Project Gutenberg Australia Title: The Glimpse of Reality Author: George Bernard Shaw * A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook * eBook No.: 0300471.txt Language: English Date first posted: March 2003 Date most recently updated: March 2003 This eBook was produced by: Don Lainson dlainson@sympatico.ca Production Note: Published in Translations and Tomfooleries, 1926 Project Gutenberg of Australia eBooks are created from printed editions which are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright notice is included. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particular paper edition. Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this file. This eBook is made available at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg of Australia License which may be viewed online at http://gutenberg.net.au/licence.html To contact Project Gutenberg of Australia go to http://gutenberg.net.au -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Title: The Glimpse of Reality Author: George Bernard Shaw The Glimpse of Reality: A Tragedietta by George Bernard Shaw with Author's Note THE GLIMPSE OF REALITY In the fifteenth century A.D. Gloaming. An inn on the edge of an Italian lake. A stone cross with a pedestal of steps. A very old friar sitting on the steps. The angelus rings. The friar prays and crosses himself. A girl ferries a boat to the shore and comes up the bank to the cross. THE GIRL. Father: were you sent here by a boy from-- THE FRIAR [in a high, piping, but clear voice] I'm a very old man. Oh, very old. Old enough to be your great grandfather, my daughter. Oh, very very old. THE GIRL. But were you sent here by a boy from-- THE FRIAR. Oh yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Quite a boy, he was. Very young. And I'm very old. Oh, very very old, dear daughter. THE GIRL. Are you a holy man? THE FRIAR [ecstatically] Oh, very holy. Very, very, very, very holy. THE GIRL. But have you your wits still about you, father? Can you absolve me from a great sin? THE FRIAR. Oh yes, yes, yes. A very great sin. I'm very old; but Ive my wits about me. I'm one hundred and thirteen years old, by the grace of Our Lady; but I still remember all my Latin; and I can bind and loose; and I'm very very wise; for I'm old and have left far behind me the world, the flesh, and the devil. You see I am blind, daughter; but when a boy told me that there was a duty for me to do here, I came without a guide, straight to this spot, led by St Barbara. She led me to this stone, daughter. It's a comfortable stone to me: she has blessed it for me. THE GIRL. It's a cross, father. THE FRIAR [piping rapturously] Oh blessed, blessed, ever blessed be my holy patroness for leading me to this sacred spot. Is there any building near this, daughter? The boy mentioned an inn. THE GIRL. There is an inn, father, not twenty yards away. It's kept by my father, Squarcio. THE FRIAR. And is there a barn where a very very old man may sleep and have a handful of peas for his supper? THE GIRL. There is bed and board both for holy men who will take the guilt of our sins from us. Swear to me on the cross that you are a very holy man. THE FRIAR. I'll do better than that, daughter. I'll prove my holiness to you by a miracle. THE GIRL. A miracle! THE FRIAR. A most miraculous miracle. A wonderful miracle! When I was only eighteen years of age I was already famous for my devoutness. When the hand of the blessed Saint Barbara, which was chopped off in the days when the church was persecuted, was found at Viterbo, I was selected by the Pope himself to carry it to Rome for that blessed lady's festival there; and since that my hand has never grown old. It remains young and warm and plump whilst the rest of my body is withered almost to dust, and my voice is cracked and become the whistling you now hear. THE GIRL. Is that true? Let me see. [He takes her hand in his. She kneels and kisses it fervently] Oh, it's true. You are a saint. Heaven has sent you in answer to my prayer. THE FRIAR. As soft as your neck, is it not? [He caresses her neck]. THE GIRL. It thrills me: it is wonderful. THE FRIAR. It thrills me also, daughter. That, too, is a miracle at my age. THE GIRL. Father-- THE FRIAR. Come closer, daughter. I'm very very old and very very very deaf: you must speak quite close to my ear if you speak low. [She kneels with her breast against his arm and her chin on his shoulder]. Good. Good. Thats better. Oh, I'm very very old. THE GIRL. Father: I am about to commit a deadly sin. THE FRIAR. Do, my daughter. Do, do, do, do, do. THE GIRL [discouraged] Oh, you do not hear what I say. THE FRIAR. Not hear! Then come closer, daughter. Oh, much much closer. Put your arm round my shoulders, and speak in my ear. Do not be ashamed, my daughter: I'm only a sack of old bones. You can hear them rattle. [He shakes his shoulders and makes the beads of his rosary rattle at the same time]. Listen to the old man's bones rattling. Oh, take the old old man to heaven, Blessed Barbara. THE GIRL. Your wits are wandering. Listen to me. Are you listening? THE FRIAR. Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes. Remember: whether I hear or not, I can absolve. All the better for you perhaps if I do not hear the worst. He! He! He! Well well. When my wits wander, squeeze my young hand; and the blessed Barbara will restore my faculties. [She squeezes his hand vigorously]. Thats right. Tha- a-a-a-ats right. Now I remember what I am and who you are. Proceed, my child. THE GIRL. Father, I am to be married this year to a young fisherman. THE FRIAR. The devil you are, my dear. THE GIRL [squeezing his hand] Oh listen, listen; you are wandering again. THE FRIAR. Thats right: hold my hand tightly. I understand, I understand. This young fisherman is neither very beautiful nor very brave; but he is honest and devoted to you; and there is something about him different to all the other young men. THE GIRL. You know him, then! THE FRIAR. No no no no no. I'm too old to remember people. But Saint Barbara tells me everything. THE GIRL. Then you know why we cant marry yet. THE FRIAR. He is too poor. His mother will not let him unless his bride has a dowry-- THE GIRL [interrupting him impetuously] Yes, yes: oh blessed be Saint Barbara for sending you to me! Thirty crowns--thirty crowns from a poor girl like me: it is wicked--monstrous. I must sin to earn it. THE FRIAR. That will not be your sin, but his mother's. THE GIRL. Oh, that is true: I never thought of that. But will she suffer for it? THE FRIAR. Thousands of years in purgatory for it, my daughter. The worse the sin, the longer she will suffer. So let her have it as hot as possible. [The girl recoils]. Do not let go my hand: I'm wandering. [She squeezes his hand]. Thats right, darling. Sin is a very wicked thing, my daughter. Even a mother-in-law's sin is very expensive; for your husband would stint you to pay for masses for her soul. THE GIRL. That is true. You are very wise, father. THE FRIAR. Let it be a venial sin: an amiable sin. What sin were you thinking of, for instance? THE GIRL. There is a young Count Ferruccio [the Friar starts at the name], son of the tyrant of Parma-- THE FRIAR. An excellent young man, daughter. You could not sin with a more excellent young man. But thirty crowns is too much to ask from him. He cant afford it. He is a beggar: an outcast. He made love to Madonna Brigita, the sister of Cardinal Poldi, a Cardinal eighteen years of age, a nephew of the Holy Father. The Cardinal surprised Ferruccio with his sister; and Ferruccio's temper got the better of him. He threw that holy young Cardinal out of the window and broke his arm. THE GIRL. You know everything. THE FRIAR. Saint Barbara, my daughter, Saint Barbara. _I_ know nothing. But where have you seen Ferruccio? Saint Barbara says that he never saw you in his life, and has not thirty crowns in the world. THE GIRL. Oh, why does not Saint Barbara tell you that I am an honest girl who would not sell herself for a thousand crowns. THE FRIAR. Do not give way to pride, daughter. Pride is one of the seven deadly sins. THE GIRL. I know that, father; and believe me, I'm humble and good. I swear to you by Our Lady that it is not Ferruccio's love that I must take, but his life. [The Friar, startled, turns powerfully on her]. Do not be angry, dear father: do not cast me off. What is a poor girl to do? We are very poor, my father and I. And I am not to kill him. I am only to decoy him here; for he is a devil for women; and once he is in the inn, my father will do the rest. THE FRIAR. [in a rich baritone voice] Will he, by thunder and lightning and the flood and all the saints, will he? [He flings off his gown and beard, revealing himself as a handsome youth, a nobleman by his dress, as he springs up and rushes to the door of the inn, which he batters with a stone]. Ho there, Squarcio, rascal, assassin, son of a pig: come out that I may break every bone in your carcass. THE GIRL. You are a young man! THE FRIAR. Another miracle of Saint Barbara. [Kicking the door] Come out, whelp: come out, rat. Come out and be killed. Come out and be beaten to a jelly. Come out, dog, swine, animal, mangy hound, lousy--[Squarcio comes out, sword in hand]. Do you know who I am, dog? SQUARCIO [impressed] No, your Excellency. THE FRIAR. I am Ferruccio, Count Ferruccio, the man you are to kill, the man your devil of a daughter is to decoy, the man who is now going to cut you into forty thousand pieces and throw you into the lake. SQUARCIO. Keep your temper, Signor Count. FERRUCCIO. I'll not keep my temper. Ive an uncontrollable temper. I get blinding splitting headaches if I do not relieve my temper by acts of violence. I'll relieve it now by pounding you to jelly, assassin that you are. SQUARCIO [shrugging his shoulders] As you please, Signor Count. I may as well earn my money now as another time. [He handles his sword]. FERRUCCIO. Ass: do you suppose I have trusted myself in this territory without precautions? My father has made a wager with your feudal lord here about me. SQUARCIO. What wager, may it please your Excellency? FERRUCCIO. What wager, blockhead! Why, that if I am assassinated, the murderer will not be brought to justice. SQUARCIO. So that if I kill you-- FERRUCCIO. Your Baron will lose ten crowns unless you are broken on the wheel for it. SQUARCIO. Only ten crowns, Excellency! Your father does not value your life very highly. FERRUCCIO. Dolt. Can you not reason? If the sum were larger your Baron would win it by killing me himself and breaking somebody else on the wheel for it: you, most likely. Ten crowns is just enough to make him break you on the wheel if you kill me, but not enough to pay for all the masses that would have to be said for him if the guilt were his. SQUARCIO. That is very clever, Excellency. [Sheathing his sword]. You shall not be slain: I will take care of that. If anything happens, it will be an accident. FERRUCCIO. Body of Bacchus! I forgot that trick. I should have killed you when my blood was hot. SQUARCIO. Will your Excellency please to step in? My best room and my best cooking are at your Excellency's disposal. FERRUCCIO. To the devil with your mangy kennel! You want to tell every traveller that Count Ferruccio slept in your best bed and was eaten by your army of fleas. Take yourself out of my sight when you have told me where the next inn is. SQUARCIO. I'm sorry to thwart your Excellency; but I have not forgotten your father's wager; and until you leave this territory I shall stick to you like your shadow. FERRUCCIO. And why, pray? SQUARCIO. Someone else might kill your Excellency; and, as you say, my illustrious Baron might break me on the wheel for your father's ten crowns. I must protect your Excellency, whether your Excellency is willing or not. FERRUCCIO. If you dare to annoy me, I'll handle your bones so that there will be nothing left for the hangman to break. Now what do you say? SQUARCIO. I say that your Excellency over-rates your Excellency's strength. You would have no more chance against me than a grasshopper. [Ferruccio makes a demonstration]. Oh, I know that your Excellency has been taught by fencers and wrestlers and the like; but I can take all you can give me without turning a hair, and settle the account when you are out of breath. That is why common men are dangerous, your Excellency: they are inured to toil and endurance. Besides, I know all the tricks. THE GIRL. Do not attempt to quarrel with my father, Count. It must be as he says. It is his profession to kill. What could you do against him? If you want to beat somebody, you must beat me. [She goes into the inn]. SQUARCIO. I advise you not to try that, Excellency. She also is very strong. FERRUCCIO. Then I shall have a headache: thats all. [He throws himself ill-humoredly on a bench at the table outside the inn. Giulia returns with a tablecloth and begins preparing the table for a meal]. SQUARCIO. A good supper, Excellency, will prevent that. And Giulia will sing for you. FERRUCCIO. Not while theres a broomstick in the house to break her ugly head with. Do you suppose I'm going to listen to the howling of a she-wolf who wanted me to absolve her for getting me killed? SQUARCIO. The poor must live as well as the rich, sir. Giulia is a good girl. [He goes into the inn]. FERRUCCIO [shouting after him] Must the rich die that the poor may live? GIULIA. The poor often die that the rich may live. FERRUCCIO. What an honor for them! But it would have been no honor for me to die merely that you might marry your clod of a fisherman. GIULIA. You are spiteful, Signor. FERRUCCIO. I am no troubadour, Giuliaccia, if that is what you mean. GIULIA. How did you know about my Sandro and his mother? How were you so wise when you pretended to be an old friar? you that are so childish now that you are yourself? FERRUCCIO. I take it that either Saint Barbara inspired me, or else that you are a great fool. GIULIA. Saint Barbara will surely punish you for that wicked lie you told about her hand. FERRUCCIO. The hand that thrilled you? GIULIA. That was blasphemy. You should not have done it. You made me feel as if I had had a taste of heaven; and then you poisoned it in my heart as a taste of hell. That was wicked and cruel. You nobles are cruel. FERRUCCIO. Well! do you expect us to nurse your babies for you? Our work is to rule and to fight. Ruling is nothing but inflicting cruelties on wrongdoers: fighting is nothing but being cruel to one's enemies. You poor people leave us all the cruel work, and then wonder that we are cruel. Where would you be if we left it undone? Outside the life I lead all to myself--the life of thought and poetry--I know only two pleasures: cruelty and lust. I desire revenge: I desire women. And both of them disappoint me when I get them. GIULIA. It would have been a good deed to kill you, I think. FERRUCCIO. Killing is always sport, my Giuliaccia. SANDRO'S VOICE [on the lake] Giulietta! Giulietta! FERRUCCIO [calling to him] Stop that noise. Your Giulietta is here with a young nobleman. Come up and amuse him. [To Giulietta] What will you give me if I tempt him to defy his mother and marry you without a dowry? GIULIA. You are tempting me. A poor girl can give no more than she has. I should think you were a devil if you were not a noble, which is worse. [She goes out to meet Sandro]. FERRUCCIO [calling after her] The devil does evil for pure love of it: he does not ask a price: he offers it. [Squarcio returns]. Prepare supper for four, bandit. SQUARCIO. Is your appetite so great in this heat, Signor? FERRUCCIO. There will be four to supper. You, I, your daughter, and Sandro. Do not stint yourselves: I pay for all. Go and prepare more food. SQUARCIO. Your order is already obeyed, Excellency. FERRUCCIO. How? SQUARCIO. I prepared for four, having you here to pay. The only difference your graciousness makes is that we shall have the honor to eat with you instead of after you. FERRUCCIO. Dog of a bandit: you should have been born a nobleman. SQUARCIO. I was born noble, Signor; but as we had no money to maintain our pretensions, I dropped them. [He goes back into the inn]. Giulia returns with Sandro. GIULIA. This is the lad, Excellency. Sandro: this is his lordship Count Ferruccio. SANDRO. At your lordship's service. FERRUCCIO. Sit down, Sandro. You, Giulia, and Squarcio are my guests. [They sit]. GIULIA. Ive told Sandro everything, Excellency. FERRUCCIO. And what does Sandro say? [Squarcio returns with a tray]. GIULIA. He says that if you have ten crowns in your purse, and we kill you, we can give them to the Baron. It would be the same to him as if he got it from your illustrious father. SQUARCIO. Stupid: the Count is cleverer than you think. No matter how much money you give the Baron he can always get ten crowns more by breaking me on the wheel if the Count is killed. GIULIA. That is true. Sandro did not think of that. SANDRO [with cheerful politeness] Oh! what a head I have! I am not clever, Excellency. At the same time you must know that I did not mean my Giulietta to tell you. I know my duty to your Excellency better than that. FERRUCCIO. Come! You are dear people: charming people. Let us get to work at the supper. You shall be the mother of the family and give us our portions, Giulietta. [They take their places]. Thats right. Serve me last, Giulietta. Sandro is hungry. SQUARCIO [to the girl] Come come! do you not see that his Excellency will touch nothing until we have had some first. [He eats]. See, Excellency! I have tasted everything. To tell you the truth, poisoning is an art I do not understand. FERRUCCIO. Very few professional poisoners do, Squarcio. One of the best professionals in Rome poisoned my uncle and aunt. They are alive still. The poison cured my uncle's gout, and only made my aunt thin, which was exactly what she desired, poor lady, as she was losing her figure terribly. SQUARCIO. There is nothing like the sword, Excellency. SANDRO. Except the water, Father Squarcio. Trust a fisherman to know that. Nobody can tell that drowning was not an accident. FERRUCCIO. What does Giulietta say? GIULIA. I should not kill a man if I hated him. You cannot torment a man when he is dead. Men kill because they think it is what they call a satisfaction. But that is only fancy. FERRUCCIO. And if you loved him? Would you kill him then? GIULIA. Perhaps. If you love a man you are his slave: everything he says--everything he does--is a stab to your heart: every day is a long dread of losing him. Better kill him if there be no other escape. FERRUCCIO. How well you have brought up your family, Squarcio! Some more omelette, Sandro? SANDRO [very cheerfully] I thank your Excellency. [He accepts and eats with an appetite]. FERRUCCIO. I pledge you all. To the sword and the fisherman's net: to love and hate! [He drinks: they drink with him]. SQUARCIO. To the sword! SANDRO. To the net, Excellency, with thanks for the honor. GIULIA. To love, Signor. FERRUCCIO. To hate: the noble's portion! SQUARCIO. The meal has done you good, Excellency. How do you feel now? FERRUCCIO. I feel that there is nothing but a bait of ten crowns between me and death, Squarcio. SQUARCIO. It is enough, Excellency. And enough is always enough. SANDRO. Do not think of that, Excellency. It is only that we are poor folk, and have to consider how to make both ends meet as one may say. [Looking at the dish] Excellency--? FERRUCCIO. Finish it, Sandro. Ive done. SANDRO. Father Squarcio? SQUARCIO. Finish it, finish it. SANDRO. Giulietta? GIULIA [surprised] Me? Oh no. Finish it, Sandro: it will only go to the pig. SANDRO. Then, with your Excellency's permission--[he helps himself]. SQUARCIO. Sing for his Excellency, my daughter. Giulia turns to the door to fetch her mandoline. FERRUCCIO. I shall jump into the lake Squarcio, if your cat begins to miaowl. SANDRO [always cheerful and reassuring] No, no, Excellency: Giulietta sings very sweetly: have no fear. FERRUCCIO. I do not care for singing: at least not the singing of peasants. There is only one thing for which one woman will do as well as another, and that is lovemaking. Come, Father Squarcio: I will buy Giulietta from you: you can have her back for nothing when I am tired of her. How much? SQUARCIO. In ready money, or in promises? FERRUCCIO. Old fox. Ready money. SQUARCIO. Fifty crowns, Excellency. FERRUCCIO. Fifty crowns! Fifty crowns for that black-faced devil! I would not give fifty crowns for one of my mother's ladies-in- waiting, Fifty pence, you must mean. SQUARCIO. Doubtless your Excellency, being a younger son, is poor. Shall we say five and twenty crowns? FERRUCCIO. I tell you she is not worth five. SQUARCIO. Oh, if you come to what she is worth, Excellency, what are any of us worth? I take it that you are a gentleman, not a merchant. GIULIA. What are you worth, Signorino? FERRUCCIO. I am accustomed to be asked for favors, Giuliaccia, not to be asked impertinent questions. GIULIA. What would you do if a strong man took you by the scruff of your neck, or his daughter thrust a knife in your throat, Signor? FERRUCCIO. It would be many a year, my gentle Giuliaccia, before any baseborn man or woman would dare threaten a nobleman again. The whole village would be flayed alive. SANDRO. Oh no, Signor. These things often have a great air of being accidents. And the great families are well content that they should appear so. It is such a great trouble to flay a whole village alive. Here by the water, accidents are so common. SQUARCIO. We of the nobility, Signor, are not strict enough. I learnt that when I took to breeding horses. The horses you breed from thoroughbreds are not all worth the trouble: most of them are screws. Well, the horsebreeder gets rid of his screws for what they will fetch: they go to labor like any peasant's beast. But our nobility does not study its business so carefully. If you are a screw, and the son of a baron, you are brought up to think yourself a little god, though you are nothing, and cannot rule yourself, much less a province. And you presume, and presume, and presume-- GIULIA. And insult, and insult, and insult. SQUARCIO. Until one day you find yourself in a strange place with nothing to help you but your own hands and your own wits-- GIULIA. And you perish-- SANDRO. Accidentally-- GIULIA. And your soul goes crying to your father for vengeance-- SQUARCIO. If indeed, my daughter, there be any soul left when the body is slain. FERRUCCIO [crossing himself hastily] Dog of a bandit: do you dare doubt the existence of God and the soul? SQUARCIO. I think, Excellency, that the soul is so precious a gift that God will not give it to a man for nothing. He must earn it by being something and doing something. I should not like to kill a man with a good soul. Ive had a dog that had, I'm persuaded, made itself something of a soul; and if anyone had murdered that dog, I would have slain him. But shew me a man with no soul: one who has never done anything or been anything; and I will kill him for ten crowns with as little remorse as I would stick a pig. SANDRO. Unless he be a nobleman, of course-- SQUARCIO. In which case the price is fifty crowns. FERRUCCIO. Soul or no soul? SQUARCIO. When it comes to a matter of fifty crowns, Excellency, business is business. The man who pays me must square the account with the devil. It is for my employer to consider whether the action be a good one or no: it is for me to earn his money honestly. When I said I should not like to kill a man with a good soul, I meant killing on my own account: not professionally. FERRUCCIO. Are you such a fool then as to spoil your own trade by sometimes killing people for nothing? SQUARCIO. One kills a snake for nothing, Excellency. One kills a dog for nothing sometimes. SANDRO [apologetically] Only a mad dog, Excellency, of course. SQUARCIO. A pet dog, too. One that eats and eats and is useless, and makes an honest man's house dirty. [He rises]. Come, Sandro, and help me to clean up. You, Giulia, stay and entertain his Excellency. He and Sandro make a hammock of the cloth, in which they carry the wooden platters and fragments of the meal indoors. Ferruccio is left alone with Giulia. The gloaming deepens. FERRUCCIO. Does your father do the house work with a great girl like you idling about? Squarcio is a fool, after all. GIULIA. No, Signor: he has left me here to prevent you from escaping. FERRUCCIO. There is nothing to be gained by killing me, Giuliaccia. GIULIA. Perhaps; but I do not know. I saw Sandro make a sign to my father: that is why they went in. Sandro has something in his head. FERRUCCIO [brutally] Lice, no doubt. GIULIA [unmoved] That would only make him scratch his head, Signor, not make signs with it to my father. You did wrong to throw the Cardinal out of the window. FERRUCCIO. Indeed: and pray why? GIULIA. He will pay thirty crowns for your dead body. Then Sandro could marry me. FERRUCCIO. And be broken on the wheel for it. GIULIA. It would look like an accident, Signor. Sandro is very clever; and he is so humble and cheerful and good-tempered that people do not suspect him as they suspect my father. FERRUCCIO. Giulietta: if I reach Sacromonte in safety, I swear to send you thirty crowns by a sure messenger within ten days. Then you can marry your Sandro. How does that appeal to you? GIULIA. Your oath is not worth twenty pence, Signor. FERRUCCIO. Do you think I will die here like a rat in a trap--[his breath fails him]. GIULIA. Rats have to wait in their traps for death, Signor. Why not you? FERRUCCIO. I'll fight. GIULIA. You are welcome, Signor. The blood flows freeest when it is hot. FERRUCCIO. She devil! Listen to me, Giulietta-- GIULIA. It is useless, Signor. Giulietta or Giuliaccia: it makes no difference. If they two in there kill you it will be no more to me--except for the money--than if my father trod on a snail. FERRUCCIO. Oh, it is not possible that I, a nobleman, should die by such filthy hands. GIULIA. You have lived by them, Signor. I see no sign of any work on your own hands. We can bring death as well as life, we poor people, Signor. FERRUCCIO. Mother of God, what shall I do? GIULIA. Pray, Signor. FERRUCCIO. Pray! With the taste of death in my mouth? I can think of nothing. GIULIA. It is only that you have forgotten your beads, Signor [she picks up the Friar's rosary]. You remember the old man's bones rattling. Here they are [she rattles them before him]. FERRUCCIO. That reminds me. I know of a painter in the north that can paint such beautiful saints that the heart goes out of one's body to look at them. If I get out of this alive I'll make him paint St Barbara so that every one can see that she is lovelier than St Cecilia, who looks like my washerwoman's mother in her Chapel in our cathedral. Can you give St Cecilia a picture if she lets me be killed? GIULIA. No; but I can give her many prayers. FERRUCCIO. Prayers cost nothing. She will prefer the picture unless she is a greater fool than I take her to be. GIULIA. She will thank the painter for it, not you, Signor. And I'll tell her in my prayers to appear to the painter in a vision, and order him to paint her just as he sees her if she really wishes to be painted. FERRUCCIO. You are devilishly ready with your answers. Tell me, Giulietta: is what your father told me true? Is your blood really noble? GIULIA. It is red, Signor, like the blood of the Christ in the picture in Church. I do not know if yours is different. I shall see when my father kills you. FERRUCCIO. Do you know what I am thinking, Giulietta? GIULIA. No, Signor. FERRUCCIO. I am thinking that if the good God would oblige me by taking my fool of an elder brother up to heaven, and his silly doll of a wife with him before she has time to give him a son, you would make a rare duchess for me. Come! Will you help me to outwit your father and Sandro if I marry you afterwards? GIULIA. No, Signor: I'll help them to kill you. FERRUCCIO. My back is to the wall, then? GIULIA. To the precipice, I think, Signor. FERRUCCIO. No matter, so my face is to the danger. Did you notice, Giulia, a minute ago? I was frightened. GIULIA. Yes, Signor. I saw it in your face. FERRUCCIO. The terror of terrors. GIULIA. The terror of death. FERRUCCIO. No: death is nothing. I can face a stab just as I faced having my tooth pulled out at Faenza. GIULIA [shuddering with sincere sympathy] Poor Signorino! That must have hurt horribly. FERRUCCIO. What! You pity me for the tooth affair, and you did not pity me in that hideous agony of terror that is not the terror of death nor of anything else, but pure grim terror in itself. GIULIA. It was the terror of the soul, Signor. And I do not pity your soul: you have a wicked soul. But you have pretty teeth. FERRUCCIO. The toothache lasted a week; but the agony of my soul was too dreadful to last five minutes: I should have died of it if it could have kept its grip of me. But you helped me out of it. GIULIA. I, Signor! FERRUCCIO. Yes: you. If you had pitied me: if you had been less inexorable than death itself, I should have broken down and cried and begged for mercy. But now I have come up against something hard: something real: something that does not care for me. I see now the truth of my excellent uncle's opinion that I was a spoilt cub. When I wanted anything I threatened men or ran crying to women; and they gave it to me. I dreamed and romanced: imagining things as I wanted them, not as they really are. There is nothing like a good look into the face of death: close up: right on you: for shewing you how little you really believe and how little you really are. A priest said to me once, "In your last hour everything will fall away from you except your religion." But I have lived through my last hour; and my religion was the first thing that fell away from me. When I was forced at last to believe in grim death I knew at last what belief was, and that I had never believed in anything before: I had only flattered myself with pretty stories, and sheltered myself behind Mumbo Jumbo, as a soldier will shelter himself from arrows behind a clump of thistles that only hide the shooters from him. When I believe in everything that is real as I believed for that moment in death, then I shall be a man at last. I have tasted the water of life from the cup of death; and it may be now that my real life began with this [he holds up the rosary] and will end with the triple crown or the heretic's fire: I care not which. [Springing to his feet] Come out, then, dog of a bandit, and fight a man who has found his soul. [Squarcio appears at the door, sword in hand. Ferruccio leaps at him and strikes him full in the chest with his dagger. Squarcio puts back his left foot to brace himself against the shock. The dagger snaps as if it had struck a stone wall]. GIULIA. Quick, Sandro. Sandro, who has come stealing round the corner of the inn with a fishing net, casts it over Ferruccio, and draws it tight. SQUARCIO. Your Excellency will excuse my shirt of mail. A good home blow, nevertheless, Excellency. SANDRO. Your Excellency will excuse my net: it is a little damp. FERRUCCIO. Well, what now? Accidental drowning, I suppose. SANDRO. Eh, Excellency, it is such a pity to throw a good fish back into the water when once you have got him safe in your net. My Giulietta: hold the net for me. GIULIA [taking the net and twisting it in her hands to draw it tighter round him] I have you very fast now, Signorino, like a little bird in a cage. FERRUCCIO. You have my body, Giulia. My soul is free. GIULIA. Is it, Signor? I think Saint Barbara has got that in her net too. She has turned your jest into earnest. SANDRO. It is indeed true, sir, that those who come under the special protection of God and the Saints are always a little mad; and this makes us think it very unlucky to kill a madman. And since from what Father Squarcio and I overheard, it is clear that your Excellency, though a very wise and reasonable young gentleman in a general way, is somewhat cracked on the subject of the soul and so forth, we have resolved to see that no harm comes to your Excellency. FERRUCCIO. As you please. My life is only a drop falling from the vanishing clouds to the everlasting sea, from finite to infinite, and itself part of the infinite. SANDRO [impressed] Your Excellency speaks like a crazy but very holy book. Heaven forbid that we should raise a hand against you? But your Excellency will notice that this good action will cost us thirty crowns. FERRUCCIO. Is it not worth it? SANDRO. Doubtless, doubtless. It will in fact save us the price of certain masses which we should otherwise have had said for the souls of certain persons who--ahem! Well, no matter. But we think it dangerous and unbecoming that a nobleman like your Excellency should travel without a retinue, and unarmed; for your dagger is unfortunately broken, Excellency. If you would therefore have the condescension to accept Father Squarcio as your man-at-arms--your servant in all but the name, to save his nobility--he will go with you to any town in which you will feel safe from His Eminence the Cardinal, and will leave it to your Excellency's graciousness as to whether his magnanimous conduct will not then deserve some trifling present: say a wedding gift for my Giulietta. FERRUCCIO. Good: the man I tried to slay will save me from being slain. Who would have thought Saint Barbara so full of irony! SANDRO. And if the offer your Excellency was good enough to make in respect of Giulietta still stands-- SQUARCIO. Rascal: have you then no soul? SANDRO. I am a poor man, Excellency: I cannot afford these luxuries of the rich. FERRUCCIO. There is a certain painter will presently make a great picture of St Barbara; and Giulia will be his model. He will pay her well. Giulia: release the bird. It is time for it to fly. She takes the net from his shoulders. COOLE PARK, Summer, 1909. [Error for 1910]. Author's Note (From the programme of the production at the Arts Theatre Club, 20 November 1927) The fame, if fame it be, of performing this Playlet for the first time was snatched from London on the 8th October last by the Glasgow Clarion Players. The Arts Theatre can only follow humbly in the wake of that enlightened Company. The piece was immediately announced in the London Press as Mr. Shaw's latest, the successor to 'Saint Joan.' An error: it was written in an idle moment as a star turn for Mr. Harley Granville-Barker, was mislaid and forgotten by its author until last year when it came to light in his volume entitled 'Translations and Tomfooleries,' in which it is the only serious original item. Published in Translations and Tomfooleries, 1926 THE END Project Gutenberg Australia