About this book

Man and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy

Bernard Shaw

brown frock of some religious order. She wanders and wanders in her slow hopeless way, much as a wasp flies in its rapid busy way, until she blunders against the thing she seeks: companionship. With a sob of relief the poor old creature clutches at the presence of the man and addresses him in her dry unlovely voice, which can still express pride and resolution as well as suffering. THE OLD WOMAN. Excuse me; but I am so lonely; and this place is so awful. DON JUAN. A new comer? THE OLD WOMAN. Yes: I suppose I died this morning. I confessed; I had extreme unction; I was in bed with my family about me and my eyes fixed on the cross. Then it grew dark; and when the light came back it was this light by which I walk seeing nothing. I have wandered for hours in horrible loneliness. DON JUAN. [sighing] Ah! you have not yet lost the sense of time. One soon does, in eternity. THE OLD WOMAN. Where are we? DON JUAN. In hell. THE OLD WOMAN [proudly] Hell! I in hell! How dare you? DON JUAN. [unimpressed] Why not, Senora? THE OLD WOMAN. You do not know to whom you are speaking. I am a lady, and a faithful daughter of the Church. DON JUAN. I do not doubt it. THE OLD WOMAN. But how then can I be in hell? Purgatory, perhaps: I have not been perfect: who has? But hell! oh, you are lying. DON JUAN. Hell, Senora, I assure you; hell at its best--that is, its most solitary--though perhaps you would prefer company. THE OLD WOMAN. But I have sincerely repented; I have confessed. DON JUAN. How much? THE OLD WOMAN. More sins than I really committed. I loved confession. DON JUAN. Ah, that is perhaps as bad as confessing too little. At all events, Senora, whether by oversight or intention, you are certainly damned, like myself; and there is nothing for it now but to make the best of it. THE OLD WOMAN [indignantly] Oh! and I might have been so much wickeder! All my good deeds wasted! It is unjust. DON JUAN. No: you were fully and clearly warned. For your bad deeds, vicarious atonement, mercy without justice. For your good deeds, justice without mercy. We have many good people here. THE OLD WOMAN. Were you a good man? DON JUAN. I was a murderer. THE OLD WOMAN. A murderer! Oh, how dare they send me to herd with murderers! I was not as bad as that: I was a good woman. There is some mistake: where can I have it set right? DON JUAN. I do not know whether mistakes can be corrected here. Probably they will not admit a mistake even if they have made one. THE OLD WOMAN. But whom can I ask? DON JUAN. I should ask the Devil, Senora: he understands the ways of this place, which is more than I ever could. THE OLD WOMAN. The Devil! _I_ speak to the Devil! DON JUAN. In hell, Senora, the Devil is the leader of the best society. THE OLD WOMAN. I tell you, wretch, I know I am not in hell. DON JUAN. How do you know? THE OLD WOMAN. Because I feel no pain. DON JUAN. Oh, then there is no mistake: you are intentionally damned. THE OLD WOMAN. Why do you say that? DON JUAN. Because hell, Senora, is a place for the wicked. The wicked are quite comfortable in it: it was made for them. You tell me you feel no pain. I conclude you are one of those for whom Hell exists. THE OLD WOMAN. Do you feel no pain? DON JUAN. I am not one of the wicked, Senora; therefore it bores me, bores me beyond description, beyond belief. THE OLD WOMAN. Not one of the wicked! You said you were a murderer. DON JUAN. Only a duel. I ran my sword through an old man who was trying to run his through me. THE OLD WOMAN. If you were a gentleman, that was not a murder. DON JUAN. The old man called it murder, because he was, he said, defending his daughter's honor. By this he meant that because I foolishly fell in love with her and told her so, she screamed; and he tried to assassinate me after calling me insulting names. THE OLD WOMAN. You were like all men. Libertines and murderers all, all, all! DON JUAN. And yet we meet here, dear lady. THE OLD WOMAN. Listen to me. My father was slain by just such a wretch as you, in just such a duel, for just such a cause. I screamed: it was my duty. My father drew on my assailant: his honor demanded it. He fell: that was the reward of honor. I am here: in hell, you tell me that is the reward of duty. Is there justice in heaven? DON JUAN. No; but there is justice in hell: heaven is far above such idle human personalities. You will be welcome in hell, Senora. Hell is the home of honor, duty, justice, and the rest of the seven deadly virtues. All the wickedness on earth is done in their name: where else but in hell should they have their reward? Have I not told you that the truly damned are those who are happy in hell? THE OLD WOMAN. And are you happy here? DON JUAN. [Springing to his feet] No; and that is the enigma on which I ponder in darkness. Why am I here? I, who repudiated all duty, trampled honor underfoot, and laughed at justice! THE OLD WOMAN. Oh, what do I care why you are here? Why am I here? I, who sacrificed all my inclinations to womanly virtue and propriety! DON JUAN. Patience, lady: you will be perfectly happy and at home here. As saith the poet, "Hell is a city much like Seville." THE OLD WOMAN. Happy! here! where I am nothing! where I am nobody! DON JUAN. Not at all: you are a lady; and wherever ladies are is hell. Do not be surprised or terrified: you will find everything here that a lady can desire, including devils who will serve you from sheer love of servitude, and magnify your importance for the sake of dignifying their service--the best of servants. THE OLD WOMAN. My servants will be devils! DON JUAN. Have you ever had servants who were not devils? THE OLD WOMAN. Never: they were devils, perfect devils, all of them. But that is only a manner of speaking. I thought you meant that my servants here would be real devils. DON JUAN. No more real devils than you will be a real lady. Nothing is real here. That is the horror of damnation. THE OLD WOMAN. Oh, this is all madness. This is worse than fire and the worm. DON JUAN. For you, perhaps, there are consolations. For instance: how old were you when you changed from time to eternity? THE OLD WOMAN. Do not ask me how old I was as if I were a thing of the past. I am 77. DON JUAN. A ripe age, Senora. But in hell old age is not tolerated. It is too real. Here we worship Love and Beauty. Our souls being entirely damned, we cultivate our hearts. As a lady of 77, you would not have a single acquaintance in hell. THE OLD WOMAN. How can I help my age, man? DON JUAN. You forget that you have left your age behind you in the realm of time. You are no more 77 than you are 7 or 17 or 27. THE OLD WOMAN. Nonsense! DON JUAN. Consider, Senora: was not this true even when you lived on earth? When you were 70, were you really older underneath your wrinkles and your grey hairs than when you were 30? THE OLD WOMAN. No, younger: at 30 I was a fool. But of what use is it to feel younger and look older? DON JUAN. You see, Senora, the look was only an illusion. Your wrinkles lied, just as the plump smooth skin of many a stupid girl of 17, with heavy spirits and decrepit ideas, lies about her age? Well, here we have no bodies: we see each other as bodies only because we learnt to think about one another under that aspect when we were alive; and we still think in that way, knowing no other. But we can appear to one another at what age we choose. You have but to will any of your old looks back, and back they will come. THE OLD WOMAN. It cannot be true. DON JUAN. Try. THE OLD WOMAN. Seventeen! DON JUAN. Stop. Before you decide, I had better tell you that these things are a matter of fashion. Occasionally we have a rage for 17; but it does not last long. Just at present the fashionable age is 40--or say 37; but there are signs of a change. If you were at all good-looking at 27, I should suggest your trying that, and setting a new fashion. THE OLD WOMAN. I do not believe a word you are saying. However, 27 be it. [Whisk! the old woman becomes a young one, and so handsome that in the radiance into which her dull yellow halo has suddenly lightened one might almost mistake her for Ann Whitefield]. DON JUAN. Dona Ana de Ulloa! ANA. What? You know me! DON JUAN. And you forget me! ANA. I cannot see your face. [He raises his hat]. Don Juan Tenorio! Monster! You who slew my father! even here you pursue me. DON JUAN. I protest I do not pursue you. Allow me to withdraw [going]. ANA. [seizing his arm] You shall not leave me alone in this dreadful place. DON JUAN. Provided my staying be not interpreted as pursuit. ANA. [releasing him] You may well wonder how I can endure your presence. My dear, dear father! DON JUAN. Would you like to see him? ANA. My father HERE!!! DON JUAN. No: he is in heaven. ANA. I knew it. My noble father! He is looking down on us now. What must he feel to see his daughter in this place, and in conversation with his murderer! DON JUAN. By the way, if we should meet him-- ANA. How can we meet him? He is in heaven. DON JUAN. He condescends to look in upon us here from time to time. Heaven bores him. So let me warn you that if you meet him he will be mortally offended if you speak of me as his murderer! He maintains that he was a much better swordsman than I, and that if his foot had not slipped he would have killed me. No doubt he is right: I was not a good fencer. I never dispute the point; so we are excellent friends. ANA. It is no dishonor to a soldier to be proud of his skill in arms. DON JUAN. You would rather not meet him, probably. ANA. How dare you say that? DON JUAN. Oh, that is the usual feeling here. You may remember that on earth--though of course we never confessed it--the death of anyone we knew, even those we liked best, was always mingled with a certain satisfaction at being finally done with them. ANA. Monster! Never, never. DON JUAN. [placidly] I see you recognize the feeling. Yes: a funeral was always a festivity in black, especially the funeral of a relative. At all events, family ties are rarely kept up here. Your father is quite accustomed to this: he will not expect any devotion from you. ANA. Wretch: I wore mourning for him all my life. DON JUAN. Yes: it became you. But a life of mourning is one thing: an eternity of it quite another. Besides, here you are as dead as he. Can anything be more ridiculous than one dead person mourning for another? Do not look shocked, my dear Ana; and do not be alarmed: there is plenty of humbug in hell (indeed there is hardly anything else); but the humbug of death and age and change is dropped because here WE are all dead and all eternal. You will pick up our ways soon. ANA. And will all the men call me their dear Ana? DON JUAN. No. That was a slip of the tongue. I beg your pardon. ANA. [almost tenderly] Juan: did you really love me when you behaved so disgracefully to me? DON JUAN. [impatiently] Oh, I beg you not to begin talking about love. Here they talk of nothing else but love--its beauty, its holiness, its spirituality, its devil knows what!--excuse me; but it does so bore me. They don't know what they're talking about. I do. They think they have achieved the perfection of love because they have no bodies. Sheer imaginative debauchery! Faugh! ANA. Has even death failed to refine your soul, Juan? Has the terrible judgment of which my father's statue was the minister taught you no reverence? DON JUAN. How is that very flattering statue, by the way? Does it still come to supper with naughty people and cast them into this bottomless pit? ANA. It has been a great expense to me. The boys in the monastery school