The Collected Plays of George Bernard Shaw - 60 Titles in One Edition (Illustrated Edition). GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

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СКАЧАТЬ I had better make it a little easier for you.

      BRASSBOUND (irritably). Let my coat alone. It will do very well as it is. Put it down.

      LADY CICILY. Oh, don’t ask me to sit doing nothing. It bores me so.

      BRASSBOUND. In Heaven’s name then, do what you like! Only don’t worry me with it.

      LADY CICELY. I’m so sorry. All the Hallams are irritable.

      BRASSBOUND (penning up his fury with difficulty). As I have already said, that remark has no application to me.

      LADY CICELY (resuming her stitching). That’s so funny! They all hate to be told that they are like one another.

      BRASSBOUND (with the beginnings of despair in his voice). Why did you come here? My trap was laid for him, not for you. Do you know the danger you are in?

      LADY CICELY. There’s always a danger of something or other. Do you think it’s worth bothering about?

      BRASSBOUND (scolding her). Do I THINK! Do you think my coat’s worth mending?

      LADY CICELY (prosaically). Oh yes: it’s not so far gone as that.

      BRASSBOUND. Have you any feeling? Or are you a fool?

      LADY CICELY. I’m afraid I’m a dreadful fool. But I can’t help it. I was made so, I suppose.

      BRASSBOUND. Perhaps you don’t realize that your friend my good uncle will be pretty fortunate if he is allowed to live out his life as a slave with a set of chains on him?

      LADY CICELY. Oh, I don’t know about that, Mr. H — I mean Captain Brassbound. Men are always thinking that they are going to do something grandly wicked to their enemies; but when it comes to the point, really bad men are just as rare as really good ones.

      BRASSBOUND. You forget that I am like my uncle, according to you. Have you any doubt as to the reality of HIS badness?

      LADY CICELY. Bless me! your uncle Howard is one of the most harmless of men — much nicer than most professional people. Of course he does dreadful things as a judge; but then if you take a man and pay him 5,000 pounds a year to be wicked, and praise him for it, and have policemen and courts and laws and juries to drive him into it so that he can’t help doing it, what can you expect? Sir Howard’s all right when he’s left to himself. We caught a burglar one night at Waynflete when he was staying with us; and I insisted on his locking the poor man up until the police came, in a room with a window opening on the lawn. The man came back next day and said he must return to a life of crime unless I gave him a job in the garden; and I did. It was much more sensible than giving him ten years penal servitude: Howard admitted it. So you see he’s not a bit bad really.

      BRASSBOUND. He had a fellow feeling for a thief, knowing he was a thief himself. Do you forget that he sent my mother to prison?

      LADY CICELY (softly). Were you very fond of your poor mother, and always very good to her?

      BRASSBOUND (rather taken aback). I was not worse than other sons, I suppose.

      LADY CICELY (opening her eyes very widely). Oh! Was THAT all?

      BRASSBOUND (exculpating himself, full of gloomy remembrances). You don’t understand. It was not always possible to be very tender with my mother. She had unfortunately a very violent temper; and she — she —

      LADY CICELY. Yes: so you told Howard. (With genuine pity for him) You must have had a very unhappy childhood.

      BRASSBOUND (grimily). Hell. That was what my childhood was. Hell.

      LADY CICELY. Do you think she would really have killed Howard, as she threatened, if he hadn’t sent her to prison?

      BRASSBOUND (breaking out again, with a growing sense of being morally trapped). What if she did? Why did he rob her? Why did he not help her to get the estate, as he got it for himself afterwards?

      LADY CICELY. He says he couldn’t, you know. But perhaps the real reason was that he didn’t like her. You know, don’t you, that if you don’t like people you think of all the reasons for not helping them, and if you like them you think of all the opposite reasons.

      BRASSBOUND. But his duty as a brother!

      LADY CICELY. Are you going to do your duty as a nephew?

      BRASSBOUND. Don’t quibble with me. I am going to do my duty as a son; and you know it.

      LADY CICELY. But I should have thought that the time for that was in your mother’s lifetime, when you could have been kind and forbearing with her. Hurting your uncle won’t do her any good, you know.

      BRASSBOUND. It will teach other scoundrels to respect widows and orphans. Do you forget that there is such a thing as justice?

      LADY CICELY (gaily shaking out the finished coat). Oh, if you are going to dress yourself in ermine and call yourself Justice, I give you up. You are just your uncle over again; only he gets £5,000 a year for it, and you do it for nothing.

      (She holds the coat up to see whether any further repairs are needed.)

      BRASSBOUND (sulkily). You twist my words very cleverly. But no man or woman has ever changed me.

      LADY CICELY. Dear me! That must be very nice for the people you deal with, because they can always depend on you; but isn’t it rather inconvenient for yourself when you change your mind?

      BRASSBOUND. I never change my mind.

      LADY CICELY (rising with the coat in her hands). Oh! Oh!! Nothing will ever persuade me that you are as pigheaded as that.

      BRASSBOUND (offended). Pigheaded!

      LADY CICELY (with quick, caressing apology). No, no, no. I didn’t mean that. Firm! Unalterable! Resolute! Ironwilled! Stonewall Jackson! That’s the idea, isn’t it?

      BRASSBOUND (hopelessly). You are laughing at me.

      LADY CICELY. No: trembling, I assure you. Now will you try this on for me: I’m SO afraid I have made it too tight under the arm. (She holds it behind him.)

      BRASSBOUND (obeying mechanically). You take me for a fool I think. (He misses the sleeve.)

      LADY CICELY. No: all men look foolish when they are feeling for their sleeves.

      BRASSBOUND. Agh! (He turns and snatches the coat from her; then puts it on himself and buttons the lowest button.)

      LADY CICELY (horrified). Stop. No. You must NEVER pull a coat at the skirts, Captain Brassbound: it spoils the sit of it. Allow me. (She pulls the lappels of his coat vigorously forward) Put back your shoulders. (He frowns, but obeys.) That’s better. (She buttons the top button.) Now button the rest from the top down. DOES it catch you at all under the arm?

      BRASSBOUND (miserably — all resistance beaten out of him). No.

      LADY CICELY. That’s right. Now before I go back to poor Marzo, say thank you to me for mending your jacket, like a nice polite sailor.

      BRASSBOUND (sitting down at the table in great agitation). Damn you! you have belittled СКАЧАТЬ