An old park. Early evening. In the background a low Georgian
hall, which has been turned into offices for the Company, shows
windows already lighted. GERALD and ANABEL walk along the path.
ANABEL. How beautiful this old park is!
GERALD. Yes, it is beautiful--seems so far away from everywhere, if one
doesn't remember that the hall is turned into offices.--No one has lived
here since I was a little boy. I remember going to a Christmas party at
the Walsalls'.
ANABEL. Has it been shut up so long?
GERALD. The Walsalls didn't like it--too near the ugliness. They were
county, you know--we never were: father never gave mother a chance,
there. And besides, the place is damp, cellars full of water.
ANABEL. Even now?
GERALD. No, not now--they've been drained. But the place would be too
damp for a dwelling-house. It's all right as offices. They burn enormous
fires. The rooms are quite charming. This is what happens to the stately
homes of England--they buzz with inky clerks, or their equivalent.
Stateliness is on its last legs.
ANABEL. Yes, it grieves me--though I should be bored if I had to
be stately, I think.--Isn't it beautiful in this light, like an
eighteenth-century aquatint? I'm sure no age was as ugly as this, since
the world began.
GERALD. For pure ugliness, certainly not. And I believe none has been
so filthy to live in.--Let us sit down a minute, shall we? and watch the
rooks fly home. It always stirs sad, sentimental feelings in me.
ANABEL. So it does in me.--Listen! one can hear the coal-carts on the
road--and the brook--and the dull noise of the town--and the beating of
New London pit--and voices--and the rooks--and yet it is so still. We
seem so still here, don't we?
GERALD. Yes.
ANABEL. Don't you think we've been wrong?
GERALD. How?
ANABEL. In the way we've lived--and the way we've loved.
GERALD. It hasn't been heaven, has it? Yet I don't know that we've been
wrong, Anabel. We had it to go through.
ANABEL. Perhaps.--And, yes, we've been wrong, too.
GERALD. Probably. Only, I don't feel it like that.
ANABEL. Then I think you ought. You ought to feel you've been wrong.
GERALD. Yes, probably. Only, I don't. I can't help it. I think we've
gone the way we had to go, following our own natures.
ANABEL. And where has it landed us?
GERALD. Here.
ANABEL. And where is that?
GERALD. Just on this bench in the park, looking at the evening.
ANABEL. But what next?
GERALD. God knows! Why trouble?
ANABEL. One must trouble. I want to feel sure.
GERALD. What of?
ANABEL. Of you--and of myself.
GERALD. Then BE sure.
ANABEL. But I can't. Think of the past--what it's been.
GERALD. This isn't the past.
ANABEL. But what is it? Is there anything sure in it? Is there any real
happiness?
GERALD. Why not?
ANABEL. But how can you ask? Think of what our life has been.
GERALD. I don't want to.
ANABEL. No, you don't. But what DO you want?
GERALD. I'm all right, you know, sitting here like this.
ANABEL. But one can't sit here forever, can one?
GERALD. I don't want to.
ANABEL. And what will you do when we leave here?
GERALD. God knows! Don't worry me. Be still a bit.
ANABEL. But I'M worried. You don't love me.
GERALD. I won't argue it.
ANABEL. And I'm not happy.
GERALD. Why not, Anabel?
ANABEL. Because you don't love me--and I can't forget.
GERALD. I do love you--and to-night I've forgotten.
ANABEL. Then make me forget, too. Make me happy.
GERALD. I CAN'T make you--and you know it.
ANABEL. Yes, you can. It's your business to make me happy. I've made you
happy.
GERALD. You want to make me unhappy.
ANABEL. I DO think you're the last word in selfishness. If I say I can't
forget, you merely say, "I'VE forgotten"; and if I say I'm unhappy, all
YOU can answer is that I want to make YOU unhappy. I don't in the least.
I want to be happy myself. But you don't help me.
GERALD. There is no help for it, you see. If you WERE happy with me here
you'd be happy. As you aren't, nothing will make you--not genuinely.
ANABEL. And that's all you care.
GERALD. No--I wish we could both be happy at the same moment. But
apparently we can't.
ANABEL. And why not?--Because you're selfish, and think of nothing but
yourself and your own feelings.
GERALD. If it is so, it is so.
ANABEL. Then we shall never be happy.
GERALD. Then we sha'n't. (A pause.)
ANABEL. Then what are we going to do?
GERALD. Do?
ANABEL. Do you want me to be with you?
GERALD. Yes.
ANABEL. Are you sure?
GERALD. Yes.
ANABEL. Then why don't you want me to be happy?
GERALD. If you'd only BE happy, here and now---
ANABEL. How can I?
GERALD. How can't you?--You've got a devil inside you.
ANABEL. Then make me not have a devil.
GERALD. I've know you long enough--and known myself long enough--to know
I can make you nothing at all, Anabel: neither can you make me. If
the happiness isn't there--well, we shall have to wait for it, like
a dispensation. It probably means we shall have to hate each other a
little more.--I suppose hate is a real process.
ANABEL. Yes, I know you believe more in hate than in love.
GERALD. Nobody is more weary of hate than I am--and yet we can't fix our
own hour, when we shall leave off hating and fighting. It has to work
itself out in us.
ANABEL. But I don't WANT to hate and fight with you any more. I don't
BELIEVE in it--not any more.
GERALD. It's a cleansing process--like Aristotle's Katharsis. We shall
hate ourselves clean at last, I suppose.
ANABEL. Why aren't you clean now? Why can't you love? (He laughs.) DO
you love me?
GERALD. Yes.
ANABEL. Do you want to be with me for ever?
GERALD. Yes.
ANABEL. Sure?
GERALD. Quite sure.
ANABEL. Why are you so cool about it?
GERALD. I'm not. I'm only sure--which you are not.
ANABEL. Yes, I am--I WANT to be married to you.
GERALD. I know you want me to want you to be married to me. But whether
off your own bat you have a positive desire that way, I'm not sure. You
keep something back--some sort of female reservation--like a dagger up
your sleeve. You want to see me in transports of love for you.
ANABEL. How can you say so? There--you see--there--this is the man that
pretends to love me, and then says I keep a dagger up my sleeve. You
liar!
GERALD. I do love you--and you do keep a dagger up your sleeve--some
devilish little female reservation which spies at me from a distance, in
your soul, all the time, as if I were an enemy.
ANABEL. How CAN you say so?--Doesn't it show what you must be yourself?
Doesn't it show?--What is there in your soul?
GERALD. I don't know.
ANABEL. Love, pure love?--Do you pretend it's love?
GERALD. I'm so tired of this.
ANABEL. So am I, dead tired: you self-deceiving, self complacent thing.
Ha!--aren't you just the same? You haven't altered one scrap not a
scrap.
GERALD. All right--you are always free to change yourself.
ANABEL. I HAVE changed I AM better, I DO love you--I love you wholly and
unselfishly--I do--and I want a good new life with you.
GERALD. You're terribly wrapped up in your new goodness. I wish you'd
make up your mind to be downright bad.
ANABEL. Ha!--Do you?--You'd soon see. You'd soon see where you'd be
if---- There's somebody coming. (Rises.)
GERALD. Never mind; it's the clerks leaving work, I suppose. Sit still.
ANABEL. Won't you go?
GERALD. No. (A man draws near, followed by another.)
CLERK. Good evening, sir. (Passes on.) Good evening, Mr. Barlow.
ANABEL. They are afraid.
GERALD. I suppose their consciences are uneasy about this strike.
ANABEL. Did you come to sit here just to catch them, like a spider
waiting for them?
GERALD. No. I wanted to speak to Breffitt.
ANABEL. I believe you're capable of any horridness.
GERALD. All right, you believe it. (Two more figures approach.) Good
evening.
CLERKS. Good night, sir. (One passes, one stops.) Good evening, Mr.
Barlow. Er--did you want to see Mr. Breffitt, sir?
GERALD. Not particularly.
CLERK. Oh! He'll be out directly, sir--if you'd like me to go back and
tell him you wanted him?
GERALD. No, thank you.
CLERK. Good night, sir. Excuse me asking.
GERALD. Good night.
ANABEL. Who is Mr. Breffitt?
GERALD. He is the chief clerk--and cashier--one of father's old pillars
of society.
ANABEL. Don't you like him?
GERALD. Not much.
ANABEL. Why?--You seem to dislike very easily.
GERALD. Oh, they all used to try to snub me, these old buffers. They
detest me like poison, because I am different from father.
ANABEL. I believe you enjoy being detested.
GERALD. I do. (Another clerk approaches--hesitates--stops.)
CLERK. Good evening, sir. Good evening, Mr. Barlow. Er--did you want
anybody at the office, sir? We're just closing.
GERALD. No, I didn't want anybody.
CLERK. Oh, no, sir. I see. Er--by the way, sir--er--I hope you don't
think this--er--bother about an increase--this strike threat--started in
the office?
GERALD. Where did it start?
CLERK. I should think it started--where it usually starts, Mr.
Barlow--among a few loud-mouthed people who think they can do as they
like with the men. They're only using the office men as a cry--They've
no interest in us. They want to show their power.--That's how it is,
sir.
GERALD. Oh, yes.
CLERK. We're powerless, if they like to make a cry out of us.
GERALD. Quite.
CLERK. We're as much put out about it as anybody.
GERALD. Of course.
CLERK. Yes--well--good night, sir. (Clerks draw near--there is a sound
of loud young voices and bicycle bells. Bicycles sweep past.)
CLERKS. Good night, sir.--Good night, sir.
GERALD. Good night.--They're very bucked to see me sitting here with
a woman--a young lady as they'll say. I guess your name will be flying
round to-morrow. They stop partly to have a good look at you. Do they
know you, do you think?
ANABEL. Sure.
CLERKS. Mr. Breffitt's just coming, sir.--Good night, sir.--Good night,
sir. (Another bicycle passes.)
ANABEL. The bicycles don't see us.--Isn't it rather hateful to be a
master? The attitude of them all is so ugly. I can quite see that it
makes you rather a bully.
GERALD. I suppose it does. (Figure of a large man approaches.)
BREFFITT. Oh--ah--it's Mr. Gerald!--I couldn't make out who it
was.--Were you coming up to the office, sir? Do you want me to go back
with you?
GERALD. No, thank you--I just wanted a word with you about this
agitation. It'll do just as well here. It's a pity it started--that the
office should have set it going, Breffitt.
BREFFITT. It's none of the office's doing, I think you'll find, Mr.
Gerald. The office men did nothing but ask for a just advance--at any
rate, time and prices being what they are, I consider it a fair advance.
If the men took it up, it's because they've got a set of loud-mouthed
blatherers and agitators among them like Job Arthur Freer, who deserve
to be hung--and hanging they'd get, if I could have the judging of them.
GERALD. Well--it's very unfortunate--because we can't give the clerks
their increase now, you know.
BREFFITT. Can't you?--can't you? I can't see that it would be anything
out of the way, if I say what I think.
GERALD. No. They won't get any increase now. It shouldn't have been
allowed to become a public cry with the colliers. We can't give in now.
BREFFITT. Have the Board decided that?
GERALD. They have--on my advice.
BREFFITT. Hm!--then the men will come out.
GERALD. We will see.
BREFFITT. It's trouble for nothing--it's trouble that could be avoided.
The clerks could have their advance, and it would hurt nobody.
GERALD. Too late now.--I suppose if the men come out, the clerks will
come out with them?
BREFFITT. They'll have to--they'll have to.
GERALD. If they do, we may then make certain alterations in the office
staff which have needed making for some time.
BREFFITT. Very good--very good. I know what you mean.--I don't know how
your father bears all this, Mr. Gerald.
GERALD. We keep it from him as much as possible.--You'll let the clerks
know the decision. And if they stay out with the men, I'll go over the
list of the staff with you. It has needed revising for a long time.
BREFFITT. I know what you mean--I know what you mean--I believe I
understand the firm's interest in my department. I ought, after forty
years studying it. I've studied the firm's interest for forty years, Mr.
Gerald. I'm not likely to forget them now.
GERALD. Of course.
BREFFITT. But I think it's a mistake--I think it's a mistake, and I'm
bound to say it, to let a great deal of trouble rise for a very small
cause. The clerks might have had what they reasonably asked her.
GERALD. Well, it's too late now.
BREFFITT. I suppose it is--I suppose it is. I hope you'll remember, sir,
that I've put the interest of the firm before everything--before every
consideration.
GERALD. Of course, Breffitt.
BREFFITT. But you've not had any liking for the office staff, I'm
afraid, sir--not since your father put you amongst us for a few
months.--Well, sir, we shall weather this gale, I hope, as we've
weathered those in the past. Times don't become better, do they? Men are
an ungrateful lot, and these agitators should be lynched. They would, if
I had my way.
GERALD. Yes, of course. Don't wait.
BREFFITT. Good night to you. (Exit.)
GERALD. Good night.
ANABEL. He's the last, apparently.
GERALD. We'll hope so.
ANABEL. He puts you in a fury.
GERALD. It's his manner. My father spoilt them--abominable old limpets.
And they're so self-righteous. They think I'm a sort of criminal who has
instigated this new devilish system which runs everything so close
and cuts it so fine--as if they hadn't made this inevitable by their
shameless carelessness and wastefulness in the past. He may well boast
of his forty years--forty years' crass, stupid wastefulness.
(Two or three more clerks pass, talking till they approach the seat,
then becoming silent after bidding good night.)
ANABEL. But aren't you a bit sorry for them?
GERALD. Why? If they're poor, what does it matter in a world of chaos?
ANABEL. And aren't you an obstinate ass not to give them the bit they
want. It's mere stupid obstinacy.
GERALD. It may be. I call it policy.
ANABEL. Men always do call their obstinacy policy.
GERALD. Well, I don't care what happens. I wish things would come to a
head. I only fear they won't.
ANABEL. Aren't you rather wicked?--ASKING for strife?
GERALD. I hope I am. It's quite a relief to me to feel that I may be
wicked. I fear I'm not. I can see them all anticipating victory, in
their low-down fashion wanting to crow their low-down crowings. I'm
afraid I feel it's a righteous cause, to cut a lot of little combs
before I die.
ANABEL. But if they're right in what they want?
GERALD. In the right--in the right!--They're just greedy, incompetent,
stupid, gloating in a sense of the worst sort of power. They're like
vicious children, who would like to kill their parents so that they
could have the run of the larder. The rest is just cant.
ANABEL. If you're the parent in the case, I must say you flow over with
loving-kindness for them.
GERALD. I don't--I detest them. I only hope they will fight. If they
would, I'd have some respect for them. But you'll see what it will be.
ANABEL. I wish I needn't, for it's very sickening.
GERALD. Sickening beyond expression.
ANABEL. I wish we could go right away.
GERALD. So do I--If one could get oneself out of this. But one
can't. It's the same wherever you have industrialism--and you have
industrialism everywhere, whether it's in Timbuctoo or Paraguay or
Antananarivo.
ANABEL. No, it isn't: you exaggerate.
JOB ARTHUR (suddenly approaching from the other side). Good evening, Mr.
Barlow. I heard you were in here. Could I have a word with you?
GERALD. Get on with it, then.
JOB ARTHUR. Is it right that you won't meet the clerks?
GERALD. Yes.
JOB ARTHUR. Not in any way?
GERALD. Not in any way whatsoever.
JOB ARTHUR. But--I thought I understood from you the other night---
GERALD. It's all the same what you understood.
JOB ARTHUR. Then you take it back, sir?
GERALD. I take nothing back, because I gave nothing.
JOB ARTHUR. Oh, excuse me, excuse me, sir. You said it would be all
right about the clerks. This lady heard you say it.
GERALD. Don't you call witnesses against me.--Besides, what does it
matter to you? What in the name of---
JOB ARTHUR. Well, sir, you said it would be all right, and I went on
that---
GERALD. You went on that! Where did you go to?
JOB ARTHUR. The men'll be out on Monday.
GERALD. So shall I.
JOB ARTHUR. Oh, yes, but--where's it going to end?
GERALD. Do you want me to prophesy? When did I set up for a public
prophet?
JOB ARTHUR. I don't know, sir. But perhaps you're doing more than you
know. There's a funny feeling just now among the men.
GERALD. So I've heard before. Why should I concern myself with their
feelings? Am I to cry when every collier bumps his funny-bone--or to
laugh?
JOB ARTHUR. It's no laughing matter, you see.
GERALD. An I'm sure it's no crying matter--unless you want to cry, do
you see?
JOB ARTHUR. Ah, but, very likely, it wouldn't be me would cry.--You
don't know what might happen, now.
GERALD. I'm waiting for something to happen. I should like something to
happen--very much--very much indeed.
JOB ARTHUR. Yes, but perhaps you'd be sorry if it did happen.
GERALD. Is that warning or a threat?
JOB ARTHUR. I don't know--it might be a bit of both. What I mean to
say---
GERALD (suddenly seizing him by the scruff of the neck and shaking him).
What do you mean to say?--I mean you to say less, do you see?--a great
deal less--do you see? You've run on with your saying long enough: that
clock had better run down. So stop your sayings--stop your sayings,
I tell you--or you'll have them shaken out of you--shaken out of
you--shaken out of you, do you see? (Suddenly flings him aside.)
(JOB ARTHUR, staggering, falls.)
ANABEL. Oh, no!--oh, no!
GERALD. Now get up, Job Arthur; and get up wiser than you went down.
You've played your little game and your little tricks and made your
little sayings long enough. You're going to stop now. We've had quite
enough of strong men of your stamp, Job Arthur--quite enough--such
labour leaders as you.
JOB ARTHUR. You'll be sorry, Mr. Barlow--you'll be sorry. You'll wish
you'd not attacked me.
GERALD. Don't you trouble about me and my sorrow. Mind your own.
JOB ARTHUR. You will--you'll be sorry. You'll be sorry for what you've
done. You'll wish you'd never begun this.
GERALD. Begun--begun?--I'd like to finish, too, that I would. I'd like
to finish with you, too--I warn YOU.
JOB ARTHUR. I warn you--I warn you. You won't go on much longer. Every
parish has its own vermin.
GERALD. Vermin?
JOB ARTHUR. Every parish has its own vermin; it lies with every parish
to destroy its own. We sha'n't have a clean parish till we've destroyed
the vermin we've got.
GERALD. Vermin? The fool's raving. Vermin!--Another phrase-maker, by
God! Another phrase-maker to lead the people.--Vermin? What vermin? I
know quite well what _I_ mean by vermin, Job Arthur. But what do you
mean? Vermin? Explain yourself.
JOB ARTHUR. Yes, vermin. Vermin is what lives on other people's lives,
living on their lives and profiting by it. We've got 'em in every
parish--vermin, I say--that live on the sweat and blood of the
people--live on it, and get rich on it--get rich through living on other
people's lives, the lives of the working men--living on the bodies
of the working men--that's vermin--if it isn't, what is it? And every
parish must destroy its own--every parish must destroy its own vermin.
GERALD. The phrase, my God! the phrase.
JOB ARTHUR. Phrase or not phrase, there it is, and face it out if you
can. There it is--there's not one in every parish--there's more than
one--there's a number---
GERALD (suddenly kicking him). Go! (Kicks him.) Go! (Kicks him.) go!
(JOB ARTHUR falls.) Get out! (Kicks him.) Get out, I say! Get out, I
tell you! Get out! Get out!--Vermin!--Vermin!--I'll vermin you! I'll put
my foot through your phrases. Get up, I say, get up and go--GO!
JOB ARTHUR. It'll be you as'll go, this time.
GERALD. What? What?--By God! I'll kick you out of this park like a
rotten bundle if you don't get up and go.
ANABEL. No, Gerald, no. Don't forget yourself. It's enough now. It's
enough now.--Come away. Do come away. Come away--leave him---
JOB ARTHUR (still on the ground). It's your turn to go. It's you as'll
go, this time.
GERALD (looking at him). One can't even tread on you.
ANABEL. Don't, Gerald, don't--don't look at him.--Don't say any more,
you, Job Arthur.--Come away, Gerald. Come away--come--do come.
GERALD (turning). THAT a human being! My God!--But he's right--it's
I who go. It's we who go, Anabel. He's still there.--My God! a human
being!
(Curtain.)