Major Barbara, George Bernard Shaw [bookstand for reading txt] 📗

Cusins, overwhelmed, sits down on the same form nearer the shelter. Barbara comes from the shelter to the middle of the yard. She is excited and a little overwrought. Barbara We’ve just had a splendid experience meeting at the other gate in Cripps’s lane. I’ve hardly ever seen them so much moved as they were by your confession, Mr. Price. Price I could almost be glad of my past wickedness if I could believe that it would ’elp to keep hathers stright. Barbara So it will, Snobby. How much, Jenny? Jenny Four and tenpence, Major. Barbara Oh Snobby, if you had given your poor mother just one more kick, we should have got the whole five shillings! Price If she heard you say that, miss, she’d be sorry I didn’t. But I’m glad. Oh what a joy it will be to her when she hears I’m saved! Undershaft Shall I contribute the odd twopence, Barbara? The millionaire’s mite, eh? He takes a couple of pennies from his pocket. Barbara How did you make that twopence? Undershaft As usual. By selling cannons, torpedoes, submarines, and my new patent Grand Duke hand grenade. Barbara Put it back in your pocket. You can’t buy your Salvation here for twopence: you must work it out. Undershaft Is twopence not enough? I can afford a little more, if you press me. Barbara Two million millions would not be enough. There is bad blood on your hands; and nothing but good blood can cleanse them. Money is no use. Take it away. She turns to Cusins. Dolly: you must write another letter for me to the papers. He makes a wry face. Yes: I know you don’t like it; but it must be done. The starvation this winter is beating us: everybody is unemployed. The General says we must close this shelter if we can’t get more money. I force the collections at the meetings until I am ashamed, don’t I, Snobby? Price It’s a fair treat to see you work it, miss. The way you got them up from three-and-six to four-and-ten with that hymn, penny by penny and verse by verse, was a caution. Not a Cheap Jack on Mile End Waste could touch you at it. Barbara Yes; but I wish we could do without it. I am getting at last to think more of the collection than of the people’s souls. And what are those hatfuls of pence and halfpence? We want thousands! tens of thousands! hundreds of thousands! I want to convert people, not to be always begging for the Army in a way I’d die sooner than beg for myself. Undershaft In profound irony. Genuine unselfishness is capable of anything, my dear. Barbara Unsuspectingly, as she turns away to take the money from the drum and put it in a cash bag she carries. Yes, isn’t it? Undershaft looks sardonically at Cusins. Cusins Aside to Undershaft. Mephistopheles! Machiavelli! Barbara Tears coming into her eyes as she ties the bag and pockets it. How are we to feed them? I can’t talk religion to a man with bodily hunger in his eyes. Almost breaking down. It’s frightful. Jenny Running to her. Major, dear⁠— Barbara Rebounding. No: don’t comfort me. It will be all right. We shall get the money. Undershaft How? Jenny By praying for it, of course. Mrs. Baines says she prayed for it last night; and she has never prayed for it in vain: never once. She goes to the gate and looks out into the street. Barbara Who has dried her eyes and regained her composure. By the way, dad, Mrs. Baines has come to march with us to our big meeting this afternoon; and she is very anxious to meet you, for some reason or other. Perhaps she’ll convert you. Undershaft I shall be delighted, my dear. Jenny At the gate: excitedly. Major! Major! Here’s that man back again. Barbara What man? Jenny The man that hit me. Oh, I hope he’s coming back to join us. Bill Walker, with frost on his jacket, comes through the gate, his hands deep in his pockets and his chin sunk between his shoulders, like a cleaned-out gambler. He halts between Barbara and the drum. Barbara Hullo, Bill! Back already! Bill Nagging at her. Bin talkin ever sense, ’av you? Barbara Pretty nearly. Well, has Todger paid you out for poor Jenny’s jaw? Bill No he ain’t. Barbara I thought your jacket looked a bit snowy. Bill So it is snowy. You want to know where the snow come from, don’t you? Barbara Yes. Bill Well, it come from off the ground in Parkinses Corner in Kennintahn. It got rubbed off be my shoulders: see? Barbara Pity you didn’t rub some off with your knees, Bill! That would have done you a lot of good. Bill With sour mirthless humor. I was saving another man’s knees at the time. ’E was kneelin’ on my ’ed, so ’e was. Jenny Who was kneeling on your head? Bill Todger was. ’E was prayin’ for me: prayin’ comfortable with me as a carpet. So was Mog. So was the ’ole bloomin’ meetin. Mog she sez “O Lord break is stubborn spirit; but don’t ’urt ’is dear art.” That was wot she said. “Don’t ’urt ’is dear art”! An’ ’er bloke⁠—thirteen stun four!⁠—kneelin wiv all ’is weight on me. Funny, ain’t it? Jenny Oh no. We’re so sorry, Mr. Walker. Barbara Enjoying it frankly. Nonsense! of course it’s funny. Served you right, Bill! You must have done something to him first. Bill Doggedly. I did wot I said I’d do. I spit in ’is eye. ’E looks up at the sky and sez, “O that I should be fahnd worthy to be spit upon for the gospel’s sake!” ’e sez; an’ Mog sez “Glory Allelloolier!”; an’ then ’e called me Brother, an’ dahned me as if I was a kid and ’e was me mother washin’ me a Setterda nawt. I ’adn’t just no show wiv ’im at all. Arf the street prayed; an’ the tother arf larfed fit to split theirselves. To