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

its masters; but the ballot paper that really governs is the paper that has a bullet wrapped up in it. Cusins That is perhaps why, like most intelligent people, I never vote. Undershaft Vote! Bah! When you vote, you only change the names of the cabinet. When you shoot, you pull down governments, inaugurate new epochs, abolish old orders and set up new. Is that historically true, Mr. Learned Man, or is it not? Cusins It is historically true. I loathe having to admit it. I repudiate your sentiments. I abhor your nature. I defy you in every possible way. Still, it is true. But it ought not to be true. Undershaft Ought, ought, ought, ought, ought! Are you going to spend your life saying ought, like the rest of our moralists? Turn your oughts into shalls, man. Come and make explosives with me. Whatever can blow men up can blow society up. The history of the world is the history of those who had courage enough to embrace this truth. Have you the courage to embrace it, Barbara? Lady Britomart Barbara, I positively forbid you to listen to your father’s abominable wickedness. And you, Adolphus, ought to know better than to go about saying that wrong things are true. What does it matter whether they are true if they are wrong? Undershaft What does it matter whether they are wrong if they are true? Lady Britomart Rising. Children: come home instantly. Andrew: I am exceedingly sorry I allowed you to call on us. You are wickeder than ever. Come at once. Barbara Shaking her head. It’s no use running away from wicked people, mamma. Lady Britomart It is every use. It shows your disapprobation of them. Barbara It does not save them. Lady Britomart I can see that you are going to disobey me. Sarah: are you coming home or are you not? Sarah I daresay it’s very wicked of papa to make cannons; but I don’t think I shall cut him on that account. Lomax Pouring oil on the troubled waters. The fact is, you know, there is a certain amount of tosh about this notion of wickedness. It doesn’t work. You must look at facts. Not that I would say a word in favor of anything wrong; but then, you see, all sorts of chaps are always doing all sorts of things; and we have to fit them in somehow, don’t you know. What I mean is that you can’t go cutting everybody; and that’s about what it comes to. Their rapt attention to his eloquence makes him nervous. Perhaps I don’t make myself clear. Lady Britomart You are lucidity itself, Charles. Because Andrew is successful and has plenty of money to give to Sarah, you will flatter him and encourage him in his wickedness. Lomax Unruffled. Well, where the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered, don’t you know. To Undershaft. Eh? What? Undershaft Precisely. By the way, may I call you Charles? Lomax Delighted. Cholly is the usual ticket. Undershaft To Lady Britomart. Biddy⁠— Lady Britomart Violently. Don’t dare call me Biddy. Charles Lomax: you are a fool. Adolphus Cusins: you are a Jesuit. Stephen: you are a prig. Barbara: you are a lunatic. Andrew: you are a vulgar tradesman. Now you all know my opinion; and my conscience is clear, at all events She sits down again with a vehemence that almost wrecks the chair. Undershaft My dear, you are the incarnation of morality. She snorts. Your conscience is clear and your duty done when you have called everybody names. Come, Euripides! it is getting late; and we all want to get home. Make up your mind. Cusins Understand this, you old demon⁠— Lady Britomart Adolphus! Undershaft Let him alone, Biddy. Proceed, Euripides. Cusins You have me in a horrible dilemma. I want Barbara. Undershaft Like all young men, you greatly exaggerate the difference between one young woman and another. Barbara Quite true, Dolly. Cusins I also want to avoid being a rascal. Undershaft With biting contempt. You lust for personal righteousness, for self-approval, for what you call a good conscience, for what Barbara calls salvation, for what I call patronizing people who are not so lucky as yourself. Cusins I do not: all the poet in me recoils from being a good man. But there are things in me that I must reckon with: pity⁠— Undershaft Pity! The scavenger of misery. Cusins Well, love. Undershaft I know. You love the needy and the outcast: you love the oppressed races, the negro, the Indian ryot, the Pole, the Irishman. Do you love the Japanese? Do you love the Germans? Do you love the English? Cusins No. Every true Englishman detests the English. We are the wickedest nation on earth; and our success is a moral horror. Undershaft That is what comes of your gospel of love, is it? Cusins May I not love even my father-in-law? Undershaft Who wants your love, man? By what right do you take the liberty of offering it to me? I will have your due heed and respect, or I will kill you. But your love! Damn your impertinence! Cusins Grinning. I may not be able to control my affections, Mac. Undershaft You are fencing, Euripides. You are weakening: your grip is slipping. Come! try your last weapon. Pity and love have broken in your hand: forgiveness is still left. Cusins No: forgiveness is a beggar’s refuge. I am with you there: we must pay our debts. Undershaft Well said. Come! you will suit me. Remember the words of Plato. Cusins Starting. Plato! You dare quote Plato to me! Undershaft Plato says, my friend, that society cannot be saved until either the Professors of Greek take to making gunpowder, or else the makers of gunpowder become Professors of Greek. Cusins Oh, tempter, cunning tempter! Undershaft Come! choose, man, choose. Cusins But perhaps Barbara will not marry me if I make the wrong choice. Barbara Perhaps not. Cusins Desperately perplexed. You hear⁠— Barbara Father: do you love nobody? Undershaft I love my best friend. Lady Britomart And who is that, pray? Undershaft My bravest enemy. That is the man who keeps me up to the