Man and Superman and Three Other Plays (28 page)

MARCHBANKS It made me horribly uneasy.

CANDIDA Why didn't you tell me? I'd have put it down at once.

MARCHBANKS I was afraid of making you uneasy, too. It looked as if it were a weapon. If I were a hero of old, I should have laid my drawn sword between us. If Morell had come in he would have thought you had taken up the poker because there was no sword between us.

CANDIDA [
wondering
] What? [
With a puzzled glance at him.]
I can't quite follow that. Those sonnets of yours have perfectly addled me. Why should there be a sword between us?

MARCHBANKS [
evasively
] Oh, never mind. [He stoops to pick up the manuscript.]

CANDIDA Put that down again, Eugene. There are limits to my appetite for poetry—even your poetry. You've been reading to me for more than two hours—ever since James went out. I want to talk.

MARCHBANKS [
rising
scar
e
d] No: I mustn't talk.
[He looks round him in his lost way, and adds, suddenly]
I think I'll go out and take a walk in the park. [
Making for the door.
]

CANDIDA Nonsense: it's shut long ago. Come and sit down on the hearth-rug, and talk moonshine as you usually do. I want to be amused. Don't you want to?

MARCHBANKS
[in half terror, half rapture]
Yes.

CANDIDA Then come along. [
She moves her chair back a little to make room. He hesitates; then timidly stretches himself on the hearthrug,face upwards, and throws back his head across her knees, looking up at her.
]

MARCHBANKS Oh, I've been so miserable all the evening, because I was doing right. Now I'm doing wrong; and I'm happy.

CANDIDA [
tenderly amused at him]
Yes: I'm sure you feel a great grown up wicked deceiver—quite proud of yourself, aren't you?

MARCHBANKS [
raising his head quickly and turning a little to look round at her]
Take care. I'm ever so much older than you, if you only knew.
[He turns quite over on his knees, with his hands clasped and his arms on her lap, and speaks with growing impulse, his blood beginning to stir.]
May I say some wicked things to you?

CANDIDA [
without the least fear or coldness, quite nobly, and with perfect respect for his passion, but with a touch of her wise-hearted maternal humor]
No. But you may say anything you really and truly feel. Anything at all, no matter what it is. I am not afraid, so long as it is your real self that speaks, and not a mere attitude—a gallant attitude, or a wicked attitude, or even a poetic attitude. I put you on your honor and truth. Now say whatever you want to.

MARCHBANKS [
the eager expression vanishing utterly from his lips and nostrils as his eyes light up with pathetic spirituality]
Oh, now I can't say anything: all the words I know belong to some attitude or other—all except one.

CANDIDA What one is that?

MARCHBANKS [
softly, losing himself in the music of the name]
Candida, Candida, Candida, Candida, Candida. I must say that now, because you have put me on my honor and truth; and I never think or feel Mrs. Morell: it is always Candida.

CANDIDA Of course. And what have you to say to Candida?

MARCHBANKS Nothing, but to repeat your name a thousand times. Don't you feel that every time is a prayer to you?

CANDIDA Doesn't it make you happy to be able to pray?

MARCHBANKS Yes, very happy.

CANDIDA Well, that happiness is the answer to your prayer. Do you want anything more?

MARCHBANKS
[in beatitude]
No: I have come into heaven, where want is unknown. [MORELL
comes in. He halts on the threshold, and takes in the scene at a glance.
]

MORELL
[grave and self-contained
] I hope I don't disturb you. [
CANDIDA starts up violently, but without the smallest embarrassment, laughing at herself. EUGENE, still kneeling, saves himself from falling by putting his hands on the seat of the chair, and remains there, staring open mouthed at MORELL. ]

CANDIDA [
as she rises]
Oh, James, how you startled me! I was so taken up with Eugene that I didn't hear your latch-key. How did the meeting go off? Did you speak well?

MORELL I have never spoken better in my life.

CANDIDA That was first rate! How much was the collection?

MORELL I forgot to ask.

CANDIDA [to EUGENE] He must have spoken splendidly, or he would never have forgotten that. [To MORELL.] Where are all the others?

MORELL They left long before I could get away: I thought I should never escape. I believe they are having supper somewhere.

CANDIDA
[in her domestic business tone]
Oh; in that case, Maria may go to bed. I'll tell her. [
She
goes
out to the kitchen. ]

MORELL [
looking sternly down at
MARCHBANKS] Well?

MARCHBANKS [
squatting cross-legged on the hearth-rug, and actually at ease with MORELL—even impishly humorous
] Well?

MORELL Have you anything to tell me?

MARCHBANKS Only that I have been making a fool of myself here in private whilst you have been making a fool of yourself in public.

MORELL Hardly in the same way, I think.

MARCHBANKS
[scrambling up
—
eagerly
] The very, very, very same way. I have been playing the good man just like you. When you began your heroics about leaving me here with Candida—

MORELL [
involuntarily
] Candida?

MARCHBANKS Oh, yes: I've got that far. Heroics are infectious: I caught the disease from you. I swore not to say a word in your absence that I would not have said a month ago in your presence.

MORELL Did you keep your oath?

MARCHBANKS [
suddenly perching himself grotesquely on the easy chair]
I was ass enough to keep it until about ten minutes ago. Up to that moment I went on desperately reading to her—reading my own poems—anybody's poems—to stave off a conversation. I was standing outside the gate of Heaven, and refusing to go in. Oh, you can't think how heroic it was, and how uncomfortable! Then—

MORELL
[steadily controlling his suspense]
Then?—

MARCHBANKS
[prosaically slipping down into a quite ordinary attitude in the chair]
Then she couldn't bear being read to any longer.

MORELL And you approached the gate of Heaven at last?

MARCHBANKS Yes.

MORELL Well? [
Fiercely.
] Speak, man: have you no feeling for me?

MARCHBANKS
[softly and musically
] Then she became an angel; and there was a flaming sword that turned every way, so that I couldn't go in; for I saw that that gate was really the gate of Hell.

MORELL [
triumphantly
] She repulsed you!

MARCHBANKS
[rising in wild scorn]
No, you fool: if she had done that I should never have seen that I was in Heaven already. Repulsed me! You think that would have saved me—virtuous indignation! Oh, you are not worthy to live in the same world with her.
[He turns away contemptuously to the other side of the room.]

MORELL
[who has watched him quietly without changing his place]
Do you think you make yourself more worthy by reviling me, Eugene?

MARCHBANKS Here endeth the thousand and first lesson. Morell: I don't think much of your preaching after all: I believe I could do it better myself. The man I want to meet is the man that Candida married.

MORELL The man that—? Do you mean me?

MARCHBANKS I don't mean the Reverend James Mavor Morell, moralist and windbag. I mean the real man that the Reverend James must have hidden somewhere inside his black coat—the man that Candida loved. You can't make a woman like Candida love you by merely buttoning your collar at the back instead of in front.

MORELL
[boldly and steadily]
When Candida promised to marry me, I was the same moralist and windbag that you now see. I wore my black coat; and my collar was buttoned behind instead of in front. Do you think she would have loved me any the better for being insincere in my profession?

MARCHBANKS
[on the sofa hugging his ankles]
Oh, she forgave you, just as she forgives me for being a coward, and a weakling, and what you call a snivelling little whelp and all the rest of it. [
Dreamt.
A woman like that has divine insight: she loves our souls, and not our follies and vanities and illusions, or our collars and coats, or any other of the rags and tatters we are rolled up in.
[He reflects on this for an instant; then turns intently to question
MORELL. [What I want to know is how you got past the flaming sword that stopped me.

MORELL [
meaningly
] Perhaps because I was not interrupted at the end of ten minutes.

MARCHBANKS
[taken aback]
What!

MORELL Man can climb to the highest summits; but he cannot dwell there long.

MARCHBANKS It's false: there can he dwell for ever and there only. It's in the other moments that he can find no rest, no sense of the silent glory of life. Where would you have me spend my moments, if not on the summits?

MORELL In the scullery, slicing onions and filling lamps.

MARCHBANKS Or in the pulpit, scrubbing cheap earthenware souls?

MORELL Yes, that, too. It was there that I earned my golden moment, and the right, in that moment, to ask her to love me.
I
did not take the moment on credit; nor did I use it to steal another man's happiness.

MARCHBANKS [
rather disgustedly, trotting back towards the fireplace]
I have no doubt you conducted the transaction as honestly as if you were buying a pound of cheese.
[He stops on the brink of the hearth-rug and adds, thoughfully,to himself, with his back turned to
MORELL]
I
could only go to her as a beggar.

MORELL [
starting
] A beggar dying of cold—asking for her shawl?

MARCHBANKS
[turning, surprised]
Thank you for touching up my poetry. Yes, if you like, a beggar dying of cold asking for her shawl.

MORELL [
excitedly
] And she refused. Shall I tell you why she refused? I can tell you, on her own authority. It was because of—

MARCHBANKS She didn't refuse.

MORELL Not!

MARCHBANKS She offered me all I chose to ask for, her shawl, her wings, the wreath of stars on her head, the lilies in her hand, the crescent moon beneath her feet—
^ap

MORELL [
seizing him
] Out with the truth, man: my wife is my wife: I want no more of your poetic fripperies. I know well that if I have lost her love and you have gained it, no law will bind her.

MARCHBANKS
[quaintly, without fear or resistance]
Catch me by the shirt collar, Morell: she will arrange it for me afterwards as she did this morning.
[With quiet rapture.]
I shall feel her hands touch me.

MORELL You young imp, do you know how dangerous it is to say that to me? Or
[with a sudden misgiving]
has something made you brave?

MARCHBANKS I'm not afraid now. I disliked you before: that was why I shrank from your touch. But I saw to-day—when she tortured you—that you love her. Since then I have been your friend: you may strangle me if you like.

MORELL [
releasing him
] Eugene: if that is not a heartless lie—if you have a spark of human feeling left in you—will you tell me what has happened during my absence?

MARCHBANKS What happened! Why, the flaming sword—
[MORELL stamps with impatience.]
Well, in plain prose, I loved her so exquisitely that I wanted nothing more than the happiness of being in such love. And before I had time to come down from the highest summits, you came in.

MORELL [
suffering deeply
] So it is still unsettled—still the misery of doubt.

MARCHBANKS Misery! I am the happiest of men. I desire nothing now but her happiness.
[With dreamy enthusiasm.]
Oh, Morell, let us both give her up. Why should she have to choose between a wretched little nervous disease like me, and a pig-headed parson like you? Let us go on a pilgrimage, you to the east and I to the west, in search of a worthy lover for her—some beautiful archangel with purple wings—

MORELL Some fiddlestick. Oh, if she is mad enough to leave me for you, who will protect her? Who will help her? who will work for her? who will be a father to her children?
[He sits down distractedly on the sofa, with his elbows on his knees and his head propped on his clenched fists.
]

MARCHBANKS
[snapping his fingers wildly
] She does not ask those silly questions. It is she who wants somebody to protect, to help, to work for—somebody to give her children to protect, to help and to work for. Some grown up man who has become as a little child again. Oh, you fool, you fool, you triple fool! I am the man, Morell: I am the man.
[He dances about excitedly, crying.
] You don't understand what a woman is. Send for her, Morell: send for her and let her choose between—
[The door opens and CANDIDA enters. He stops as if petrified.
]

CANDIDA
[amazed, on the threshold
] What on earth are you at, Eugene?

MARCHBANKS [
oddly]
James and I are having a preaching match; and he is getting the worst of it.
[CANDIDA looks quickly round at
MORELL.
Seeing that he is distressed, she hurries down to him, greatly vexed, speaking with vigorous reproach to MARCHBANKS.
]

CANDIDA You have been annoying him. Now I won't have it, Eugene: do you hear?
[Putting her hand on MORELL's shoulder, and quite forgetting her wifely tact in her annoyance.
] My boy shall not be worried: I will protect him.