The Complete Plays of J. M. Barrie - 30 Titles in One Edition. Джеймс Барри

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СКАЧАТЬ My duty. Oh, I shot an elephant once! Oh yes, I did! I met the elephant in a forest, and I had an air gun with me, and I shot it. You can’t shoot without a gun in Africa. You would have been surprised if you had seen the birds, the way they came down and pecked it. Hundreds of them!

      BELL. What kind of birds?

      JASPER. Oh, there were eagles and snipe — vultures, sparrows, canaries, turkeys and bull-rushes, the oof bird — they ate that elephant up and left nothing but the trunk.

      NANNY. And what did you do with the trunk?

      JASPER. Oh, I had it packed up. No, no, I had the trunk made into a portmanteau.

      NANNY. Did you meet any lions?

      JASPER. I wrestled with a lion and sent a graphic account to the papers.

      BELL. And then you saved me!

      JASPER. That was nothing.

      MRS. GOLIGHTLY. Strange that your experiences of the dwarfs should be so like Mr. Stanley’s.

      BELL. And that you shot the gorilla just as De Rougemont did.

      JASPER. Yes, you see — there is only one way of doing these things. But, Mrs. Golightly, it sounds like boasting to be always talking of myself. Where have you been?

      MRS. GOLIGHTLY (at window). Never further than the Continent. I knitted half a muffler going up the Rigi — or was it in Notre-Dame? Then I began a worsted waistcoat for W. G. in the Kremlin, added to it in Cologne Cathedral, the Colosseum, the Acropolis, and elsewhere, and finished it, I remember, in the Alhambra.

      JASPER. The Alhambra?

      BELL. Yes, I was with mother.

      JASPER. YOU?

      BELL. And I should like to live near it, so that I could go daily.

      JASPER. What?

      MRS. GOLIGHTLY. The Alhambra is in Spain, you know.

      JASPER. Oh, I thought you meant — oh!

      (ANDREW comes down ladder into saloon.)

      NANNY. NO sign of Ben with the telegram, Mr. McPhail?

      ANDREW. None.

      (MCPHAIL goes into saloon and reads book. The cuckoo is heard once, JASPER goes on bank.)

      BELL (following). You are feeling dizzy again, Colonel?

      JASPER. Just a little.

      W. G. Come up, Bell, and see me swiping.

      (Cuckoo is heard three times, JASPER goes on plank and then into saloon.)

      NANNY. Listen to that cuckoo.

      MRS. GOLIGHTLY. Yes, we never heard it till you came to us, Colonel, and now we hear it a dozen times a day.

      (Exit JASPER, retires to bedroom, BELL goes on deck.

      ANDREW is watching bank in punt W. G. is on deck, MRS. GOLIGHTLY and NANNY at stern.)

      MRS. GOLIGHTLY. 23, 24, 25, 26, 27. (Looks after JASPER.) How interesting a clever man is.

      NANNY. Yes, and even if he isn’t clever.

      (MRS. GOLIGHTLY knits. Cuckoo is heard again.)

      JASPER (pulling up bedroom blind). Damn that cuckoo — it makes me nervous, I’ll get up early tomorrow and shoot it.

      (He suspends little mirror at window and proceeds to brush his hair.)

      W. G. Bell, I would rather take three wickets in an over than be Shakespeare and Homer and all these swells put together. I say, what’s the matter with you? You haven’t sneered at me for nearly a week — not since Upjohn went away.

      BELL. Mr. Upjohn! I told you, W. G., that I dislike the very mention of his name — he has not even written! I dare say he has forgotten me already, W. G. I dare say!

      BELL. W. G.

      JASPER (leaning out). If I’m not Colonel Neil, I’m the next thing to it, for I’ve shampooed him, and I’m very like him, and that was what made me think of being him. It ‘s only for a week and I’m doing no harm, and I am enjoying myself.

      W. G. You must have riled him by saying women are the equals of men, and all that rot!

      BELL. It isn’t rot!

      W. G. It is tommy-rot!

      JASPER. I wish they wouldn’t ask so many questions about Africa, though. Good thing I read up the African books before I started on my honeymoon.

      W. G. Don’t women’s brains weigh less than men’s?

      BELL. Don’t sixpences weigh less than pennies?

      JASPER. What I miss here is the hair oil.

      W. G. How can you be a man’s equal when you can’t even find the pocket of your dress?

      BELL. I can — usually.

      JASPER. It’s a funny thing, but I’m beginning to feel as if I had saved her life. I like that girl. Fancy her being at the Alhambra, though — even though it was a Spanish one.

      W. G. Look here, are you in thingummy with Upjohn?

      BELL. Hush, dear.

      W. G. Dear! You wouldn’t call me that unless you were in what’s its name.

      JASPER. I like the other one too.

      MRS. GOLIGHTLY (in low voice and looking at NANNY). Nanny, (Signs) has Mr. McPhail spoken to you yet? You know what I mean.

      NANNY. I wouldn’t let him, but some other body very nearly has. (Whispers.)

      W. G. If it isn’t Upjohn, it’s Neil.

      MRS. GOLIGHTLY. The Colonel. (She nods.) Well!

      (They whisper.)

      BELL. I am not in love with Colonel Neil.

      W. G. Is he with you?

      BELL. Yes.

      W. G. Balbus!

      NANNY. Yes, Auntie the Colonel blew a ring of cigar smoke on to my engagement finger last night.

      JASPER. That dizziness has let me in for a lot of good things. I like being dizzy. It is a good, good wheeze being dizzy. I shall keep on being dizzy.

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