About this book

Man and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy

Bernard Shaw

quite convinced: he still thinks that the British are apt to make merits of their stupidities, and to represent their various incapacities as points of good breeding. English life seems to him to suffer from a lack of edifying rhetoric (which he calls moral tone); English behavior to show a want of respect for womanhood; English pronunciation to fail very vulgarly in tackling such words as world, girl, bird, etc.; English society to be plain spoken to an extent which stretches occasionally to intolerable coarseness; and English intercourse to need enlivening by games and stories and other pastimes; so he does not feel called upon to acquire these defects after taking great paths to cultivate himself in a first rate manner before venturing across the Atlantic. To this culture he finds English people either totally indifferent as they very commonly are to all culture, or else politely evasive, the truth being that Hector's culture is nothing but a state of saturation with our literary exports of thirty years ago, reimported by him to be unpacked at a moment's notice and hurled at the head of English literature, science and art, at every conversational opportunity. The dismay set up by these sallies encourages him in his belief that he is helping to educate England. When he finds people chattering harmlessly about Anatole France and Nietzsche, he devastates them with Matthew Arnold, the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, and even Macaulay; and as he is devoutly religious at bottom, he first leads the unwary, by humorous irreverences, to wave popular theology out of account in discussing moral questions with him, and then scatters them in confusion by demanding whether the carrying out of his ideals of conduct was not the manifest object of God Almighty in creating honest men and pure women. The engaging freshness of his personality and the dumbfoundering staleness of his culture make it extremely difficult to decide whether he is worth knowing; for whilst his company is undeniably pleasant and enlivening, there is intellectually nothing new to be got out of him, especially as he despises politics, and is careful not to talk commercial shop, in which department he is probably much in advance of his English capitalist friends. He gets on best with romantic Christians of the amoristic sect: hence the friendship which has sprung up between him and Octavius. In appearance Hector is a neatly built young man of twenty-four, with a short, smartly trimmed black beard, clear, well shaped eyes, and an ingratiating vivacity of expression. He is, from the fashionable point of view, faultlessly dressed. As he comes along the drive from the house with Mrs Whitefield he is sedulously making himself agreeable and entertaining, and thereby placing on her slender wit a burden it is unable to bear. An Englishman would let her alone, accepting boredom and indifference of their common lot; and the poor lady wants to be either let alone or let prattle about the things that interest her. Ramsden strolls over to inspect the motor car. Octavius joins Hector. ANN. [pouncing on her mother joyously] Oh, mamma, what do you think! Jack is going to take me to Nice in his motor car. Isn't it lovely? I am the happiest person in London. TANNER. [desperately] Mrs Whitefield objects. I am sure she objects. Doesn't she, Ramsden? RAMSDEN. I should think it very likely indeed. ANN. You don't object, do you, mother? MRS WHITEFIELD. I object! Why should I? I think it will do you good, Ann. [Trotting over to Tanner] I meant to ask you to take Rhoda out for a run occasionally: she is too much in the house; but it will do when you come back. TANNER. Abyss beneath abyss of perfidy! ANN. [hastily, to distract attention from this outburst] Oh, I forgot: you have not met Mr Malone. Mr Tanner, my guardian: Mr Hector Malone. HECTOR. Pleased to meet you, Mr Tanner. I should like to suggest an extension of the travelling party to Nice, if I may. ANN. Oh, we're all coming. That's understood, isn't it? HECTOR. I also am the modest possessor of a motor car. If Miss Robinson will allow me the privilege of taking her, my car is at her service. OCTAVIUS. Violet! General constraint. ANN. [subduedly] Come, mother: we must leave them to talk over the arrangements. I must see to my travelling kit. Mrs Whitefield looks bewildered; but Ann draws her discreetly away; and they disappear round the corner towards the house. HECTOR. I think I may go so far as to say that I can depend on Miss Robinson's consent. Continued embarrassment. OCTAVIUS. I'm afraid we must leave Violet behind, There are circumstances which make it impossible for her to come on such an expedition. HECTOR. [amused and not at all convinced] Too American, eh? Must the young lady have a chaperone? OCTAVIUS. It's not that, Malone--at least not altogether. HECTOR. Indeed! May I ask what other objection applies? TANNER. [impatiently] Oh, tell him, tell him. We shall never be able to keep the secret unless everybody knows what it is. Mr Malone: if you go to Nice with Violet, you go with another man's wife. She is married. HECTOR. [thunderstruck] You don't tell me so! TANNER. We do. In confidence. RAMSDEN. [with an air of importance, lest Malone should suspect a misalliance] Her marriage has not yet been made known: she desires that it shall not be mentioned for the present. HECTOR. I shall respect the lady's wishes. Would it be indiscreet to ask who her husband is, in case I should have an opportunity of consulting him about this trip? TANNER. We don't know who he is. HECTOR. [retiring into his shell in a very marked manner] In that case, I have no more to say. They become more embarrassed than ever. OCTAVIUS. You must think this very strange. HECTOR. A little singular. Pardon me for saving so. RAMSDEN. [half apologetic, half huffy] The young lady was married secretly; and her husband has forbidden her, it seems, to declare his name. It is only right to tell you, since you are interested in Miss--er--in Violet. OCTAVIUS. [sympathetically] I hope this is not a disappointment to you. HECTOR. [softened, coming out of his shell again] Well it is a blow. I can hardly understand how a man can leave a wife in such a position. Surely it's not customary. It's not manly. It's not considerate. OCTAVIUS. We feel that, as you may imagine, pretty deeply. RAMSDEN. [testily] It is some young fool who has not enough experience to know what mystifications of this kind lead to. HECTOR. [with strong symptoms of moral repugnance] I hope so. A man need be very young and pretty foolish too to be excused for such conduct. You take a very lenient view, Mr Ramsden. Too lenient to my mind. Surely marriage should ennoble a man. TANNER. [sardonically] Ha! HECTOR. Am I to gather from that cacchination that you don't agree with me, Mr Tanner? TANNER. [drily] Get married and try. You may find it delightful for a while: you certainly won't find it ennobling. The greatest common measure of a man and a woman is not necessarily greater than the man's single measure. HECTOR. Well, we think in America that a woman's moral number is higher than a man's, and that the purer nature of a woman lifts a man right out of himself, and makes him better than he was. OCTAVIUS. [with conviction] So it does. TANNER. No wonder American women prefer to live in Europe! It's more comfortable than standing all their lives on an altar to be worshipped. Anyhow, Violet's husband has not been ennobled. So what's to be done? HECTOR. [shaking his head] I can't dismiss that man's conduct as lightly as you do, Mr Tanner. However, I'll say no more. Whoever he is, he's Miss Robinson's husband; and I should be glad for her sake to think better of him. OCTAVIUS. [touched; for he divines a secret sorrow] I'm very sorry, Malone. Very sorry. HECTOR. [gratefully] You're a good fellow, Robinson, Thank you. TANNER. Talk about something else. Violet's coming from the house. HECTOR. I should esteem it a very great favor, men, if you would take the opportunity to let me have a few words with the lady alone. I shall have to cry off this trip; and it's rather a delicate-- RAMSDEN. [glad to escape] Say no more. Come Tanner, Come, Tavy. [He strolls away into the park with Octavius and Tanner, past the motor car]. Violet comes down the avenue to Hector. VIOLET. Are they looking? HECTOR. No. She kisses him. VIOLET. Have you been telling lies for my sake? HECTOR. Lying! Lying hardly describes it. I overdo it. I get carried away in an ecstasy of mendacity. Violet: I wish you'd let me own up. VIOLET. [instantly becoming serious and resolute] No, no. Hector: you promised me not to. HECTOR. I'll keep my promise until you release me from it. But I feel mean, lying to those men, and denying my wife. Just dastardly. VIOLET. I wish your father were not so unreasonable. HECTOR. He's not unreasonable. He's right from his point of view. He has a prejudice against the English middle class. VIOLET. It's too ridiculous. You know how I dislike saying such things to you, Hector; but if I were to--oh, well, no matter. HECTOR. I know. If you were to marry the son of an English manufacturer of office furniture, your friends would consider it a misalliance. And here's my silly old dad, who is the biggest office furniture man in the world, would show me the door for marrying the most perfect lady in England merely because she has no handle to her name. Of course it's just absurd. But I tell you, Violet, I don't like deceiving him. I feel as if I was stealing his money. Why won't you let me own up? VIOLET. We can't afford it. You can be as romantic as you please about love, Hector; but you mustn't be romantic about money. HECTOR. [divided between his uxoriousness and his habitual elevation of moral sentiment] That's very English. [Appealing to her impulsively] Violet: Dad's bound to find us out some day. VIOLET. Oh yes, later on of course. But don't let's go over this every time we meet, dear. You promised-- HECTOR. All right, all right, I-- VIOLET. [not to be silenced] It is I and not you who suffer by this concealment; and as to facing a struggle and poverty and all that sort of thing I simply will not do it. It's too silly. HECTOR. You shall not. I'll sort of borrow the money from my dad until I get on my own feet; and then I can own up and pay up at the same time. VIOLET. [alarmed and indignant] Do you mean to work? Do you want to spoil our marriage? HECTOR. Well, I don't mean to let marriage spoil my character. Your friend Mr Tanner has got the laugh on me a bit already about that; and-- VIOLET. The beast! I hate Jack Tanner. HECTOR. [magnanimously] Oh, he's all right: he only needs the love of a good woman to ennoble him. Besides, he's proposed a motoring trip to Nice; and I'm going to take you. VIOLET. How jolly! HECTOR. Yes; but how are we going to manage? You see, they've warned me off going with you, so to speak. They've told me in confidence that you're married. That's just the most overwhelming confidence I've ever been honored with. Tanner returns with Straker, who goes to his car. TANNER. Your car is a great success, Mr Malone. Your engineer is showing it off to Mr Ramsden. HECTOR. [eagerly--forgetting himself] Let's come, Vi. VIOLET. [coldly, warning him with her eyes] I beg your pardon, Mr Malone, I did not quite catch-- HECTOR. [recollecting himself] I ask to be allowed the pleasure of showing you my little American steam car, Miss Robinson. VIOLET. I shall be very pleased. [They go off together down the avenue]. TANNER. About this trip, Straker. STRAKER. [preoccupied with the car] Yes?