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

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      A glade in Wiltstoken Park

      Enter Lydia

      Lydia. Ye leafy breasts and warm protecting wings

       Of mother trees that hatch our tender souls,

       And from the well of Nature in our hearts

       Thaw the intolerable inch of ice

       That bears the weight of all the stamping world.

       Hear ye me sing to solitude that I,

       Lydia Carew, the owner of these lands,

       Albeit most rich, most learned, and most wise,

       Am yet most lonely. What are riches worth

       When wisdom with them comes to show the purse bearer

       That life remains unpurchasable? Learning

       Learns but one lesson: doubt! To excel all

       Is, to be lonely. Oh, ye busy birds,

       Engrossed with real needs, ye shameless trees

       With arms outspread in welcome of the sun,

       Your minds, bent singly to enlarge your lives,

       Have given you wings and raised your delicate heads

       High heavens above us crawlers.

      [A rook sets up a great cawing; and the other birds

       chatter loudly as a gust of wind sets the branches

       swaying. She makes as though she would shew them

       her sleeves.

      Lo, the leaves

       That hide my drooping boughs! Mock me — poor maid! —

       Deride with joyous comfortable chatter

       These stolen feathers. Laugh at me, the clothed one.

       Laugh at the mind fed on foul air and books.

       Books! Art! And Culture! Oh, I shall go mad.

       Give me a mate that never heard of these,

       A sylvan god, tree born in heart and sap;

       Or else, eternal maidhood be my hap.

      [Another gust of wind and bird-chatter. She sits on

       the mossy root of an oak and buries her face in her

       hands. Cashel Byron, in a white singlet and

       breeches, comes through the trees.

      CASHEL. What’s this? Whom have we here? A woman!

      LYDIA [looking up]. Yes.

      CASHEL. You have no business here. I have. Away!

       Women distract me. Hence!

      LYDIA. Bid you me hence?

       I am upon mine own ground. Who are you?

       I take you for a god, a sylvan god.

       This place is mine: I share it with the birds,

       The trees, the sylvan gods, the lovely company

       Of haunted solitudes.

      CASHEL. A sylvan god!

       A goat-eared image! Do your statues speak?

       Walk? heave the chest with breath? or like a feather

       Lift you — like this? [He sets her on her feet.

      LYDIA [panting]. You take away my breath!

       You’re strong. Your hands off, please. Thank you. Farewell.

      CASHEL. Before you go: when shall we meet again?

      LYDIA. Why should we meet again?

      CASHEL. Who knows? We shall.

       That much I know by instinct. What’s your name?

      LYDIA. Lydia Carew.

      CASHEL. Lydia’s a pretty name.

       Where do you live?

      LYDIA. I’ the castle.

      CASHEL [thunderstruck]. Do not say

       You are the lady of this great domain.

      LYDIA. I am.

      CASHEL. Accursed luck! I took you for

       The daughter of some farmer. Well, your pardon.

       I came too close: I looked too deep. Farewell.

      LYDIA. I pardon that. Now tell me who you are.

      CASHEL. Ask me not whence I come, nor what I am.

       You are the lady of the castle. I

       Have but this hard and blackened hand to live by.

      LYDIA. I have felt its strength and envied you. Your name?

       I have told you mine.

      CASHEL. My name is Cashel Byron.

      LYDIA. I never heard the name; and yet you utter it

       As men announce a celebrated name.

       Forgive my ignorance.

      CASHEL. I bless it, Lydia.

       I have forgot your other name.

      LYDIA. Carew.

       Cashel’s a pretty name, too.

      MELLISH [calling through the wood]. Coo-ee! Byron!

      CASHEL. A thousand curses! Oh, I beg you, go.

       This is a man you must not meet.

      MELLISH [further off]. Coo-ee!

      LYDIA. He’s losing us. What does he in my woods?

      CASHEL. He is a part of what I am. What that is

       You must not know. It would end all between us.

       And yet there’s no dishonor in’t: your lawyer,

       Who let your lodge to me, will vouch me honest.

       I am ashamed to tell you what I am —

       At least, as yet. Some day, perhaps.

      MELLISH СКАЧАТЬ