as an idealist, have succeeded brilliantly.
MAZZINI. I hope you don't mind my being like this, Mrs Hushabye.
[He sits down on the campstool].
MRS HUSHABYE. On the contrary, I could wish you always like that.
LADY UTTERWORD. Your daughter's match is off, Mr Dunn. It seems
that Mr Mangan, whom we all supposed to be a man of property,
owns absolutely nothing.
MAZZINI. Well, of course I knew that, Lady Utterword. But if
people believe in him and are always giving him money, whereas
they don't believe in me and never give me any, how can I ask
poor Ellie to depend on what I can do for her?
MANGAN. Don't you run away with this idea that I have nothing.
I--
HECTOR. Oh, don't explain. We understand. You have a couple of
thousand pounds in exchequer bills, 50,000 shares worth tenpence
a dozen, and half a dozen tabloids of cyanide of potassium to
poison yourself with when you are found out. That's the reality
of your millions.
MAZZINI. Oh no, no, no. He is quite honest: the businesses are
genuine and perfectly legal.
HECTOR [disgusted]. Yah! Not even a great swindler!
MANGAN. So you think. But I've been too many for some honest men,
for all that.
LADY UTTERWORD. There is no pleasing you, Mr Mangan. You are
determined to be neither rich nor poor, honest nor dishonest.
MANGAN. There you go again. Ever since I came into this silly
house I have been made to look like a fool, though I'm as good a
man in this house as in the city.
ELLIE [musically]. Yes: this silly house, this strangely happy
house, this agonizing house, this house without foundations. I
shall call it Heartbreak House.
MRS HUSHABYE. Stop, Ellie; or I shall howl like an animal.
MANGAN [breaks into a low snivelling]!!!
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