Tragedy of an Elderly Gentleman: A.D. 3000. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

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СКАЧАТЬ ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Great Heavens, madam, can anything be more natural? I shall be the only member of the Travellers' Club who has set foot on these shores. Think of that! My position will be unique.

      THE WOMAN. Is that an advantage? We have a person here who has lost both legs in an accident. His position is unique. But he would much rather be like everyone else.

      THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. This is maddening. There is no analogy whatever between the two cases.

      THE WOMAN. They are both unique.

      THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Conversation in this place seems to consist of ridiculous quibbles. I am heartily tired of them.

      THE WOMAN. I conclude that your Travellers' Club is an assembly of persons who wish to be able to say that they have been in some place where nobody else has been.

      THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Of Course if you wish to sneer at us—

      THE WOMAN. What is sneer?

      THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [with a wild sob] I shall drown myself.

      He makes desperately for the edge of the pier, but is confronted by a man with the number one on his cap, who comes up the steps and intercepts him. He is dressed like the woman, but a slight moustache proclaims his sex.

      THE MAN [to the elderly gentleman] Ah, here you are. I shall really have to put a collar and lead on you if you persist in giving me the slip like this.

      THE WOMAN. Are you this stranger's nurse?

      THE MAN. Yes. I am very tired of him. If I take my eyes off him for a moment, he runs away and talks to everybody.

      THE WOMAN [after taking out her tuning-fork and sounding it, intones as before] Burrin Pier. Wash out. [She puts up the fork, and addresses the man]. I sent a call for someone to take care of him. I have been trying to talk to him; but I can understand very little of what he says. You must take better care of him: he is badly discouraged already. If I can be of any further use, Fusima, Gort, will find me. [She goes away].

      THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Any further use! She has been of no use to me. She spoke to me without any introduction, like any improper female. And she has made off with my shilling.

      THE MAN. Please speak slowly. I cannot follow. What is a shilling? What is an introduction? Improper female doesnt make sense.

      THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Nothing seems to make sense here. All I can tell you is that she was the most impenetrably stupid woman I have ever met in the whole course of my life.

      THE MAN. That cannot be. She cannot appear stupid to you. She is a secondary, and getting on for a tertiary at that.

      THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. What is a tertiary? Everybody here keeps talking to me about primaries and secondaries and tertiaries as if people were geological strata.

      THE MAN. The primaries are in their first century. The secondaries are in their second century. I am still classed as a primary [he points to his number]; but I may almost call myself a secondary, as I shall be ninety-five next January. The tertiaries are in their third century. Did you not see the number two on her badge? She is an advanced secondary.

      THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. That accounts for it. She is in her second childhood.

      THE MAN. Her second childhood! She is in her fifth childhood.

      THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [again resorting to the bollard] Oh! I cannot bear these unnatural arrangements.

      THE MAN [impatient and helpless] You shouldn't have come among us. This is no place for you.

      THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [nerved by indignation] May I ask why? I am a Vice-President of the Travellers' Club. I have been everywhere: I hold the record in the Club for civilized countries.

      THE MAN. What is a civilized country?

      THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. It is—well, it is a civilized country. [Desperately] I don't know: I—I—I—I shall go mad if you keep on asking me to tell you things that everybody knows. Countries where you can travel comfortably. Where there are good hotels. Excuse me; but, though you say you are ninety-four, you are worse company than a child of five with your eternal questions. Why not call me Daddy at once?

      THE MAN. I did not know your name was Daddy.

      THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. My name is Joseph Popham Bolge Bluebin Barlow, O.M.

      THE MAN. That is five men's names. Daddy is shorter. And O.M. will not do here. It is our name for certain wild creatures, descendants of the aboriginal inhabitants of this coast. They used to be called the O'Mulligans. We will stick to Daddy.

      THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. People will think I am your father.

      THE MAN [shocked] Sh-sh! People here never allude to such relationships. It is not quite delicate, is it? What does it matter whether you are my father or not?

      THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. My worthy nonagenarian friend: your faculties are totally decayed. Could you not find me a guide of my own age?

      THE MAN. A young person?

      THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Certainly not. I cannot go about with a young person.

      THE MAN. Why?

      THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Why! Why!! Why!!! Have you no moral sense?

      THE MAN. I shall have to give you up. I cannot understand you.

      THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. But you meant a young woman, didn't you?

      THE MAN. I meant simply somebody of your own age. What difference does it make whether the person is a man or a woman?

      THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. I could not have believed in the existence of such scandalous insensibility to the elementary decencies of human intercourse.

      THE MAN. What are decencies?

      THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [shrieking] Everyone asks me that.

      THE MAN [taking out a tuning-fork and using it as the woman did] Zozim on Burrin Pier to Zoo Ennistymon I have found the discouraged shortliver he has been talking to a secondary and is much worse I am too old he is asking for someone of his own age or younger come if you can. [He puts up his fork and turns to the Elderly Gentleman]. Zoo is a girl of fifty, and rather childish at that. So perhaps she may make you happy.

      THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Make me happy! A bluestocking of fifty! Thank you.

      THE MAN. Bluestocking? The effort to make out your meaning is fatiguing. Besides, you are talking too much to me: I am old enough to discourage you. Let us be silent until Zoo comes. [He turns his back on the Elderly Gentleman, and sits down on the edge of the pier, with his legs dangling over the water].

      THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Certainly. I have no wish to force my conversation on any man who does not desire it. Perhaps you would like to take a nap. If so, pray do not stand on ceremony.

      THE MAN. What is a nap?

      THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [exasperated, going to him and speaking with great СКАЧАТЬ