Books: Heartbreak House

G >> GEORGE BERNARD SHAW >> Heartbreak House

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MANGAN. Well, I am damned!

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I thought so. I was, too, for many years. The
negress redeemed me.

MANGAN [feebly]. This is queer. I ought to walk out of this
house.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Why?

MANGAN. Well, many men would be offended by your style of
talking.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Nonsense! It's the other sort of talking that
makes quarrels. Nobody ever quarrels with me.

A gentleman, whose first-rate tailoring and frictionless manners
proclaim the wellbred West Ender, comes in from the hall. He has
an engaging air of being young and unmarried, but on close
inspection is found to be at least over forty.

THE GENTLEMAN. Excuse my intruding in this fashion, but there is
no knocker on the door and the bell does not seem to ring.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Why should there be a knocker? Why should the
bell ring? The door is open.

THE GENTLEMAN. Precisely. So I ventured to come in.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Quite right. I will see about a room for you
[he makes for the door].

THE GENTLEMAN [stopping him]. But I'm afraid you don't know who I
am.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. DO you suppose that at my age I make
distinctions between one fellow creature and another? [He goes
out. Mangan and the newcomer stare at one another].

MANGAN. Strange character, Captain Shotover, sir.

THE GENTLEMAN. Very.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [shouting outside]. Hesione, another person has
arrived and wants a room. Man about town, well dressed, fifty.

THE GENTLEMAN. Fancy Hesione's feelings! May I ask are you a
member of the family?

MANGAN. No.

THE GENTLEMAN. I am. At least a connection.

Mrs Hushabye comes back.

MRS HUSHABYE. How do you do? How good of you to come!

THE GENTLEMAN. I am very glad indeed to make your acquaintance,
Hesione. [Instead of taking her hand he kisses her. At the same
moment the captain appears in the doorway]. You will excuse my
kissing your daughter, Captain, when I tell you that--

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Stuff! Everyone kisses my daughter. Kiss her as
much as you like [he makes for the pantry].

THE GENTLEMAN. Thank you. One moment, Captain. [The captain halts
and turns. The gentleman goes to him affably]. Do you happen to
remember but probably you don't, as it occurred many years ago--
that your younger daughter married a numskull?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Yes. She said she'd marry anybody to get away
from this house. I should not have recognized you: your head is
no longer like a walnut. Your aspect is softened. You have been
boiled in bread and milk for years and years, like other married
men. Poor devil! [He disappears into the pantry].

MRS HUSHABYE [going past Mangan to the gentleman and scrutinizing
him]. I don't believe you are Hastings Utterword.

THE GENTLEMAN. I am not.

MRS HUSHABYE. Then what business had you to kiss me?

THE GENTLEMAN. I thought I would like to. The fact is, I am
Randall Utterword, the unworthy younger brother of Hastings. I
was abroad diplomatizing when he was married.

LADY UTTERWORD [dashing in]. Hesione, where is the key of the
wardrobe in my room? My diamonds are in my dressing-bag: I must
lock it up--[recognizing the stranger with a shock] Randall, how
dare you? [She marches at him past Mrs Hushabye, who retreats and
joins Mangan near the sofa].

RANDALL. How dare I what? I am not doing anything.

LADY UTTERWORD. Who told you I was here?

RANDALL. Hastings. You had just left when I called on you at
Claridge's; so I followed you down here. You are looking
extremely well.

LADY UTTERWORD. Don't presume to tell me so.

MRS HUSHABYE. What is wrong with Mr Randall, Addy?

LADY UTTERWORD [recollecting herself]. Oh, nothing. But he has no
right to come bothering you and papa without being invited [she
goes to the window-seat and sits down, turning away from them
ill-humoredly and looking into the garden, where Hector and Ellie
are now seen strolling together].

MRS HUSHABYE. I think you have not met Mr Mangan, Addy.

LADY UTTERWORD [turning her head and nodding coldly to Mangan]. I
beg your pardon. Randall, you have flustered me so: I make a
perfect fool of myself.

MRS HUSHABYE. Lady Utterword. My sister. My younger sister.

MANGAN [bowing]. Pleased to meet you, Lady Utterword.

LADY UTTERWORD [with marked interest]. Who is that gentleman
walking in the garden with Miss Dunn?

MRS HUSHABYE. I don't know. She quarrelled mortally with my
husband only ten minutes ago; and I didn't know anyone else had
come. It must be a visitor. [She goes to the window to look]. Oh,
it is Hector. They've made it up.

LADY UTTERWORD. Your husband! That handsome man?

MRS HUSHABYE. Well, why shouldn't my husband be a handsome man?

RANDALL [joining them at the window]. One's husband never is,
Ariadne [he sits by Lady Utterword, on her right].

MRS HUSHABYE. One's sister's husband always is, Mr Randall.

LADY UTTERWORD. Don't be vulgar, Randall. And you, Hesione, are
just as bad.

Ellie and Hector come in from the garden by the starboard door.
Randall rises. Ellie retires into the corner near the pantry.
Hector comes forward; and Lady Utterword rises looking her very
best.

MRS. HUSHABYE. Hector, this is Addy.

HECTOR [apparently surprised]. Not this lady.

LADY UTTERWORD [smiling]. Why not?

HECTOR [looking at her with a piercing glance of deep but
respectful admiration, his moustache bristling]. I thought--
[pulling himself together]. I beg your pardon, Lady Utterword. I
am extremely glad to welcome you at last under our roof [he
offers his hand with grave courtesy].

MRS HUSHABYE. She wants to be kissed, Hector.

LADY UTTERWORD. Hesione! [But she still smiles].

MRS HUSHABYE. Call her Addy; and kiss her like a good
brother-in-law; and have done with it. [She leaves them to
themselves].

HECTOR. Behave yourself, Hesione. Lady Utterword is entitled not
only to hospitality but to civilization.

LADY UTTERWORD [gratefully]. Thank you, Hector. [They shake hands
cordially].

Mazzini Dunn is seen crossing the garden from starboard to port.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [coming from the pantry and addressing Ellie].
Your father has washed himself.

ELLIE [quite self-possessed]. He often does, Captain Shotover.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. A strange conversion! I saw him through the
pantry window.

Mazzini Dunn enters through the port window door, newly washed
and brushed, and stops, smiling benevolently, between Mangan and
Mrs Hushabye.

MRS HUSHABYE [introducing]. Mr Mazzini Dunn, Lady Ut--oh, I
forgot: you've met. [Indicating Ellie] Miss Dunn.

MAZZINI [walking across the room to take Ellie's hand, and
beaming at his own naughty irony]. I have met Miss Dunn also. She
is my daughter. [He draws her arm through his caressingly].

MRS HUSHABYE. Of course: how stupid! Mr Utterword, my sister's--
er--

RANDALL [shaking hands agreeably]. Her brother-in-law, Mr Dunn.
How do you do?

MRS HUSHABYE. This is my husband.

HECTOR. We have met, dear. Don't introduce us any more. [He moves
away to the big chair, and adds] Won't you sit down, Lady
Utterword? [She does so very graciously].

MRS HUSHABYE. Sorry. I hate it: it's like making people show
their tickets.

MAZZINI [sententiously]. How little it tells us, after all! The
great question is, not who we are, but what we are.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Ha! What are you?

MAZZINI [taken aback]. What am I?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. A thief, a pirate, and a murderer.

MAZZINI. I assure you you are mistaken.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. An adventurous life; but what does it end in?
Respectability. A ladylike daughter. The language and appearance
of a city missionary. Let it be a warning to all of you [he goes
out through the garden].

DUNN. I hope nobody here believes that I am a thief, a pirate, or
a murderer. Mrs Hushabye, will you excuse me a moment? I must
really go and explain. [He follows the captain].

MRS HUSHABYE [as he goes]. It's no use. You'd really better--
[but Dunn has vanished]. We had better all go out and look for
some tea. We never have regular tea; but you can always get some
when you want: the servants keep it stewing all day. The kitchen
veranda is the best place to ask. May I show you? [She goes to
the starboard door].

RANDALL [going with her]. Thank you, I don't think I'll take any
tea this afternoon. But if you will show me the garden--

MRS HUSHABYE. There's nothing to see in the garden except papa's
observatory, and a gravel pit with a cave where he keeps dynamite
and things of that sort. However, it's pleasanter out of doors;
so come along.

RANDALL. Dynamite! Isn't that rather risky?

MRS HUSHABYE. Well, we don't sit in the gravel pit when there's a
thunderstorm.

LADY UTTERORRD. That's something new. What is the dynamite for?

HECTOR. To blow up the human race if it goes too far. He is
trying to discover a psychic ray that will explode all the
explosive at the well of a Mahatma.

ELLIE. The captain's tea is delicious, Mr Utterword.

MRS HUSHABYE [stopping in the doorway]. Do you mean to say that
you've had some of my father's tea? that you got round him before
you were ten minutes in the house?

ELLIE. I did.

MRS HUSHABYE. You little devil! [She goes out with Randall].

MANGAN. Won't you come, Miss Ellie?

ELLIE. I'm too tired. I'll take a book up to my room and rest a
little. [She goes to the bookshelf].

MANGAN. Right. You can't do better. But I'm disappointed. [He
follows Randall and Mrs Hushabye].

Ellie, Hector, and Lady Utterword are left. Hector is close to
Lady Utterword. They look at Ellie, waiting for her to go.

ELLIE [looking at the title of a book]. Do you like stories of
adventure, Lady Utterword?

LADY UTTERWORD [patronizingly]. Of course, dear.

ELLIE. Then I'll leave you to Mr Hushabye. [She goes out through
the hall].

HECTOR. That girl is mad about tales of adventure. The lies I
have to tell her!

LADY UTTERWORD [not interested in Ellie]. When you saw me what
did you mean by saying that you thought, and then stopping short?
What did you think?

HECTOR [folding his arms and looking down at her magnetically].
May I tell you?

LADY UTTERWORD. Of course.

HECTOR. It will not sound very civil. I was on the point of
saying, "I thought you were a plain woman."

LADY UTTERWORD. Oh, for shame, Hector! What right had you to
notice whether I am plain or not?

HECTOR. Listen to me, Ariadne. Until today I have seen only
photographs of you; and no photograph can give the strange
fascination of the daughters of that supernatural old man. There
is some damnable quality in them that destroys men's moral sense,
and carries them beyond honor and dishonor. You know that, don't
you?

LADY UTTERWORD. Perhaps I do, Hector. But let me warn you once
for all that I am a rigidly conventional woman. You may think
because I'm a Shotover that I'm a Bohemian, because we are all so
horribly Bohemian. But I'm not. I hate and loathe Bohemianism. No
child brought up in a strict Puritan household ever suffered from
Puritanism as I suffered from our Bohemianism.

HECTOR. Our children are like that. They spend their holidays in
the houses of their respectable schoolfellows.

LADY UTTERWORD. I shall invite them for Christmas.

HECTOR. Their absence leaves us both without our natural
chaperones.

LADY UTTERWORD. Children are certainly very inconvenient
sometimes. But intelligent people can always manage, unless they
are Bohemians.

HECTOR. You are no Bohemian; but you are no Puritan either: your
attraction is alive and powerful. What sort of woman do you count
yourself?

LADY UTTERWORD. I am a woman of the world, Hector; and I can
assure you that if you will only take the trouble always to do
the perfectly correct thing, and to say the perfectly correct
thing, you can do just what you like. An ill-conducted, careless
woman gets simply no chance. An ill-conducted, careless man is
never allowed within arm's length of any woman worth knowing.

HECTOR. I see. You are neither a Bohemian woman nor a Puritan
woman. You are a dangerous woman.

LADY UTTERWORD. On the contrary, I am a safe woman.

HECTOR. You are a most accursedly attractive woman. Mind, I am
not making love to you. I do not like being attracted. But you
had better know how I feel if you are going to stay here.

LADY UTTERWORD. You are an exceedingly clever lady-killer,
Hector. And terribly handsome. I am quite a good player, myself,
at that game. Is it quite understood that we are only playing?

HECTOR. Quite. I am deliberately playing the fool, out of sheer
worthlessness.

LADY UTTERWORD [rising brightly]. Well, you are my
brother-in-law, Hesione asked you to kiss me. [He seizes her in
his arms and kisses her strenuously]. Oh! that was a little more
than play, brother-in-law. [She pushes him suddenly away]. You
shall not do that again.

HECTOR. In effect, you got your claws deeper into me than I
intended.

MRS HUBHABYE [coming in from the garden]. Don't let me disturb
you; I only want a cap to put on daddiest. The sun is setting;
and he'll catch cold [she makes for the door leading to the
hall].

LADY UTTERWORD. Your husband is quite charming, darling. He has
actually condescended to kiss me at last. I shall go into the
garden: it's cooler now [she goes out by the port door].

MRS HUSHABYE. Take care, dear child. I don't believe any man can
kiss Addy without falling in love with her. [She goes into the
hall].

HECTOR [striking himself on the chest]. Fool! Goat!

Mrs Hushabye comes back with the captain's cap.

HECTOR. Your sister is an extremely enterprising old girl.
Where's Miss Dunn!

MRS HUSHABYE. Mangan says she has gone up to her room for a nap.
Addy won't let you talk to Ellie: she has marked you for her own.

HECTOR. She has the diabolical family fascination. I began making
love to her automatically. What am I to do? I can't fall in love;
and I can't hurt a woman's feelings by telling her so when she
falls in love with me. And as women are always falling in love
with my moustache I get landed in all sorts of tedious and
terrifying flirtations in which I'm not a bit in earnest.

MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, neither is Addy. She has never been in love in
her life, though she has always been trying to fall in head over
ears. She is worse than you, because you had one real go at
least, with me.

HECTOR. That was a confounded madness. I can't believe that such
an amazing experience is common. It has left its mark on me. I
believe that is why I have never been able to repeat it.

MRS HUSHABYE [laughing and caressing his arm]. We were
frightfully in love with one another, Hector. It was such an
enchanting dream that I have never been able to grudge it to you
or anyone else since. I have invited all sorts of pretty women to
the house on the chance of giving you another turn. But it has
never come off.

HECTOR. I don't know that I want it to come off. It was damned
dangerous. You fascinated me; but I loved you; so it was heaven.
This sister of yours fascinates me; but I hate her; so it is
hell. I shall kill her if she persists.

MRS. HUSHABYE. Nothing will kill Addy; she is as strong as a
horse. [Releasing him]. Now I am going off to fascinate somebody.

HECTOR. The Foreign Office toff? Randall?

MRS HUSHABYE. Goodness gracious, no! Why should I fascinate him?

HECTOR. I presume you don't mean the bloated capitalist, Mangan?

MRS HUSHABYE. Hm! I think he had better be fascinated by me than
by Ellie. [She is going into the garden when the captain comes in
from it with some sticks in his hand]. What have you got there,
daddiest?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Dynamite.

MRS HUSHABYE. You've been to the gravel pit. Don't drop it about
the house, there's a dear. [She goes into the garden, where the
evening light is now very red].

HECTOR. Listen, O sage. How long dare you concentrate on a
feeling without risking having it fixed in your consciousness all
the rest of your life?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Ninety minutes. An hour and a half. [He goes
into the pantry].

Hector, left alone, contracts his brows, and falls into a
day-dream. He does not move for some time. Then he folds his
arms. Then, throwing his hands behind him, and gripping one with
the other, he strides tragically once to and fro. Suddenly he
snatches his walking stick from the teak table, and draws it; for
it is a swordstick. He fights a desperate duel with an imaginary
antagonist, and after many vicissitudes runs him through the body
up to the hilt. He sheathes his sword and throws it on the sofa,
falling into another reverie as he does so. He looks straight
into the eyes of an imaginary woman; seizes her by the arms; and
says in a deep and thrilling tone, "Do you love me!" The captain
comes out of the pantry at this moment; and Hector, caught with
his arms stretched out and his fists clenched, has to account for
his attitude by going through a series of gymnastic exercises.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. That sort of strength is no good. You will
never be as strong as a gorilla.

HECTOR. What is the dynamite for?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. To kill fellows like Mangan.

HECTOR. No use. They will always be able to buy more dynamite
than you.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I will make a dynamite that he cannot explode.

HECTOR. And that you can, eh?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Yes: when I have attained the seventh degree of
concentration.

HECTOR. What's the use of that? You never do attain it.

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

HECTOR. Are Mangan's bristles worse than Randall's lovelocks?

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

HECTOR. Who are we that we should judge them?

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

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

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

HECTOR. Precisely. Well, dare you kill his innocent
grandchildren?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. They are mine also.

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

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [cutting in sharply]. Fellow feeling?

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

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

HECTOR. They are too stupid to use their power.

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

HECTOR [sitting up and leaning towards him]. May not Hesione be
such a demon, brought forth by you lest I should slay you?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. That is possible. She has used you up, and left
you nothing but dreams, as some women do.

HECTOR. Vampire women, demon women.

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

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

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

MRS HUSHABYE. We all are.

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

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

HECTOR. Money! Where are my April dividends?

MRS HUSHABYE. Where is the snow that fell last year?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HECTOR. You are your father's daughter, Hesione.

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

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

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

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

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

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

MRS HUSHABYE [raving]. What a father!

HECTOR [following suit]. What a husband!

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Is there no thunder in heaven?

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

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

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [weirdly chanting].
I builded a house for my daughters, and opened the doors
thereof,
That men might come for their choosing, and their betters
spring from their love;
But one of them married a numskull;

HECTOR [taking up the rhythm].
The other a liar wed;

MRS HUSHABYE [completing the stanza].
And now must she lie beside him, even as she made her bed.

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

HECTOR. The cat is on the tiles.

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

The captain goes back to his place at the table.

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

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

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