Project Gutenberg Australia Title: Village Wooing Author: George Bernard Shaw * A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook * eBook No.: 0300521.txt Edition: 1 Language: English Character set encoding: Latin-1(ISO-8859-1)--8 bit Date first posted: March 2003 Date most recently updated: March 2003 This eBook was produced by: Don Lainson dlainson@sympatico.ca 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook Title: Village Wooing Author: George Bernard Shaw Village Wooing: A Comedietta for Two Voices Period--The Present First Conversation: The Lounge Deck of the Empress of Patagonia, a Pleasure Ship. Second Conversation: In a Village Shop and Post Office on the Wiltshire Downs. Third Conversation: In the Same. FIRST CONVERSATION The lounge deck of the Empress of Patagonia, a pleasure ship. Two of the deck chairs are occupied by A, a literary looking pale gentleman under forty in green spectacles, a limp black beard, and a tropical suit of white silk, who is writing and does not wish to be disturbed, and Z, a young woman, presentable but not aristocratic, who is bored with her book. She is undressed for bathing, but is very modestly covered up with a not too flamboyant wrap. Z. Excuse me. Could you tell me the time? A. [curtly] Eleven. Z. My watch makes it half past ten. A. The clocks were put on half an hour last night. We are going east. Z. I always think it adds to the interest of a voyage having to put on your watch. A. I am glad you are so easily interested [he resumes his writing pointedly]. Z. The steward will be round with the soup in half an hour. I thought we should have to wait an hour. A. I never take it. It interrupts my work. Z. Why do you work all the time? It's not what one comes on a pleasure cruise for, is it? A. Work is my only pleasure. Z. Oh, thats not good sense, is it? It gives me the pip to see you always sitting there over your writing, and never enjoying yourself, nor even taking a drop of soup. You should get up and have a game of deck quoits: you will feel ever so much better after it. A. I feel perfectly well, thank you. And I loathe deck games, especially deck quoits. The slapping of those silly things on the deck destroys the quiet of the ship. Z. Oh, I see. That is why you select this end of the deck. I often wondered why. A. Within the last fortnight you have inspected the priceless antiquities of Naples, Athens, Egypt, and the Holy Land. Please occupy your mind with them until the soup comes. Z. I never cared much for geography. Where are we now? A. We are on the Red Sea. Z. But it's blue. A. What did you expect it to be? Z. Well, I didnt know what color the sea might be in these parts. I always thought the Red Sea would be red. A. Well, it isnt. Z. And isnt the Black Sea black? A. It is precisely the color of the sea at Margate. Z. [eagerly] Oh, I am so glad you know Margate. Theres no place like it in the season, is there? A. I dont know: I have never been there. Z. [disappointed] Oh, you ought to go. You could write a book about it. A. [shudders, sighs, and pretends to write very hard]! A pause. Z. I wonder why they call it the Red Sea. A. Because their fathers did. Why do you call America America? Z. Well, because it is America. What else would you call it? A. Oh, call it what you like, dear lady; but I have five hundred words to write before lunch; and I cannot do that if I talk to you. Z. [sympathetically] Yes: it is awful to have to talk to people, isnt it? Oh, that reminds me: I have something really interesting to tell you. I believe the man in the cabin next mine beats his wife. A. I feel a little like him myself. Some women would provoke any men to beat them. Z. I will say this for him, that she always begins it. A. No doubt. Z. I hate a nagger: dont you? A. It is your privilege as a woman to have the last word. Please take it and dont end all your remarks with a question. Z. You are funny. A. Am I? I never felt less funny in my life. Z. I can't make you out at all. I am rather good at making out people as a rule; but I cant make head or tail of you. A. I am not here to be made out. You are not here to make people out, but to revel in the enjoyments you have paid for. Deck tennis, deck quoits, shuffleboard, golf, squash rackets, the swimming pool, the gymnasium all invite you. Z. I am no good at games: besides, theyre silly. I'd rather sit and talk. A. Then for heaven's sake talk to somebody else. I have no time for talk. I have to work my passage. Z. What do you mean: work your passage? You are not a sailor. A. No. I make a precarious living on board ship by writing the Marco Polo Series of Chatty Guide Books. Unless I complete two thousand words a day I am bankrupt. I cannot complete them if you persist in talking to me. Z. Do you mean you are writing a book about this cruise? A. I am trying to--under great difficulties. Z. Will I be in it? A. [grimly] You will. Z. How thrilling! I have never been put in a book before. You will read me what you have written about me, wont you? A. When the book is published you can read it to your heart's content. Z. But I should like you to get me right. After all, what do you know about me? I will tell you the whole of my life if you like. A. Great heavens, NO. Please dont. Z. Oh, I dont care who knows it. A. Evidently. You would hardly offer to tell it to a perfect stranger if you cared, or if it was of the smallest interest. Z. Oh, I'd never think of you as a stranger. Here we are on the same ship, arnt we? And most people would think my life quite a romance. Wouldnt you really like to hear it? A. No, I tell you. When I want romances I invent them for myself. Z. Oh, well, perhaps you wouldnt think it very wonderful. But it was a regular treat for me. You may think because I am well dressed and travelling de lucks and all that, that I am an educated lady. But I'm not. A. I never supposed for a moment that you were. Z. But how could you know? How did you find out? A. I didnt find out. I knew. Z. Who told you? A. Nobody told me. Z. Then how did you know? A. [exasperated] How do I know that a parrot isnt a bird of paradise? Z. Theyre different. A. Precisely. Z. There you are, you see. But what would you take me for if you met me in a third class carriage? A. I should not notice you. Z. I bet you would. I maynt be a beauty; but when I get into a railway carriage every man in it has a look at me. A. I am not Everyman. Everyman thinks that every woman that steps into a railway carriage may be the right woman. But she is always a disappointment. Z. Same with the women, isnt it? If you were a woman youd know. A. I am a woman; and you are a man, with a slight difference that doesnt matter except on special occasions. Z. Oh, what a thing to say! I never could bring myself to believe that. I know, of course, that men have their weaknesses and their tempers; but all the same there is something wonderful you can get from a man that you never could get from a woman. Dont you think so? A. Inexperienced men think there is something wonderful you can get from a woman that you never could get from a man. Hence many unhappy marriages. Z. Are you married? A. Widower. Are you? Z. Oh, thats the first time youve asked me a question. We're getting on, arnt we? A. No. I am not getting on with my work. Z. Youre an intellectual, arnt you? A. What do you think you mean by an intellectual? Z. Only that you consider me no better than an idiot, and that you were a bad husband, most likely. A. You are quite right on both points. Z. I thought so. A. And now, please, may I go on with my work? Z. Please yourself. I'm not hindering you. A. Thank you [he resumes his writing]. A pause. Z. What books would you recommend me to read to improve my mind? A. [shouting furiously] Steward. Z. Oh, you shouldnt trouble the steward now. He's busy getting the soup. A. I want him to remove my chair to the very furthest extremity of this ship. Z. I always say it's fresher under the awning at the end. You dont mind if I move too, do you? A. If you persecute me any more I shall go overboard. Dont you see that I want to be left alone to work, and that your chatter is preventing me from working? Z. [sympathetically] It is annoying to have somebody talking to you all the time when you dont want to. But it's just as bad when you want to talk, and the other person wont, isnt it? A. There are three or four hundred persons on this ship. Cannot you find one of them with the same insatiable thirst for conversation as yourself? Z. Well; but we all have to make ourselves agreeable, havnt we? A. Not at oneanother's expense. You are not making yourself agreeable to me at present: you are driving me mad. Z. My father used to say that men and women are always driving oneanother mad. A. That sounds literary. Was your father a man of letters? Z. Yes: I should think he was. A postman. A. A what? Z. A postman. A village postman. A. Ha ha! Ha ha ha! Z. What is there funny in that? A. I dont know. Ha ha! The postman's daughter hath ripe red lips: butter and eggs and a pound of cheese! Ha ha ha! Z. Well, I'm glad Ive amused you. But I dont think it's very polite of you to laugh at my father. A. [punctiliously--recovering himself] You are right. I was rude. But a good laugh is worth a hundred pounds to me. I feel a different man. Forgive me. You see, you quoted a remark of your father's--almost an epigram--which suggested that he must have been a man of genius. Z. Well, so he was. He had a genius for walking. A. For what? Z. For walking. When he was a child, he won a prize as The Infant Pedestrian. And would you believe it, my mother was that indoory that she grudged having to go out and do her marketing. After we had a telephone put in she never went out at all. A. Thats strange. As she was never out and he was never in, the household should have been a quiet one; but that remark of his about men and women driving oneanother mad rather suggests the opposite. Z. So it was the opposite. She was always complaining of being lonely; and he was always at her to take more exercise. When they were not quarrelling about that, they were quarrelling about me. You see, they had great ambitions for me. She wanted me to be a parlormaid in a great house. He wanted me to be a telephone operator. He said there is no future for the great houses and a great future for telephones. A. And you? Had you no ambition for yourself? Z. Oh, I wanted to be something romantic, like an acrobat in a circus. A. And what actually happened? Z. I became shop assistant and telephone operator in the village shop. A. Do village shop assistants and telephone girls-- Z. Operators. A. Pardon: operators. Do they earn enough to take cruises round the world in pleasure ships? Z. Not they. I won the first prize in a newspaper competition. My mother wanted me to save it: she said it would help me to get a thrifty husband. My father told me to blue it all in a lump while I had the chance. "You will be poor all your life," he said; "but now you have the chance of living at the rate of five thousand a year for four months. Dont miss it," he said: "see what it's like. Have your fling" he said; "for they never can take that away from you once youve had it." His idea was a walking tour, spending the nights in the best hotels; but I chose the ship because it's more dressy and more people to look at. Besides, I can get all the walking I want round the deck. At the end of the cruise back I go to the village shop without a penny. A. Have they found out here that you are not a lady? Z. The Americans dont know the difference: they think my telephone talk is aristocratic; and the English wont speak to anyone anyhow. And lots of them are just like me. A. Well, how do you like living at the rate of five thousand a year? Is it worth it? Z. It is while the novelty lasts. You see, when youre at home you get tired of doing the same thing every day: the same places! the same faces! the same old round. When you get a holiday you go off in a crowded hot excursion train to the seaside and make yourself tired and miserable just because it's a change; and youd do anything for a change. But here it's change all the time until you begin to realize what it is to have a settled home and belong somewhere. I shant be sorry to get home to the shop and the telephone. I get such a dreadful lost dog feeling sometimes. Other times it seems such a foolish waste of money. And I hate wasting money. A. Thats an extremely attractive point in your character. My wife used to waste my money. Stick to that and you will get married in no time. Z. Oh, I have had plenty of offers. But you know it's a terrible thing to be a poor man's wife when you have been accustomed to a clean decent job. I have seen so many bright jolly girls turn into dirty old drudges through getting married. A. Dont be afraid of dirt. Mine is a clean job; but I often wish I had a dirty one to exercise me and keep me in health. Women are so set on clean collars that they make their sons clerks when they would be stronger and earn more money as navvies. I wish I was a navvy instead of writing guide books. Z. Well, whats to prevent you? A. I am not trained to manual work. Half an hour of it would make me wish myself dead. And five minutes of my work would produce a strike among the navvies. I am only a writing machine, just as a navvy is a digging machine. Z. I dont think the world is rightly arranged: do you? A. We must take the world as we find it. It's we that are not rightly arranged. Z. Thats what I mean. Well, I suppose I mustnt interrupt your work. A. You mean that the steward is coming round with the soup at last. Z. Well, it's half past eleven, isnt it? The steward appears with the soup and offers it to Z who seizes it eagerly; then to A. A. No, thank you. No soup. He buries himself in his work, unmolested. She buries herself in the soup. SECOND CONVERSATION In a village shop and post office on the Wiltshire Downs on a fine summer morning. The counter is for general shopping for most of its length; but one end is reserved and railed in for postal business. A couple of chairs are available for customers. The goods for sale include ginger beer in stone bottles, tablets of milk chocolate, glass jars of sweets containing (inter alia) sugared almonds, all on the counter; cheese, butter, and Hovis bread handy to the scales; and, in front of the counter, a sack of apples on the floor and some string bags hanging from the rafters. Z. [invisible] Th-reee ni-nnn. Sorry: no such number. Whoommm do you want? Doctor Byles? One fi-fff. You are through. A comes in. He is in hiking costume, with stick and rucksack, but wears well cut breeches (not plus fours) instead of shorts. Seeing nobody to attend to him he raps loudly on the counter with his stick. Z emerges. A. I want a packet of milk chocolate-- Z. Thanks very much. A. [continuing]--a couple of hard apples-- Z. Thanks very much. [She comes out through the counter to get them from the sack]. A. [continuing]--quarter of a pound of Cheddar cheese-- Z. Thanks very much. A. Dont interrupt me. You can express your gratitude for the order when I have finished. Quarter of a pound of your best butter, a small loaf of Hovis, and two-pennyworth of sugared almonds. Z. Anything else? A. No, thank you. Z. Thanks very much [she goes back through the counter to cut and weigh the butter and cheese]. He sits down watching her deft but leisurely proceedings. A. Do you sell baskets? Z. We sell everything. Hadnt you better have a string bag? It's handier; and it packs away almost to nothing when it's empty. A. What is a string bag? Shew me one. Z. [coming out and taking one down] This is the cheapest. Or would you like a better quality with a Zip fastening? A. Certainly not. I should have the trouble of opening and shutting it, and the worry of wondering whether it would open or shut, with no compensatory advantage whatever. Z. Thats just like you. Youre not a bit changed. A. What do you mean? I have been in this shop for less than two minutes. Why should I have changed in that time? Z. Excuse me: I shouldnt have mentioned it. Will you take a string bag? A. Yes. Z. Thanks very much. Shall I put the rest of the order into it? A. Of course. What else do you suppose I am buying it for? Have you any buttermilk? Z. Sorry. We dont stock it. A. Any ginger beer? Z. Yes. We have a very good local brew. A. Shove a bottle into the string bag. Z. Thanks very much. A. How many times a day do you say thanks very much? Z. Depends on the number of orders. A. Dont say it to me again, if you dont mind. It gets on my nerves. Z. It used to get on mine, at first. But I am used to it. A. Have you a guide book of this village? Z. Sorry. Theres a leaflet in the church, written by the vicar. You are expected to put tuppence in the box for it. Excuse me; but the chocolates are tuppence, sixpence, and a shilling. Which size would you run to? A. It is a poor heart that never rejoices. I will have a shilling one. Z. Thanks very much. A. Dont. Z. Excuse me: I cant help it. I say it without thinking: same as if you touched a button. The telephone rings. A. Someone has touched the button. Z. [vanishing into the post office section] What number please? Whitehall on-n-n-e two on-n-n-e two. I will ring you. Whitehall one two one two. Yes. [She reappears] Thats a police call. A. You need not point the information at me. I am not the criminal. Z. Oh, it isnt a criminal. Somebody thats been broadcasted on the wireless as lost. You know the sort of thing. Missing from his home since January the first. Last seen in a deck chair on the Empress of Patagonia talking to a female. Suffering from loss of memory. A. How extraor--[the telephone rings again]. Z. Excuse me. [She vanishes]. You are through to Whitehall. [She reappears]. A. You have hit on an extraordinary coincidence. I wonder whether you will believe me when I tell you that in January last I was sitting on the deck of a ship named the Empress of Patagonia, and that I was talking to a female--or rather she was talking to me. How that woman did talk! Z. And are you suffering from loss of memory? A. Certainly not. I never forget anything. Z. Oh, then it cant be you, can it? A. There! Can it? That woman always finished up with can it? wont it? isnt it? so that you had to answer her out of common politeness. Take care never to pick up that trick or you will be murdered some day. Z. Some people are like that. It often goes with orange colored eyes [or whatever color her eyes happen to be]. Did you notice the color of her eyes? A. No: I never notice things like that. I am not a detective. It is people's characters that impress me; I cant tell you the color of her hair or the shape of her nose; but I can tell you that she was a most fearful nuisance. How much does all that come to? Z. The string bag sixpence, chocolates a shilling: one and sixpence. The ginger beer is-- A. Spare me the details. Will ten shillings cover it? Z. Oh yes, of course. You shouldnt be so careless about money. A. [presenting a Treasury note] Cease preaching. Take it; and give me the change. Z. Let me see. Eighteenpence, and fourpence for the ginger beer is one and tenpence, isnt it? A. Have I denied it? Z. Cheese threepence: two and a penny; butter sixpence: two and sevenpence; apples we sell by the pound. Hadnt you better have a pound? A. How many to the pound? Z. Three. A. I cannot eat more than two apples at a time. Charge me for a pound; and eat the odd one yourself. Z. Oh well, say threepence for two: thats two and tenpence, isnt it? A. I dont know. Z. Hovis, tuppence halfpenny. Three shillings and a halfpenny. Do you happen to have a halfpenny to save having to take fippence halfpenny in coppers? A. I hate halfpennies: I always throw them away. Stop. I have one. Here. Z. Thanks very much. [Handing him his change coin by coin] Three, four, five, seven and six, ten. Thanks very much. A. [pocketing his change, but remaining comfortably seated] Dont you find it rather dull in this village shop saying thanks very much all day? Z. Well, no matter where you are you are doing the same thing all day and every day, arnt you? The only way to get it off your mind is to live in the same place and stick at the same job. Then you never have to think about it. Thats the way the people live here; and they live for ever so long: eighty's no age here. Grandfather will be a hundred and two in August. Thats because he's never had to worry about what he'll do or where he'll go. He just imagines and imagines. It's the only way to be happy and longlived. A. But if your imagination has only one village in it it must be pretty bare. How would you like to live in a room with only one chair in it. Z. Well, if you have only one seat what more do you want than one chair? Up at the castle there are thirty-six chairs of one sort or another in the big drawing-room; but Lady Flopping cant flop on more than one, can she? A. [pointing to the vacant chair] May I suggest that you flop on that one while we talk? Z. [sitting down] Thanks very much. A. I am not interrupting your work, I hope. There is nothing so maddening as to be talked to when you want to work. Z. Talking is part of the work in a village shop. A. Tell me: do you ever read? Z. I used to read travels and guide books. We used to stock the Marco Polo series. I was mad about travelling. I had daydreams about the glory that was Greece, the grandeur that was Rome, and all that flapdoodle. A. Flapdoodle! Z. Well, I suppose I shouldnt call it that; but it ended in my going to Rome and Athens. They were all right; but the old parts were half knocked down; and I couldnt see any glory or grandeur different to Cheltenham. I was glad to be home again. And I had so wanted to meet the Marco Polo man and walk about with him in the ruins by moonlight and hear him go on about them! A. The Marco Polo man! The milkman! the postman! the muffin man! the Marco Polo man! Some frustrated poet, earning his crust by quoting scraps of verse to bring the Call of the East to dreaming telephone girls. Z. Operators. A. Operators dont dream. Girls! girls of the golden west. Did that poor devil never bring you the Call of the East? Z. I'd read about it in novels and seen it on the films. They were all about moony drunkards and sheeks and the sort of girls that go dotty about them. I went right round the world to see the reality. Pretty places, of course; but the heat! and the mosquitoes! and the smells!! Travelling just destroyed the world for me as I imagined it. Give me this village all the time. A. Had you no thrill when you stood somewhere where a poet had said "Stop; for thy tread is on an empire's dust"? Z. A guide, you mean. Theyd take the poetry out of anything; and all the time youre thinking what you ought to give them. If you fancy empires' dusts and all that sort of thing you should meet our vicar and start him talking about our standing stones, and the barrows on the downs, and the Mound. Every grain of our dust, he says, is full of history. Same everywhere, I expect. A. Are you married? Z. No. Why? Have you any intentions? A. Dont be in a hurry. Weve known each other less than ten minutes. Z. How much better do you think you will know me when we have talked for twenty years? A. That is profoundly true. Still, I must think it over. Z. Nobody would ever marry if they thought it over. Youve got to take your chance, no matter how long you think. A. You are in a hurry. Z. Well, I am past the age at which girls marry here, though I'm the pick of this village. Thats because I thought all my offers over. So I have made up my mind to take the next man that asks me, provided he's reasonably suitable. A. Do I strike you as being reasonably suitable? Z. Well, I think I have the sort of commonsense you need to keep you straight. And you being a widower know what to expect from a woman. An inexperienced man expects the earth. A. How do you know that I am a widower? Z. You told me. A. Did I? When did I tell you? Z. Never mind. You did. I have noticed you have a bad memory; but I have a very good one; so it wont matter. A. Steady. Steady. I have not yet made myself liable to an action for breach of promise. Z. Dont be afraid. I'm not that sort. We dont consider it respectable here. A. Should I get any money with you? Do you own the shop? Z. No. All the money I ever had I blued on a trip round the world. But Mrs Ward is getting too old for the business: she couldnt run it now without me. If you could afford to buy her an annuity she'd sell it. A. I dont know how much annuities cost. Z. You will find it in Whitaker's almanac. A. This is rather upsetting. Somehow I have always taken it for granted that when I married again I'd marry a woman with money. Z. Oh, that wouldnt suit you at all. She'd want to spend it going into society and travelling about. How could you bear that sort of life? you that never spoke to anyone on the ship and wouldnt take any part in their games and dances! When it got about that you were the Marco Polo man--the man of all our dreams as you might say--I made a bet that I'd get you to talk to me; and I had all the trouble in the world to win it. A. Do you mean to say that we have met before? That you were on that trip round the world? Z. Of course I do. But you never notice anything. Youre always reading or writing. The world doesnt exist for you. You never looked at me really. Youre shy with strangers, arnt you? A. I am absolutely certain I never spoke to any woman on that ship. If I talk to women they always want to marry me. Z. Well, there you are, you see! The moment I set eyes on you I said to myself, "Now thats the sort of man that would suit me as a husband." I'd have said it even if you hadnt been the Marco Polo man. A. Love at first sight: what? Z. Oh no. You know, if I fell in love with a man I'd never marry him: he could make me so miserable. But there was something about you: I dont exactly know what; but it made me feel that I could do with you in the house; and then I could fall in love with anyone I liked without any fear of making a fool of myself. I suppose it was because you are one of the quiet sort and dont run after women. A. How do you know I dont run after women? Z. Well, if you want to know, it's because you didnt run after me. You mightnt believe it; but men do run after me. A. Why? Z. Oh, how do I know? They dont know, themselves. But the lot of money they spend on things they dont want merely to come in and have a look at me and a word with me, you wouldnt believe. It's worth at least twenty pounds a year to the business. A. [putting on his glasses and looking at her attentively for the first time] I shouldnt call you a pretty woman. Z. Oh, I'm not pretty. But what you might call desirable, dont you think? A. [alarmed] No I dont think. May I explain? I am a man of letters and a gentleman. I am accustomed to associate with ladies. That means that I am accustomed to speak under certain well understood reserves which act as a necessary protection to both parties. You are not a lady: you are a villager; but somebody has educated you--probably the Church or the local authority--to a point at which you can impose on unobservant and unwary travellers. You have had finishing lessons on the telephone which give you a distinguished articulation: you can say Th-reee fiv-v-v-v-e ni-n-n-n instead of theree fauv nawn. But you have not acquired any of the reserves. You say what you think. You announce all the plans that well-bred women conceal. You play with your cards on the table instead of keeping them where a lady should keep them: up your sleeve. Z. Well, wheres the harm? A. Oh, no harm. Quite the contrary. But I feel rushed. Z. What do you mean? rushed? A. Rushed. Precipitated. Carried to lengths I had no intention of going to. Z. Well, it gets you somewhere: doesnt it? A. Yes; but where? Z. Here. Theres no mystery about it. Here, in a good business in a village shop in a quiet place, with me to keep it straight and look after you. A. May I ask how much that expression "looking after me" includes? Let me be clear on the point. As a matter of fact I possess a small property which I could sell for enough to purchase an annuity for old Mrs Williams-- Z. Ward. A. I believe I have enough to purchase annuities for both Mrs Ward and Mrs Williams, as they are presumably both centenarians. But why on earth should I complicate the transaction by marrying you? I could pay you your present wages-- Z. Salary. A. I beg your pardon: salary. You will retain your present position as my shopgirl. Z. Shop assistant. A. I beg your pardon: shop assistant. You can then make your own matrimonial arrangements, and leave me to make mine. Z. Oh, I'll make my own matrimonial arrangements all right enough. You may depend on that. A. Excuse me: I added "and leave me to make mine." Can I depend on you for that also? Z. Well, we'll see. A. [angrily] No: you will not see. Z. Well, what? A. I dont know what. I will not commit myself. We'll see. Z. Just so: we'll see. It's a bargain then? A. No: it most certainly is not a bargain. When I entered this shop half an hour ago I had not the faintest notion of buying a village shop or marrying a village maiden or any of the things you have put into my head. Have you ever read the fable of the spider and the fly? Z. No; but I used to sing a song called the honeysuckle and the bee. A. [resolutely] Good morning. [He makes for the door]. Z. [following him with the string bag] You are forgetting your things. A. [taking it] Thank you. Z. Thanks very much. She tempts him to kiss her. A. No!!! [he strides out]. THIRD CONVERSATION A is now the proprietor of the shop with Z as his hired assistant. The counter has been fitted with a desk at the opposite end to the post-office section. At this A sits writing. He wears pepper-and- salt trousers of country cut, with an apron. He is in his shirtsleeves, and looks every inch a shopkeeper. Z comes in through the post office, very fresh and matutinal. Z. Morning, boss. A. Good morning, slave. Z. I havnt begun slaving yet. You have been at it for half an hour. Whatever on earth are you working at so hard? A. I am making out my balance sheet. Z. Oh, you neednt do that. The accountant's clerk from Salisbury does all that when he makes out the income tax return. Youre not expected to do figures in this village. Fancy old Mrs Ward doing such a thing! A. When I bought this shop from Mrs Ward for an annuity I found she was much cleverer at figures than I was. She should have been a moneylender. Z. She was. She lent a shilling for a penny a week. A. That must have been between four and five hundred per cent per annum. Shylock would have blushed. Z. Whats the good of it when you have to give credit at the shop, and then lend the customers the money to pay you? A. Mrs Ward should have gone to Geneva. International finance would have come naturally to her. Z. Thats too clever for me. Anyhow, you neednt worry over a balance sheet. The accountant will do all that for you. A. [rising and waving the balance sheet proudly as he comes through the counter into the public part of the shop] This is not an accountant's balance sheet. It is a Robinson Crusoe balance sheet. Z. [following him] Whatever's that? A. Crusoe drew up a balance sheet of the advantages and disadvantages of being cast away on a desert island. I am cast away in a village on the Wiltshire Downs. I am drawing up a similar balance sheet. I propose to read it to you as far as I have got. [He takes one of the customer's chairs] You can remind me of anything I have forgotten. Z. Lets have it. [She takes the other chair]. A. I begin with the credit entries. Z. Things to your own credit, you mean? A. No, to the credit of village shopkeeping as a way of life. Z. Oh, you are a silly, boss. A. That is a disrespectful remark. As such, it should not be made to a boss by his slave. The understanding on which I raised your salary when I engaged you as my assistant was that our relations should be completely conventional and businesslike on your side, however I might occasionally forget myself. Z. [rising] Very well: you can keep your balance sheet to yourself. I will go on with the telephone call book. A. You will do nothing of the sort. You will do what I tell you to do. That is what I pay you for. Sit down again. [She does so]. Now listen. [He takes up his manuscript and reads]. Item: I have sharpened my faculties, and greatly improved in observation and mathematics. Z. Couldnt you put it into shorter words? What does it mean? A. It means that formerly I always took what money was given me without condescending to count it or attempting to calculate it. I can now both calculate and count quite rapidly. Formerly I made no distinctions between grades of butter and eggs. To me an egg was an egg: butter was butter. I now make critical distinctions of the greatest subtlety, and value them in terms of money. I am forced to admit that the shopkeeper is enormously superior to the Marco Polo man, and that I have learnt more in three months in this shop than I learnt in three years in Oxford. Z. I cant believe that about the learning. But see how your manners have improved! A. My manners!! Z. Yes. Why, on that ship you hadnt a word to throw to a dog; and if anyone came near you you shrank up into yourself like a hedgehog, afraid that they didnt belong to your class and wanted to speak to you without an introduction. Now it's a pleasure to hear you say "Good morning; and what can I do for you today, Mrs Burrell?" and "Have you noticed the cauliflowers today, maam? Not a touch of frost on them!" and "Sparrowgrass very good today, my lady, if you would be wanting some." A. I positively deny that I have ever in my life called asparagus sparrowgrass to an educated customer. Of course, when people are too ignorant to know the names of what they eat, that is another matter. Z. Well, anyhow, your manners have improved, havnt they? A. I dont know. I know that they are no longer disinterested and sincere. Z. No more they never used to be. Never easy with anybody. Now you are hail fellow well met, as you might say, with everybody. A. The world has become a world of customers. Let me write that down. [He pencils on the back of his balance sheet] "Manners will never be universally good until every person is every other person's customer." Z. Youre not a real shopkeeper yet, boss. All you want is to find something clever to write. A. Well, why not? Find enough clever things to say, and you are a Prime Minister. Write them down, and you are a Shakespear. Z. Yes; but who wants to be a Prime Minister or a Shakespear? Youve got to make a living. A. Well, am I not making a living? I am no poorer than when I bought the shop. Z. But if the money goes as fast as it comes you cant save anything. A. I loathe saving. It turns human nature sour. "Cast your bread upon the waters; and it will return to you after many days." Z. And how are you to live for the many days with nothing to eat? A. I dont know. One does, somehow. Stop asking questions; and let us get on with the balance sheet. Z. I speak for your good. A. [rising wrathfully] The most offensive liberty one human being can possibly take with another. What business is it of yours? Z. [rising and facing him] If you wont think for yourself somebody else must think for you. It's my business as much as yours. A. Oh, indeed! Who does this shop belong to? I mean to whom does this shop belong? Z. I get my living out of it, dont I. If it shuts up what becomes of me? A. Well, if you come to that, what becomes of me? You can get another job. I very greatly doubt whether anyone would give me one. [Calming down] Can you not be content with the fact that the shop is making enough to support two people? [He resumes his seat]. Z. Aye; but suppose it had to support three people! A. Why suppose? It hasnt: thats all. Z. It's not all. If you marry a stranger there will be three. And what about the children? A. The remedy is simple. I shall not marry. Z. You dont know. A. Neither do you. Z. Yes I do. You have married once; and you will marry twice. Somebody will snap you up. You are that sort of man. A. If a woman snaps me up she must take the consequences. She must assist in the shop. And you will get the sack. Z. Oh, you are tiresome. [She sits down, discouraged]. But you see my point, at all events. A. No. What point? Z. Well, that it's really cheaper to keep a wife than to pay an assistant. Let alone that you dont have to live a single life. A. You can get rid of an assistant if she doesnt suit. You cant get rid of a wife. Z. If people thought that way, theyd never get married. A. Precisely. Z. In this life you have to take chances. A. I have taken them, and escaped. Z. You wont escape here. We dont hold with bachelors here. A. You cant do without a general shop here, nor a post office. While I command both I am in an impregnable strategic position. Z. Well, I dont like to say it; but people are beginning to talk. A. Beginning! When did they ever stop? Z. Oh, theres no use talking to you. A. Not the slightest. Z. Oh well then, take a month's notice. [She rises]. A. A month's notice! Z. Yes: a month's notice. A. A month's notice because I refuse to marry some ridiculous village maiden or illiterate widow with whom I could not hold a moment's conversation! Z. Wives are not for conversation: thats for visitors. Youve had plenty of conversation with me. A. Leave yourself out of this conversation, please. Z. Oh, very well. A month's notice. A. Dont say that again. Utter nonsense. What have you to complain of? You are quite well off here. I purposely pay you ten pounds a year more than you could get anywhere else. Z. Why? A. What do you mean, why? Z. Why do you pay me ten pounds more than you could get another assistant for? A. Heaven only knows! Z. [in a fury] I'll go this very day. I'll go this very minute. You can keep my month. You dont know when youre well off. Youre selfish. I dont wonder your wife died. Did she die mad? A. [gravely] As a matter of fact, she did. I am one of those unlucky men who draw the black chances in the lottery of marriage. Z. [remorsefully] Oh, I didnt know: I didnt indeed. I was only joking. [She sits again] I wouldnt have said it for the world if I'd known. A. Never mind: I know you didnt mean it. By the way, I made an inconsiderate remark which hurt you. I did not intend that. I should have told you seriously that I pay you ten pounds more than the market rate because I value your services in the shop, and wish to offer you every inducement to stay here permanently. Z. Ten pounds extra, to stay all my life here as a single woman! A. Not necessarily. You can get married if you wish. Z. Who to? A. To whom? Oh, anyone. Z. Anyone in the village is good enough for me; but nobody in the village is good enough for you: is that it? A. Dont lose your temper again. Z. I will if I like. And if you knew how near I was to putting a couple of extra words in, youd perhaps realize that a woman wants something more in life than a job and a salary. A. I know that perfectly well. There is one thing we are all out for when we are young. Z. And what is that, pray? A. Trouble, adventure, hardship, care, disappointment, doubt, misery, danger, and death. Z. Not me, thank you. All I want is a husband and the usual consequences. A. The same thing. Marriage is the village form of all these adventures. Z. Oh, why dont you take a more cheerful view of life? A. I have learnt not to expect too much from life. That is the secret of real cheerfulness, because I am always getting agreeable surprises instead of desolating disappointments. Z. Well, your second marriage may be an agreeable surprise, maynt it? A. What, exactly, do you mean by my second marriage? I have only been married once. I mean I have been married only once. Z. Well, look here. Straight, now. Is there any man in this village that would be suitable to me now that I have got used to you? A. My dear: men are all alike. Z. You mean it will make no difference to me who I marry. A. Very little, I am afraid. Z. And women are all alike too, arnt they? A. [suspicious] What are you getting at? Z. If it doesnt matter who anybody marries, then it doesnt matter who I marry and it doesnt matter who you marry. A. Whom, not who. Z. Oh, speak English: youre not on the telephone now. What I mean is that if it doesnt matter to me it doesnt matter to you either. A. You admit, then, that it doesnt matter? Z. No I dont. It's a lie. A. Oh! Z. Dont "oh" me. All men are not alike to me. There are men--and good nice men, too--that I wouldn't let touch me. But when I saw you on the ship I said to myself "I could put up with him." A. Not at all. You told me just now that you said something quite different. I believe you really said something much more rapturous. Being rather a futile sort of person I attract vigorous women like you. Z. When you looked at me out of the corner of your eye--you looked at all the women out of the corner of your eye in spite of your keeping yourself so much to yourself--did you never say "I could put up with her"? A. No. I said "Damn that women: she wont stop talking to me and interrupting my work." Z. Well, I tell you we were made for oneanother. It maynt be as plain to you as to me yet; but if it's plain to me there must be something in it; for I'm never wrong when I see a thing quite plain. I dont believe youd ever have bought this shop and given up being a gentleman if I hadnt been here. A. Now that you mention it I believe that is true. You were one of the amenities of the estate. Z. Well, I might be one of the amenities of the estate of holy matrimony, mightnt I? A. Take care. You may find what you are trying to do easier than you think. About five per cent of the human race consists of positive masterful acquisitive people like you, obsessed with some passion which they must gratify at all hazards. The rest let them have their own way because they have neither the strength nor the courage to resist, or because the things the masterful ones want seem trifling beside the starry heavens and the destiny of Man. I am not one of the masterful ones. I am not worth marrying. Any woman could marry me if she took trouble enough. Z. Thats just what I'm afraid of. If I let you out of my sight for a month I might find you married to someone else at the end of it. Well, I'm taking no chances. I dont set up to be masterful: I dont like selfish uppish domineering people any more than you do; but I must and will have you; and thats all about it. A. Well, you already have me--as an employer. And you are independent of me, and can leave me if you are not satisfied. Z. How can I be satisfied when I cant lay my hands on you? I work for you like a slave for a month on end; and I would have to work harder as your wife than I do now; but there come times when I want to get hold of you in my arms, every bit of you; and when I do I'll give you something better to think about than the starry heavens, as you call them. Youll find that you have senses to gratify as well as fine things to say. A. Senses! You dont know what youre talking about. Look around you. Here in this shop I have everything that can gratify the senses: apples, onions, and acid drops; pepper and mustard; cosy comforters and hot water bottles. Through the window I delight my eyes with the old church and market place, built in the days when beauty came naturally from the hands of mediaeval craftsmen. My ears are filled with delightful sounds, from the cooing of doves and the humming of bees to the wireless echoes of Beethoven and Elgar. My nose can gloat over our sack of fresh lavender or our special sixpenny Eau de Cologne when the smell of rain on dry earth is denied me. My senses are saturated with satisfactions of all sorts. But when I am full to the neck with onions and acid drops; when I am so fed up with the mediaeval architecture that I had rather die than look at another cathedral; when all I desire is rest from sensation, not more of it, what use will my senses be to me if the starry heavens still seem no more than a senseless avalanche of lumps of stone and wisps of gas--if the destiny of Man holds out no higher hope to him than the final extinction and annihilation of so mischievous and miserable a creature? Z. We dont bother about all that in the village. A. Yes you do. Our best seller here is Old Moore's Almanack; and next to it comes Napoleon's Book of Fate. Old Mrs Ward would never have sold the shop to me if she had not become persuaded that the Day of Judgment is fixed for the seventh of August next. Z. I dont believe such nonsense. Whats it all got to do with you and me? A. You are inexperienced. You dont know. You are the dupe of thoughtless words like sensuality, sensuousness, and all the rest of the twaddle of the Materialists. I am not a Materialist: I am a poet; and I know that to be in your arms will not gratify my senses at all. As a matter of mere physical sensation you will find the bodily contacts to which you are looking forward neither convenient nor decorous. Z. Oh, dont talk like that. You mustnt let yourself think about it like that. A. You must always let yourself think about everything. And you must think about everything as it is, not as it is talked about. Your secondhand gabble about gratifying my senses is only your virgin innocence. We shall get quite away from the world of sense. We shall light up for oneanother a lamp in the holy of holies in the temple of life; and the lamp will make its veil transparent. Aimless lumps of stone blundering through space will become stars singing in their spheres. Our dull purposeless village existence will become one irresistible purpose and nothing else. An extraordinary delight and an intense love will seize us. It will last hardly longer than the lightning flash which turns the black night into infinite radiance. It will be dark again before you can clear the light out of your eyes; but you will have seen; and for ever after you will think about what you have seen and not gabble catchwords invented by the wasted virgins that walk in darkness. It is to give ourselves this magic moment that we feel that we must and shall hold oneanother in our arms; and when the moment comes, the world of the senses will vanish; and for us there will be nothing ridiculous, nothing uncomfortable, nothing unclean, nothing but pure paradise. Z. Well, I am glad you take a nice view of it; for now I come to think of it I never could bear to be nothing more to a man than a lollipop. But you mustnt expect too much. A. I shall expect more than you have ever dreamt of giving, in spite of the boundless audacity of women. What great men would ever have been married if the female nobodies who snapped them up had known the enormity of their own presumption? I believe they all thought they were going to refine, to educate, to make real gentlemen of their husbands. What do you intend to make of me, I wonder? Z. Well, I have made a decent shopkeeper of you already, havnt I? But you neednt be afraid of my not appreciating you. I want a fancy sort of husband, not a common villager that any woman could pick up. I shall be proud of you. And now Ive nailed you, I wonder at my own nerve. A. So do I. Z. I'm not a bit like that, you know, really. Something above me and beyond me drove me on. Thats why I know it will be all right. Dont be afraid. I cant make a fine speech about it like you; but it will be all right. I promise you that. A. Very well. Go round to the rectory; and put up the banns. And tell the rector's wife that we got in some prime artichokes this morning. She's fond of artichokes. Z. You are sure you feel happy about it? A. I dont know what I feel about it. Go and do as you are told; and dont ask ridiculous questions. The telephone rings. She hastens to answer it. Z. Number, please? . . . Oh, an order. Thanks very much. . . . Yes: we have some very fine artichokes just in this morning. . . . Thanks very much: they shall be sent round directly. Oh; and theres something else--are you there? . . . Sorry to detain you: could I speak to the rector? . . . Yes: it's rather particular. It's about banns . . . banns . . . BANNS: b for beauty, a for audacity, two enns for nonsense, and s for singing. . . . Yes, banns: thats right. . . . Who are the what? . . . Oh, the parties! Of course. Well, it's-- The curtain falls In the Sunda Strait, 27th January 1933 THE END Project Gutenberg Australia