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

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СКАЧАТЬ MAN. I tell you I am nearly a secondary. I never sleep.

      THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [awestruck] Good Heavens!

       A young woman with the number one on her cap arrives by land. She looks no older than Savvy Barnabas, whom she somewhat resembles, looked a thousand years before. Younger, if anything.

      THE YOUNG WOMAN. Is this the patient?

      THE MAN [scrambling up] This is Zoo. [To Zoo] Call him Daddy.

      THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [vehemently] No.

      THE MAN [ignoring the interruption] Bless you for taking him off my hands! I have had as much of him as I can bear. [He goes down the steps and disappears].

      THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [ironically taking off his hat and making a sweeping bow from the edge of the pier in the direction of the Atlantic Ocean] Good afternoon, sir; and thank you very much for your extraordinary politeness, your exquisite consideration for my feelings, your courtly manners. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. [Clapping his hat on again] Pig! Ass!

      ZOO [laughs very heartily at him]!!!

      THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [turning sharply on her] Good afternoon, madam. I am sorry to have had to put your friend in his place; but I find that here as elsewhere it is necessary to assert myself if I am to be treated with proper consideration. I had hoped that my position as a guest would protect me from insult.

      ZOO. Putting my friend in his place. That is some poetic expression, is it not? What does it mean?

      THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Pray, is there no one in these islands who understands plain English?

      ZOO. Well, nobody except the oracles. They have to make a special historical study of what we call the dead thought.

      THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Dead thought! I have heard of the dead languages, but never of the dead thought.

      ZOO. Well, thoughts die sooner than languages. I understand your language; but I do not always understand your thought. The oracles will understand you perfectly. Have you had your consultation yet?

      THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. I did not come to consult the oracle, madam. I am here simply as a gentleman travelling for pleasure in the company of my daughter, who is the wife of the British Prime Minister, and of General Aufsteig, who, I may tell you in confidence, is really the Emperor of Turania, the greatest military genius of the age.

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