Arms and the Man, George Bernard Shaw [best classic novels TXT] 📗

kill myself like a man, or live and

pretend to laugh at myself? (She again turns to go.) Louka! (She

stops near the door.) Remember: you belong to me.

LOUKA (quietly). What does that mean—an insult?

SERGIUS (commandingly). It means that you love me, and that I

have had you here in my arms, and will perhaps have you there

again. Whether that is an insult I neither know nor care: take

it as you please. But (vehemently) I will not be a coward and a

trifler. If I choose to love you, I dare marry you, in spite of

all Bulgaria. If these hands ever touch you again, they shall

touch my affianced bride.

LOUKA. We shall see whether you dare keep your word. But take

care. I will not wait long.

SERGIUS (again folding his arms and standing motionless in the

middle of the room). Yes, we shall see. And you shall wait my

pleasure.

(Bluntschli, much preoccupied, with his papers still in his hand, enters, leaving the door open for Louka to go out. He goes across to the table, glancing at her as he passes. Sergius, without altering his resolute attitude, watches him steadily. Louka goes out, leaving the door open.)

BLUNTSCHLI (absently, sitting at the table as before, and

putting down his papers). That’s a remarkable looking young

woman.

SERGIUS (gravely, without moving). Captain Bluntschli.

BLUNTSCHLI. Eh?

SERGIUS. You have deceived me. You are my rival. I brook no

rivals. At six o’clock I shall be in the drilling-ground on the

Klissoura road, alone, on horseback, with my sabre. Do you

understand?

BLUNTSCHLI (staring, but sitting quite at his ease). Oh, thank

you: that’s a cavalry man’s proposal. I’m in the artillery; and

I have the choice of weapons. If I go, I shall take a machine

gun. And there shall be no mistake about the cartridges this

time.

SERGIUS (flushing, but with deadly coldness). Take care, sir.

It is not our custom in Bulgaria to allow invitations of that

kind to be trifled with.

BLUNTSCHLI (warmly). Pooh! don’t talk to me about Bulgaria. You

don’t know what fighting is. But have it your own way. Bring

your sabre along. I’ll meet you.

SERGIUS (fiercely delighted to find his opponent a man of

spirit). Well said, Switzer. Shall I lend you my best horse?

BLUNTSCHLI. No: damn your horse!---thank you all the same, my

dear fellow. (Raina comes in, and hears the next sentence.) I

shall fight you on foot. Horseback’s too dangerous: I don’t want

to kill you if I can help it.

RAINA (hurrying forward anxiously). I have heard what Captain

Bluntschli said, Sergius. You are going to fight. Why? (Sergius

turns away in silence, and goes to the stove, where he stands

watching her as she continues, to Bluntschli) What about?

BLUNTSCHLI. I don’t know: he hasn’t told me. Better not

interfere, dear young lady. No harm will be done: I’ve often

acted as sword instructor. He won’t be able to touch me; and

I’ll not hurt him. It will save explanations. In the morning I

shall be off home; and you’ll never see me or hear of me again.

You and he will then make it up and live happily ever after.

RAINA (turning away deeply hurt, almost with a sob in her

voice). I never said I wanted to see you again.

SERGIUS (striding forward). Ha! That is a confession.

RAINA (haughtily). What do you mean?

SERGIUS. You love that man!

RAINA (scandalized). Sergius!

SERGIUS. You allow him to make love to you behind my back, just

as you accept me as your affianced husband behind his.

Bluntschli: you knew our relations; and you deceived me. It is

for that that I call you to account, not for having received

favours that I never enjoyed.

BLUNTSCHLI (jumping up indignantly). Stuff! Rubbish! I have

received no favours. Why, the young lady doesn’t even know

whether I’m married or not.

RAINA (forgetting herself). Oh! (Collapsing on the ottoman.)

Are you?

SERGIUS. You see the young lady’s concern, Captain Bluntschli.

Denial is useless. You have enjoyed the privilege of being

received in her own room, late at night—

BLUNTSCHLI (interrupting him pepperily). Yes; you blockhead!

She received me with a pistol at her head. Your cavalry were at

my heels. I’d have blown out her brains if she’d uttered a cry.

SERGIUS (taken aback). Bluntschli! Raina: is this true?

RAINA (rising in wrathful majesty). Oh, how dare you, how dare

you?

BLUNTSCHLI. Apologize, man, apologize! (He resumes his seat at

the table.)

SERGIUS (with the old measured emphasis, folding his arms). I

never apologize.

RAINA (passionately). This is the doing of that friend of

yours, Captain Bluntschli. It is he who is spreading this

horrible story about me. (She walks about excitedly.)

BLUNTSCHLI. No: he’s dead—burnt alive.

RAINA (stopping, shocked). Burnt alive!

BLUNTSCHLI. Shot in the hip in a wood yard. Couldn’t drag

himself out. Your fellows’ shells set the timber on fire and

burnt him, with half a dozen other poor devils in the same

predicament.

RAINA. How horrible!

SERGIUS. And how ridiculous! Oh, war! war! the dream of patriots

and heroes! A fraud, Bluntschli, a hollow sham, like love.

RAINA (outraged). Like love! You say that before me.

BLUNTSCHLI. Come, Saranoff: that matter is explained.

SERGIUS. A hollow sham, I say. Would you have come back here if

nothing had passed between you, except at the muzzle of your

pistol? Raina is mistaken about our friend who was burnt. He was

not my informant.

RAINA. Who then? (Suddenly guessing the truth.) Ah, Louka! my

maid, my servant! You were with her this morning all that time

after---after---Oh, what sort of god is this I have been

worshipping! (He meets her gaze with sardonic enjoyment of her

disenchantment. Angered all the more, she goes closer to him,

and says, in a lower, intenser tone) Do you know that I looked

out of the window as I went upstairs, to have another sight of

my hero; and I saw something that I did not understand then. I

know now that you were making love to her.

SERGIUS (with grim humor). You saw that?

RAINA. Only too well. (She turns away, and throws herself on the

divan under the centre window, quite overcome.)

SERGIUS (cynically). Raina: our romance is shattered. Life’s a

farce.

BLUNTSCHLI (to Raina, goodhumoredly). You see: he’s found

himself out now.

SERGIUS. Bluntschli: I have allowed you to call me a blockhead.

You may now call me a coward as well. I refuse to fight you. Do

you know why?

BLUNTSCHLI. No; but it doesn’t matter. I didn’t ask the reason

when you cried on; and I don’t ask the reason now that you cry

off. I’m a professional soldier. I fight when I have to, and am

very glad to get out of it when I haven’t to. You’re only an

amateur: you think fighting’s an amusement.

SERGIUS. You shall hear the reason all the same, my

professional. The reason is that it takes two men—real men—men

of heart, blood and honor—to make a genuine combat. I could no

more fight with you than I could make love to an ugly woman.

You’ve no magnetism: you’re not a man, you’re a machine.

BLUNTSCHLI (apologetically). Quite true, quite true. I always

was that sort of chap. I’m very sorry. But now that you’ve found

that life isn’t a farce, but something quite sensible and

serious, what further obstacle is there to your happiness?

RAINA (riling). You are very solicitous about my happiness and

his. Do you forget his new love—Louka? It is not you that he

must fight now, but his rival, Nicola.

SERGIUS. Rival!! (Striking his forehead.)

RAINA. Did you not know that they are engaged?

SERGIUS. Nicola! Are fresh abysses opening! Nicola!!

RAINA (sarcastically). A shocking sacrifice, isn’t it? Such

beauty, such intellect, such modesty, wasted on a middle-aged

servant man! Really, Sergius, you cannot stand by and allow such

a thing. It would be unworthy of your chivalry.

SERGIUS (losing all self-control). Viper! Viper! (He rushes to

and fro, raging.)

BLUNTSCHLI. Look here, Saranoff; you’re getting the worst of

this.

RAINA (getting angrier). Do you realize what he has done,

Captain Bluntschli? He has set this girl as a spy on us; and her

reward is that he makes love to her.

SERGIUS. False! Monstrous!

RAINA. Monstrous! (Confronting him.) Do you deny that she told

you about Captain Bluntschli being in my room?

SERGIUS. No; but—

RAINA (interrupting). Do you deny that you were making love to

her when she told you?

SERGIUS. No; but I tell you—

RAINA (cutting him short contemptuously). It is unnecessary to

tell us anything more. That is quite enough for us. (She turns

her back on him and sweeps majestically back to the window.)

BLUNTSCHLI (quietly, as Sergius, in an agony of mortification,

rinks on the ottoman, clutching his averted head between his

fists). I told you you were getting the worst of it, Saranoff.

SERGIUS. Tiger cat!

RAINA (running excitedly to Bluntschli). You hear this man

calling me names, Captain Bluntschli?

BLUNTSCHLI. What else can he do, dear lady? He must defend

himself somehow. Come (very persuasively), don’t quarrel. What

good does it do? (Raina, with a gasp, sits down on the ottoman,

and after a vain effort to look vexedly at Bluntschli, she falls

a victim to her sense of humor, and is attacked with a

disposition to laugh.)

SERGIUS. Engaged to Nicola! (He rises.) Ha! ha! (Going to the

stove and standing with his back to it.) Ah, well, Bluntschli,

you are right to take this huge imposture of a world coolly.

RAINA (to Bluntschli with an intuitive guess at his state of

mind). I daresay you think us a couple of grown up babies, don’t

you?

SERGIUS (grinning a little). He does, he does. Swiss

civilization nursetending Bulgarian barbarism, eh?

BLUNTSCHLI (blushing). Not at all, I assure you. I’m only very

glad to get you two quieted. There now, let’s be pleasant and

talk it over in a friendly way. Where is this other young lady?

RAINA. Listening at the door, probably.

SERGIUS (shivering as if a bullet had struck him, and speaking

with quiet but deep indignation). I will prove that that, at

least, is a calumny. (He goes with dignity to the door and opens

it. A yell of fury bursts from him as he looks out. He darts

into the passage, and returns dragging in Louka, whom he flings

against the table, R., as he cries) Judge her, Bluntschli—you,

the moderate, cautious man: judge the eavesdropper.

(Louka stands her ground, proud and silent.)

BLUNTSCHLI (shaking his head). I mustn’t judge her. I once

listened myself outside a tent when there was a mutiny brewing.

It’s all a question of the degree of provocation. My life was at

stake.

LOUKA. My love was at stake. (Sergius flinches, ashamed of her

in spite of himself.) I am not ashamed.

RAINA (contemptuously). Your love! Your curiosity, you mean.

LOUKA (facing her and retorting her contempt with interest). My

love, stronger than anything you can feel, even for your

chocolate cream soldier.

SERGIUS (with quick suspicion—to Louka). What does that mean?

LOUKA (fiercely). It means—

SERGIUS (interrupting her slightingly). Oh, I remember, the ice

pudding. A paltry taunt, girl.

(Major Petkoff enters, in his shirtsleeves.)

PETKOFF. Excuse my shirtsleeves, gentlemen. Raina: somebody has

been wearing that coat of mine: I’ll swear it—somebody with

bigger shoulders than mine. It’s all burst open at the back.

Your mother is mending it. I wish she’d make haste. I shall

catch cold. (He looks more attentively at them.) Is anything the

matter?

RAINA. No. (She sits down at the stove with a tranquil air.)

SERGIUS. Oh, no! (He sits down at the end of the table, as at

first.)

BLUNTSCHLI