Books: MAJOR BARBARA
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GEORGE BERNARD SHAW >> MAJOR BARBARA
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STEPHEN. I hope it is settled that I repudiate the cannon
business.
UNDERSHAFT. Come, come! Don't be so devilishly sulky: it's
boyish. Freedom should be generous. Besides, I owe you a fair
start in life in exchange for disinheriting you. You can't become
prime minister all at once. Haven't you a turn for something?
What about literature, art and so forth?
STEPHEN. I have nothing of the artist about me, either in faculty
or character, thank Heaven!
UNDERSHAFT. A philosopher, perhaps? Eh?
STEPHEN. I make no such ridiculous pretension.
UNDERSHAFT. Just so. Well, there is the army, the navy, the
Church, the Bar. The Bar requires some ability. What
about the Bar?
STEPHEN. I have not studied law. And I am afraid I have not the
necessary push--I believe that is the name barristers give to
their vulgarity--for success in pleading.
UNDERSHAFT. Rather a difficult case, Stephen. Hardly anything
left but the stage, is there? [Stephen makes an impatient
movement]. Well, come! is there anything you know or care for?
STEPHEN [rising and looking at him steadily] I know the
difference between right and wrong.
UNDERSHAFT [hugely tickled] You don't say so! What! no capacity
for business, no knowledge of law, no sympathy with art, no
pretension to philosophy; only a simple knowledge of the secret
that has puzzled all the philosophers, baffled all the lawyers,
muddled all the men of business, and ruined most of the artists:
the secret of right and wrong. Why, man, you're a genius, master
of masters, a god! At twenty-four, too!
STEPHEN [keeping his temper with difficulty] You are pleased to
be facetious. I pretend to nothing more than any honorable
English gentleman claims as his birthright [he sits down
angrily].
UNDERSHAFT. Oh, that's everybody's birthright. Look at poor
little Jenny Hill, the Salvation lassie! she would think you were
laughing at her if you asked her to stand up in the street and
teach grammar or geography or mathematics or even drawingroom
dancing; but it never occurs to her to doubt that she can teach
morals and religion. You are all alike, you respectable people.
You can't tell me the bursting strain of a ten-inch gun, which is
a very simple matter; but you all think you can tell me the
bursting strain of a man under temptation. You daren't handle
high explosives; but you're all ready to handle honesty and
truth and justice and the whole duty of man, and kill one another
at that game. What a country! what a world!
LADY BRITOMART [uneasily] What do you think he had better do,
Andrew?
UNDERSHAFT. Oh, just what he wants to do. He knows nothing; and
he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political
career. Get him a private secretaryship to someone who can get
him an Under Secretaryship; and then leave him alone. He will
find his natural and proper place in the end on the Treasury
bench.
STEPHEN [springing up again] I am sorry, sir, that you force
me to forget the respect due to you as my father. I am an
Englishman; and I will not hear the Government of my country
insulted. [He thrusts his hands in his pockets, and walks angrily
across to the window].
UNDERSHAFT [with a touch of brutality] The government of your
country! _I_ am the government of your country: I, and Lazarus.
Do you suppose that you and half a dozen amateurs like you,
sitting in a row in that foolish gabble shop, can govern
Undershaft and Lazarus? No, my friend: you will do what pays US.
You will make war when it suits us, and keep peace when it
doesn't. You will find out that trade requires certain measures
when we have decided on those measures. When I want anything to
keep my dividends up, you will discover that my want is a
national need. When other people want something to keep my
dividends down, you will call out the police and military. And in
return you shall have the support and applause of my newspapers,
and the delight of imagining that you are a great statesman.
Government of your country! Be off with you, my boy, and play
with your caucuses and leading articles and historic parties and
great leaders and burning questions and the rest of your toys.
_I_ am going back to my counting house to pay the piper and call
the tune.
STEPHEN [actually smiling, and putting his hand on his father's
shoulder with indulgent patronage] Really, my dear father, it is
impossible to be angry with you. You don't know how absurd all
this sounds to ME. You are very properly proud of having been
industrious enough to make money; and it is greatly to your
credit that you have made so much of it. But it has kept you in
circles where you are valued for your money and deferred to for
it, instead of in the doubtless very oldfashioned and
behind-the-times public school and university where I formed my
habits of mind. It is natural for you to think that money governs
England; but you must allow me to think I know better.
UNDERSHAFT. And what does govern England, pray?
STEPHEN. Character, father, character.
UNDERSHAFT. Whose character? Yours or mine?
STEPHEN. Neither yours nor mine, father, but the best elements in
the English national character.
UNDERSHAFT. Stephen: I've found your profession for you. You're a
born journalist. I'll start you with a hightoned weekly review.
There!
Stephen goes to the smaller writing table and busies himself with
his letters.
Sarah, Barbara, Lomax, and Cusins come in ready for walking.
Barbara crosses the room to the window and looks out. Cusins
drifts amiably to the armchair, and Lomax remains near the door,
whilst Sarah comes to her mother.
SARAH. Go and get ready, mamma: the carriage is waiting. [Lady
Britomart leaves the room.]
UNDERSHAFT [to Sarah] Good day, my dear. Good afternoon, Mr.
Lomax.
LOMAX [vaguely] Ahdedoo.
UNDERSHAFT [to Cusins] quite well after last night, Euripides,
eh?
CUSINS. As well as can be expected.
UNDERSHAFT. That's right. [To Barbara] So you are coming to see
my death and devastation factory, Barbara?
BARBARA [at the window] You came yesterday to see my salvation
factory. I promised you a return visit.
LOMAX [coming forward between Sarah and Undershaft] You'll find
it awfully interesting. I've been through the Woolwich Arsenal;
and it gives you a ripping feeling of security, you know, to
think of the lot of beggars we could kill if it came to fighting.
[To Undershaft, with sudden solemnity] Still, it must be rather
an awful reflection for you, from the religious point of view as
it were. You're getting on, you know, and all that.
SARAH. You don't mind Cholly's imbecility, papa, do you?
LOMAX [much taken aback] Oh I say!
UNDERSHAFT. Mr Lomax looks at the matter in a very proper spirit,
my dear.
LOMAX. Just so. That's all I meant, I assure you.
SARAH. Are you coming, Stephen?
STEPHEN. Well, I am rather busy--er-- [Magnanimously] Oh well,
yes: I'll come. That is, if there is room for me.
UNDERSHAFT. I can take two with me in a little motor I am
experimenting with for field use. You won't mind its being rather
unfashionable. It's not painted yet; but it's bullet proof.
LOMAX [appalled at the prospect of confronting Wilton Crescent in
an unpainted motor] Oh I say!
SARAH. The carriage for me, thank you. Barbara doesn't mind what
she's seen in.
LOMAX. I say, Dolly old chap: do you really mind the car being a
guy? Because of course if you do I'll go in it. Still--
CUSINS. I prefer it.
LOMAX. Thanks awfully, old man. Come, Sarah. [He hurries out to
secure his seat in the carriage. Sarah follows him].
CUSINS. [moodily walking across to Lady Britomart's writing table]
Why are we two coming to this Works Department of Hell? that is
what I ask myself.
BARBARA. I have always thought of it as a sort of pit where lost
creatures with blackened faces stirred up smoky fires and were
driven and tormented by my father? Is it like that, dad?
UNDERSHAFT [scandalized] My dear! It is a spotlessly clean and
beautiful hillside town.
CUSINS. With a Methodist chapel? Oh do say there's a Methodist
chapel.
UNDERSHAFT. There are two: a primitive one and a sophisticated
one. There is even an Ethical Society; but it is not much
patronized, as my men are all strongly religious. In the High
Explosives Sheds they object to the presence of Agnostics as
unsafe.
CUSINS. And yet they don't object to you!
BARBARA. Do they obey all your orders?
UNDERSHAFT. I never give them any orders. When I speak to one of
them it is "Well, Jones, is the baby doing well? and has Mrs
Jones made a good recovery?" "Nicely, thank you, sir." And that's
all.
CUSINS. But Jones has to be kept in order. How do you maintain
discipline among your men?
UNDERSHAFT. I don't. They do. You see, the one thing Jones won't
stand is any rebellion from the man under him, or any assertion
of social equality between the wife of the man with 4 shillings a
week less than himself and Mrs Jones! Of course they all rebel
against me, theoretically. Practically, every man of them keeps
the man just below him in his place. I never meddle with them. I
never bully them. I don't even bully Lazarus. I say that certain
things are to be done; but I don't order anybody to do them. I
don't say, mind you, that there is no ordering about and snubbing
and even bullying. The men snub the boys and order them about;
the carmen snub the sweepers; the artisans snub the unskilled
laborers; the foremen drive and bully both the laborers and
artisans; the assistant engineers find fault with the foremen;
the chief engineers drop on the assistants; the departmental
managers worry the chiefs; and the clerks have tall hats and
hymnbooks and keep up the social tone by refusing to associate on
equal terms with anybody. The result is a colossal profit, which
comes to me.
CUSINS [revolted] You really are a--well, what I was saying
yesterday.
BARBARA. What was he saying yesterday?
UNDERSHAFT. Never mind, my dear. He thinks I have made you
unhappy. Have I?
BARBARA. Do you think I can be happy in this vulgar silly dress?
I! who have worn the uniform. Do you understand what you have
done to me? Yesterday I had a man's soul in my hand. I set him in
the way of life with his face to salvation. But when we took your
money he turned back to drunkenness and derision. [With intense
conviction] I will never forgive you that. If I had a child, and
you destroyed its body with your explosives--if you murdered
Dolly with your horrible guns--I could forgive you if my
forgiveness would open the gates of heaven to you. But to take a
human soul from me, and turn it into the soul of a wolf! that is
worse than any murder.
UNDERSHAFT. Does my daughter despair so easily? Can you strike a
man to the heart and leave no mark on him?
BARBARA [her face lighting up] Oh, you are right: he can never be
lost now: where was my faith?
CUSINS. Oh, clever clever devil!
BARBARA. You may be a devil; but God speaks through you
sometimes. [She takes her father's hands and kisses them]. You
have given me back my happiness: I feel it deep down now, though
my spirit is troubled.
UNDERSHAFT. You have learnt something. That always feels at first
as if you had lost something.
BARBARA. Well, take me to the factory of death, and let me learn
something more. There must be some truth or other behind all this
frightful irony. Come, Dolly. [She goes out].
CUSINS. My guardian angel! [To Undershaft] Avaunt! [He follows
Barbara].
STEPHEN [quietly, at the writing table] You must not mind Cusins,
father. He is a very amiable good fellow; but he is a Greek
scholar and naturally a little eccentric.
UNDERSHAFT. Ah, quite so. Thank you, Stephen. Thank you. [He goes
out].
Stephen smiles patronizingly; buttons his coat responsibly; and
crosses the room to the door. Lady Britomart, dressed for
out-of-doors, opens it before he reaches it. She looks round far
the others; looks at Stephen; and turns to go without a word.
STEPHEN [embarrassed] Mother--
LADY BRITOMART. Don't be apologetic, Stephen. And don't forget
that you have outgrown your mother. [She goes out].
Perivale St Andrews lies between two Middlesex hills, half
climbing the northern one. It is an almost smokeless town of
white walls, roofs of narrow green slates or red tiles, tall
trees, domes, campaniles, and slender chimney shafts, beautifully
situated and beautiful in itself. The best view of it is obtained
from the crest of a slope about half a mile to the east, where
the high explosives are dealt with. The foundry lies hidden in
the depths between, the tops of its chimneys sprouting like huge
skittles into the middle distance. Across the crest runs a
platform of concrete, with a parapet which suggests a
fortification, because there is a huge cannon of the obsolete
Woolwich Infant pattern peering across it at the town. The cannon
is mounted on an experimental gun carriage: possibly the original
model of the Undershaft disappearing rampart gun alluded to by
Stephen. The parapet has a high step inside which serves as a
seat.
Barbara is leaning over the parapet, looking towards the town. On
her right is the cannon; on her left the end of a shed raised on
piles, with a ladder of three or four steps up to the door, which
opens outwards and has a little wooden landing at the threshold,
with a fire bucket in the corner of the landing. The parapet
stops short of the shed, leaving a gap which is the beginning of
the path down the hill through the foundry to the town. Behind
the cannon is a trolley carrying a huge conical bombshell, with a
red band painted on it. Further from the parapet, on the same
side, is a deck chair, near the door of an office, which, like
the sheds, is of the lightest possible construction.
Cusins arrives by the path from the town.
BARBARA. Well?
CUSINS. Not a ray of hope. Everything perfect, wonderful, real.
It only needs a cathedral to be a heavenly city instead of a
hellish one.
BARBARA. Have you found out whether they have done anything for
old Peter Shirley.
CUSINS. They have found him a job as gatekeeper and timekeeper.
He's frightfully miserable. He calls the timekeeping brainwork,
and says he isn't used to it; and his gate lodge is so splendid
that he's ashamed to use the rooms, and skulks in the scullery.
BARBARA. Poor Peter!
Stephen arrives from the town. He carries a fieldglass.
STEPHEN [enthusiastically] Have you two seen the place? Why did
you leave us?
CUSINS. I wanted to see everything I was not intended to see; and
Barbara wanted to make the men talk.
STEPHEN. Have you found anything discreditable?
CUSINS. No. They call him Dandy Andy and are proud of his being a
cunning old rascal; but it's all horribly, frightfully,
immorally, unanswerably perfect.
Sarah arrives.
SARAH. Heavens! what a place! [She crosses to the trolley]. Did
you see the nursing home!? [She sits down on the shell].
STEPHEN. Did you see the libraries and schools!?
SARAH. Did you see the ballroom and the banqueting chamber in the
Town Hall!?
STEPHEN. Have you gone into the insurance fund, the pension fund,
the building society, the various applications of co-operation!?
Undershaft comes from the office, with a sheaf of telegrams in
his hands.
UNDERSHAFT. Well, have you seen everything? I'm sorry I was
called away. [Indicating the telegrams] News from Manchuria.
STEPHEN. Good news, I hope.
UNDERSHAFT. Very.
STEPHEN. Another Japanese victory?
UNDERSHAFT. Oh, I don't know. Which side wins does not concern us
here. No: the good news is that the aerial battleship is a
tremendous success. At the first trial it has wiped out a fort
with three hundred soldiers in it.
CUSINS [from the platform] Dummy soldiers?
UNDERSHAFT. No: the real thing. [Cusins and Barbara exchange
glances. Then Cusins sits on the step and buries his face in his
hands. Barbara gravely lays her hand on his shoulder, and he
looks up at her in a sort of whimsical desperation]. Well,
Stephen, what do you think of the place?
STEPHEN. Oh, magnificent. A perfect triumph of organization.
Frankly, my dear father, I have been a fool: I had no idea of
what it all meant--of the wonderful forethought, the power of
organization, the administrative capacity, the financial genius,
the colossal capital it represents. I have been repeating to
myself as I came through your streets "Peace hath her victories
no less renowned than War." I have only one misgiving about it
all.
UNDERSHAFT. Out with it.
STEPHEN. Well, I cannot help thinking that all this provision for
every want of your workmen may sap their independence and weaken
their sense of responsibility. And greatly as we enjoyed our tea
at that splendid restaurant--how they gave us all that luxury and
cake and jam and cream for threepence I really cannot imagine!--
still you must remember that restaurants break up home life. Look
at the continent, for instance! Are you sure so much pampering is
really good for the men's characters?
UNDERSHAFT. Well you see, my dear boy, when you are organizing
civilization you have to make up your mind whether trouble and
anxiety are good things or not. If you decide that they are,
then, I take it, you simply don't organize civilization; and
there you are, with trouble and anxiety enough to make us all
angels! But if you decide the other way, you may as well go
through with it. However, Stephen, our characters are safe here.
A sufficient dose of anxiety is always provided by the fact that
we may be blown to smithereens at any moment.
SARAH. By the way, papa, where do you make the explosives?
UNDERSHAFT. In separate little sheds, like that one. When one of
them blows up, it costs very little; and only the people quite
close to it are killed.
Stephen, who is quite close to it, looks at it rather scaredly,
and moves away quickly to the cannon. At the same moment the door
of the shed is thrown abruptly open; and a foreman in overalls
and list slippers comes out on the little landing and holds the
door open for Lomax, who appears in the doorway.
LOMAX [with studied coolness] My good fellow: you needn't get
into a state of nerves. Nothing's going to happen to you; and I
suppose it wouldn't be the end of the world if anything did. A
little bit of British pluck is what you want, old chap. [He
descends and strolls across to Sarah].
UNDERSHAFT [to the foreman] Anything wrong, Bilton?
BILTON [with ironic calm] Gentleman walked into the high
explosives shed and lit a cigaret, sir: that's all.
UNDERSHAFT. Ah, quite so. [To Lomax] Do you happen to remember
what you did with the match?
LOMAX. Oh come! I'm not a fool. I took jolly good care to blow it
out before I chucked it away.
BILTON. The top of it was red hot inside, sir.
LOMAX. Well, suppose it was! I didn't chuck it into any of your
messes.
UNDERSHAFT. Think no more of it, Mr Lomax. By the way, would you
mind lending me your matches?
LOMAX [offering his box] Certainly.
UNDERSHAFT. Thanks. [He pockets the matches].
LOMAX [lecturing to the company generally] You know, these high
explosives don't go off like gunpowder, except when they're in a
gun. When they're spread loose, you can put a match to them
without the least risk: they just burn quietly like a bit of
paper. [Warming to the scientific interest of the subject] Did
you know that Undershaft? Have you ever tried?
UNDERSHAFT. Not on a large scale, Mr Lomax. Bilton will give you
a sample of gun cotton when you are leaving if you ask him. You
can experiment with it at home. [Bilton looks puzzled].
SARAH. Bilton will do nothing of the sort, papa. I suppose it's
your business to blow up the Russians and Japs; but you might
really stop short of blowing up poor Cholly. [Bilton gives it up
and retires into the shed].
LOMAX. My ownest, there is no danger. [He sits beside her on the
shell].
Lady Britomart arrives from the town with a bouquet.
LADY BRITOMART [coming impetuously between Undershaft and the
deck chair] Andrew: you shouldn't have let me see this place.
UNDERSHAFT. Why, my dear?
LADY BRITOMART. Never mind why: you shouldn't have: that's all.
To think of all that [indicating the town] being yours! and that
you have kept it to yourself all these years!
UNDERSHAFT. It does not belong to me. I belong to it. It is the
Undershaft inheritance.
LADY BRITOMART. It is not. Your ridiculous cannons and that noisy
banging foundry may be the Undershaft inheritance; but all that
plate and linen, all that furniture and those houses and orchards
and gardens belong to us. They belong to me: they are not a man's
business. I won't give them up. You must be out of your senses to
throw them all away; and if you persist in such folly, I will
call in a doctor.
UNDERSHAFT [stooping to smell the bouquet] Where did you get the
flowers, my dear?
LADY BRITOMART. Your men presented them to me in your William
Morris Labor Church.
CUSINS [springing up] Oh! It needed only that. A Labor Church!
LADY BRITOMART. Yes, with Morris's words in mosaic letters ten
feet high round the dome. NO MAN IS GOOD ENOUGH TO BE ANOTHER
MAN'S MASTER. The cynicism of it!
UNDERSHAFT. It shocked the men at first, I am afraid. But now
they take no more notice of it than of the ten commandments in
church.
LADY BRITOMART. Andrew: you are trying to put me off the subject
of the inheritance by profane jokes. Well, you shan't. I don't
ask it any longer for Stephen: he has inherited far too much of
your perversity to be fit for it. But Barbara has rights as well
as Stephen. Why should not Adolphus succeed to the inheritance? I
could manage the town for him; and he can look after the cannons,
if they are really necessary.
UNDERSHAFT. I should ask nothing better if Adolphus were a
foundling. He is exactly the sort of new blood that is wanted in
English business. But he's not a foundling; and there's an end of
it.
CUSINS [diplomatically] Not quite. [They all turn and stare at
him. He comes from the platform past the shed to Undershaft]. I
think--Mind! I am not committing myself in any way as to my
future course--but I think the foundling difficulty can be got
over.
UNDERSHAFT. What do you mean?
CUSINS. Well, I have something to say which is in the nature of a
confession.
SARAH. {
LADY BRITOMART. { Confession!
BARBARA. {
STEPHEN. {
LOMAX. Oh I say!
CUSINS. Yes, a confession. Listen, all. Until I met Barbara I
thought myself in the main an honorable, truthful man, because I
wanted the approval of my conscience more than I wanted anything
else. But the moment I saw Barbara, I wanted her far more than
the approval of my conscience.
LADY BRITOMART. Adolphus!
CUSINS. It is true. You accused me yourself, Lady Brit, of
joining the Army to worship Barbara; and so I did. She bought my
soul like a flower at a street corner; but she bought it for
herself.
UNDERSHAFT. What! Not for Dionysos or another?
CUSINS. Dionysos and all the others are in herself. I adored what
was divine in her, and was therefore a true worshipper. But I was
romantic about her too. I thought she was a woman of the people,
and that a marriage with a professor of Greek would be far beyond
the wildest social ambitions of her rank.
LADY BRITOMART. Adolphus!!
LOMAX. Oh I say!!!
CUSINS. When I learnt the horrible truth--
LADY BRITOMART. What do you mean by the horrible truth, pray?
CUSINS. That she was enormously rich; that her grandfather was an
earl; that her father was the Prince of Darkness--
UNDERSHAFT. Chut!
CUSINS.--and that I was only an adventurer trying to catch a rich
wife, then I stooped to deceive about my birth.
LADY BRITOMART. Your birth! Now Adolphus, don't dare to make up a
wicked story for the sake of these wretched cannons. Remember: I
have seen photographs of your parents; and the Agent General for
South Western Australia knows them personally and has assured me
that they are most respectable married people.
CUSINS. So they are in Australia; but here they are outcasts.
Their marriage is legal in Australia, but not in England. My
mother is my father's deceased wife's sister; and in this island
I am consequently a foundling. [Sensation]. Is the subterfuge
good enough, Machiavelli?
UNDERSHAFT [thoughtfully] Biddy: this may be a way out of the
difficulty.
LADY BRITOMART. Stuff! A man can't make cannons any the better
for being his own cousin instead of his proper self [she sits
down in the deck chair with a bounce that expresses her downright
contempt for their casuistry.]
UNDERSHAFT [to Cusins] You are an educated man. That is against
the tradition.
CUSINS. Once in ten thousand times it happens that the schoolboy
is a born master of what they try to teach him. Greek has not
destroyed my mind: it has nourished it. Besides, I did not learn
it at an English public school.
UNDERSHAFT. Hm! Well, I cannot afford to be too particular: you
have cornered the foundling market. Let it pass. You are
eligible, Euripides: you are eligible.
BARBARA [coming from the platform and interposing between Cusins
and Undershaft] Dolly: yesterday morning, when Stephen told us
all about the tradition, you became very silent; and you have
been strange and excited ever since. Were you thinking of your
birth then?
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