60 Plays: The George Bernard Shaw Edition (Illustrated). GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

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СКАЧАТЬ all been a little childish, I am afraid. Our party has been a failure: let us break it up and have done with it. (She puts her chair aside and turns to the steps, adding, with slighting composure, as she passes Crampton.) Goodbye, father.

      (She descends the steps with cold, disgusted indifference. They all look after her, and so do not notice the return of the waiter from the hotel, laden with Crampton’s coat, Valentine’s stick, a couple of shawls and parasols, a white canvas umbrella, and some camp stools.)

      CRAMPTON (to himself, staring after Gloria with a ghastly expression). Father! Father!! (He strikes his fist violently on the table.) Now —

      WAITER (offering the coat). This is yours, sir, I think, sir. (Crampton glares at him; then snatches it rudely and comes down the terrace towards the garden seat, struggling with the coat in his angry efforts to put it on. McComas rises and goes to his assistance; then takes his hat and umbrella from the little iron table, and turns towards the steps. Meanwhile the waiter, after thanking Crampton with unruffled sweetness for taking the coat, offers some of his burden to Phil.) The ladies’ sunshades, sir. Nasty glare off the sea to-day, sir: very trying to the complexion, sir. I shall carry down the camp stools myself, sir.

      PHILIP. You are old, Father William; but you are the most considerate of men. No: keep the sunshades and give me the camp stools (taking them).

      WAITER (with flattering gratitude). Thank you, sir.

      PHILIP. Finch: share with me (giving him a couple). Come along. (They go down the steps together.)

      VALENTINE (to the waiter). Leave me something to bring down — one of these. (Offering to take a sunshade.)

      WAITER (discreetly). That’s the younger lady’s, sir. (Valentine lets it go.) Thank you, sir. If you’ll allow me, sir, I think you had better have this. (He puts down the sunshades on Crampton’s chair, and produces from the tail pocket of his dress coat, a book with a lady’s handkerchief between the leaves, marking the page.) The eldest young lady is reading it at present. (Valentine takes it eagerly.) Thank you, sir. Schopenhauer, sir, you see. (He takes up the sunshades again.) Very interesting author, sir: especially on the subject of ladies, sir. (He goes down the steps. Valentine, about to follow him, recollects Crampton and changes his mind.)

      VALENTINE (coming rather excitedly to Crampton). Now look here, Crampton: are you at all ashamed of yourself?

      CRAMPTON (pugnaciously). Ashamed of myself! What for?

      VALENTINE. For behaving like a bear. What will your daughter think of me for having brought you here?

      CRAMPTON. I was not thinking of what my daughter was thinking of you.

      VALENTINE. No, you were thinking of yourself. You’re a perfect maniac.

      CRAMPTON (heartrent). She told you what I am — a father — a father robbed of his children. What are the hearts of this generation like? Am I to come here after all these years — to see what my children are for the first time! to hear their voices! — and carry it all off like a fashionable visitor; drop in to lunch; be Mr. Crampton — M i s t e r Crampton! What right have they to talk to me like that? I’m their father: do they deny that? I’m a man, with the feelings of our common humanity: have I no rights, no claims? In all these years who have I had round me? Servants, clerks, business acquaintances. I’ve had respect from them — aye, kindness. Would one of them have spoken to me as that girl spoke? — would one of them have laughed at me as that boy was laughing at me all the time? (Frantically.) My own children! M i s t e r Crampton! My —

      VALENTINE. Come, come: they’re only children. The only one of them that’s worth anything called you father.

      CRAMPTON (wildly). Yes: “goodbye, father.” Oh, yes: she got at my feelings — with a stab!

      VALENTINE (taking this in very bad part). Now look here, Crampton: you just let her alone: she’s treated you very well. I had a much worse time of it at lunch than you.

      CRAMPTON. You!

      VALENTINE (with growing impetuosity). Yes: I. I sat next to her; and I never said a single thing to her the whole time — couldn’t think of a blessed word. And not a word did she say to me.

      CRAMPTON. Well?

      VALENTINE. Well? Well??? (Tackling him very seriously and talking faster and faster.) Crampton: do you know what’s been the matter with me to-day? You don’t suppose, do you, that I’m in the habit of playing such tricks on my patients as I played on you?

      CRAMPTON. I hope not.

      VALENTINE. The explanation is that I’m stark mad, or rather that I’ve never been in my real senses before. I’m capable of anything: I’ve grown up at last: I’m a Man; and it’s your daughter that’s made a man of me.

      CRAMPTON (incredulously). Are you in love with my daughter?

      VALENTINE (his words now coming in a perfect torrent). Love! Nonsense: it’s something far above and beyond that. It’s life, it’s faith, it’s strength, certainty, paradise —

      CRAMPTON (interrupting him with acrid contempt). Rubbish, man! What have you to keep a wife on? You can’t marry her.

      VALENTINE. Who wants to marry her? I’ll kiss her hands; I’ll kneel at her feet; I’ll live for her; I’ll die for her; and that’ll be enough for me. Look at her book! See! (He kisses the handkerchief.) If you offered me all your money for this excuse for going down to the beach and speaking to her again, I’d only laugh at you. (He rushes buoyantly off to the steps, where he bounces right into the arms of the waiter, who is coming up form the beach. The two save themselves from falling by clutching one another tightly round the waist and whirling one another around.)

      WAITER (delicately). Steady, sir, steady.

      VALENTINE (shocked at his own violence). I beg your pardon.

      WAITER. Not at all, sir, not at all. Very natural, sir, I’m sure, sir, at your age. The lady has sent me for her book, sir. Might I take the liberty of asking you to let her have it at once, sir?

      VALENTINE. With pleasure. And if you will allow me to present you with a professional man’s earnings for six weeks — (offering him Dolly’s crown piece.)

      WAITER (as if the sum were beyond his utmost expectations). Thank you, sir: much obliged. (Valentine dashes down the steps.) Very high-spirited young gentleman, sir: very manly and straight set up.

      CRAMPTON (in grumbling disparagement). And making his fortune in a hurry, no doubt. I know what his six weeks’ earnings come to. (He crosses the terrace to the iron table, and sits down.)

      WAITER (philosophically). Well, sir, you never can tell. That’s a principle in life with me, sir, if you’ll excuse my having such a thing, sir. (Delicately sinking the philosopher in the waiter for a moment.) Perhaps you haven’t noticed that you hadn’t touched that seltzer and Irish, sir, when the party broke up. (He takes the tumbler from the luncheon table, and sets if before Crampton.) Yes, sir, you never can tell. There was my son, sir! who ever thought that he would rise to wear a silk gown, sir? And yet to-day, sir, nothing less than fifty guineas, sir. What a lesson, sir!

      CRAMPTON. Well, I hope he is grateful to you, and recognizes what he owes you.

      WAITER. We get on together very well, very well indeed, sir, considering the difference in our stations. СКАЧАТЬ