Produced by Chuck Greif, Fox in the Stars and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
THE ADMIRABLE
BASHVILLE
OR, CONSTANCY UNREWARDED
BEING THE NOVEL OF CASHEL BYRON'S
PROFESSION DONE INTO A STAGE PLAY
IN THREE ACTS, AND IN BLANK VERSE,
WITH A NOTE ON MODERN PRIZE FIGHTING
By
BERNARD SHAW
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
BRENTANO'S
1913
Price 40 cents net
WORKS OF BERNARD SHAW
Dramatic Opinions and Essays. 2 vols. _Net_, $2.50
Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant. 2 vols. _Net_, $2.50
John Bull's Other Island and Major Barbara. _Net_, $1.50
Man and Superman _Net_, $1.25
Three Plays for Puritans _Net_, $1.25
The Doctor's Dilemma, Getting Married, and
The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet. _Net_, $1.50
The Quintessence of Ibsenism $1.00
Cashel Byron's Profession $1.25
An Unsocial Socialist $1.25
The Irrational Knot $1.50
The Author's Apology _Net_, .60
The Perfect Wagnerite $1.25
Love Among the Artists $1.50
The Admirable Bashville: A Play _Net_, .50
_Postage or Express, Extra_
* * * * *
BRENTANO'S
Fifth Avenue and 27th Street New York
THE ADMIRABLE BASHVILLE
"Over Bashville the footman I howled with derision and delight. I
dote on Bashville: I could read of him for ever: _de Bashville je
suis le fervent_: there is only one Bashville; and I am his devoted
slave: Bashville est magnifique; mais il n'est guere possible."
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
THE ADMIRABLE BASHVILLE
OR, CONSTANCY UNREWARDED
BEING THE NOVEL OF CASHEL
BYRON'S PROFESSION DONE INTO A
STAGE PLAY IN THREE ACTS AND
IN BLANK VERSE . WITH A NOTE
ON MODERN PRIZEFIGHTING . BY
BERNARD SHAW
[Illustration]
BRENTANO'S . NEW YORK
MCMXIII
This play has been publicly performed within the United Kingdom. It is
entered at Stationers' Hall and The Library of Congress, U. S. A.
_Copyright, 1901, by Herbert S. Stone and Company_
_Copyright, 1907, by Bernard Shaw_
All rights reserved
PREFACE
The Admirable Bashville is a product of the British law of copyright. As
that law stands at present, the first person who patches up a stage
version of a novel, however worthless and absurd that version may be,
and has it read by himself and a few confederates to another confederate
who has paid for admission in a hall licensed for theatrical
performances, secures the stage rights of that novel, even as against
the author himself; and the author must buy him out before he can touch
his own work for the purposes of the stage.
A famous case in point is the drama of East Lynne, adapted from the late
Mrs. Henry Wood's novel of that name. It was enormously popular, and is
still the surest refuge of touring companies in distress. Many authors
feel that Mrs. Henry Wood was hardly used in not getting any of the
money which was plentifully made in this way through her story. To my
mind, since her literary copyright probably brought her a fair wage for
the work of writing the book, her real grievance was, first, that her
name and credit were attached to a play with which she had nothing to
do, and which may quite possibly have been to her a detestable travesty
and profanation of her story; and second, that the authors of that play
had the legal power to prevent her from having any version of her own
performed, if she had wished to make one.
There is only one way in which the author can protect himself; and that
is by making a version of his own and going through the same legal
farce with it. But the legal farce involves the hire of a hall and the
payment of a fee of two guineas to the King's Reader of Plays. When I
wrote Cashel Byron's Profession I had no guineas to spare, a common
disability of young authors. What is equally common, I did not know the
law. A reasonable man may guess a reasonable law, but no man can guess a
foolish anomaly. Fortunately, by the time my book so suddenly revived in
America I was aware of the danger, and in a position to protect myself
by writing and performing The Admirable Bashville. The prudence of doing
so was soon demonstrated; for rumors soon reached me of several American
stage versions; and one of these has actually been played in New York,
with the boxing scenes under the management (so it is stated) of the
eminent pugilist Mr. James J. Corbett. The New York press, in a somewhat
derisive vein, conveyed the impression that in this version Cashel Byron
sought to interest the public rather as the last of the noble race of
the Byrons of Dorsetshire than as his unromantic self; but in justice to
a play which I never read, and an actor whom I never saw, and who
honorably offered to treat me as if I had legal rights in the matter, I
must not accept the newspaper evidence as conclusive.
As I write these words, I am promised by the King in his speech to
Parliament a new Copyright Bill. I believe it embodies, in our British
fashion, the recommendations of the book publishers as to the concerns
of the authors, and the notions of the musical publishers as to the
concerns of the playwrights. As author and playwright I am duly obliged
to the Commission for saving me the trouble of speaking for myself, and
to the witnesses for speaking for me. But unless Parliament takes the
opportunity of giving the authors of all printed works of fiction,
whether dramatic or narrative, both playwright and copyright (as in
America), such to be independent of any insertions or omissions of
formulas about "all rights reserved" or the like, I am afraid the new
Copyright Bill will leave me with exactly the opinion both of the
copyright law and the wisdom of Parliament I at present entertain. As a
good Socialist I do not at all object to the limitation of my right of
property in my own works to a comparatively brief period, followed by
complete Communism: in fact, I cannot see why the same salutary
limitation should not be applied to all property rights whatsoever; but
a system which enables any alert sharper to acquire property rights in
my stories as against myself and the rest of the community would, it
seems to me, justify a rebellion if authors were numerous and warlike
enough to make one.
It may be asked why I have written The Admirable Bashville in blank
verse. My answer is that I had but a week to write it in. Blank verse is
so childishly easy and expeditious (hence, by the way, Shakespear's
copious output), that by adopting it I was enabled to do within the week
what would have cost me a month in prose.
Besides, I am fond of blank verse. Not nineteenth century blank verse,
of course, nor indeed, with a very few exceptions, any post-Shakespearean
blank verse. Nay, not Shakespearean blank verse itself later than the
histories. When an author can write the prose dialogue of the first
scene in As You Like It, or Hamlet's colloquies with Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern, there is really no excuse for The Seven Ages and "To be or
not to be," except the excuse of a haste that made great facility
indispensable. I am quite sure that any one who is to recover the charm
of blank verse must frankly go back to its beginnings and start a
literary pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. I like the melodious sing-song, the
clear simple one-line and two-line sayings, and the occasional rhymed
tags, like the half closes in an eighteenth century symphony, in Peele,
Kyd, Greene, and the histories of Shakespear. How any one with music in
him can turn from Henry VI., John, and the two Richards to such a mess
of verse half developed into rhetorical prose as Cymbeline, is to me
explicable only by the uncivil hypothesis that the artistic qualities in
the Elizabethan drama do not exist for most of its critics; so that they
hang on to its purely prosaic content, and hypnotize themselves into
absurd exaggerations of the value of that content. Even poets fall under
the spell. Ben Jonson described Marlowe's line as "mighty"! As well put
Michael Angelo's epitaph on the tombstone of Paolo Uccello. No wonder
Jonson's blank verse is the most horribly disagreeable product in
literature, and indicates his most prosaic mood as surely as his shorter
rhymed measures indicate his poetic mood. Marlowe never wrote a mighty
line in his life: Cowper's single phrase, "Toll for the brave," drowns
all his mightinesses as Great Tom drowns a military band. But Marlowe
took that very pleasant-sounding rigmarole of Peele and Greene, and
added to its sunny daylight the insane splendors of night, and the cheap
tragedy of crime. Because he had only a common sort of brain, he was
hopelessly beaten by Shakespear; but he had a fine ear and a soaring
spirit: in short, one does not forget "wanton Arethusa's azure arms"
and the like. But the pleasant-sounding rigmarole was the basis of the
whole thing; and as long as that rigmarole was practised frankly for the
sake of its pleasantness, it was readable and speakable. It lasted until
Shakespear did to it what Raphael did to Italian painting; that is,
overcharged and burst it by making it the vehicle of a new order of
thought, involving a mass of intellectual ferment and psychological
research. The rigmarole could not stand the strain; and Shakespear's
style ended in a chaos of half-shattered old forms, half-emancipated new
ones, with occasional bursts of prose eloquence on the one hand,
occasional delicious echoes of the rigmarole, mostly from Calibans and
masque personages, on the other, with, alas! a great deal of filling up
with formulary blank verse which had no purpose except to save the
author's time and thought.
When a great man destroys an art form in this way, its ruins make
palaces for the clever would-be great. After Michael Angelo and Raphael,
Giulio Romano and the Carracci. After Marlowe and Shakespear, Chapman
and the Police News poet Webster. Webster's specialty was blood:
Chapman's, balderdash. Many of us by this time find it difficult to
believe that pre-Ruskinite art criticism used to prostrate itself before
the works of Domenichino and Guido, and to patronize the modest little
beginnings of those who came between Cimabue and Masaccio. But we have
only to look at our own current criticism of Elizabethan drama to
satisfy ourselves that in an art which has not yet found its Ruskin or
its pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, the same folly is still academically
propagated. It is possible, and even usual, for men professing to have
ears and a sense of poetry to snub Peele and Greene and grovel before
Fletcher and Webster--Fletcher! a facile blank verse penny-a-liner:
Webster! a turgid paper cut-throat. The subject is one which I really
cannot pursue without intemperance of language. The man who thinks The
Duchess of Malfi better than David and Bethsabe is outside the pale, not
merely of literature, but almost of humanity.
Yet some of the worst of these post-Shakespearean duffers, from Jonson
to Heywood, suddenly became poets when they turned from the big drum of
pseudo-Shakespearean drama to the pipe and tabor of the masque, exactly
as Shakespear himself recovered the old charm of the rigmarole when he
turned from Prospero to Ariel and Caliban. Cyril Tourneur and Heywood
could certainly have produced very pretty rigmarole plays if they had
begun where Shakespear began, instead of trying to begin where he left
off. Jonson and Beaumont would very likely have done themselves credit
on the same terms: Marston would have had at least a chance. Massinger
was in his right place, such as it was; and one would not disturb the
gentle Ford, who was never born to storm the footlights. Webster could
have done no good anyhow or anywhere: the man was a fool. And Chapman
would always have been a blathering unreadable pedant, like Landor, in
spite of his classical amateurship and respectable strenuosity of
character. But with these exceptions it may plausibly be held that if
Marlowe and Shakespear could have been kept out of their way, the rest
would have done well enough on the lines of Peele and Greene. However,
they thought otherwise; and now that their freethinking paganism, so
dazzling to the pupils of Paley and the converts of Wesley, offers
itself in vain to the disciples of Darwin and Nietzsche, there is an
end of them. And a good riddance, too.
Accordingly, I have poetasted The Admirable Bashville in the rigmarole
style. And lest the Webster worshippers should declare that there is not
a single correct line in all my three acts, I have stolen or paraphrased
a few from Marlowe and Shakespear (not to mention Henry Carey); so that
if any man dares quote me derisively, he shall do so in peril of
inadvertently lighting on a purple patch from Hamlet or Faustus.
I have also endeavored in this little play to prove that I am not the
heartless creature some of my critics take me for. I have strictly
observed the established laws of stage popularity and probability. I
have simplified the character of the heroine, and summed up her
sweetness in the one sacred word: Love. I have given consistency to the
heroism of Cashel. I have paid to Morality, in the final scene, the
tribute of poetic justice. I have restored to Patriotism its usual place
on the stage, and gracefully acknowledged The Throne as the fountain of
social honor. I have paid particular attention to the construction of
the play, which will be found equal in this respect to the best
contemporary models.
And I trust the result will be found satisfactory.
The Admirable Bashville; or, Constancy Unrewarded
ACT I
_A glade in Wiltstoken Park_
_Enter_ LYDIA
LYDIA. Ye leafy breasts and warm protecting wings
Of mother trees that hatch our tender souls,
And from the well of Nature in our hearts
Thaw the intolerable inch of ice
That bears the weight of all the stamping world.
Hear ye me sing to solitude that I,
Lydia Carew, the owner of these lands,
Albeit most rich, most learned, and most wise,
Am yet most lonely. What are riches worth
When wisdom with them comes to show the purse bearer
That life remains unpurchasable? Learning
Learns but one lesson: doubt! To excel all
Is, to be lonely. Oh, ye busy birds,
Engrossed with real needs, ye shameless trees
With arms outspread in welcome of the sun,
Your minds, bent singly to enlarge your lives,
Have given you wings and raised your delicate heads
High heavens above us crawlers.
[_A rook sets up a great cawing; and the other birds
chatter loudly as a gust of wind sets the branches
swaying. She makes as though she would shew them
her sleeves._
Lo, the leaves
That hide my drooping boughs! Mock me--poor maid!--
Deride with joyous comfortable chatter
These stolen feathers. Laugh at me, the clothed one.
Laugh at the mind fed on foul air and books.
Books! Art! And Culture! Oh, I shall go mad.
Give me a mate that never heard of these,
A sylvan god, tree born in heart and sap;
Or else, eternal maidhood be my hap.
[_Another gust of wind and bird-chatter. She sits on
the mossy root of an oak and buries her face in her
hands._ CASHEL BYRON, _in a white singlet and
breeches, comes through the trees_.
CASHEL. What's this? Whom have we here? A woman!
LYDIA [_looking up_]. Yes.
CASHEL. You have no business here. I have. Away!
Women distract me. Hence!
LYDIA. Bid you me hence?
I am upon mine own ground. Who are you?
I take you for a god, a sylvan god.
This place is mine: I share it with the birds,
The trees, the sylvan gods, the lovely company
Of haunted solitudes.
CASHEL. A sylvan god!
A goat-eared image! Do your statues speak?
Walk? heave the chest with breath? or like a feather
Lift you--like this? [_He sets her on her feet._
LYDIA [_panting_]. You take away my breath!
You're strong. Your hands off, please. Thank you. Farewell.
CASHEL. Before you go: when shall we meet again?
LYDIA. Why should we meet again?
CASHEL. Who knows? We _shall_.
That much I know by instinct. What's your name?
LYDIA. Lydia Carew.
CASHEL. Lydia's a pretty name.
Where do you live?
LYDIA. I' the castle.
CASHEL [_thunderstruck_]. Do not say
You are the lady of this great domain.
LYDIA. I am.
CASHEL. Accursed luck! I took you for
The daughter of some farmer. Well, your pardon.
I came too close: I looked too deep. Farewell.
LYDIA. I pardon that. Now tell me who you are.
CASHEL. Ask me not whence I come, nor what I am.
You are the lady of the castle. I
Have but this hard and blackened hand to live by.
LYDIA. I have felt its strength and envied you. Your name?
I have told you mine.
CASHEL. My name is Cashel Byron.
LYDIA. I never heard the name; and yet you utter it
As men announce a celebrated name.
Forgive my ignorance.
CASHEL. I bless it, Lydia.
I have forgot your other name.
LYDIA. Carew.
Cashel's a pretty name, too.
MELLISH [_calling through the wood_]. Coo-ee! Byron!
CASHEL. A thousand curses! Oh, I beg you, go.
This is a man you must not meet.
MELLISH [_further off_]. Coo-ee!
LYDIA. He's losing us. What does he in my woods?
CASHEL. He is a part of what I am. What that is
You must not know. It would end all between us.
And yet there's no dishonor in't: your lawyer,
Who let your lodge to me, will vouch me honest.
I am ashamed to tell you what I am--
At least, as yet. Some day, perhaps.
MELLISH [_nearer_]. Coo-ee!
LYDIA. His voice is nearer. Fare you well, my tenant.
When next your rent falls due, come to the castle.
Pay me in person. Sir: your most obedient. [_She curtsies and goes._
CASHEL. Lives in this castle! Owns this park! A lady
Marry a prizefighter! Impossible.
And yet the prizefighter must marry her.
_Enter_ MELLISH
Ensanguined swine, whelped by a doggish dam,
Is this thy park, that thou, with voice obscene,
Fillst it with yodeled yells, and screamst my name
For all the world to know that Cashel Byron
Is training here for combat.
MELLISH. Swine you me?
I've caught you, have I? You have found a woman.
Let her shew here again, I'll set the dog on her.
I will. I say it. And my name's Bob Mellish.
CASHEL. Change thy initial and be truly hight
Hellish. As for thy dog, why dost thou keep one
And bark thyself? Begone.
MELLISH. I'll not begone.
You shall come back with me and do your duty--
Your duty to your backers, do you hear?
You have not punched the bag this blessed day.
CASHEL. The putrid bag engirdled by thy belt
Invites my fist.
MELLISH [_weeping_]. Ingrate! O wretched lot!
Who would a trainer be? O Mellish, Mellish,
Trainer of heroes, builder-up of brawn,
Vicarious victor, thou createst champions
That quickly turn thy tyrants. But beware:
Without me thou art nothing. Disobey me,
And all thy boasted strength shall fall from thee.
With flaccid muscles and with failing breath
Facing the fist of thy more faithful foe,
I'll see thee on the grass cursing the day
Thou didst forswear thy training.
CASHEL. Noisome quack
That canst not from thine own abhorrent visage
Take one carbuncle, thou contaminat'st
Even with thy presence my untainted blood
Preach abstinence to rascals like thyself
Rotten with surfeiting. Leave me in peace.
This grove is sacred: thou profanest it.
Hence! I have business that concerns thee not.
MELLISH. Ay, with your woman. You will lose your fight.
Have you forgot your duty to your backers?
Oh, what a sacred thing your duty is!
What makes a man but duty? Where were we
Without our duty? Think of Nelson's words:
England expects that every man----
CASHEL. Shall twaddle
About his duty. Mellish: at no hour
Can I regard thee wholly without loathing;
But when thou play'st the moralist, by Heaven,
My soul flies to my fist, my fist to thee;
And never did the Cyclops' hammer fall
On Mars's armor--but enough of that.
It does remind me of my mother.
MELLISH. Ah,
Byron, let it remind thee. Once I heard
An old song: it ran thus. [_He clears his throat._] Ahem, Ahem!
[_Sings_]--They say there is no other
Can take the place of mother--
I am out o' voice: forgive me; but remember:
Thy mother--were that sainted woman here--
Would say, Obey thy trainer.
CASHEL. Now, by Heaven,
Some fate is pushing thee upon thy doom.
Canst thou not hear thy sands as they run out?
They thunder like an avalanche. Old man:
Two things I hate, my duty and my mother.
Why dost thou urge them both upon me now?
Presume not on thine age and on thy nastiness.
Vanish, and promptly.
MELLISH. Can I leave thee here
Thus thinly clad, exposed to vernal dews?
Come back with me, my son, unto our lodge.
CASHEL. Within this breast a fire is newly lit
Whose glow shall sun the dew away, whose radiance
Shall make the orb of night hang in the heavens
Unnoticed, like a glow-worm at high noon.
MELLISH. Ah me, ah me, where wilt thou spend the night?
CASHEL. Wiltstoken's windows wandering beneath,
Wiltstoken's holy bell hearkening,
Wiltstoken's lady loving breathlessly.
MELLISH. The lady of the castle! Thou art mad.
CASHEL. 'Tis thou art mad to trifle in my path.
Thwart me no more. Begone.
MELLISH. My boy, my son,
I'd give my heart's blood for thy happiness.
Thwart thee, my son! Ah, no. I'll go with thee.
I'll brave the dews. I'll sacrifice my sleep.
I am old--no matter: ne'er shall it be said
Mellish deserted thee.
CASHEL. You resolute gods
That will not spare this man, upon your knees
Take the disparity twixt his age and mine.
Now from the ring to the high judgment seat
I step at your behest. Bear you me witness
This is not Victory, but Execution.
[_He solemnly projects his fist with colossal force
against the waistcoat of_ MELLISH _who doubles up like
a folded towel, and lies without sense or motion_.
And now the night is beautiful again.
[_The castle clock strikes the hour in the distance._
Hark! Hark! Hark! Hark! Hark! Hark! Hark! Hark! Hark! Hark!
It strikes in poetry. 'Tis ten o'clock.
Lydia: to thee!
[_He steals off towards the castle._ MELLISH _stirs and groans_.
ACT II
SCENE I
_London. A room in Lydia's house_
_Enter_ LYDIA _and_ LUCIAN
LYDIA. Welcome, dear cousin, to my London house.
Of late you have been chary of your visits.
LUCIAN. I have been greatly occupied of late.
The minister to whom I act as scribe
In Downing Street was born in Birmingham,
And, like a thoroughbred commercial statesman,
Splits his infinities, which I, poor slave,
Must reunite, though all the time my heart
Yearns for my gentle coz's company.
LYDIA. Lucian: there is some other reason. Think!
Since England was a nation every mood
Her scribes have prepositionally split;
But thine avoidance dates from yestermonth.
LUCIAN. There is a man I like not haunts this house.
LYDIA. Thou speak'st of Cashel Byron?
LUCIAN. Aye, of him.
Hast thou forgotten that eventful night
When as we gathered were at Hoskyn House
To hear a lecture by Herr Abendgasse,
He placed a single finger on my chest,
And I, ensorceled, would have sunk supine
Had not a chair received my falling form.
LYDIA. Pooh! That was but by way of illustration.
LUCIAN. What right had he to illustrate his point
Upon my person? Was I his assistant
That he should try experiments on me
As Simpson did on his with chloroform?
Now, by the cannon balls of Galileo
He hath unmanned me: all my nerve is gone.
This very morning my official chief,
Tapping with friendly forefinger this button,
Levelled me like a thunderstricken elm
Flat upon the Colonial Office floor.
LYDIA. Fancies, coz.
LUCIAN. Fancies! Fits! the chief said fits!
Delirium tremens! the chlorotic dance
Of Vitus! What could any one have thought?
Your ruffian friend hath ruined me. By Heaven,
I tremble at a thumbnail. Give me drink.
LYDIA. What ho, without there! Bashville.
BASHVILLE [_without_]. Coming, madam.
_Enter_ BASHVILLE
LYDIA. My cousin ails, Bashville. Procure some wet. [_Exit_ BASHVILLE.
LUCIAN. Some wet!!! Where learnt _you_ that atrocious word?
This is the language of a flower-girl.
LYDIA. True. It is horrible. Said I "Some wet"?
I meant, some drink. Why did I say "Some wet"?
Am I ensorceled too? "Some wet"! Fie! fie!
I feel as though some hateful thing had stained me.
Oh, Lucian, how could I have said "Some wet"?
LUCIAN. The horrid conversation of this man
Hath numbed thy once unfailing sense of fitness.
LYDIA. Nay, he speaks very well: he's literate:
Shakespear he quotes unconsciously.
LUCIAN. And yet
Anon he talks pure pothouse.
_Enter_ BASHVILLE
BASHVILLE. Sir: your potion.
LUCIAN. Thanks. [_He drinks._] I am better.
A NEWSBOY [_calling without_]. Extra special _Star_!
Result of the great fight! Name of the winner!
LYDIA. Who calls so loud?
BASHVILLE. The papers, madam.
LYDIA. Why?
Hath ought momentous happened?
BASHVILLE. Madam: yes. [_He produces a newspaper._
All England for these thrilling paragraphs
A week has waited breathless.
LYDIA. Read them us.
BASHVILLE [_reading_]. "At noon to-day, unknown to the police,
Within a thousand miles of Wormwood Scrubbs,
Th' Australian Champion and his challenger,
The Flying Dutchman, formerly engaged
I' the mercantile marine, fought to a finish.
Lord Worthington, the well-known sporting peer
Acted as referee."
LYDIA. Lord Worthington!
BASHVILLE. "The bold Ned Skene revisited the ropes
To hold the bottle for his quondam novice;
Whilst in the seaman's corner were assembled
Professor Palmer and the Chelsea Snob.
Mellish, whose epigastrium has been hurt,
'Tis said, by accident at Wiltstoken,
Looked none the worse in the Australian's corner.
The Flying Dutchman wore the Union Jack:
His colors freely sold amid the crowd;
But Cashel's well-known spot of white on blue----"
LYDIA. _Whose_, did you say?
BASHVILLE. Cashel's, my lady.
LYDIA. Lucian:
Your hand--a chair--
BASHVILLE. Madam: you're ill.
LYDIA. Proceed.
What you have read I do not understand;
Yet I will hear it through. Proceed.
LUCIAN. Proceed.
BASHVILLE. "But Cashel's well-known spot of white on blue
Was fairly rushed for. Time was called at twelve,
When, with a smile of confidence upon
His ocean-beaten mug----"
LYDIA. His mug?
LUCIAN [_explaining_]. His face.
BASHVILLE [_continuing_]. "The Dutchman came undaunted to the scratch,
But found the champion there already. Both
Most heartily shook hands, amid the cheers
Of their encouraged backers. Two to one
Was offered on the Melbourne nonpareil;
And soon, so fit the Flying Dutchman seemed,
Found takers everywhere. No time was lost
In getting to the business of the day.
The Dutchman led at once, and seemed to land
On Byron's dicebox; but the seaman's reach,
Too short for execution at long shots,
Did not get fairly home upon the ivory;
And Byron had the best of the exchange."
LYDIA. I do not understand. What were they doing?
LUCIAN. Fighting with naked fists.
LYDIA. Oh, horrible!
I'll hear no more. Or stay: how did it end?
Was Cashel hurt?
LUCIAN [_to_ BASHVILLE]. Skip to the final round.
BASHVILLE. "Round Three: the rumors that had gone about
Of a breakdown in Byron's recent training
Seemed quite confirmed. Upon the call of time
He rose, and, looking anything but cheerful,
Proclaimed with every breath Bellows to Mend.
At this point six to one was freely offered
Upon the Dutchman; and Lord Worthington
Plunged at this figure till he stood to lose
A fortune should the Dutchman, as seemed certain,
Take down the number of the Panley boy.
The Dutchman, glutton as we know he is,
Seemed this time likely to go hungry. Cashel
Was clearly groggy as he slipped the sailor,
Who, not to be denied, followed him up,
Forcing the fighting mid tremendous cheers."
LYDIA. Oh stop--no more--or tell the worst at once.
I'll be revenged. Bashville: call the police.
This brutal sailor shall be made to know
There's law in England.
LUCIAN. Do not interrupt him:
Mine ears are thirsting. Finish, man. What next?
BASHVILLE. "Forty to one, the Dutchman's friends exclaimed.
Done, said Lord Worthington, who shewed himself
A sportsman every inch. Barely the bet
Was booked, when, at the reeling champion's jaw
The sailor, bent on winning out of hand,
Sent in his right. The issue seemed a cert,
When Cashel, ducking smartly to his left,
Cross-countered like a hundredweight of brick----"
LUCIAN. Death and damnation!
LYDIA. Oh, what does it mean?
BASHVILLE. "The Dutchman went to grass, a beaten man."
LYDIA. Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah! Oh, well done, Cashel!
BASHVILLE. "A scene of indescribable excitement
Ensued; for it was now quite evident
That Byron's grogginess had all along
Been feigned to make the market for his backers.
We trust this sample of colonial smartness
Will not find imitators on this side.
The losers settled up like gentlemen;
But many felt that Byron shewed bad taste
In taking old Ned Skene upon his back,
And, with Bob Mellish tucked beneath his oxter,
Sprinting a hundred yards to show the crowd
The perfect pink of his condition"--[_a knock_].
LYDIA [_turning pale_]. Bashville
Didst hear? A knock.
BASHVILLE. Madam: 'tis Byron's knock.
Shall I admit him?
LUCIAN. Reeking from the ring!
Oh, monstrous! Say you're out.
LYDIA. Send him away.
I will not see the wretch. How dare he keep
Secrets from ME? I'll punish him. Pray say
I'm not at home. [BASHVILLE _turns to go_.] Yet stay. I am afraid
He will not come again.
LUCIAN. A consummation
Devoutly to be wished by any lady.
Pray, do you _wish_ this man to come again?
LYDIA. No, Lucian. He hath used me very ill.
He should have told me. I will ne'er forgive him.
Say, Not at home.
BASHVILLE. Yes, madam. [_Exit._
LYDIA. Stay--
LUCIAN [_stopping her_]. No, Lydia:
You shall not countermand that proper order.
Oh, would you cast the treasure of your mind,
The thousands at your bank, and, above all,
Your unassailable social position
Before this soulless mass of beef and brawn?
LYDIA. Nay, coz: you're prejudiced.
CASHEL [_without_]. Liar and slave!
LYDIA. What words were those?
LUCIAN. The man is drunk with slaughter.
_Enter_ BASHVILLE _running: he shuts the door and locks it_.
BASHVILLE. Save yourselves: at the staircase foot the champion
Sprawls on the mat, by trick of wrestler tripped;
But when he rises, woe betide us all!
LYDIA. Who bade you treat my visitor with violence?
BASHVILLE. He would not take my answer; thrust the door
Back in my face; gave me the lie i' the throat;
Averred he felt your presence in his bones.
I said he should feel mine there too, and felled him;
Then fled to bar your door.
LYDIA. O lover's instinct!
He felt my presence. Well, let him come in.
We must not fail in courage with a fighter.
Unlock the door.
LUCIAN. Stop. Like all women, Lydia,
You have the courage of immunity.
To strike _you_ were against his code of honor;
But _me_, above the belt, he may perform on
T' th' height of his profession. Also Bashville.
BASHVILLE. Think not of me, sir. Let him do his worst.
Oh, if the valor of my heart could weigh
The fatal difference twixt his weight and mine,
A second battle should he do this day:
Nay, though outmatched I be, let but my mistress
Give me the word: instant I'll take him on
Here--now--at catchweight. Better bite the carpet
A man, than fly, a coward.
LUCIAN. Bravely said:
I will assist you with the poker.
LYDIA. No:
I will not have him touched. Open the door.
BASHVILLE. Destruction knocks thereat. I smile, and open.
[BASHVILLE _opens the door_. _Dead silence._ CASHEL
_enters, in tears_. _A solemn pause._
CASHEL. You know my secret?
LYDIA. Yes.
CASHEL. And thereupon
You bade your servant fling me from your door.
LYDIA. I bade my servant say I was not here.
CASHEL [_to_ BASHVILLE]. Why didst thou better thy instruction, man?
Hadst thou but said, "She bade me tell thee this,"
Thoudst burst my heart. I thank thee for thy mercy.
LYDIA. Oh, Lucian, didst thou call him "drunk with slaughter"?
Canst thou refrain from weeping at his woe?
CASHEL [_to_ LUCIAN]. The unwritten law that shields the amateur
Against professional resentment, saves thee.
O coward, to traduce behind their backs
Defenceless prizefighters!
LUCIAN. Thou dost avow
Thou art a prizefighter.
CASHEL. It was my glory.
I had hoped to offer to my lady there
My belts, my championships, my heaped-up stakes,
My undefeated record; but I knew
Behind their blaze a hateful secret lurked.
LYDIA. Another secret?
LUCIAN. Is there worse to come?
CASHEL. Know ye not then my mother is an actress?
LUCIAN. How horrible!
LYDIA. Nay, nay: how interesting!
CASHEL. A thousand victories cannot wipe out
That birthstain. Oh, my speech bewrayeth it:
My earliest lesson was the player's speech
In Hamlet; and to this day I express myself
More like a mobled queen than like a man
Of flesh and blood. Well may your cousin sneer!
What's Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba?
LUCIAN. Injurious upstart: if by Hecuba
Thou pointest darkly at my lovely cousin,
Know that she is to me, and I to her,
What never canst thou be. I do defy thee;
And maugre all the odds thy skill doth give,
Outside I will await thee.
LYDIA. I forbid
Expressly any such duello. Bashville:
The door. Put Mr. Webber in a hansom,
And bid the driver hie to Downing Street.
No answer: 'tis my will. [_Exeunt_ LUCIAN _and_ BASHVILLE.
And now, farewell.
You must not come again, unless indeed
You can some day look in my eyes and say:
Lydia: my occupation's gone.
CASHEL. Ah, no:
It would remind you of my wretched mother.
O God, let me be natural a moment!
What other occupation can I try?
What would you have me be?
LYDIA. A gentleman.
CASHEL. A gentleman! I, Cashel Byron, stoop
To be the thing that bets on me! the fool
I flatter at so many coins a lesson!
The screaming creature who beside the ring
Gambles with basest wretches for my blood,
And pays with money that he never earned!
Let me die broken-hearted rather!
LYDIA. But
You need not be an idle gentleman.
I call you one of Nature's gentlemen.
CASHEL. That's the collection for the loser, Lydia.
I am not wont to need it. When your friends
Contest elections, and at foot o' th' poll
Rue their presumption, 'tis their wont to claim
A moral victory. In a sort they are
Nature's M. P.s. I am not yet so threadbare
As to accept these consolation stakes.
LYDIA. You are offended with me.
CASHEL. Yes, I am.
I can put up with much; but--"Nature's gentleman"!
I thank your ladyship of Lyons, but
Must beg to be excused.
LYDIA. But surely, surely,
To be a prizefighter, and maul poor mariners
With naked knuckles, is no work for you.
CASHEL. Thou dost arraign the inattentive Fates
That weave my thread of life in ruder patterns
Than these that lie, antimacassarly,
Asprent thy drawingroom. As well demand
Why I at birth chose to begin my life
A speechless babe, hairless, incontinent,
Hobbling upon all fours, a nurse's nuisance?
Or why I do propose to lose my strength,
To blanch my hair, to let the gums recede
Far up my yellowing teeth, and finally
Lie down and moulder in a rotten grave?
Only one thing more foolish could have been,
And that was to be born, not man, but woman.
This was thy folly, why rebuk'st thou mine?
LYDIA. These are not things of choice.
CASHEL. And did I choose
My quick divining eye, my lightning hand,
My springing muscle and untiring heart?
Did I implant the instinct in the race
That found a use for these, and said to me,
Fight for us, and be fame and fortune thine?
LYDIA. But there are other callings in the world.
CASHEL. Go tell thy painters to turn stockbrokers,
Thy poet friends to stoop o'er merchants' desks
And pen prose records of the gains of greed.
Tell bishops that religion is outworn,
And that the Pampa to the horsebreaker
Opes new careers. Bid the professor quit
His fraudulent pedantries, and do i' the world
The thing he would teach others. Then return
To me and say: Cashel: they have obeyed;
And on that pyre of sacrifice I, too,
Will throw my championship.
LYDIA. But 'tis so cruel.
CASHEL. Is it so? I have hardly noticed that,
So cruel are all callings. Yet this hand,
That many a two days' bruise hath ruthless given,
Hath kept no dungeon locked for twenty years,
Hath slain no sentient creature for my sport.
I am too squeamish for your dainty world,
That cowers behind the gallows and the lash,
The world that robs the poor, and with their spoil
Does what its tradesmen tell it. Oh, your ladies!
Sealskinned and egret-feathered; all defiance
To Nature; cowering if one say to them
"What will the servants think?" Your gentlemen!
Your tailor-tyrannized visitors of whom
Flutter of wing and singing in the wood
Make chickenbutchers. And your medicine men!
Groping for cures in the tormented entrails
Of friendly dogs. Pray have you asked all these
To change their occupations? Find you mine
So grimly crueller? I cannot breathe
An air so petty and so poisonous.
LYDIA. But find you not their manners very nice?
CASHEL. To me, perfection. Oh, they condescend
With a rare grace. Your duke, who condescends
Almost to the whole world, might for a Man
Pass in the eyes of those who never saw
The duke capped with a prince. See then, ye gods,
The duke turn footman, and his eager dame
Sink the great lady in the obsequious housemaid!
Oh, at such moments I could wish the Court
Had but one breadbasket, that with my fist
I could make all its windy vanity
Gasp itself out on the gravel. Fare you well.
I did not choose my calling; but at least
I can refrain from being a gentleman.
LYDIA. You say farewell to me without a pang.
CASHEL. My calling hath apprenticed me to pangs.
This is a rib-bender; but I can bear it.
It is a lonely thing to be a champion.
LYDIA. It is a lonelier thing to be a woman.
CASHEL. Be lonely then. Shall it be said of thee
That for his brawn thou misalliance mad'st
Wi' the Prince of Ruffians? Never. Go thy ways;
Or, if thou hast nostalgia of the mud,
Wed some bedogged wretch that on the slot
Of gilded snobbery, _ventre a terre_,
Will hunt through life with eager nose on earth
And hang thee thick with diamonds. I am rich;
But all my gold was fought for with my hands.
LYDIA. What dost thou mean by rich?
CASHEL. There is a man,
Hight Paradise, vaunted unconquerable,
Hath dared to say he will be glad to hear from me.
I have replied that none can hear from _me_
Until a thousand solid pounds be staked.
His friends have confidently found the money.
Ere fall of leaf that money shall be mine;
And then I shall possess ten thousand pounds.
I had hoped to tempt thee with that monstrous sum.
LYDIA. Thou silly Cashel, 'tis but a week's income.
I did propose to give thee three times that
For pocket money when we two were wed.
CASHEL. Give me my hat. I have been fooling here.
Now, by the Hebrew lawgiver, I thought
That only in America such revenues
Were decent deemed. Enough. My dream is dreamed.
Your gold weighs like a mountain on my chest.
Farewell.
LYDIA. The golden mountain shall be thine
The day thou quit'st thy horrible profession.
CASHEL. Tempt me not, woman. It is honor calls.
Slave to the Ring I rest until the face
Of Paradise be changed.
_Enter_ BASHVILLE
BASHVILLE. Madam, your carriage,
Ordered by you at two. 'Tis now half-past.
CASHEL. Sdeath! is it half-past two? The king! the king!
LYDIA. The king! What mean you?
CASHEL. I must meet a monarch
This very afternoon at Islington.
LYDIA. At Islington! You must be mad.
CASHEL. A cab!
Go call a cab; and let a cab be called;
And let the man that calls it be thy footman.
LYDIA. You are not well. You shall not go alone.
My carriage waits. I must accompany you.
I go to find my hat. [_Exit._
CASHEL. Like Paracelsus,
Who went to find his soul. [_To_ BASHVILLE.] And now, young man,
How comes it that a fellow of your inches,
So deft a wrestler and so bold a spirit,
Can stoop to be a flunkey? Call on me
On your next evening out. I'll make a man of you.
Surely you are ambitious and aspire----
BASHVILLE. To be a butler and draw corks; wherefore,
By Heaven, I will draw yours.
[_He hits_ CASHEL _on the nose, and runs out_.
CASHEL [_thoughtfully putting the side of his forefinger
to his nose_, _and studying the blood on it_].
Too quick for _me_!
There's money in this youth.
_Re-enter_ LYDIA, _hatted and gloved_.
LYDIA. O Heaven! you bleed.
CASHEL. Lend me a key or other frigid object,
That I may put it down my back, and staunch
The welling life stream.
LYDIA. [_giving him her keys_]. Oh, what _have_ you done?
CASHEL. Flush on the boko napped your footman's left.
LYDIA. I do not understand.
CASHEL. True. Pardon me.
I have received a blow upon the nose
In sport from Bashville. Next, ablution; else
I shall be total gules. [_He hurries out._
LYDIA. How well he speaks!
There is a silver trumpet in his lips
That stirs me to the finger ends. His nose
Dropt lovely color: 'tis a perfect blood.
I would 'twere mingled with mine own!
_Enter_ BASHVILLE
What now?
BASHVILLE. Madam, the coachman can no longer wait:
The horses will take cold.
LYDIA. I do beseech him
A moment's grace. Oh, mockery of wealth!
The third class passenger unchidden rides
Whither and when he will: obsequious trams
Await him hourly: subterranean tubes
With tireless coursers whisk him through the town;
But we, the rich, are slaves to Houyhnhnms:
We wait upon their colds, and frowst all day
Indoors, if they but cough or spurn their hay.
BASHVILLE. Madam, an omnibus to Euston Road,
And thence t' th' Angel--
_Enter_ CASHEL
LYDIA. Let us haste, my love:
The coachman is impatient.
CASHEL. Did he guess
He stays for Cashel Byron, he'd outwait
Pompei's sentinel. Let us away.
This day of deeds, as yet but half begun,
Must ended be in merrie Islington. [_Exeunt_ LYDIA _and_ CASHEL.
BASHVILLE. Gods! how she hangs on's arm! I am alone.
Now let me lift the cover from my soul.
O wasted humbleness! Deluded diffidence!
How often have I said, Lie down, poor footman:
She'll never stoop to thee, rear as thou wilt
Thy powder to the sky. And now, by Heaven,
She stoops below me; condescends upon
This hero of the pothouse, whose exploits,
Writ in my character from my last place,
Would damn me into ostlerdom. And yet
There's an eternal justice in it; for
By so much as the ne'er subdued Indian
Excels the servile negro, doth this ruffian
Precedence take of me. "_Ich dien._" Damnation!
I serve. My motto should have been, "I scalp."
And yet I do not bear the yoke for gold.
Because I love her I have blacked her boots;
Because I love her I have cleaned her knives,
Doing in this the office of a boy,
Whilst, like the celebrated maid that milks
And does the meanest chares, I've shared the passions
Of Cleopatra. It has been my pride
To give her place the greater altitude
By lowering mine, and of her dignity
To be so jealous that my cheek has flamed
Even at the thought of such a deep disgrace
As love for such a one as I would be
For such a one as she; and now! and now!
A prizefighter! O irony! O bathos!
To have made way for this! Oh, Bashville, Bashville:
Why hast thou thought so lowly of thyself,
So heavenly high of her? Let what will come,
My love must speak: 'twas my respect was dumb.