Books: Heartbreak House
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George Bernard Shaw >> Heartbreak House
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CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Are you an honest man?
THE BURGLAR. I don't set up to be better than my
fellow-creatures, and never did, as you well know, Captain. But
what I do is innocent and pious. I enquire about for houses where
the right sort of people live. I work it on them same as I worked
it here. I break into the house; put a few spoons or diamonds in
my pocket; make a noise; get caught; and take up a collection.
And you wouldn't believe how hard it is to get caught when you're
actually trying to. I have knocked over all the chairs in a room
without a soul paying any attention to me. In the end I have had
to walk out and leave the job.
RANDALL. When that happens, do you put back the spoons and
diamonds?
THE BURGLAR. Well, I don't fly in the face of Providence, if
that's what you want to know.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Guinness, you remember this man?
GUINNESS. I should think I do, seeing I was married to him, the
blackguard!
HESIONE } [exclaiming { Married to him!
LADY UTTERWORD } together] { Guinness!!
THE BURGLAR. It wasn't legal. I've been married to no end of
women. No use coming that over me.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Take him to the forecastle [he flings him to
the door with a strength beyond his years].
GUINNESS. I suppose you mean the kitchen. They won't have him
there. Do you expect servants to keep company with thieves and
all sorts?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Land-thieves and water-thieves are the same
flesh and blood. I'll have no boatswain on my quarter-deck. Off
with you both.
THE BURGLAR. Yes, Captain. [He goes out humbly].
MAZZINI. Will it be safe to have him in the house like that?
GUINNESS. Why didn't you shoot him, sir? If I'd known who he was,
I'd have shot him myself. [She goes out].
MRS HUSHABYE. Do sit down, everybody. [She sits down on the
sofa].
They all move except Ellie. Mazzini resumes his seat. Randall
sits down in the window-seat near the starboard door, again
making a pendulum of his poker, and studying it as Galileo might
have done. Hector sits on his left, in the middle. Mangan,
forgotten, sits in the port corner. Lady Utterword takes the big
chair. Captain Shotover goes into the pantry in deep abstraction.
They all look after him: and Lady Utterword coughs consciously.
MRS HUSHABYE. So Billy Dunn was poor nurse's little romance. I
knew there had been somebody.
RANDALL. They will fight their battles over again and enjoy
themselves immensely.
LADY UTTERWORD [irritably]. You are not married; and you know
nothing about it, Randall. Hold your tongue.
RANDALL. Tyrant!
MRS HUSHABYE. Well, we have had a very exciting evening.
Everything will be an anticlimax after it. We'd better all go to
bed.
RANDALL. Another burglar may turn up.
MAZZINI. Oh, impossible! I hope not.
RANDALL. Why not? There is more than one burglar in England.
MRS HUSHABYE. What do you say, Alf?
MANGAN [huffily]. Oh, I don't matter. I'm forgotten. The burglar
has put my nose out of joint. Shove me into a corner and have
done with me.
MRS HUSHABYE [jumping up mischievously, and going to him]. Would
you like a walk on the heath, Alfred? With me?
ELLIE. Go, Mr Mangan. It will do you good. Hesione will soothe
you.
MRS HUSHABYE [slipping her arm under his and pulling him
upright]. Come, Alfred. There is a moon: it's like the night in
Tristan and Isolde. [She caresses his arm and draws him to the
port garden door].
MANGAN [writhing but yielding]. How you can have the face-the
heart-[he breaks down and is heard sobbing as she takes him out].
LADY UTTERWORD. What an extraordinary way to behave! What is the
matter with the man?
ELLIE [in a strangely calm voice, staring into an imaginary
distance]. His heart is breaking: that is all. [The captain
appears at the pantry door, listening]. It is a curious
sensation: the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our
powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your boats are
burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and
the beginning of peace.
LADY UTTERWORD [suddenly rising in a rage, to the astonishment of
the rest]. How dare you?
HECTOR. Good heavens! What's the matter?
RANDALL [in a warning whisper]. Tch--tch-tch! Steady.
ELLIE [surprised and haughty]. I was not addressing you
particularly, Lady Utterword. And I am not accustomed to being
asked how dare I.
LADY UTTERWORD. Of course not. Anyone can see how badly you have
been brought up.
MAZZINI. Oh, I hope not, Lady Utterword. Really!
LADY UTTERWORD. I know very well what you meant. The impudence!
ELLIE. What on earth do you mean?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [advancing to the table]. She means that her
heart will not break. She has been longing all her life for
someone to break it. At last she has become afraid she has none
to break.
LADY UTTERWORD [flinging herself on her knees and throwing her
arms round him]. Papa, don't say you think I've no heart.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [raising her with grim tenderness]. If you had
no heart how could you want to have it broken, child?
HECTOR [rising with a bound]. Lady Utterword, you are not to be
trusted. You have made a scene [he runs out into the garden
through the starboard door].
LADY UTTERWORD. Oh! Hector, Hector! [she runs out after him].
RANDALL. Only nerves, I assure you. [He rises and follows her,
waving the poker in his agitation]. Ariadne! Ariadne! For God's
sake, be careful. You will--[he is gone].
MAZZINI [rising]. How distressing! Can I do anything, I wonder?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [promptly taking his chair and setting to work
at the drawing-board]. No. Go to bed. Good-night.
MAZZINI [bewildered]. Oh! Perhaps you are right.
ELLIE. Good-night, dearest. [She kisses him].
MAZZINI. Good-night, love. [He makes for the door, but turns
aside to the bookshelves]. I'll just take a book [he takes one].
Good-night. [He goes out, leaving Ellie alone with the captain].
The captain is intent on his drawing. Ellie, standing sentry over
his chair, contemplates him for a moment.
ELLIE. Does nothing ever disturb you, Captain Shotover?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I've stood on the bridge for eighteen hours in
a typhoon. Life here is stormier; but I can stand it.
ELLIE. Do you think I ought to marry Mr Mangan?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [never looking up]. One rock is as good as
another to be wrecked on.
ELLIE. I am not in love with him.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Who said you were?
ELLIE. You are not surprised?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Surprised! At my age!
ELLIE. It seems to me quite fair. He wants me for one thing: I
want him for another.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Money?
ELLIE. Yes.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Well, one turns the cheek: the other kisses it.
One provides the cash: the other spends it.
ELLIE. Who will have the best of the bargain, I wonder?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You. These fellows live in an office all day.
You will have to put up with him from dinner to breakfast; but
you will both be asleep most of that time. All day you will be
quit of him; and you will be shopping with his money. If that is
too much for you, marry a seafaring man: you will be bothered
with him only three weeks in the year, perhaps.
ELLIE. That would be best of all, I suppose.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It's a dangerous thing to be married right up
to the hilt, like my daughter's husband. The man is at home all
day, like a damned soul in hell.
ELLIE. I never thought of that before.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. If you're marrying for business, you can't be
too businesslike.
ELLIE. Why do women always want other women's husbands?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Why do horse-thieves prefer a horse that is
broken-in to one that is wild?
ELLIE [with a short laugh]. I suppose so. What a vile world it
is!
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It doesn't concern me. I'm nearly out of it.
ELLIE. And I'm only just beginning.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Yes; so look ahead.
ELLIE. Well, I think I am being very prudent.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I didn't say prudent. I said look ahead.
ELLIE. What's the difference?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It's prudent to gain the whole world and lose
your own soul. But don't forget that your soul sticks to you if
you stick to it; but the world has a way of slipping through your
fingers.
ELLIE [wearily, leaving him and beginning to wander restlessly
about the room]. I'm sorry, Captain Shotover; but it's no use
talking like that to me. Old-fashioned people are no use to me.
Old-fashioned people think you can have a soul without money.
They think the less money you have, the more soul you have. Young
people nowadays know better. A soul is a very expensive thing to
keep: much more so than a motor car.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Is it? How much does your soul eat?
ELLIE. Oh, a lot. It eats music and pictures and books and
mountains and lakes and beautiful things to wear and nice people
to be with. In this country you can't have them without lots of
money: that is why our souls are so horribly starved.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Mangan's soul lives on pig's food.
ELLIE. Yes: money is thrown away on him. I suppose his soul was
starved when he was young. But it will not be thrown away on me.
It is just because I want to save my soul that I am marrying for
money. All the women who are not fools do.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. There are other ways of getting money. Why
don't you steal it?
ELLIE. Because I don't want to go to prison.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Is that the only reason? Are you quite sure
honesty has nothing to do with it?
ELLIE. Oh, you are very very old-fashioned, Captain. Does any
modern girl believe that the legal and illegal ways of getting
money are the honest and dishonest ways? Mangan robbed my father
and my father's friends. I should rob all the money back from
Mangan if the police would let me. As they won't, I must get it
back by marrying him.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I can't argue: I'm too old: my mind is made up
and finished. All I can tell you is that, old-fashioned or
new-fashioned, if you sell yourself, you deal your soul a blow
that all the books and pictures and concerts and scenery in the
world won't heal [he gets up suddenly and makes for the pantry].
ELLIE [running after him and seizing him by the sleeve]. Then why
did you sell yourself to the devil in Zanzibar?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [stopping, startled]. What?
ELLIE. You shall not run away before you answer. I have found out
that trick of yours. If you sold yourself, why shouldn't I?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I had to deal with men so degraded that they
wouldn't obey me unless I swore at them and kicked them and beat
them with my fists. Foolish people took young thieves off the
streets; flung them into a training ship where they were taught
to fear the cane instead of fearing God; and thought they'd made
men and sailors of them by private subscription. I tricked these
thieves into believing I'd sold myself to the devil. It saved my
soul from the kicking and swearing that was damning me by inches.
ELLIE [releasing him]. I shall pretend to sell myself to Boss
Mangan to save my soul from the poverty that is damning me by
inches.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Riches will damn you ten times deeper. Riches
won't save even your body.
ELLIE. Old-fashioned again. We know now that the soul is the
body, and the body the soul. They tell us they are different
because they want to persuade us that we can keep our souls if we
let them make slaves of our bodies. I am afraid you are no use to
me, Captain.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What did you expect? A Savior, eh? Are you
old-fashioned enough to believe in that?
ELLIE. No. But I thought you were very wise, and might help me.
Now I have found you out. You pretend to be busy, and think of
fine things to say, and run in and out to surprise people by
saying them, and get away before they can answer you.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It confuses me to be answered. It discourages
me. I cannot bear men and women. I have to run away. I must run
away now [he tries to].
ELLIE [again seizing his arm]. You shall not run away from me. I
can hypnotize you. You are the only person in the house I can say
what I like to. I know you are fond of me. Sit down. [She draws
him to the sofa].
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [yielding]. Take care: I am in my dotage. Old
men are dangerous: it doesn't matter to them what is going to
happen to the world.
They sit side by side on the sofa. She leans affectionately
against him with her head on his shoulder and her eyes half
closed.
ELLIE [dreamily]. I should have thought nothing else mattered to
old men. They can't be very interested in what is going to happen
to themselves.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. A man's interest in the world is only the
overflow from his interest in himself. When you are a child your
vessel is not yet full; so you care for nothing but your own
affairs. When you grow up, your vessel overflows; and you are a
politician, a philosopher, or an explorer and adventurer. In old
age the vessel dries up: there is no overflow: you are a child
again. I can give you the memories of my ancient wisdom: mere
scraps and leavings; but I no longer really care for anything but
my own little wants and hobbies. I sit here working out my old
ideas as a means of destroying my fellow-creatures. I see my
daughters and their men living foolish lives of romance and
sentiment and snobbery. I see you, the younger generation,
turning from their romance and sentiment and snobbery to money
and comfort and hard common sense. I was ten times happier on the
bridge in the typhoon, or frozen into Arctic ice for months in
darkness, than you or they have ever been. You are looking for a
rich husband. At your age I looked for hardship, danger, horror,
and death, that I might feel the life in me more intensely. I did
not let the fear of death govern my life; and my reward was, I
had my life. You are going to let the fear of poverty govern your
life; and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not
live.
ELLIE [sitting up impatiently]. But what can I do? I am not a sea
captain: I can't stand on bridges in typhoons, or go slaughtering
seals and whales in Greenland's icy mountains. They won't let
women be captains. Do you want me to be a stewardess?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. There are worse lives. The stewardesses could
come ashore if they liked; but they sail and sail and sail.
ELLIE. What could they do ashore but marry for money? I don't
want to be a stewardess: I am too bad a sailor. Think of
something else for me.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I can't think so long and continuously. I am
too old. I must go in and out. [He tries to rise].
ELLIE [pulling him back]. You shall not. You are happy here,
aren't you?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I tell you it's dangerous to keep me. I can't
keep awake and alert.
ELLIE. What do you run away for? To sleep?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No. To get a glass of rum.
ELLIE [frightfully disillusioned]. Is that it? How disgusting! Do
you like being drunk?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No: I dread being drunk more than anything in
the world. To be drunk means to have dreams; to go soft; to be
easily pleased and deceived; to fall into the clutches of women.
Drink does that for you when you are young. But when you are old:
very very old, like me, the dreams come by themselves. You don't
know how terrible that is: you are young: you sleep at night
only, and sleep soundly. But later on you will sleep in the
afternoon. Later still you will sleep even in the morning; and
you will awake tired, tired of life. You will never be free from
dozing and dreams; the dreams will steal upon your work every ten
minutes unless you can awaken yourself with rum. I drink now to
keep sober; but the dreams are conquering: rum is not what it
was: I have had ten glasses since you came; and it might be so
much water. Go get me another: Guinness knows where it is. You
had better see for yourself the horror of an old man drinking.
ELLIE. You shall not drink. Dream. I like you to dream. You must
never be in the real world when we talk together.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I am too weary to resist, or too weak. I am in
my second childhood. I do not see you as you really are. I can't
remember what I really am. I feel nothing but the accursed
happiness I have dreaded all my life long: the happiness that
comes as life goes, the happiness of yielding and dreaming
instead of resisting and doing, the sweetness of the fruit that
is going rotten.
ELLIE. You dread it almost as much as I used to dread losing my
dreams and having to fight and do things. But that is all over
for me: my dreams are dashed to pieces. I should like to marry a
very old, very rich man. I should like to marry you. I had much
rather marry you than marry Mangan. Are you very rich?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No. Living from hand to mouth. And I have a
wife somewhere in Jamaica: a black one. My first wife. Unless
she's dead.
ELLIE. What a pity! I feel so happy with you. [She takes his
hand, almost unconsciously, and pats it]. I thought I should
never feel happy again.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Why?
ELLIE. Don't you know?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No.
ELLIE. Heartbreak. I fell in love with Hector, and didn't know he
was married.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Heartbreak? Are you one of those who are so
sufficient to themselves that they are only happy when they are
stripped of everything, even of hope?
ELLIE [gripping the hand]. It seems so; for I feel now as if
there was nothing I could not do, because I want nothing.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. That's the only real strength. That's genius.
That's better than rum.
ELLIE [throwing away his hand]. Rum! Why did you spoil it?
Hector and Randall come in from the garden through the starboard
door.
HECTOR. I beg your pardon. We did not know there was anyone here.
ELLIE [rising]. That means that you want to tell Mr Randall the
story about the tiger. Come, Captain: I want to talk to my
father; and you had better come with me.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [rising]. Nonsense! the man is in bed.
ELLIE. Aha! I've caught you. My real father has gone to bed; but
the father you gave me is in the kitchen. You knew quite well all
along. Come. [She draws him out into the garden with her through
the port door].
HECTOR. That's an extraordinary girl. She has the Ancient Mariner
on a string like a Pekinese dog.
RANDALL. Now that they have gone, shall we have a friendly chat?
HECTOR. You are in what is supposed to be my house. I am at your
disposal.
Hector sits down in the draughtsman's chair, turning it to face
Randall, who remains standing, leaning at his ease against the
carpenter's bench.
RANDALL. I take it that we may be quite frank. I mean about Lady
Utterword.
HECTOR. You may. I have nothing to be frank about. I never met
her until this afternoon.
RANDALL [straightening up]. What! But you are her sister's
husband.
HECTOR. Well, if you come to that, you are her husband's brother.
RANDALL. But you seem to be on intimate terms with her.
HECTOR. So do you.
RANDALL. Yes: but I AM on intimate terms with her. I have known
her for years.
HECTOR. It took her years to get to the same point with you that
she got to with me in five minutes, it seems.
RANDALL [vexed]. Really, Ariadne is the limit [he moves away
huffishly towards the windows].
HECTOR [coolly]. She is, as I remarked to Hesione, a very
enterprising woman.
RANDALL [returning, much troubled]. You see, Hushabye, you are
what women consider a good-looking man.
HECTOR. I cultivated that appearance in the days of my vanity;
and Hesione insists on my keeping it up. She makes me wear these
ridiculous things [indicating his Arab costume] because she
thinks me absurd in evening dress.
RANDALL. Still, you do keep it up, old chap. Now, I assure you I
have not an atom of jealousy in my disposition
HECTOR. The question would seem to be rather whether your brother
has any touch of that sort.
RANDALL. What! Hastings! Oh, don't trouble about Hastings. He has
the gift of being able to work sixteen hours a day at the dullest
detail, and actually likes it. That gets him to the top wherever
he goes. As long as Ariadne takes care that he is fed regularly,
he is only too thankful to anyone who will keep her in good humor
for him.
HECTOR. And as she has all the Shotover fascination, there is
plenty of competition for the job, eh?
RANDALL [angrily]. She encourages them. Her conduct is perfectly
scandalous. I assure you, my dear fellow, I haven't an atom of
jealousy in my composition; but she makes herself the talk of
every place she goes to by her thoughtlessness. It's nothing
more: she doesn't really care for the men she keeps hanging about
her; but how is the world to know that? It's not fair to
Hastings. It's not fair to me.
HECTOR. Her theory is that her conduct is so correct
RANDALL. Correct! She does nothing but make scenes from morning
till night. You be careful, old chap. She will get you into
trouble: that is, she would if she really cared for you.
HECTOR. Doesn't she?
RANDALL. Not a scrap. She may want your scalp to add to her
collection; but her true affection has been engaged years ago.
You had really better be careful.
HECTOR. Do you suffer much from this jealousy?
RANDALL. Jealousy! I jealous! My dear fellow, haven't I told you
that there is not an atom of--
HECTOR. Yes. And Lady Utterword told me she never made scenes.
Well, don't waste your jealousy on my moustache. Never waste
jealousy on a real man: it is the imaginary hero that supplants
us all in the long run. Besides, jealousy does not belong to your
easy man-of-the-world pose, which you carry so well in other
respects.
RANDALL. Really, Hushabye, I think a man may be allowed to be a
gentleman without being accused of posing.
HECTOR. It is a pose like any other. In this house we know all
the poses: our game is to find out the man under the pose. The
man under your pose is apparently Ellie's favorite, Othello.
RANDALL. Some of your games in this house are damned annoying,
let me tell you.
HECTOR. Yes: I have been their victim for many years. I used to
writhe under them at first; but I became accustomed to them. At
last I learned to play them.
RANDALL. If it's all the same to you I had rather you didn't play
them on me. You evidently don't quite understand my character, or
my notions of good form.
HECTOR. Is it your notion of good form to give away Lady
Utterword?
RANDALL [a childishly plaintive note breaking into his huff]. I
have not said a word against Lady Utterword. This is just the
conspiracy over again.
HECTOR. What conspiracy?
RANDALL. You know very well, sir. A conspiracy to make me out to
be pettish and jealous and childish and everything I am not.
Everyone knows I am just the opposite.
HECTOR [rising]. Something in the air of the house has upset you.
It often does have that effect. [He goes to the garden door and
calls Lady Utterword with commanding emphasis]. Ariadne!
LADY UTTERWORD [at some distance]. Yes.
RANDALL. What are you calling her for? I want to speak--
LADY UTTERWORD [arriving breathless]. Yes. You really are a
terribly commanding person. What's the matter?
HECTOR. I do not know how to manage your friend Randall. No doubt
you do.
LADY UTTERWORD. Randall: have you been making yourself
ridiculous, as usual? I can see it in your face. Really, you are
the most pettish creature.
RANDALL. You know quite well, Ariadne, that I have not an ounce
of pettishness in my disposition. I have made myself perfectly
pleasant here. I have remained absolutely cool and imperturbable
in the face of a burglar. Imperturbability is almost too strong a
point of mine. But [putting his foot down with a stamp, and
walking angrily up and down the room] I insist on being treated
with a certain consideration. I will not allow Hushabye to take
liberties with me. I will not stand your encouraging people as
you do.
HECTOR. The man has a rooted delusion that he is your husband.
LADY UTTERWORD. I know. He is jealous. As if he had any right to
be! He compromises me everywhere. He makes scenes all over the
place. Randall: I will not allow it. I simply will not allow it.
You had no right to discuss me with Hector. I will not be
discussed by men.
HECTOR. Be reasonable, Ariadne. Your fatal gift of beauty forces
men to discuss you.
LADY UTTERWORD. Oh indeed! what about YOUR fatal gift of beauty?
HECTOR. How can I help it?
LADY UTTERWORD. You could cut off your moustache: I can't cut off
my nose. I get my whole life messed up with people falling in
love with me. And then Randall says I run after men.
RANDALL. I--
LADY UTTERWORD. Yes you do: you said it just now. Why can't you
think of something else than women? Napoleon was quite right when
he said that women are the occupation of the idle man. Well, if
ever there was an idle man on earth, his name is Randall
Utterword.
RANDALL. Ariad--
LADY UTTERWORD [overwhelming him with a torrent of words]. Oh yes
you are: it's no use denying it. What have you ever done? What
good are you? You are as much trouble in the house as a child of
three. You couldn't live without your valet.
RANDALL. This is--
LADY UTTERWORD. Laziness! You are laziness incarnate. You are
selfishness itself. You are the most uninteresting man on earth.
You can't even gossip about anything but yourself and your
grievances and your ailments and the people who have offended
you. [Turning to Hector]. Do you know what they call him, Hector?
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