The Project Gutenberg eBook of The painted swan
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: The painted swan
a play in three acts
Author: Elizabeth Bibesco
Release date: August 30, 2024 [eBook #74338]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Hutchinson & Co, 1926
Credits: The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PAINTED SWAN ***
THE PAINTED SWAN
_By the same Author._
THE FIR AND THE PALM
THE WHOLE STORY
BALLOONS
THE
PAINTED SWAN
_A Play in Three Acts_
BY
ELIZABETH BIBESCO
“People don’t escape from one thing to another thing, but from
one thing to the same thing.”
LONDON
HUTCHINSON & CO.
_Paternoster Row, E.C.4_
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Applications regarding performing rights
should be addressed to Mr. J. L. Campbell,
Regency House, Warwick Street.
TO ANTOINE
The Painted Swan
A Play in Three Acts
by
ELIZABETH BIBESCO
(as produced at the Everyman Theatre, March 16th, 1925).
_Characters in order of their appearance_:
_Thompson_ (_the Butler_) HAROLD B. MEADE
_Lord William Cathcart_ FELIX AYLMER
_Selina_ (_his daughter_) ELISSA LANDI
_Mrs. Martineau_ MURIEL POPE
_Mr. Molyneux_ CLIFFORD MOLLISON
(By permission of Reandean)
_Timothy Carstairs_ ROBERT HARRIS
(By permission of Reandean)
_Philip Jordan_ ALLAN JEAYES
_Lady Emily Cathcart_ MARGARET CARTER
_Ann_ (_Lady Candover_) EDITH EVANS
_Ninian_ (_Lord Candover_) FRANK CELLIER
THE PLAY PRODUCED BY NORMAN MACDERMOTT
ACT I. Candover Hall.
ACT II. The Candovers’ house in London.
A month later.
(The curtain will be lowered during this act
to indicate the passing of an hour).
ACT III. Candover Hall. Two days later.
ACT I
ACT I
SCENE: _ANN’S boudoir at Candover. The butler is directing two
footmen, who are piling up blankets, garments, etc._
[_Enter LORD WILLIAM and SELINA in travelling clothes. LORD
WILLIAM over to fire L._
SELINA: How are you, Thompson?
[_Moves over to chair D. S. L._
THOMPSON: Very well, thank you, Miss Selina.
SELINA: Has no one else arrived yet?
THOMPSON: No, miss. Lady Emily and Mr. Carstairs have been here since
yesterday. Mrs. Martineau and Mr. Molyneux and Mr. Jordan are coming by
the three o’clock train and should be here in a few minutes.
SELINA: We would have been down an hour ago if the car hadn’t been
suffering from asthma.
LORD WILLIAM: Who is the Mr. Jordan who is coming, Thompson?
THOMPSON: I believe him to be in the Cabinet, m’lord.
SELINA: Aren’t you sure?
THOMPSON: Well, in a manner of speaking, yes, Miss Selina.
SELINA: Why do you always say you believe when you know, Thompson?
THOMPSON: My father always said to me, miss, a good servant should never
presume to be sure. He should avoid conveying information as if he were
instructing his betters.
LORD WILLIAM: A wise man, your father, Thompson—if only people could get
it into their heads that each time they are right somebody loves them
less. How is her ladyship?
THOMPSON: Overworking, m’lord.
LORD WILLIAM: What at?
[_Sits settee L._
THOMPSON: Other people, m’lord.
SELINA: Other people?
[_Sits D. S. L._
THOMPSON: Other people’s happiness, Miss Selina.
SELINA: Ah!
THOMPSON: Her ladyship can’t see that the worthless is the worthless.
SELINA: She doesn’t try to improve them, does she, Thompson?
THOMPSON: No, miss—to make them happy. Pampering the riff-raff that’s
what she does. Why, only the other day she was taken in by a swindler,
and do you know what she said, m’lord?
LORD WILLIAM: No.
THOMPSON: She said, “Well, it’s much better than if he’d been honest and
I’d not believed him.”
SELINA: Don’t you try and protect her against herself, Thompson?
THOMPSON: I try, Miss Selina, but then, her ladyship says: “You aren’t
kind to me, Thompson,” and I capitulate. Human and mortal, that’s what we
all are.
[_He goes out._
SELINA: (_calling to him at the door_): Thompson!
THOMPSON: Miss Selina?
SELINA: You haven’t admired my new hat.
THOMPSON: Very neat, I’m sure——
[_Exit THOMPSON._
SELINA: Funny, isn’t it, a saint like Ann coming out of our family.
[_Enter TIM._
LORD WILLIAM: How de do, Tim?
SELINA: How’s Ann?
TIM: She’s looking tired.
SELINA: Is Ninian here?
TIM: He doesn’t arrive till seven-thirty.
LORD WILLIAM: The others are coming by the three o’clock train—Molly, Mr.
Jordan and Mrs. Martineau.
TIM: Yes.
SELINA: I never can think why Ann should see so much of Mabel Martineau.
TIM: They played together in the nursery.
SELINA: That’s the only explanation that’s ever brought forward for Mabel.
LORD WILLIAM: She’s rather an amusing little viper.
TIM: But she stings so continuously that I don’t believe she could stop
if she wanted to.
SELINA: She certainly is no respecter of persons.
TIM: Some day she will sting Ann.
SELINA: She really would be fond of Ann if it weren’t for you.
TIM: Me?
SELINA: She’s a little bit in love with you.
TIM: Nonsense.
LORD WILLIAM: And why not? An attractive, personable young man like you.
SELINA: Papa, you’ve made Tim blush.
LORD WILLIAM: It’s easier nowadays to make a young man blush than a young
woman.
SELINA: One’s cheeks can’t always respond to one’s feelings.
LORD WILLIAM: Do you know Jordan, Tim?
TIM: A little.
SELINA: What’s he like?
TIM: Heavy and common and on the make.
SELINA: Why does Ann like him?
LORD WILLIAM: One of her endowment schemes, I expect.
SELINA: What do you mean, Papa?
LORD WILLIAM: That Ann goes about endowing people with her own qualities.
Very unfair to the poor things, of course, as they have to revert to type
sooner or later.
TIM: I don’t know—if she can breathe some of her own spirit into them
they must be permanently enriched.
[_MRS. MARTINEAU, MR. MOLYNEUX and MR. JORDAN are shown in.
General greetings._
[_MRS. MARTINEAU introduces JORDAN to LORD WILLIAM and SELINA._
LORD WILLIAM: Did you come down by train?
JORDAN: Yes.
MRS. MARTINEAU: There was a most charming man in the carriage—quite
drunk. He looked round at us all and said: “I’m glad I’m not here.”
MOLYNEUX: Unfortunately he got out at the next station, which must have
taken the edge off his enjoyment.
MRS. MARTINEAU: Where is Ann?
LORD WILLIAM: I don’t know.
MOLYNEUX: We should see more of Ann if we could appear to her as a duty.
Unfortunately, we are undoubtedly a pleasure.
SELINA: You might make a bid as sinners in need of reform.
TIM: But that is just what is so wonderful about Ann. She never wants
anyone to be better—only happier.
LORD WILLIAM: Ann is my niece. She is, of course, a saint, but she is not
a fool. No Cathcart is a fool.
SELINA: Amen.
LORD WILLIAM: Don’t interrupt. I was about to say something very good.
SELINA: Would you like to “think it out in silence?”
LORD WILLIAM: What were we talking about?
MRS. MARTINEAU: There _is_ only one subject in this house.
SELINA: We were talking about Ann.
LORD WILLIAM: Yes—but what were you actually saying?
SELINA: Tim said that Ann never tried to make people good, but only happy.
MRS. MARTINEAU: Only!
LORD WILLIAM: I remember I was about to say that in practice goodness and
happiness are much the same thing.
SELINA: Bravo!
MOLYNEUX: My dear Bill, surely that is a platitude?
LORD WILLIAM: Even a platitude can contain a truth.
MOLYNEUX: But we are few of us brave enough to admit it.
SELINA: What do you think, Mr. Jordan?
JORDAN: I think that the truth can be found in very unexpected places.
SELINA: The obvious, for instance?
JORDAN: I wasn’t thinking of that.
SELINA: Indeed?
LORD WILLIAM: Is this your first visit here, Mr. Jordan?
JORDAN: No.
LORD WILLIAM: Then you know Ninian?
JORDAN: I have just met Lord Candover.
MOLYNEUX: Then you know Ninian.
[_They laugh._
SELINA: Ninian is first-hand information.
MRS. MARTINEAU: What do you mean?
SELINA: That you learn all there is to be learnt the first time.
LORD WILLIAM: No one can tell you anything about him. The whole truth is
revealed in five minutes.
SELINA: Yes, indeed. It doesn’t take a detective to know what Ninian is
like.
LORD WILLIAM: He is the family masterpiece.
SELINA: By marriage.
MOLYNEUX: A very inconvenient institution, marriage. Illogical when you
want one thing, to have another.
SELINA: You mean when you want one person to have two?
MOLYNEUX: Precisely.
SELINA: Ninian would be perfect if we didn’t have so much of him. He
never fails one.
LORD WILLIAM: He combines under the cover of an English gentleman—
SELINA: Of a Lord Lieutenant.
LORD WILLIAM: I accept the amendment, of a Lord Lieutenant; the
ridiculous and the sublime.
SELINA: And that, mind you, without taking the proverbial step.
TIM: He is our host and Ann’s husband.
MRS. MARTINEAU: Tim, you are becoming a prig.
TIM: Perhaps, but we must think of Ann.
MRS. MARTINEAU (_acidly_): Perhaps, but you think of nothing else.
MOLYNEUX: Thinking about Ann is a delightful occupation. It is like
thinking about primroses and spring and lilac bushes and blue-bell woods,
all of the things, in fact, that we are too clever or too stupid to think
about.
LORD WILLIAM: You left out skylarks and rippling brooks and blossoming
trees.
MRS. MARTINEAU (_acidly_): And red flannel blankets.
MOLYNEUX: I should like to have forgotten them.
LORD WILLIAM: Think of Molly dreaming about primroses and red flannel and
you will realize that Ann is something more than a saint.
SELINA: A saint who works miracles.
MRS. MARTINEAU: A siren, in fact.
LORD WILLIAM: You should always remember, Selina, that virtue has its
charms.
MOLYNEUX: Which will be a strain, my poor child, as you will seldom be
reminded of it.
TIM: Except when you are staying with Ann.
SELINA: I am afraid that, however virtuous I may become, I shall never be
as charming as Ann.
MRS. MARTINEAU (_acidly_): Not in Tim’s eyes.
LORD WILLIAM: Let me beg you, my dear, not to regard Tim as
representative of his sex. He is a knight errant. He puts women on a
pedestal.
MOLYNEUX: A gallant form of shelving.
MRS. MARTINEAU: He divides the world into saints and cocottes, and, as
there are many who fall between the two stools, they are disposed of as
“children of nature.”
TIM: Come!
MRS. MARTINEAU: You would be surprised, Selina, at Tim’s child of nature.
She can powder and paint, languish and pounce, but, if she was never a
saint and is not yet in the gutter, we are forced to accept her as a
pure, wild creature, trapped in our horrible society.
[_They laugh._
MOLYNEUX: You are silent, Jordan.
MRS. MARTINEAU: Mr. Jordan is making a reputation.
LORD WILLIAM: Be careful, you will find it impossible to lose.
MOLYNEUX: We are a faithful people. A little late, perhaps, but true to
the end. Have you ever known an English audience to recognize a singer
till she’s forty, or disown her till she’s dead?
LORD WILLIAM: Remember, Jordan, one evening may stamp you as a drunkard,
one mot advertise you as a wit, one adventure immortalize you as a Don
Juan.
JORDAN: Will one speech proclaim me an orator?
LORD WILLIAM: Speeches are swallows that never make a summer.
SELINA: Do you take things seriously, Mr. Jordan?
LORD WILLIAM: Really, Selina, you make me ashamed of your upbringing. You
mustn’t ask a rising young statesman a question like that. He might have
to say “yes” and then we should think him a fool.
JORDAN: Don’t worry, Miss Selina. I am brave enough to admit that I take
some things seriously.
SELINA: Women?
MRS. MARTINEAU: Woman!
JORDAN: Some women.
MOLYNEUX: The election wasn’t lost on you, Jordan; you learnt to qualify.
SELINA: Do please tell us a little more. Are the women you take seriously
serious women?
LORD WILLIAM: Selina, you are my daughter, and in every sense of the
word, my creation. I have told you before now that your cousin Ann is the
only serious woman in the world. I am for the moment using the term woman
as a form of praise. There are, of course, many serious persons of the
female sex.
TIM: I don’t call Ann serious. She bubbles over with gaiety.
MRS. MARTINEAU: But she takes things seriously.
SELINA: She is good.
MOLYNEUX: She is unique. A woman we all adore, who can be described as
good.
SELINA: Do you adore Ann, Mr. Jordan?
JORDAN: Yes.
LORD WILLIAM: Well, I wish she weren’t up to so many good works. As for
her virtue it is a “Trespassers will be prosecuted” signal that you can
see for miles.
SELINA: Papa, I think you’re very vulgar.
TIM: Ann is so radiantly uncensoriously good.
MOLYNEUX: Ann is a damned good-looking woman.
LORD WILLIAM: But she does lead a silly life. I did think that once
the war was over and she had stopped nursing cholera in Siberia we
should be all right. But what has peace brought us? Why, the house is
positively infested with Mayors and clergymen and cranks and old maids,
and when she’s tired of talking to her Socialist friends, she thinks of
Ninian, _plasters_ on the family jewels, resumes the rôle of the Lord
Lieutenant’s wife and entertains the county. Disgusting, I call it.
MOLYNEUX: William and I have never believed in entertaining the county.
LORD WILLIAM: I confess I am sometimes entertained by it.
MOLYNEUX: My appetite is too jaded to enjoy the hunting exploits of the
squire or the cameos of his lady.
LORD WILLIAM: And the parson is always collecting for an organ.
MRS. MARTINEAU: Ann is so strange; she really seems to enjoy it.
TIMOTHY: That is because everything is dramatic to her. She doesn’t know
what patronage means, so everyone tells her their secrets.
MRS. MARTINEAU: They can’t be very interesting secrets.
TIMOTHY: All secrets are interesting.
MOLYNEUX: All secrets are the same.
LORD WILLIAM: The tiresome thing about a secret is that no one believes
you know one till you’ve told it.
MRS. MARTINEAU: Ann is so patient. She can listen for hours to the
laundry-maid.
TIMOTHY: Ann is so interested. She knows that all of the romance in the
world is contained in the laundry-maid’s love affair.
MOLYNEUX: All lovers are the same. That is why I gave up being one. I
realized that the only new rôle I could assume was that of a husband, and
marriage seemed too heavy a price to pay.
MRS. MARTINEAU: And everyone knows all about husbands.
MOLYNEUX: To tell you the truth, I wanted to keep one illusion. I was
afraid that if I married I might discover that wives deceive their lovers
with their husbands.
LORD WILLIAM: Molly and I gave up sentimental adventures when we noticed
that we were becoming sentimental. We decided to take to dry wit.
MOLYNEUX: We are universally considered as wits, and as that reputation,
so easily gained, is impossible to lose, we are dragooned by public
opinion and our own self-respect into living up to it.
LORD WILLIAM: You see, Jordan, a reputation is a prison.
MRS. MARTINEAU: And self-respect is the jailor.
SELINA: What is self-respect, Tim?
TIM: The thing that makes Mrs. Martineau dress for dinner when she is
alone in the country, that prevents Jordan from buying a vote, Lord
William from making a bad joke——
MRS. MARTINEAU: And Ann from having a lover.
LORD WILLIAM: Lord bless my soul, Ann has not been prevented from having
a lover. The possibility never occurred to her.
MRS. MARTINEAU: If it did she would reject it without a pang. Ann’s moral
tidiness is unequalled.
TIM (_angrily_): Is that your definition of effortless radiant goodness?
MRS. MARTINEAU: I only meant that Ann is not exactly a Bohemian. All her
meals are in the dining-room. There are no trays in her life.
TIM: That is Ninian.
MRS. MARTINEAU: Well, she is responsible for him, isn’t she? Husbands
aren’t gifts from God like one’s relations.
MOLYNEUX: A husband is every woman’s first big mistake.
MRS. MARTINEAU: Which is the next?
MOLYNEUX: Her second lover.
MRS. MARTINEAU: How subtle you are.
LORD WILLIAM: A woman’s first lover is usually a slight caricature of
her husband. People don’t escape from one thing to another, but from one
thing to the same thing.
MOLYNEUX: There you are again, Bill, always dragging in your confounded
philosophy.
MRS. MARTINEAU: What is your philosophy?
MOLYNEUX: It isn’t really philosophy at all—Bill maintains that life is a
merry-go-round always coming back to the same point.
LORD WILLIAM: And we poor fools think that we are steering our painted
swans when we can turn them neither to right nor to left. Why, we can’t
even make them go faster or slower.
JORDAN: You don’t believe in free will, Lord William?
LORD WILLIAM: I believe that one can fall off.
SELINA: Mr. Jordan, do you think that this is the right atmosphere in
which to bring up a young girl?
MRS. MARTINEAU: We shall drive you to romance.
SELINA: And then what will become of me?
LORD WILLIAM: You will return to us, my dear.
SELINA: I can’t think why Ann has you in the house.
LORD WILLIAM: I am her uncle. She believes that Molly has a heart of
gold. Mrs. Martineau played with her in the nursery. Tim is a saint, and
Jordan, as he told you, takes some women and some things seriously. Ann
is the woman and she selects the things.
[_Enter LADY EMILY CATHCART._
LADY EMILY: Where is Ann?
MRS. MARTINEAU: Still at her Red Cross meeting.
LORD WILLIAM: Emily, as a maiden lady of immaculate reputation——
MOLYNEUX: Remember you are speaking of your sister, Bill.
LADY EMILY: Molly, you are taking away my character.
MOLYNEUX (_gallantly_): I am too modest to hope to succeed where so many
have failed.
LORD WILLIAM: I was about to ask my sister, before Molly interrupted with
the rather half-hearted propositions we have just been listening to—I was
about to ask my sister whether she does not consider that Ann is becoming
almost too much of a good thing.
LADY EMILY: Too good, you mean?
MRS. MARTINEAU: For this world.
LADY EMILY: For our world.
TIM: Ann couldn’t live in your world. It is too small. She would die for
lack of exercise.
MRS. MARTINEAU: She will die of exhaustion if she tries to combine
Whitechapel and the County.
MOLYNEUX: I regard Ninian as the most fatiguing item in the account.
He has only two topics of conversation—his responsibilities and his
improvements.
LORD WILLIAM: And if you boil them down, they become the same thing—his
pigstys.
MOLYNEUX: You’re a nice unselfish boy, Tim: couldn’t you kill Ninian?
LORD WILLIAM: Wait a moment, Tim. This requires serious consideration.
Wouldn’t Ninian’s death leave Ann even busier than she is?
LADY EMILY: And she might marry someone she loved, which would be very
inconvenient for you all.
MOLYNEUX: I don’t see that we profit much by the present state of affairs.
TIM: Ann’s in touch with so many kinds of life.
MRS. MARTINEAU: Ann is a woman of the world.
TIM: But not of this age.
MOLYNEUX: Ann is the only spot of repose in the twentieth century.
When she sits in a chair she doesn’t fidget; when she talks to you her
attention doesn’t wander to someone else. When she wants to be listened
to, she lowers her voice a little. I am sure that when she goes to bed
she sleeps, and that when she wakes up she is refreshed.
SELINA: Mr. Molyneux, you’re quite romantic.
LADY EMILY: You talk very little for a politician, Mr. Jordan.
JORDAN: You all talk so well, it is a pleasure to listen.
LADY EMILY: What you mean is, that we are difficult to interrupt. It is
quite true. But once you cease to be discouraged by finding that what you
hoped was going to be a solo is either a duet or a chorus, you will soon
begin to rush in on all occasions, and ultimately you will learn to force
a hearing for yourself.
[_Enter ANN._
[_They all get up and help her off with her things, finally
pushing her on to a sofa._
ANN: How spoilt I am.
LADY EMILY: How tired you are.
ANN: But being with you all will soon put that right.
LORD WILLIAM: You have missed a lot, Ann. Molly and I were at our best.
ANN: I hate to have missed a moment of it, but you are both always at
your best.
SELINA: We were all very characteristic. Aunt Emily flirted with Mr.
Molyneux, and Mrs. Martineau tried to flirt with Tim; Papa balanced
precariously on a tight-rope of wit over an abyss of vulgarity, and Mr.
Jordan was silent.
ANN: And what did you do?
SELINA: I helped them to their remarks by asking questions.
MRS. MARTINEAU: Selina treats everyone as if they were performing
animals. Except animals.
SELINA: I love animals.
ANN: It all sounds delightful. What did you talk about?
TIM: About you, of course.
LORD WILLIAM: We tried to talk about other things, but you have a way of
making conversation into a boomerang.
ANN: I am afraid you can’t have said nice things, or the conversation
would have died out very quickly.
MOLYNEUX: We said that you were unique, good, and yet adored by us all.
LORD WILLIAM: Molly said that. Whenever anyone describes a conversation,
they always repeat their own remarks.
ANN: What did you say, Uncle Bill?
LORD WILLIAM: I said that as far as you were concerned, winning the war
had done us no good at all, that your life was becoming a perfect slum of
good works. We all feel that we are between the Scylla of Whitechapel and
the Charybdis of the County.
SELINA: We must tell Ninian that the County has been rechristened
Charybdis. The Lord Lieutenant of Charybdis—what a magnificent title!
ANN: In reality, as you know, I am an altogether self-indulgent woman.
MRS. MARTINEAU: You are so charming, Ann darling, that you entangle other
people’s selfishness—to be self-sacrificing is useless. The essential
thing is to receive the egotism of others on deposit.
ANN: I know that you are all shamefully nice to me, and the result is
that I spend the whole time with you when I ought to be talking to the
vicar or calling on Lady Bootle.
LORD WILLIAM: How is the dear old vicar?
ANN: Very well.
MRS. MARTINEAU: And Mrs. Sidebotham?
ANN: She prefers it to be pronounced Si_de_botham.
MRS. MARTINEAU: And being very properly called Amy, she spells it Aimee.
LADY EMILY: She still believes in the aristocracy. So lucky.
MOLYNEUX: Faith is the substance of things hoped for.
ANN: Do you think she is as complicated as that?
LADY EMILY: She asked me after William, saying, “Your dear brother will
have his little joke.”
LORD WILLIAM: Couldn’t you explain to her, Ann, that my jokes are large
and monumental, and world-famous?
ANN: I don’t think she would understand. To Mrs. Si_de_botham all jokes
are “little jokes,”—household pets in fact.
LORD WILLIAM: Personally, I prefer the dear vicar to his wife. Can’t you
give me any news of him?
ANN: He is such a kind man—just as high as ever, calling the Church of
England the Catholic Church, with a long “a,” and he knows that Christ
was a Jew.
LADY EMILY: Did you tell him?
ANN: I don’t think so.
LADY EMILY: Well, he couldn’t have heard it from Ninian.
SELINA: I hated him when I was a child. He always said “How are _we_ this
morning?” And I never could abide the medical touch in private life.
MOLYNEUX: Ann, you are very stingy of the County news, which, however
much we may try to conceal it, really thrills us. How is Lady Bootle?
ANN: Very rich.
LORD WILLIAM: I don’t like her wig.
MRS. MARTINEAU: Why do wigs always calumniate hair?
ANN: You will see them all at dinner to-morrow.
SELINA: And Sir Henry Bootle will say to Ninian: “That’s a new
acquisition, isn’t it?” pointing to the oldest family portrait, and
Ninian will reply: “It has hung there for four hundred years.” And Ann
will be wretched. Then Lady Bootle will exclaim: “What a superb emerald,”
and Ninian will indicate that it was given to an ancestress by Catherine
the Great, and Ann will wish she hadn’t put it on.
LADY EMILY: And the vicar will say to me: “Quite a stranger, Lady Emily,”
which he always says, however often I come, and I will answer: “I had
meant to be down before,” and he will shake his finger playfully at me,
exclaiming: “A change of mind is the prerogative of the fair sex.” And at
that moment, God willing, dinner will be announced.
ANN: I think you are all very unkind, and as I am very tired I am going
to shoo you all away.
LORD WILLIAM (_grumbling_): You manage things so simply, Ann. When you
want people to come, you ask them to come, and when you want them to go,
you ask them to go.
LADY EMILY: Why can’t you let the poor child alone? She is tired.
MOLYNEUX: We can believe that she is tired, but we are incapable of
believing that we are not refreshing.
ANN: Of course you are refreshing. It is only that I am showing absolute
self-interest. I don’t want even the film of a headache to come between
us after dinner.
LADY EMILY: Molly can never believe that a woman is resting. He remembers
that in his youth it invariably meant that she was with someone else.
MOLYNEUX: I have always felt that instead of saying strong as an ox, one
should say strong as a woman.
SELINA: You haven’t read your Shakespeare. “Frailty, thy name is woman.”
MOLYNEUX: That had a moral, not a physical, significance, my dear. I am
not speaking of robust virtue.
[_They are talking themselves out of the room._
ANN: Aunt Emily—will you show Mabel her room?
LADY EMILY: Certainly, my love.
ANN (_calling to the door_): Half-past eight dinner, everybody.
TIM (_in an undertone_): Might I stay for a moment or two? I will be
quiet as a mouse.
ANN: Tim, dear.
TIM: Please don’t think that I am going to be tiresome. I do try to
keep my thoughts away from you when you don’t want them, but it is so
difficult.
ANN: My dear, I need all of the reinforcements that you can give
me—always.
TIM: You are so nice, dearest, that you count on my being a fool.
ANN: You’re teasing me.
TIM: I know you can’t need anything. It is horrible to have nasty
involuntary necessities nibbling things out of one’s wishes.
ANN: What wishes?
TIM: The wish to behave well.
ANN: I never want to behave well.
TIM: You’ve never had to.
ANN (_to herself_): Oh, my dear.
TIM: I always hope that there are going to be little things that I
can do for you. I don’t ask you to need things. I only long—quite
passionately—for you to want some thing.
ANN: It is so complicated—I need your love and I want you to be happy.
TIM: How deliciously simple that would be. You have my love and you make
me happy.
ANN: Happy?
TIM: My love for you doesn’t make me unhappy any more. It has become a
sort of religion.
ANN: Tim——
TIM: My reverent adoration is without requests and without claims. I
don’t want you to step down off your altar, dearest.
ANN: Tim, you frighten me.
TIM: And they think you are cold or conventional because your wonderful
goodness is a steady light, because you know nothing of ugly flares of
passion, which first blind you and then leave everything dark.
ANN (_shutting her eyes_): Oh!
TIM: It is so difficult not to be selfish when one loves. It seems
somehow to make everything so personal.
ANN (_looking into distance_): Yes.
TIM: You don’t say “How divinely she walks,” but “Is she coming straight
to me?”
ANN: Yes.
TIM: There is a feverish unreality about everything, so that you feel
that even physical pain would soothe your nerves.
ANN (_under her breath_): I know.
TIM (_has not heard her_): You want to be cruel ... or violent ... or
something....
ANN: Tim dear, you have never wanted to hurt a fly in your life.
TIM: Oh yes, I have. When I first fell in love with you, I wanted to kill
Ninian.
ANN: And now?
TIM: Now I just want to have him killed—not by my own hand, but
impersonally. You see, Ann, you have taught me that there is something
unblessed about the things you do for your own sake. Does it sound
priggish? I mean that now I quite honestly don’t think about how things
will affect me, but how they will affect you. It has made me so happy.
ANN: I don’t deserve it.
TIM: I don’t mean that I don’t want you with every breath of my body;
the whole of me is yearning for you all the time. I feel a burning wave
sweep through me whenever you walk into the room. When I hear your name
suddenly, it makes me feel sick and giddy and excited. If I meet you
unexpectedly I am like a nervous actor in the wings, waiting for his cue.
ANN: Tim....
TIM: Does it worry you if I talk like that? I am not trying to appeal to
you, or fuss you, dearest. God knows I’m not.
ANN: I know, dear.
[_She gives him her hand._
TIM (_kissing it_): Sometimes I have wondered what it would feel like to
kiss you—just once.
ANN (_putting her face up to him_): There.
TIM: No. I’m not going to take advantage of your generosity. It would be
sacrilege. I am not an irreverent worshipper nor an ungrateful one. I am
proud to be allowed to kiss your finger tips.
ANN (_bitterly_): Why is it the selfish people who get so much out of
one? Why do we go on pouring ourselves into shallow streams? Why can’t we
love the people we want to love?
TIM (_simply_): I do.
ANN: Tim—I wish you didn’t think such wonderful things about me. Some day
you will be so shocked. So surprised.
TIM: Never.
ANN: You will find out that I am not a saint at all.
TIM: I know you are a saint. Nothing can alter that.
ANN: You have created me in your own image, giving me all your own lovely
qualities. They are a divine gift, Tim. Thank you for them.
TIM: What nonsense you talk. Everyone becomes good when they are with you.
ANN: Some day you may find out terrible things about me—and then what
shall I do?
TIM: What you did wouldn’t matter, anyway.
ANN (_looking at him intensely_): Wouldn’t it? Are you sure?
TIM: Quite sure. It’s what you are. The warm glowing light you give. It
doesn’t matter into what dark corners it goes, does it?
ANN (_in a whisper_): I wonder.
TIM: The places it lights and warms aren’t part of the sun, are they?
ANN: But people don’t work in that magnificent way. They select their
just and their unjust. What human being is impartial?
TIM: You are, very nearly. You make everyone happy.
ANN: I don’t! My God—I don’t.
TIM: How I used to curse your marriage to Ninian. I do still in a way—and
yet I am glad—selfishly glad, perhaps, that you have never been in love,
that no hellish divine unrest has wrought havoc in your heart—that you
are always there, serene and luminous and tender and whole.
ANN (_wonderingly_): Do you really think I am like that?
TIM: Yes. Not a searchlight, or a lamp, but sunshine out of doors.
ANN: My dear, I am a nervous, impatient, hungry, selfish creature.
TIM: You are a wicked woman, to fish after all the divine things I have
been saying to you.
ANN: Tim, you spoil me.
TIM (_seizing her shoulders_): I’d love to spoil you, all day, every day,
all of the time. I’m sorry, Ann. I’m being rough and uncontrolled, and
worrying you. Forgive me.
ANN: Forgive you? Tim dear, you are an angel, and I am a very ordinary
woman, and so tired.
TIM: Bless you.
[_TIM tiptoes out of the room._
[_There is a pause. Then JORDAN enters quietly, shutting the
door behind him._
ANN: Philip!
[_JORDAN walks to the window._
ANN: Darling, you haven’t kissed me.
PHILIP: Oh, I am thinking of something else, and kisses have nothing to
do with it.
ANN: I don’t understand.
PHILIP: Women never do.
ANN: For God’s sake, don’t generalize—it sounds so cheap.
PHILIP: It’s my platform training.
ANN: You’re so strange to-day—is anything the matter?
PHILIP: Nothing and everything.
ANN: Are you angry with me?
PHILIP: No.
ANN: I am sorry if I was snappy.
[_There is a pause._
ANN: In twenty minutes Ninian will be back from the station, the
dressing-gong will ring, and I shall have to leave you. Oh, I wish there
weren’t a clock in my heart telling me that time is running away.
PHILIP: It is half-past seven now.
ANN: All those lovely precious moments when I have you to myself ...
don’t let them be empty moments, Philip. Think of all the agonizing
happiness that we can fill them with.
PHILIP: Why do you always want things at fever pitch?
ANN: I don’t, but each time I am with you my love is like a child being
born. It tears me to bits. And then there comes a moment of pure ecstasy
and forgetfulness, and my life ceases to exist, and there is no time, and
everything is simple.
PHILIP: My dear child, your nerves are out of order.
ANN: I’m sorry, darling. You _do_ hate me to be what you call fanciful,
don’t you?
PHILIP: Yes.
ANN: I’ll be just what you like. So good and sober and matter-of-fact if
you’ll only smile.
PHILIP: One can’t always smile.
ANN: I can never help it when I’m with you. Smiles seem to flutter about
my lips like butterflies. But sometimes I can’t help thinking—in an hour
he’ll be gone, in ten minutes he’ll be gone. And then when people come
into the room, I try to shut them out of my consciousness and imagine I
am in your arms. Do you never do that?
PHILIP: No.
ANN: First I feel one arm around me, then the other.... I think of
each finger of your hand and the features of your face getting closer
and closer till they merge into my face, and your lips creeping about
covering every bit of me with kisses—my neck, my eyes, my lips. And then
I look up dazed and radiant and see some old man talking to me about the
Tariff. Do you never do that?
PHILIP: No.
ANN: You are dreadfully wanting me to be sensible, aren’t you?
PHILIP: Yes.
[_There is a pause._
ANN (_nervously_): Do Uncle Bill and Mr. Molyneux get on your nerves?
PHILIP: No.
ANN: They have hearts of gold, really.
PHILIP: Your universe is entirely populated by saints, and sinners who
sin in order to become still greater saints.
[_There is a pause._
ANN: Were you in your constituency yesterday?
PHILIP: Yes.
ANN: Did you make a speech? Was it a good meeting?
PHILIP: Fairly.
[_There is another pause. ANN is crying silently._
PHILIP: What the devil is the matter now?
ANN: I don’t understand.
PHILIP: So you have already observed.
ANN: It’s dreadful. Why, we can’t even talk any more.
PHILIP: That does indeed put me in a unique position. Someone a Cathcart
can’t talk to.
ANN: I can’t bear it. What have I done? Don’t you love me any more? Don’t
I even amuse you?
PHILIP: I don’t know.
ANN: You see, I haven’t ever loved anyone before. I suppose I am clumsy—I
can’t play it as a game, giving little bits of myself to make you want
more. I don’t know how to.
PHILIP: An end was bound to come sooner or later, wasn’t it?
ANN: But I don’t see. How can there be an end? I belong to you—all of
me—always. Philip, my beloved, my lover.
PHILIP (_bitterly_): How surprised they would be.
ANN: Philip, you are teasing me, aren’t you? You’re testing me? You want
to see how much I care. It will always be so easy for you to hurt me,
dear heart—too easy to be amusing.
[_PHILIP is sitting on the sofa beside her and she is stroking
his face._
ANN: But then, there is nothing difficult left, is there? Because it is
just as easy—terribly easy—to make me happy.
PHILIP: Ann, haven’t you ever thought that love affairs don’t last for
ever?
ANN: I have never thought of love affairs; I have only thought of
love—which means you—and you, which means life.
PHILIP: You haven’t learnt much from your uncle and aunt, have you?
ANN: It makes me so dreadfully sad when I hear them, because I know—you
have taught me—that they don’t understand life.
PHILIP: Suppose that they are right? They are careless and care-free, and
courageous and clear-eyed, and old and young—why shouldn’t they be right?
ANN: They have never loved.
PHILIP: A hundred times.
ANN: It is the same thing.
[_She is looking into his face._
PHILIP (_more gently_): What do you want?
ANN: I want to be kissed—to be kissed better, as we said in the nursery.
PHILIP: Where does it hurt?
ANN: It doesn’t hurt when you ask me.
PHILIP: Baby!
ANN: Beloved!
[_PHILIP kisses her. Pause. Her face is buried on his shoulder._
ANN: Philip....
PHILIP: Yes?
ANN (_happily_): Why did you frighten me? It was wicked and cruel.
PHILIP: This is an impossible situation.
ANN (_drowsily gay_): Don’t talk business.
PHILIP: We can’t go on like this for ever.
ANN: We can’t help going on like this.
PHILIP: And if your husband finds out?
ANN (_doubtfully_): Perhaps he would divorce me; then we could marry.
PHILIP: How could I marry you?
ANN (_still gay_): Do members of Parliament never marry?
PHILIP: Ann, how can you be so exasperating?
ANN: Did she threaten him with respectability? It was a shame.
PHILIP: Of all the contrary little devils....
ANN: Philip, I’ve made you laugh.... Oh, I’m so happy. Do you know that
ten minutes ago I thought I should never make you laugh again?
PHILIP: Ann, get up.
[_ANN gets up._
PHILIP: Let me look at you. Ann—you are a beautiful woman.
ANN: So I’ve been told.
PHILIP: Ann, come here.
[_ANN approaches him gingerly. PHILIP crushes her in his arms._
ANN: Philip, you’re hurting me!
PHILIP (_passionately_): I want to hurt you.
[_PHILIP is pushing back her hair with one hand, and with the
other he holds her at arm’s length. Very brutally he crushes
her against himself, and then pushes her away again. Her hair
is coming down and her lip is bleeding. At last he releases her
and walks away with his back to her. ANN tremulously follows him
and puts her hand on his arm. PHILIP turns._
ANN: Philip, you do _love_ me, don’t you?
PHILIP (_in a hard voice_): I wonder.
CURTAIN
ACT II
ACT II
SCENE I
_ANN, alone, walks about humming happily. PHILIP is shown in
by THOMPSON._
THOMPSON: Mr. Jordan.
[_Exit THOMPSON._
ANN: Philip——
PHILIP: Here I am.
ANN: But you can’t dine——
PHILIP: No, I must be in the House.
ANN: Of course.
PHILIP (_suspiciously_): Why do you say “of course”?
ANN (_smiling_): Because I am so well trained.
PHILIP: You sounded as if you were thinking of something.
ANN: My mind was in that rare and delightful state known as a perfect
blank.
PHILIP: You don’t usually say “of course” when I break an engagement with
you.
ANN: You told me it was so important to be sensible.
PHILIP: I doubt if the Almighty Himself could make you sensible. It
wasn’t part of His conception——
ANN: But I have always known that you ought to go more to the House.
PHILIP (_sharply_): What do you mean?
ANN: That to be young and charming and promising and intelligent means
nothing compared to being on the spot.
PHILIP: How practical you are getting.
ANN: It isn’t that I am getting practical; it is that every day you seem
to be becoming more and more a part of me. You see, if you are always
with me, it doesn’t matter quite so much that you should sometimes be
away from me.
PHILIP: I don’t see.
ANN: Loving you used to make me unhappy, but now it makes me happy—now
that I am sure. I used to feel “He isn’t looking at me, he isn’t thinking
about me, his eyes aren’t even straying in my direction. He is quite
happy on that sofa, quite concentrated—if only he were inattentive. But
he isn’t.” But now I feel “It doesn’t matter what woman he is with,
or what man—his heart is with me. I don’t need any stray looks, any
accidental jealousy—he means so much to me now that I don’t want him to
be anxious when he’s away from me. I want him to be confident.” When you
are a little bit in love you are flattered by doubt, but when you really
love you only want trust.
PHILIP: You give enough trust for two.
ANN: You make it so easy.
PHILIP: Ann——
ANN: Yes?
PHILIP (_thinks better of it_): Nothing.
ANN: Did you want to tell me something?
PHILIP: One can’t tell you anything. You have the divine scepticism of
all the saints.
ANN: What do you mean?
PHILIP: All saints are unbelievers. They don’t believe in realities. They
don’t even believe in mortality.
ANN (_passionately_): One can’t believe in mortality.
PHILIP: You must have seen enough death during the war.
ANN: That is why I can’t believe in mortality.
PHILIP: Doesn’t it let you down, always following your hopes?
ANN: What else can one follow?
PHILIP: Anyway, if it doesn’t let you down, it must let you in for things.
ANN: But I like being let in for things.
PHILIP: I wonder your illusions aren’t threadbare by now—you use them
enough.
ANN: Philip, why do you go on keeping up a silly pretence of being hard
and cold and cynical and heartless? They are all such foolish things to
be. People are only hard because they are frightened, and cold because
they are clumsy. As for cynicism, it is so misleading; it keeps you out
of touch with life.
PHILIP: That seems an odd remark for a Cathcart.
ANN: Uncle Bill and Aunt Emily aren’t really cynical; they are just a
little out of tune with the sort of lives we live. You ought to think of
them as delicious museum pieces. You watch Uncle Bill if somebody makes a
pun—he glows—not because he very much likes puns, but because they make
him feel young. It must be so sad to see the world drifting away out of
your ken into a strange new century full of distorted angles and alien
values.
PHILIP (_violently_): I don’t understand you, any of you—your uncle or
your aunt or Selina.
ANN (_interrupting_): Selina is just very young and uncompromising—a
ruthless, fastidious realist. At least she thinks she is a realist,
because she can face things, but it is so easy to face things before one
has ever been hurt.
PHILIP: Then there is you.
ANN (_laughing_): There is me. (_Tenderly_): Are you glad?
PHILIP (_who is walking up and down_): You are the most mysterious of
them all.
ANN: I am simplicity itself. It is only because you love me that you
think me mysterious. The person you love is always mysterious because you
have encircled them in the great mystery of love.
PHILIP (_who is taking no notice of what she is saying_): They all think
you a saint, and they are right, I suppose. You see no evil, in anyone,
not even in yourself.
ANN: Philip, how can you say a thing like that? No one knows better than
I do that I am riddled with faults.
PHILIP: You are practically faultless, and yet it would seem as if virtue
meant nothing to you.
ANN: What do you mean by virtue?
PHILIP: What other people mean by it.
ANN: That one’s body matters more than anything else?
PHILIP: I shouldn’t have put it like that.
ANN: Nor would the other people.
PHILIP: You think nothing of having a lover.
ANN: I think everything of it.
PHILIP: You don’t mind deceiving your husband.
ANN: You know I would have told him long ago if you had let me.
PHILIP (_in despair at her blindness_): Good God!
ANN: Don’t you remember we thought that although he doesn’t love me it
would hurt him?
PHILIP (_sneering_): Ninian too is like _other_ people.
ANN: Yes—once one has given one’s heart all other gifts are so small.
That is where it seems to me that the moralists go wrong—they seem to
think the body so much more important than the heart or the soul.
PHILIP: Moralists aren’t occupied with the heart or the soul. They are
interested in the structure of society.
ANN: Then why don’t they become county councillors or politicians?
PHILIP: Because they would find difficulty in getting elected.
ANN: You look tired.
PHILIP: I am tired.
ANN: What has tired you? The things you have done or the things you
haven’t done?
PHILIP: Both.
ANN: Tell me!
PHILIP (_sharply_): What?
ANN: Everything—anything.
PHILIP: There is nothing to tell.
ANN (_teasing_): You look like a man with a guilty secret.
PHILIP (_startled_): What are you driving at?
ANN (_still gay_): How should I know?
PHILIP: Well, I must be going.
ANN: Already?
PHILIP: Your guests will be arriving in a moment.
ANN: Philip, please say something nice to me before you go.
PHILIP: What do you mean by a nice thing?
ANN: Something obvious and all-embracing.
PHILIP: So you’ve reached the obvious, have you?
ANN: I have always believed in the obvious.
PHILIP: What would you call an obvious and all-embracing thing to say?
ANN: I love you.
PHILIP: Why do women always want to be told that one loves them? They
must know whether it is true or not.
ANN: There may be truths that are better left unsaid, but there are no
nice truths that are not the better for being repeated.
PHILIP: Do you call love a nice truth?
ANN: A respectable truth.
PHILIP: So long as you change the subject.
ANN: Don’t tease me, sweet.
PHILIP: I’m not teasing you.
ANN (_stroking his forehead_): I don’t want you to be tired or
worried.... I don’t want you to have a conscience.
PHILIP: Not any conscience at all?
ANN: A preventive conscience but not a retrospective one.
PHILIP: I think it is better to worry after than before ... a sin
followed by a regret is better than a blank preceded by a doubt.
ANN: It might be such a small sin and such a big regret.
PHILIP: Why do you look so happy?
ANN: I am so happy.
PHILIP: How do you manage it?
ANN: You manage most of it.
PHILIP (_showing some faint emotion for the first time_): There are
moments when I wish I had managed it.
ANN (_kisses his hand_): Good-bye.
PHILIP: Good-bye.
[_Exit PHILIP._
[_ANN walks about the room singing to herself._
[_Enter LORD WILLIAM._
ANN: Uncle William, how nice of you to come early.
LORD WILLIAM: One never gets you alone.
ANN: I would always be alone if I knew you were coming.
LORD WILLIAM: You ought not to be wasting your wiles on an old uncle; you
ought to be ruining some young man with them.
ANN: Is it nice for young men to be ruined?
LORD WILLIAM: Delightful.
ANN: When were you first ruined, Uncle Bill?
LORD WILLIAM: When I was twenty-one. That was, quite properly, the method
I selected for coming of age.
ANN: What was she like?
LORD WILLIAM: She was a circus-rider. We did things in style in those
days.
ANN: Was she pretty?
LORD WILLIAM: She was dashing—damned expensive too. I will say that for
her. Now you could ruin a young man without costing him a penny.
ANN: In fact you are recommending me as an economy.
LORD WILLIAM: I’m sorry, my dear. For a moment sordid financial
considerations arose in my mind with the memory of Annette. We were
all so affected by Ouida in those days. It never occurred to us to do
anything simply.
ANN: And now I suppose you think that we none of us do anything well?
LORD WILLIAM: A little slipshod, a little casual, I find you. And your
young men are so lacking in persistence that your young women can’t
afford any subtlety. If men go about taking no for an answer they can’t
expect to get “no” said to them, and there is nothing like affirmatives
for taking the savour out of an affair.
THOMPSON: Lady Emily Cathcart, my lady.
[_Enter LADY EMILY CATHCART. She kisses ANN._
LORD WILLIAM: Emily, do you recollect that year when Molly was first
attentive to you?
LADY EMILY: Very clearly.
LORD WILLIAM: Molly was a buffoon in those days.
LADY EMILY: Really, William, you should not betray the secrets of our
youth. Ann, who is romantic, believes that Molly was the most tender of
lovers.
LORD WILLIAM: Well, even when you lay your _amour propre_ aside you will
admit that Molly was, if possible, far more tender than passionate.
LADY EMILY: Fiddlesticks! Molly was never in the least tender, nor for
that matter was he in the least passionate either. But he was not more
ridiculous than any other young man who adopts an attitude unpropelled by
an impulse.
ANN: What was his attitude?
LADY EMILY: In the year ’80, to which William is referring, his attitude
was one of affection towards myself.
ANN: I am sure that that was quite sincere.
LADY EMILY: Perfectly. He liked me in private and loved me in public.
ANN: You mean that he was shy when he was alone with you?
LADY EMILY: No. I mean that he was frank when he was alone with me.
ANN: What a divine compliment.
LADY EMILY: The truth is the most tiresome of all compliments.
LORD WILLIAM: When I am flattered I always imagine that I have been told
the truth.
LADY EMILY: William has always been vain—whereas I have been selfish,
which is a much more artistic achievement. When William was young, he
succumbed to every temptation—a sad lack both of fastidiousness and of
concentration. I, on the other hand, determined to miss chances and take
opportunities. I succeeded.
LORD WILLIAM: Your aunt means that she remained unmarried.
LADY EMILY: On purpose.
LORD WILLIAM: A misguided objective.
LADY EMILY: Why?
LORD WILLIAM: The stationary is no achievement.
LADY EMILY: There was nothing stationary about it.
LORD WILLIAM: Don’t shock Ann.
[_Enter THOMPSON and SELINA._
THOMPSON: Miss Selina, m’lady.
[_Exit THOMPSON._
SELINA: Papa, you are an outrage.
LORD WILLIAM: I hope so, my love.
SELINA: You forgot me.
LORD WILLIAM: How is that possible?
SELINA: I should have hoped it would be impossible.
LORD WILLIAM: Are you suggesting that my delight as a parent has
triumphed over my indiscretion as a chaperon? That my desire for your
society has prevented me from leaving you at the right moment?
SELINA: I am suggesting no such thing. I am merely mentioning the fact
that you went out without me.
LORD WILLIAM: To be sure, that is what comes of living in the same house.
One never can remember the other person.
[_Enter THOMPSON and MR. MOLYNEUX._
THOMPSON: Mr. Molyneux, m’lady.
ANN: Mr. Molyneux, Uncle Bill and Aunt Emily have been taking your
character away. If you want to find it again you need only come to me.
LORD WILLIAM: Quite right, my dear. At last I have found a profession for
you. A pawnbroker of reputations.
LADY EMILY: Remember not to accept stolen goods.
SELINA: And that, failing a payment, the property becomes your own.
MOLYNEUX: I am not putting my reputation on deposit; I am giving it to
Ann.
LADY EMILY: You are giving away something you don’t possess.
MOLYNEUX: Won’t you lend it to me?
[_Enter NINIAN._
NINIAN: I apologize, Mr. Molyneux. Forgive me, Uncle William. I have been
kept.
LORD WILLIAM: Tut, tut, Ninian, a rich man like you!
NINIAN: I cannot see how being rich can affect the fact that I was
sitting late on a committee. And anyway, I am not rich ... you know
very well, Uncle William, that it is almost impossible nowadays for a
gentleman to be rich.
MOLYNEUX: It was always difficult.
LORD WILLIAM: It is a question of minerals, my boy. There is still coal
in the earth.
MOLYNEUX: But, as Ninian would say, there are unfortunately also miners.
NINIAN: There are, I understand, a number of very rich people in this
country to-day. I know very few of them.
SELINA: What a pity.
MOLYNEUX: Never mind—as the proverb says, if you fail the first time—and
it applies, I imagine, to all of the numerous first times—try, try again.
LADY EMILY: I feel that you ought to make an effort to get into touch
with all these millionaires.
NINIAN: I do not know their names.
SELINA: What a shame!
MOLYNEUX: There must be ways of finding out. Somerset House, for instance.
SELINA: Aren’t they all dead there?
MOLYNEUX: It is difficult not to have an heir.
NINIAN: I have no desire to know any of these profiteers. What could they
do me? I should, I hope, feel at a disadvantage in their company.
[_Enter THOMPSON and MRS. MARTINEAU._
THOMPSON: Mrs. Martineau, m’lady.
[_Exit THOMPSON._
ANN: Dear Mabel.
[_General greetings._
NINIAN: If you were older, Mrs. Martineau, I should say that you look
younger each time I see you.
MRS. MARTINEAU: Please say it—I am not young enough not to have my head
turned.
[_Enter THOMPSON and TIM._
THOMPSON: Mr. Carstairs, m’lady.
ANN: Tim....
TIM: I am so sorry if I am late.
ANN: You’re not late—for dinner.
LADY EMILY (_in the other corner_): Why, Mrs. Martineau?
MOLYNEUX: Why indeed? These nursery friendships never come to any good.
LADY EMILY: Even later friendships rarely come to any good.
MOLYNEUX: But they can easily be taken to the bad.
LADY EMILY: Not easily. Believe me, not easily. Going to the bad is very
difficult.
MOLYNEUX: Why so difficult?
LADY EMILY: Because one’s roots go deeper than one thinks. You find a lot
of odd principles and inhibitions lying about at the bottom of the sea.
If the psychoanalysts hadn’t made the term ridiculous I should talk of
the subconscious.
LORD WILLIAM: Did I hear you use the word subconscious, Emily?
LADY EMILY: You did, William.
LORD WILLIAM: It has played no part in your life.
LADY EMILY: It has played the same part in my life that it plays in other
people’s. It has been the refuge of unwelcome guests.
LORD WILLIAM (_calling_): Ann. Ann! There is something the matter with
Emily to-night. She has become a moralist. Everyone is very odd. Selina
is silent, Tim is restless, Ninian is absent-minded, and Mrs. Martineau
is sunny. Why the devil should they run away from themselves like that?
By the way, Ann, what are you?
ANN (_smiling_): I am happy.
MOLYNEUX: Tell us, Ann, is virtue really its own reward? We should so
like to know. We need cheering up.
[_Enter THOMPSON._
THOMPSON: Dinner is served, m’lady.
[_General bustle._
CURTAIN _for Ten Seconds_
SCENE II
_Curtain rises as ANN, LADY EMILY, MRS. MARTINEAU and SELINA
come out of the dining-room._
LADY EMILY: Could anything be more Prussian than a dinner-party? The same
courses succeeding one another night after night, just as if cooking were
regulated by staff officers. In vain one longs for mustard with mutton.
ANN (_to MRS. MARTINEAU_): What a lovely dress, Mabel.
MRS. MARTINEAU: I am so glad you like it.
ANN: You are always so beautifully dressed.
MRS. MARTINEAU: That is because I insist on having the clothes made by
the French for the French; not the models designed for export purposes.
LADY EMILY: What is the difference?
MRS. MARTINEAU: When an Englishwoman or an American goes into Callot, or
Cheruit, the _vendeuse_ instantly shows her the most elaborate things she
has got—lace, flowers, furs and furbelows.
LADY EMILY: Why?
MRS. MARTINEAU: Out of contempt for our taste and desire to make the
price as high as possible.
SELINA: And we think it must be all right because of the name inside.
MRS. MARTINEAU: Men are such bad judges of clothing! They like crude
colours and they notice nothing.
SELINA: No. They say, “Kitty had on a divine dress,” and you ask, “What
colour was it?” and they explain, “Kind of orange,” and it turns out to
have been jade green.
ANN: And they always admire on other women the sort of clothes they
deprecate for their wives.
MRS. MARTINEAU: And they talk about the conspicuous, which doesn’t mean
anything. Of course it is dreadful to be conspicuously imperfect, just as
it is delightful to be conspicuously perfect. But the conspicuousness is
just underlining.
ANN: So few of us can afford to be underlined.
SELINA: Blue serge and black velvet are safest in all things.
MRS. MARTINEAU: There isn’t much blue serge and black velvet about you,
Selina.
SELINA: No. I’m always in the worst of taste.
MRS. MARTINEAU: We all dress for women, really.
SELINA: To annoy women, you mean?
LADY EMILY: With some people all admiration is a form of envy, and all
pleasure is a compound of pleasing and annoying your friends.
SELINA: How moral you are this evening, Aunt Emily.
LADY EMILY: Not moral, my dear, moralizing—it’s not the same thing.
SELINA: No, indeed. Look at Ann. She never gives us advice.
MRS. MARTINEAU (_acidly_): Only an example.
ANN: Really, the way my family talk about me—I wonder anyone can put up
with me at all.
MRS. MARTINEAU: And Mr. Molyneux.
ANN: He is almost one of the family.
SELINA (_maliciously to MRS. MARTINEAU_): And Tim?
LADY EMILY: Tim does not at all remind me of my youth.
ANN: Doesn’t he, Aunt Emily?
LADY EMILY (_with decision_): No.
SELINA: Why not?
LADY EMILY: Too good.
MRS. MARTINEAU: Perhaps you didn’t like good young men, Lady Emily.
LADY EMILY: I did not, and they didn’t like me.
SELINA: What was Molly like when he was young, Aunt Emily?
LADY EMILY: Much the same. Not bald, of course, but funny—always very
funny and available ... there when wanted.
SELINA: And when he wasn’t?
LADY EMILY: Yes, then too. Curiosity, not unkindness.
ANN: He has never loved anyone but you.
LADY EMILY: Fiddlesticks.... He never loved me. But with approaching
senility he requires a romance to look back on. I don’t know why he
chooses me.
ANN: Because he loved you.
LADY EMILY: Nonsense, but I’m honoured to play my part in this haze of
rosy retrospect.
SELINA: What a lovely phrase....
[_She hums._
SELINA: ... haze of rosy retrospect.
LADY EMILY (_severely_): You manage to give everything a music-hall touch.
SELINA: Papa thinks I am very eighteenth-century.
LADY EMILY: Your father likes to think himself eighteenth-century. A halo
of wit ’round coarseness.
SELINA (_who is looking at an illustrated paper_): I love dogs. They are
such wonderful company and they never talk about Bolshevism.
ANN: It is a devastating topic. Everyone always gets cross and silly.
SELINA: And they go on overstating their cases until it becomes an
auction of folly.
LADY EMILY: It is extraordinary how exacerbating subjects of world
importance can be. After an hour of Ninian, I find myself getting
frenzied about Smyrna.
ANN: Pro-Turk or pro-Greek?
LADY EMILY: I forget which. It depends on the other person.
SELINA: Yes. When we are with the vicar, who calls the Turks infidels, we
are pro-Turk; and when we are with Ninian, who calls the Turks gentlemen,
we are pro-Greek.
ANN: It sounds so tiring.
SELINA: It is. But agreeing with Ninian or the vicar does no good. It
doesn’t stop them.
ANN: You must make Ninian show you his map of the water power of
Austria-Hungary, showing that it must remain an Empire.
LADY EMILY: Ninian always proves everything by diagrams and statistics.
SELINA: He has designed what he calls a world danger map, showing
Socialist danger centres in red—Glasgow in scarlet, and Munich in
snow-white.
MRS. MARTINEAU: I thought it was a map of scarlet fever.
SELINA: So it is.
ANN: You are all very unkind about Ninian. He is so public-spirited and
conscientious.
MRS. MARTINEAU: He is very good-looking.
SELINA: The Candovers have kept up a higher standard of imbecility and
beauty than any other family in England.
[_Enter NINIAN, LORD WILLIAM, MOLYNEUX and TIM._
NINIAN: Well—clothes, servants and babies? Have they all been exhausted?
Is there a character still intact?
SELINA: We have been talking about Smyrna and Austria-Hungary and the
Socialist danger.
MRS. MARTINEAU: Will you show me your maps, Lord Candover?
NINIAN: I should be most happy.
MRS. MARTINEAU: Isn’t there one called the world danger map?
NINIAN: Yes ... I have tried to show in black and white....
SELINA: In red and white....
NINIAN: Selina, your habit of interrupting is intolerable.
SELINA: I am so sorry. But I had an idea.
LORD WILLIAM: How very disconcerting, my love.
SELINA: I am going to write a brochure called “The Quadruple Terror,” or
“Where the Rainbow Ends.”
MRS. MARTINEAU: What are you talking about?
SELINA: The Red Peril, the White Peril, the Black Peril, and the Yellow
Peril.
MOLYNEUX: Bravo.
SELINA: I have the half-penny mind. I should edit a paper called the
Johanna Cow.
LORD WILLIAM: That is really a disgracefully bad joke.
LADY EMILY: Well, Ninian, did you have a good meeting?
MOLYNEUX: What met?
NINIAN: The Conservative Association.
SELINA: It should be rechristened the Preservative Association.
NINIAN: Little girls should be seen and not heard.
SELINA: I should think I could get an engagement to show myself at
parties as the one Silent Cathcart.
NINIAN: My sisters were brought up to speak when they were spoken to.
SELINA: Did anyone ever talk to them?
NINIAN: If it is fine on Sunday I shall be able to show you the new
cement pigsties.
MOLYNEUX: Pigs upset my digestion.
LORD WILLIAM: Model landlords exhaust my vocabulary.
NINIAN (_undeterred_): You may not be aware of the fact that pigs are
very clean animals. It is only a question of providing them with water.
SELINA: Warm water?
NINIAN: Water.
LADY EMILY: How conscientious you are.
NINIAN: I was brought up with a sense of duty. My father said to me,
“Ninian, remember five centuries of Candovers are watching you.”
SELINA: Wasn’t he quoting Napoleon?
NINIAN: Certainly not. In any case, he always referred to him as
Bonaparte.
SELINA: Oh, Ninian, was that a nice way of talking of the dead?
LORD WILLIAM: How lucky that etiquette always prevents us from saying
disagreeable things about the departed. It leaves so much more for the
living.
SELINA: But Lord Candover was a pioneer. He didn’t believe in respecting
tombstones.
NINIAN: I wish you wouldn’t twist my words, Selina. My father was most
careful in speaking of the dead, and I am sure he would have hated to be
called a pioneer.
SELINA: I beg your pardon. He only felt free to insult the immortal.
NINIAN: We are all of us immortal.
MOLYNEUX: But the fact is only known about some of us.
MRS. MARTINEAU (_to TIM. They are on stool D. S. C. and she speaks in an
undertone that is not heard by the rest of the party_): What is the
matter with Ann?
TIM: Is anything the matter?
MRS. MARTINEAU: She’s been so moody lately.
TIM: She overworks.
MRS. MARTINEAU: Every time I see Ninian I realize that marriage to him
was the only adequate punishment for marrying him.
TIM: He is very good-looking.
MRS. MARTINEAU: Why did Ann do it?
TIM: She was very young.
MRS. MARTINEAU: Youth is an excuse for doing something foolish, not for
doing something suitable.
TIM: I don’t suppose that the worldly side of the thing ever struck her.
MRS. MARTINEAU: Then it was pure bad taste.
TIM: She was probably in love with love and he was its first
representative.
MRS. MARTINEAU: And when the romance wore off there was fifty thousand a
year left.
TIM: I don’t think that is a very nice thing to say.
MRS. MARTINEAU: How you adore her.
TIM: Everyone does.
SELINA: Ninian, have you ever thought of becoming a Mayor?
NINIAN: Mayor? Mayor of what?
SELINA: It wouldn’t matter. Any town would do. Papa, wouldn’t Ninian make
an excellent Mayor?
LORD WILLIAM: I really can’t say, my dear. I’ve never seen one.
SELINA: Ann knows lots. She adores them.
MOLYNEUX: In that case it would be quite proper that her husband should
join the company.
LADY EMILY: Ann, how silent you are.
ANN: I was always the most silent of the Cathcarts, but even that is
enough to get me the reputation of a chatterbox outside the family circle.
NINIAN: Uncle William, I am very glad you should be here, as I am
thinking of starting a league for combating budding Bolshevism in this
country. Your active help would be invaluable to me.
LORD WILLIAM: Molly and I are too old to see red.
MOLYNEUX: And being autocrats ourselves we approve of Lenin.
LORD WILLIAM: I suppose you feel bound to fight the only people who hate
liberty more than you do.
NINIAN: I don’t understand. Education is at the bottom of all the
mischief; teaches the people discontent and damned little else. What does
a working-man need to know except how to do an honest day’s work and
watch his cricket or his football on a Saturday? As a landlord I regard
my tenants as my children, and I know them well enough to know that good
old English ale and good old English sport mean a damned sight more to
them than cheap editions of the classics. Being educated above their
station, that’s what they are.
TIM: That would not teach them much.
NINIAN: I don’t know what you mean.
SELINA: I have often heard you say yourself, Ninian, that the only thing
a gentleman need learn is how to play the game—which, by the way, he
ought to be born knowing.
TIM: In case of accidents there’s Eton.
NINIAN: Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.
SELINA: But _Hamlet_ wasn’t written there.
LORD WILLIAM: I always find it so difficult to write out of doors.
However still the day, there’s always enough breeze to blow the paper
about.
NINIAN: I don’t see what that has to do with education.
MRS. MARTINEAU: It all comes from your anti-Bolshevist League.
ANN: Don’t let’s talk politics.
SELINA: I am going to write a song for Ninian to sing with the refrain:
“I’m a red rag to the Reds, so we’re all of us red together.” It will be
called the Red Pottage.
LORD WILLIAM: Selina, don’t you think you could write a revue? Then Molly
and I could get off some of our vulgarer jokes.
SELINA: What a good idea! Then, when you want to say something really
outrageous, you need only make a note of it, and we will use it in
_Whispers_.
MRS. MARTINEAU: What do you say, Selina?
SELINA: I am going to write a revue called _Whispers_ as a lightning
conductor for papa’s vulgarer jokes.
NINIAN: Why _Whispers_?
SELINA: Because it sounds so indiscreet. Haven’t you noticed that no one
ever listens until one drops one’s voice?
NINIAN: I should have thought it was easier to hear people who raised
their voices.
SELINA: Don’t you see? Then one doesn’t want to hear them.
NINIAN: You are all too clever for me. But I really don’t know where it
leads you to.
MRS. MARTINEAU: It has made Lord William and Mr. Molyneux the two most
sought-after men in London.
LORD WILLIAM: It has helped Emily to avoid marriage and enabled her to
lead her own life with admirable indiscretion.
SELINA: It has made me a comfort to my father in his old age.
LADY EMILY: We have only one regret. It has not prevented Ann and Tim
from being saints.
NINIAN: Ann has no temptations and Tim is indoors too much.
[_He caresses ANN’S hair and she shudders a little._
MOLYNEUX: And it is delightful just being ourselves.
LORD WILLIAM: How is the dear vicar—still pro-Semite?
ANN: What a memory you’ve got, Uncle Bill.
MOLYNEUX: And my friend, Mrs. Sidebotham?
LADY EMILY: Si_de_botham, please.
ANN: She told me that you had said something very funny to her last time
you met, and that unfortunately she has forgotten it, and couldn’t you
remember what it was?
MOLYNEUX: A most insulting woman to think that I have a limited supply of
labelled witticisms.
LADY EMILY: The last time we were altogether there was that young
politician.
TIM: Jordan?
LADY EMILY: Yes, that’s the man.
SELINA: Do you remember how we teased him?
TIM: I only remember your asking him if he took things seriously.
SELINA: It was a delicate way of suggesting that he took himself
seriously.
LORD WILLIAM: That was abundantly clear without any hint from you, my
dear.
MOLYNEUX: He certainly didn’t fit into our airy conversation.
SELINA: He was like a porpoise among gold fish.
LORD WILLIAM: But we agreed that it was a mistake to waste malice on the
dead.
ANN (_with a muffled cry_): The dead?
LORD WILLIAM: His reputation has come to an untimely end. He is, however,
I believe, in excellent health.
LADY EMILY: What did his reputation die of?
LORD WILLIAM: Guess.
MOLYNEUX: I suggest drink.
NINIAN: He was never quite a gentleman.
SELINA: Do gentlemen always have strong heads?
MOLYNEUX: They sometimes have a good wine.
MRS. MARTINEAU: Was that it? Do tell us about it. Did he get very drunk?
SELINA: As Ninian would say, he couldn’t carry his liquor like a
gentleman.
MOLYNEUX: Nor can most gentlemen.
MRS. MARTINEAU: But he can’t have ruined himself so quickly for such a
common failing.
MOLYNEUX: Shall we assume that he drugged?
LADY EMILY: Or gambled?
SELINA: Another gentlemanly vice.
MOLYNEUX: We can pretend, if you prefer it, that he lost his temper when
he lost, and crowed when he won.
MRS. MARTINEAU: I suggest a woman.
LADY EMILY: What sort of woman shall we have—a poor victim, or a common
vampire?
SELINA: Let us have both—the one to prove him a villain, and the other a
fool.
MOLYNEUX: Why are you so vindictive?
SELINA: Because I was so much bored. “I am brave enough to admit, Miss
Selina, that I take some things seriously.”
NINIAN: The best thing about him.
MRS. MARTINEAU: But even with all the details that we have supplied, I
don’t see how he lost his reputation as a politician.
LADY EMILY: It is probably only a temporary eclipse. No one’s political
career is ever over.
LORD WILLIAM: If you will allow me to get in a word edgeways, I will tell
you the whole story. It was last night—I heard all about it at my Club
at lunch to-day—Jordan had promised to make a most important speech.
The Prime Minister, depending on him, left the House, but when the time
came he was nowhere to be found. The situation was critical, and the
Government only just squeaked through. So you see his position in his
party isn’t very rosy for the moment.
NINIAN: Probably it was cowardice, thought the ship was sinking.
MRS. MARTINEAU: But where was he?
LORD WILLIAM: With a woman.
MRS. MARTINEAU: What sort of a woman?
LORD WILLIAM: A woman he had picked up.
MRS. MARTINEAU: Where?
LORD WILLIAM: I really don’t know one street from another.
MOLYNEUX: There isn’t very much variety.
LORD WILLIAM: Jordan wasn’t the sort of man to get as far even as
a circus. Now in my day it wasn’t etiquette to begin lower than a
circus-rider.
MOLYNEUX: We didn’t know what economy meant.
LORD WILLIAM: If Jordan was drunk he was probably quite right to pick
without choosing. At the time he could tell nothing, and by morning his
purse must have been his sole criterion.
ANN (_who has been listening to the conversation with ever-increasing
anguish and now rises_): It’s not true!
[_There is a dead silence._
ANN: It is a wicked shameful lie.
LORD WILLIAM: There is our little Ann up in arms to defend her friends.
Very laudable, very characteristic. Nothing but saints in your world, eh,
Ann?
ANN (_trembling with passion_): Don’t you believe me?
MRS. MARTINEAU: Where was he then?
ANN: Do you want to know where he was? If you want to—I’ll tell you. He
_was_ with a woman—he was with me.
MRS. MARTINEAU: And may one ask why he was with you at such a critical
moment in his career?
ANN: Why?
MRS. MARTINEAU: Did you have a headache, dear? Was that what made him run
round at the crucial moment in the Debate?
SELINA: Fancy Mr. Jordan forgetting _himself_.
MRS. MARTINEAU: How did you let him know, darling, that you needed him so
badly?
SELINA: Did he just come round and say, “You wanted me; here I am?” How
delightfully romantic.
MRS. MARTINEAU: He clearly must have said, “They call me a statesman,
rather let it be said of me, ‘He was a friend!’”
SELINA: “I had not loved these, dear, so much—” No, that is the wrong way
round, isn’t it?
ANN: You don’t understand. He——
LORD WILLIAM: Your little story is not good, etc.
NINIAN: I seem to recollect that the division took place at two in the
morning.
MRS. MARTINEAU: Tut, tut, Ann, the early hours of the morning! Devoted to
friendship!
ANN: Yes. I don’t know at what time they wanted him to speak, but he was
with me. He is my lover.
LADY EMILY: Ann, dearest, you’re mad.
LORD WILLIAM: Ann, you’re joking.
NINIAN: Do you think you are going to make us believe a yarn like that?
MRS. MARTINEAU: Tim’s Madonna Jordan’s mistress?
ANN: It’s true.
[_She is almost in tears._
NINIAN: Really, Ann, it’s bad enough to have friends like that, but this
hysterical self-sacrifice business is preposterous.
MOLYNEUX: My dear child, you should remember that Mrs. Martineau always
believes the worst on principle.
ANN: But I can prove to her that it’s true, that he wasn’t drunk or—with
someone like that.
NINIAN: Don’t be absurd. By the worst, Molyneux means your assertion that
Jordan was your lover. If that story got about, someone who didn’t know
you might believe it.
ANN (_quite calmly_): It’s true.
LORD WILLIAM: It is delightful to know anyone as innocent as you are,
Ann. To sit there deliberately and tell us a fifth-rate politician is
your lover! Even we did not think you as ignorant of the usages of _La
Vie Galante_.
ANN: Don’t you see it is not a question of _la vie galante_? It is a
question of love.
NINIAN: How dare you talk about love? You damned cold——
LADY EMILY: Ninian!
NINIAN: I beg your pardon.
MOLYNEUX: Dear little Ann, thinking that women with lovers use their
liaisons as alibis for politicians.
SELINA: Ann, how do you keep so innocent?
MRS. MARTINEAU: Tell us your secret!
ANN: It is a secret you none of you know.
[_She bursts into tears._
NINIAN: Wives should have no secrets from their husbands.
[_He strikes a match._
CURTAIN
ACT III
ACT III
(SAME AS ACT I)
[_TIM, SELINA and LORD WILLIAM._
LORD WILLIAM: Tim! Who was it?
TIM: It was Mrs. Martineau who spread the story.
SELINA: Viper.
TIM: I should like to gag her with thistles.
SELINA: Have you seen her?
TIM: I met her in the street.
LORD WILLIAM: I trust you did not cut her. It is better to hear what
people have to say first, then you can cut them afterwards with all the
more reason.
TIM: I am afraid I told her what I thought about her.
LORD WILLIAM: What did she say?
TIM: She said that of course she did not believe Ann’s story, but that it
was so interesting that Ann should have cared enough for Jordan to invent
it.
SELINA: Brute!
TIM: Afterwards, when she was really angry, she remarked that she had
been sure that we would all like to feel that the world had been able to
benefit by this wonderful story of Ann’s unworldliness and high sense of
friendship, as these qualities are so rarely seen and still more rarely
believed in.
SELINA: I can hear her saying it.
LORD WILLIAM: Have you seen Ann?
TIM: No, I only came an hour ago.
LORD WILLIAM: It’s all very trying.
TIM: It is having a saint like Ann discussed at all that makes one so
sick. It is like seeing people without religion in a church.
SELINA: I wouldn’t mind so much if they knew Ann. She is a miracle no one
can deny.
TIM: What line does Ninian take?
SELINA: At last Ninian’s qualities are coming in handy. He is incredibly
grand, and, of course, it comes quite naturally to him. He is prepared
to horse-whip anyone. He talks about “my wife.” He does not, of course,
_say_ she is above suspicion. That would be to cast a slur upon himself.
Who was Cæsar?
LORD WILLIAM: Ninian is one of those men who believe implicitly in their
own all-conquering charm and, consequently, in the absence of temperament
of every woman who resists them. They never consider the possibility of
anyone who is not passionately in love with them being passionately in
love with anyone else.
TIM: Well, no one suspects Ann of being in love with Jordan.
LORD WILLIAM: Ah—no.
[_He obviously knows the truth._
TIM: It is wonderful of her suddenly to invent a story like that, but, of
course, I do see that it was rather trying for Ninian.
SELINA: Have you seen Mr. Jordan since, Papa?
LORD WILLIAM: Yes.
TIM: He must have been dreadfully upset at all the worry poor Ann is
having.
LORD WILLIAM: He seemed to be thinking mainly of himself.
SELINA: There are two things I can’t forgive Ann. One is her marriage
with Ninian, and the other her friendship with Mr. Jordan.
LORD WILLIAM: They would, no doubt, each agree with you about the other.
TIM: But for that Martineau woman, no one would have known anything about
it.
[_Enter ANN, looking white and wretched, she kisses LORD WILLIAM
and SELINA, and TIM kisses her hands._
ANN: What were you saying about Mabel?
SELINA: The viper.
LORD WILLIAM: That woman is a hell cat.
ANN: Poor thing! I don’t think she means it. Her tongue runs away with
her.
SELINA: Tim wants to gag her with thistles.
ANN: I didn’t know you went in for ingenious tortures.
LORD WILLIAM: Tim is a little more discriminating in his charity than you
are.
SELINA: Where is Ninian?
ANN: At his anti-Bolshevist Committee Meeting.
LORD WILLIAM: Is that bud bursting into flower?
ANN: It keeps a lot of violent-minded people busy. If “minded” be the
word.
SELINA: I had a letter from Mrs. Sidebotham—Si_de_botham ... this
morning. She wants me to organize an entertainment in the village. I am
afraid that Papa’s vulgar jokes wouldn’t do for that.
ANN: Nor would Red Pottage.
SELINA: “I’m a red rag to the Reds, so we’re all of us red together.”
LORD WILLIAM: Is it to be in aid of the organ?
SELINA: It is.
LORD WILLIAM: No one can say that I don’t know all about village life.
I’ve not forgotten my youth.
ANN: What was Grandpapa like?
LORD WILLIAM: Very formidable—arrogant, dry, autocratic, with magnificent
manners.
ANN: That’s what Ninian’s generation misses. They take themselves very
seriously, but somehow they are not in the least formidable. Just very
long and a tiny bit ridiculous.
SELINA: I still believe in a municipal solution for them.
[_Enter THOMPSON._
THOMPSON: Mr. Jordan has motored down from London. Could your Ladyship
see him?
[_Dead silence. ANN gets very white._
TIM: You’d better see him, hadn’t you? We’ll go.
[_ANN nods yes._
[_SELINA kisses her silently._
[_LORD WILLIAM stays behind a second; takes her in his arms._
LORD WILLIAM: I understand, my darling, but believe me he’s not worth it.
[_LORD WILLIAM and JORDAN meet in the door and bow, but do not
shake hands._
[_There is a pause._
ANN (_nervously_): Philip, you look so strange.
PHILIP (_with a bitter laugh_): Strange!
ANN: Set and hard, with a different voice, not your voice for me.
PHILIP: Ann, there are moments when you don’t seem to me quite normal.
ANN: I don’t understand.
PHILIP: I have come here to talk sense, not to make love.
ANN: Love is the only sense in the world.
PHILIP: In the whole of my life I have never met anyone so deliberately
blind as you are. You ignore all values except the ones you have created
yourself. Quite suddenly, on the spur of the moment, you ruin my
reputation and your own and then sit there quite calmly, talking about
love.
ANN: But I love you.
PHILIP: What in God’s name has love got to do with it?
ANN: What else has anything to do with it?
PHILIP: Your reputation, my career.
ANN: You see, they were all attacking you, saying monstrous, wicked,
lying things, I couldn’t sit there and listen. I simply told them the
truth.
PHILIP: What did they say?
ANN: They said you were frightened. At least, someone suggested that,
and then Mr. Molyneux said no, you were drunk, and that was why you had
failed the Government. And Uncle Bill told them you had been with a
woman—a woman you had picked up in the streets.
PHILIP: Well?
ANN: Naturally I denied it. I said that you had been with me.
PHILIP: And they wouldn’t believe you?
ANN: No. So I told them that you were my lover.
PHILIP: Were you mad?
ANN: Not in the least. It was the obvious thing to do. I couldn’t sit
there and listen to them telling lies about you—I’m not ashamed of having
loved you.
PHILIP: Do you mean to sit there and tell me that all this arose simply
because they said I had taken part in a drunken orgy?
ANN: How could I let them say that?
PHILIP: Good God, do you think anyone cares a damn? That that sort of
thing doesn’t happen to everyone?
ANN: I think that it matters very much for a man to fail his chief when
he has trusted him, relied on him.
PHILIP: And if I am with you, am I not equally failing my chief who has
trusted me, relied on me? Doesn’t that matter?
ANN: I think that matters too. But somehow, love is a different world—far
away beyond our ordinary lives. It makes everything else seem so distant
and irrelevant.
PHILIP: Well, I may as well explain to you that to me love is an appetite
like any other appetite. It is no better and no worse than drink, and one
woman is no better and no worse than another. At least I used to think
that. But now I realize that a temporary adventure is nothing to being
entangled in the octopus grip of a love affair with a virtuous woman.
[_ANN makes a gesture._
If you want to have children, marry. If you want to love you will have to
pay the bill, but see that it is a cash transaction. I meet you—a good
woman, a beautiful woman, a charming woman. I am attracted to you as
hundreds of men have been before me. And then, suddenly you present me
with your virtue. I am flattered, naturally, I take what the gods give
me. Who wouldn’t? And then, what happens? The woman who used to believe
in virtue, believes in love. A strange flaming thing this love, before
which everything is sacrificed, pride, discretion, the conventions,
reputation. You are blinded by it. What am I to do? I tell you things,
I warn you, I try to escape. But everything I say is like describing
objects to someone who can’t see. Gently, serenely, you laugh the
foundations of your life away as if they were irrelevant absurdities.
ANN (_in agony_): Oh....
PHILIP: And then, one fine day, in a moment of hysterical exaltation, you
pull down the very scaffolding of the building, and, sitting among the
ruins, you still smile and say: “Love is the only sense in the world.”
A child of ten could have told that I had ceased to care for you. And I
have been sacrificed on my own altar. Funny, isn’t it?
ANN: Oh, my God!
PHILIP: Well, I don’t want to waste any time psychologizing. I want to
discuss the situation sensibly. Does your husband mean to divorce you?
ANN: No. You see, he doesn’t believe that I was telling the truth.
PHILIP (_infinitely relieved_): Doesn’t believe that I have been your
lover?
ANN: No.
PHILIP: Good God—you are a clever woman, Ann.
ANN: They none of them believe it except Uncle Bill. They think—it was a
mad invention.
PHILIP: Well, you must try and make all of your friends think it was a
joke.
ANN: But I wanted them to believe it. I—I was proud of it.
PHILIP (_brutally_): Well, you’re not proud of it now, are you?
ANN: No. I don’t think that I shall ever recover from the shame of it.
PHILIP: It’ll soon blow over.
ANN: I didn’t mean that. Do you think I care what the world thinks? Do
you think I mind the scandal? It’s having loved you that I mind. That is
the shame that will never wear out.
[_There is a pause._
PHILIP: I suppose I have been saying things I didn’t altogether mean.
ANN: I don’t think so.
PHILIP: It’s no good saying I am sorry, is it?
ANN: No.
PHILIP: I should like to try and make you understand.
ANN: I understand everything—now.
PHILIP: At the beginning there are so many things. Surprise, discovery,
exploration, enchantment. You are always going a step further—a delicious
unacknowledged step—or rather you don’t go further, but you are always
finding yourself further—further and deeper. And later, when you are
tiring, there are still inflamed moments—moments of passion, meaningless
victories of the senses over the heart, which are greedily accepted as
proofs of love.
ANN: Don’t....
PHILIP: And with you there was nothing. No pride I could hurt, no vanity
I could offend, no self-respect I could outrage. You gave your whole self
to me, and therefore I was without weapons. There wasn’t anyone I could
deal with.
ANN (_icily_): Is it usually very easy to bring a woman to
breaking-point—to breaking-off point, I mean?
PHILIP (_cynically_): It can be done.
ANN: It has been beautifully done this time. There is nothing left,
nothing at all, no mess of regrets and pangs and importunities.
PHILIP: Ann, Ann dearest, don’t!
ANN (_with immense scorn_): Are you going to make _love_ to me?
PHILIP: There is no making about it. I have cared very much.
ANN: You are incredible.
PHILIP: I wouldn’t like to leave you unnecessarily hurt by foolish things
that I said in a temper.
ANN: You have not hurt me; you have emptied me, depopulated me of
everything I have ever known and believed. I shall be able to go out and
look at life and try to find out what things exist and where they are.
[_Pause._
PHILIP (_curiously_): Ann, where did you think I was that night?
ANN: What night?
PHILIP: The night of the debate.
ANN: I didn’t know. I thought perhaps that you had been frightened.
PHILIP: I _was_ with a woman.
ANN: Oh!
PHILIP: They were right after all, you see.
[_Pause._
ANN: I think I would like you to go.
PHILIP: Ann!
ANN (_icily_): It is no good my discussing it with a stranger, is it? He
wouldn’t understand.
[_PHILIP is walking up and down the room._
ANN: I think I asked you to go.
PHILIP: I hate to leave you like this.
[_ANN is looking out of the window with her back turned toward
him._
PHILIP: Ann!
ANN: Good-bye!
PHILIP: Good-bye!
[_Exit PHILIP._
[_Pause._
[_Enter NINIAN._
NINIAN: Hullo!
ANN: Is that you?
NINIAN: You do look a wreck.
ANN (_nervously_): Ninian....
NINIAN: Yes?
ANN (_she thinks better of it_): Did you have a good meeting?
NINIAN: Pretty good.
ANN (_still more nervously_): Ninian....
NINIAN: Yes?
ANN: I am afraid that what I said the other night distressed you.
NINIAN: That tommy-rot about Jordan?
ANN: Yes.
NINIAN: Hysteria, that’s what it was.
ANN: Yes.
NINIAN: You cold women aren’t quite normal. No natural outlets, so you go
and invent things.
ANN: It was just a silly joke.
NINIAN (_putting his arm around her_): After all, you didn’t need to
invent a lover.
ANN (_shuddering_): Don’t!
NINIAN: I see what a fool I’ve been to let my little prude be a little
prude.
ANN: You mustn’t....
NINIAN: Turn your face around.
ANN: No.
NINIAN: Those days are over, my darling.
[_NINIAN turns her face round and kisses and kisses her. When
he is finished, they are both flushed; her hair is dishevelled
and he is out of breath._
NINIAN: That’s what you needed, isn’t it?
ANN: How dare you! How dare you!
NINIAN: You prefer the imaginary Mr. Jordan?
ANN: If you ever do that again, I shall kill you!
NINIAN: What a little vixen you are!
ANN: I mean it.
NINIAN: My dear, seriously, you ask a little too much of life. For years
you have been worshipped from afar by reverent friends as a saint and
a statue. I joined them in my awe of the cold, good woman, beautiful
and untouched. I respected my model wife. Then, one fine day, you tell
us that you have a lover—you proclaim it with flaming passion. No one
believes you. Of course it isn’t true. You are the saint. What you say is
only the flaring loyalty of friendship. You are such a wonderful friend,
with such a beautiful, unworldly sense of the relationship.
ANN: Don’t!
NINIAN: You all think I’m a fool, don’t you? I can’t talk. I’m not witty.
I take myself seriously, and my duties seriously. Supposing some day you
discover that I was not stupid as I seemed?
ANN: I never thought you stupid.
NINIAN: Because I don’t choose to play at eighteenth-century
conversations with two ridiculous old men and one intolerable young girl,
because I have nothing to say to your disreputable old aunt, you think
I see nothing. I let them laugh at me because it is the only thing they
_can_ do; but sometimes when I am alone, I laugh at them—I, who have no
sense of humour; Ninian, your one great blunder.
ANN: Please!
NINIAN: Well, you’ve often had your little laughs against me. Now, for a
change, you and I are going to be fellow conspirators.
ANN (_frightened_): What do you mean?
NINIAN: I’m a simple man; I don’t go in for psychology. I can’t talk. I
don’t want to. It is a curtain between you and life. Your uncle, your
aunt, Molyneux, Selina, they make patterns over everything, but it
doesn’t change the underneath.
ANN: They only pretend.
NINIAN: They think they pretend, but they get caught themselves. They
thought it would be amusing to have a saint in the family. You were the
only possible candidate. In fact, I agree that you fitted admirably into
the rôle. You are unselfish and conscientious and charitable. Only you
upset their calculations by being a real person.
ANN: They are all like that underneath.
NINIAN: And you fell in love; that made you more human still.
ANN: What do you mean?
NINIAN: And one day, their artificial chatter became unbearable and you
told them the truth.
ANN: Do you mean that silly joke about Mr. Jordan?
NINIAN: Precisely. But they were so well trained that they didn’t believe
you.
ANN: I don’t understand.
NINIAN: You weren’t playing the game of love according to their rules.
ANN (_terrified_): Ninian!
NINIAN: So they pointed out to one another that you were rather more of a
saint than even they had supposed.
ANN: Ninian, why are you torturing me? Pretending to believe that
ridiculous story.
NINIAN: I have watched you for some time, my dear, and I have come to the
conclusion that you are suffering from a very dangerous disease. Ann, you
are a human being. Incidentally, you are my wife.
ANN: Of course.
NINIAN: You haven’t been much of a wife to me, have you, my little Ann?
[_NINIAN is getting closer to her. ANN recoils._
ANN: I have tried to be.
NINIAN: You have been the wife of the Lord Lieutenant, the mistress of
his household. Now, my darling, you are going to be my wife, my mistress.
[_His tone is half bullying, half insinuating. He is obviously
enjoying having her on the rack._
ANN: Ninian, you are so different. I—you—I mean I don’t know what you’re
talking about.
NINIAN: You’ll soon know, my darling. Don’t shudder.
[_ANN has got up and is moving away from him._
NINIAN: Come here!
[_Like a C. O._
NINIAN: Come here!
[_NINIAN gets up and drags ANN to the sofa, pushing her on to
her knees and imprisoning her between his two legs. With one
hand he is holding her two wrists behind her back, with the
other he is stroking her hair._
NINIAN: They didn’t know how to treat you, did they? Tim and the others?
Only Jordan knew. Women always capitulate to the men who think lightly of
love.
ANN: Ninian, you’re hurting me.
NINIAN: I’m asserting myself, my dear. Master and Mistress—that’s what a
household needs.
[_He laughs._
NINIAN: By Jove, that’s good—worthy of your uncle.
ANN: Let me go.
NINIAN: Where are those beautiful manners? Say “Please let me go, dear
Ninian.”
ANN: Please let me go.
[_NINIAN releases her. She gets up and walks towards the
window._
NINIAN: I didn’t say you might walk away. Sit there. It is delightful to
feel that we are sharing a secret—fellow conspirators.
[_Pause._
NINIAN: Where is the charming family chatter? And surely even your usual
courtesy would compel you to answer when you are spoken to.
ANN: Ninian, please let me go and wash my face and tidy my hair.
NINIAN: By all means. Make yourself pretty. I shall still be here.
[_Exit ANN._
[_Enter LORD WILLIAM and SELINA._
LORD WILLIAM: Good morning, Ninian.
NINIAN: Good morning.
LORD WILLIAM: You seem in excellent spirits.
NINIAN: I am.
LORD WILLIAM: Bolshies red as ever?
NINIAN: I beg your pardon?
LORD WILLIAM: Red as the faces of their most apoplectic opponents.
SELINA: Papa, you’re getting vulgar.
NINIAN: It is a sad thing that a man with your father’s attainments
should not have devoted his gifts to the service of his country.
LORD WILLIAM (_dryly_): I leave that to you and Jordan.
SELINA: Mr. Jordan is altogether detestable.
LORD WILLIAM: By the way, Ninian, I’ve found something out about Jordan.
NINIAN: What?
LORD WILLIAM: That night when he didn’t turn up to make his speech. You
remember? The occasion Ann made that tirade about.
NINIAN: Yes.
LORD WILLIAM: Well, it was true. He was with a woman.
NINIAN (_paling_): What?
LORD WILLIAM: Tommy Dunn saw him getting out of a taxi with a woman at
one a.m. at the door of a block of flats—flats that I am afraid Tommy
knows only too well. He’s quite certain it was Jordan because Jordan’s
hat fell off and he picked it up.
NINIAN: Good God!
[_Enter ANN, looking very pale. She has obviously been weeping._
NINIAN: Ann, did you hear what Uncle William said?
ANN: Yes, I knew.
NINIAN: Knew what?
ANN: Knew that Mr. Jordan was with a woman that night.
NINIAN: Then why the devil——
ANN: I know. I was a fool. It was a silly thing to do. It was the first
thing that came into my head.
NINIAN: Uncle William, I have insulted my wife this morning in a way that
no woman has ever been insulted before. Ann, do you think that you can
ever forgive me?
ANN: I forgive you.
NINIAN (_taking her hand and kissing it_): You are a saint.
ANN: Alas, no. You were right, Ninian. Only a human being.
[_Enter MOLYNEUX and LADY EMILY. They are all talking. LORD
WILLIAM and ANN are D. S. L. corner._
LADY EMILY: There is nothing like the country, Ann, nothing like it.
MOLYNEUX: Home, sweet home. When I am asked if I have any relations I
always say, I have some Cathcart connections.
ANN (_in a tone of desperate weariness_): Everything is going round and
round just the same, though the bottom has fallen out of life.
LORD WILLIAM: My dear, life is a merry-go-round. It never stops for you
however many things you drop. The onlooker sees you sitting on the same
painted swan, but he can’t see your broken heart unless you show it to
him. There is only one rule—not to fall off.
ANN: What is there left for me?
LORD WILLIAM: Your painted swan.
LADY EMILY: As we were crossing the park we met the vicar, who said,
“Quite a stranger, Lady Emily.” It is delightful to be able to count on
something in this world.
MOLYNEUX: Candover means a great deal to me. In the whole shifting scene
of life, here alone I find my certainties.
LADY EMILY: Selina, do you remember that little thing like barley sugar
who married a big-game shooter?
ANN (_desperately, to LORD WILLIAM_): Listen to them. I can’t bear it.
They are going on as if nothing had happened.
LORD WILLIAM: Nothing has happened.
ANN: They are just the same—just the same as they were the day before
yesterday.
LORD WILLIAM: Just the same as they were fifty years ago. Why should they
change now?
ANN: And Ninian thinks that he has wronged me, and Tim believes that I am
a saint.
LORD WILLIAM: Ninian did wrong you and you are a saint.
ANN: What was it you said? In life we don’t go from one thing to another,
but from one thing to the same thing.
LORD WILLIAM: You see, one is after all the same person. Whatever we do,
our actions are defeated by our characters.
ANN: Then this merry-go-round is a life sentence?
LORD WILLIAM: And you can’t change your swan without falling.
ANN (_passionately_): I want to fall——
LORD WILLIAM (_gently_): Listen, my dear, to what Emily is saying.
LADY EMILY:—she really was a very silly woman. Looking up with her huge
blue eyes, she said, “My husband married me for love.”
MOLYNEUX:—And I commented acidly, “So many marriages can only be
explained by love.”
LADY EMILY:—And the fool answered, “Dear Mr. Molyneux, it does me good to
hear you say that. I knew you were an idealist.”
MOLYNEUX:—And then——?
CURTAIN
Washington, _November, 1922_.
PRINTED AT
THE CHAPEL RIVER PRESS,
KINGSTON, SURREY.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PAINTED SWAN ***
Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will
be renamed.
Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
States without permission and without paying copyright
royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™
concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may
do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
license, especially commercial redistribution.
START: FULL LICENSE
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person
or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™
electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual
works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting
free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™
works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily
comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when
you share it without charge with others.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no
representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
country other than the United States.
1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear
prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work
on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the
phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed,
performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws
of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is
derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™
trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works
posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
beginning of this work.
1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.
1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg™ License.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format
other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official
version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain
Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the
full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
provided that:
• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has
agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation.”
• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™
License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™
works.
• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
receipt of the work.
• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.
1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than
are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
forth in Section 3 below.
1.F.
1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
cannot be read by your equipment.
1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right
of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.
1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
without further opportunities to fix the problem.
1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
remaining provisions.
1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in
accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or
additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any
Defect you cause.
Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™
Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
from people in all walks of life.
Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future
generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.
Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.
The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website
and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation
Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread
public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.
The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state
visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.
While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.
International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.
Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be
freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of
volunteer support.
Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
edition.
Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org.
This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
