LESBIA. Ob, love! Have you no imagination? Do you think I have
never been in love with wonderful men? heroes! archangels!
princes! sages! even fascinating rascals! and had the strangest
adventures with them? Do you know what it is to look at a mere
real man after that? a man with his boots in every corner, and
the smell of his tobacco in every curtain?
THE GENERAL [somewhat dazed] Well but--excuse my mentioning
it--dont you want children?
LESBIA. I ought to have children. I should be a good mother to
children. I believe it would pay the country very well to pay me
very well to have children. But the country tells me that I cant
have a child in my house without a man in it too; so I tell the
country that it will have to do without my children. If I am to
be a mother, I really cannot have a man bothering me to be a wife
at the same time.
THE GENERAL. My dear Lesbia: you know I dont wish to be
impertinent; but these are not the correct views for an English
lady to express.
LESBIA. That is why I dont express them, except to gentlemen who
wont take any other answer. The difficulty, you see, is that I
really am an English lady, and am particularly proud of being
one.
THE GENERAL. I'm sure of that, Lesbia: quite sure of it. I never
meant--
LESBIA [rising impatiently] Oh, my dear Boxer, do please try to
think of something else than whether you have offended me, and
whether you are doing the correct thing as an English gentleman.
You are faultless, and very dull. [She shakes her shoulders
intolerantly and walks across to the other side of the kitchen].
THE GENERAL [moodily] Ha! thats whats the matter with me. Not
clever. A poor silly soldier man.
LESBIA. The whole matter is very simple. As I say, I am an
English lady, by which I mean that I have been trained to do
without what I cant have on honorable terms, no matter what it
is.
THE GENERAL. I really dont understand you, Lesbia.
LESBIA [turning on him] Then why on earth do you want to marry a
woman you dont understand?
THE GENERAL. I dont know. I suppose I love you.
LESBIA. Well, Boxer, you can love me as much as you like,
provided you look happy about it and dont bore me. But you cant
marry me; and thats all about it.
THE GENERAL. It's so frightfully difficult to argue the matter
fairly with you without wounding your delicacy by overstepping
the bounds of good taste. But surely there are calls of nature--
LESBIA. Dont be ridiculous, Boxer.
THE GENERAL. Well, how am I to express it? Hang it all, Lesbia,
dont you want a husband?
LESBIA. No. I want children; and I want to devote myself entirely
to my children, and not to their father. The law will not allow
me to do that; so I have made up my mind to have neither husband
nor children.