Man and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy
life-mission the advertizing and maintenance of first rate tailoring and
millinery, he looks vulgar in his finery, though in a working dress of
any kind he would look dignified enough. He is a bullet cheeked man with
a red complexion, stubbly hair, smallish eyes, a hard mouth that folds
down at the corners, and a dogged chin. The looseness of skin that comes
with age has attacked his throat and the laps of his cheeks; but he is
still hard as an apple above the mouth; so that the upper half of his
face looks younger than the lower. He has the self-confidence of one who
has made money, and something of the truculence of one who has made it
in a brutalizing struggle, his civility having under it a perceptible
menace that he has other methods in reserve if necessary. Withal, a man
to be rather pitied when he is not to be feared; for there is something
pathetic about him at times, as if the huge commercial machine which has
worked him into his frock coat had allowed him very little of his own
way and left his affections hungry and baffled. At the first word
that falls from him it is clear that he is an Irishman whose native
intonation has clung to him through many changes of place and rank. One
can only guess that the original material of his speech was perhaps the
surly Kerry brogue; but the degradation of speech that occurs in London,
Glasgow, Dublin and big cities generally has been at work on it so long
that nobody but an arrant cockney would dream of calling it a brogue
now; for its music is almost gone, though its surliness is still
perceptible. Straker, as a very obvious cockney, inspires him with
implacable contempt, as a stupid Englishman who cannot even speak his
own language properly. Straker, on the other hand, regards the old
gentleman's accent as a joke thoughtfully provided by Providence
expressly for the amusement of the British race, and treats him
normally with the indulgence due to an inferior and unlucky species, but
occasionally with indignant alarm when the old gentleman shows signs of
intending his Irish nonsense to be taken seriously.
STRAKER. I'll go tell the young lady. She said you'd prefer to stay here
[he turns to go up through the garden to the villa].
MALONE. [who has been looking round him with lively curiosity] The young
lady? That's Miss Violet, eh?
STRAKER. [stopping on the steps with sudden suspicion] Well, you know,
don't you?
MALONE. Do I?
STRAKER. [his temper rising] Well, do you or don't you?
MALONE. What business is that of yours?
Straker, now highly indignant, comes back from the steps and confronts
the visitor.
STRAKER. I'll tell you what business it is of mine. Miss Robinson--
MALONE. [interrupting] Oh, her name is Robinson, is it? Thank you.
STRAKER. Why, you don't know even her name?
MALONE. Yes I do, now that you've told me.
STRAKER. [after a moment of stupefaction at the old man's readiness in
repartee] Look here: what do you mean by gittin into my car and lettin
me bring you here if you're not the person I took that note to?
MALONE. Who else did you take it to, pray?
STRAKER. I took it to Mr Ector Malone, at Miss Robinson's request, see?
Miss Robinson is not my principal: I took it to oblige her. I know Mr
Malone; and he ain't you, not by a long chalk. At the hotel they told me
that your name is Ector Malone.
MALONE. Hector Malone.
STRAKER. [with calm superiority] Hector in your own country: that's what
comes o livin in provincial places like Ireland and America. Over here
you're Ector: if you avn't noticed it before you soon will.
The growing strain of the conversation is here relieved by Violet, who
has sallied from the villa and through the garden to the steps, which
she now descends, coming very opportunely between Malone and Straker.
VIOLET. [to Straker] Did you take my message?
STRAKER. Yes, miss. I took it to the hotel and sent it up, expecting to
see young Mr Malone. Then out walks this gent, and says it's all right
and he'll come with me. So as the hotel people said he was Mr Ector
Malone, I fetched him. And now he goes back on what he said. But if he
isn't the gentleman you meant, say the word: it's easy enough to fetch
him back again.
MALONE. I should esteem it a great favor if I might have a short
conversation with you, madam. I am Hector's father, as this bright
Britisher would have guessed in the course of another hour or so.
STRAKER. [coolly defiant] No, not in another year or so. When we've ad
you as long to polish up as we've ad im, perhaps you'll begin to look a
little bit up to is mark. At present you fall a long way short. You've
got too many aitches, for one thing. [To Violet, amiably] All right,
Miss: you want to talk to him: I shan't intrude. [He nods affably to
Malone and goes out through the little gate in the paling].
VIOLET. [very civilly] I am so sorry, Mr Malone, if that man has been
rude to you. But what can we do? He is our chauffeur.
MALONE. Your what?
VIOLET. The driver of our automobile. He can drive a motor car at
seventy miles an hour, and mend it when it breaks down. We are dependent
on our motor cars; and our motor cars are dependent on him; so of course
we are dependent on him.
MALONE. I've noticed, madam, that every thousand dollars an Englishman
gets seems to add one to the number of people he's dependent on.
However, you needn't apologize for your man: I made him talk on purpose.
By doing so I learnt that you're staying here in Grannida with a party
of English, including my son Hector.
VIOLET. [conversationally] Yes. We intended to go to Nice; but we had to
follow a rather eccentric member of our party who started first and came
here. Won't you sit down? [She clears the nearest chair of the two books
on it].
MALONE. [impressed by this attention] Thank you. [He sits down,
examining her curiously as she goes to the iron table to put down the
books. When she turns to him again, he says] Miss Robinson, I believe?
VIOLET. [sitting down] Yes.
MALONE. [Taking a letter from his pocket] Your note to Hector runs as
follows [Violet is unable to repress a start. He pauses quietly to take
out and put on his spectacles, which have gold rims]: "Dearest: they
have all gone to the Alhambra for the afternoon. I have shammed headache
and have the garden all to myself. Jump into Jack's motor: Straker will
rattle you here in a jiffy. Quick, quick, quick. Your loving Violet."
[He looks at her; but by this time she has recovered herself, and meets
his spectacles with perfect composure. He continues slowly] Now I don't
know on what terms young people associate in English society; but in
America that note would be considered to imply a very considerable
degree of affectionate intimacy between the parties.
VIOLET. Yes: I know your son very well, Mr Malone. Have you any
objection?
MALONE. [somewhat taken aback] No, no objection exactly. Provided it is
understood that my son is altogether dependent on me, and that I have to
be consulted in any important step he may propose to take.
VIOLET. I am sure you would not be unreasonable with him, Mr Malone.
MALONE. I hope not, Miss Robinson; but at your age you might think many
things unreasonable that don't seem so to me.
VIOLET. [with a little shrug] Oh well, I suppose there's no use our
playing at cross purposes, Mr Malone. Hector wants to marry me.
MALONE. I inferred from your note that he might. Well, Miss Robinson,
he is his own master; but if he marries you he shall not have a rap from
me. [He takes off his spectacles and pockets them with the note].
VIOLET. [with some severity] That is not very complimentary to me, Mr
Malone.
MALONE. I say nothing against you, Miss Robinson: I daresay you are an
amiable and excellent young lady. But I have other views for Hector.
VIOLET. Hector may not have other views for himself, Mr Malone.
MALONE. Possibly not. Then he does without me: that's all. I daresay you
are prepared for that. When a young lady writes to a young man to
come to her quick, quick, quick, money seems nothing and love seems
everything.
VIOLET. [sharply] I beg your pardon, Mr Malone: I do not think anything
so foolish. Hector must have money.
MALONE. [staggered] Oh, very well, very well. No doubt he can work for
it.
VIOLET. What is the use of having money if you have to work for it? [She
rises impatiently]. It's all nonsense, Mr Malone: you must enable your
son to keep up his position. It is his right.
MALONE. [grimly] I should not advise you to marry him on the strength of
that right, Miss Robinson.
Violet, who has almost lost her temper, controls herself with an effort;
unclenches her fingers; and resumes her seat with studied tranquillity
and reasonableness.
VIOLET. What objection have you to me, pray? My social position is as
good as Hector's, to say the least. He admits it.
MALONE. [shrewdly] You tell him so from time to time, eh? Hector's
social position in England, Miss Robinson, is just what I choose to
buy for him. I have made him a fair offer. Let him pick out the most
historic house, castle or abbey that England contains. The day that he
tells me he wants it for a wife worthy of its traditions, I buy it for
him, and give him the means of keeping it up.
VIOLET. What do you mean by a wife worthy of its traditions? Cannot any
well bred woman keep such a house for him?
MALONE. No: she must be born to it.
VIOLET. Hector was not born to it, was he?
MALONE. His granmother was a barefooted Irish girl that nursed me by a
turf fire. Let him marry another such, and I will not stint her marriage
portion. Let him raise himself socially with my money or raise somebody
else so long as there is a social profit somewhere, I'll regard my
expenditure as justified. But there must be a profit for someone. A
marriage with you would leave things just where they are.
VIOLET. Many of my relations would object very much to my marrying the
grandson of a common woman, Mr Malone. That may be prejudice; but so is
your desire to have him marry a title prejudice.
MALONE. [rising, and approaching her with a scrutiny in which there is
a good deal of reluctant respect] You seem a pretty straightforward
downright sort of a young woman.
VIOLET. I do not see why I should be made miserably poor because I
cannot make profits for you. Why do you want to make Hector unhappy?
MALONE. He will get over it all right enough. Men thrive better on
disappointments in love than on disappointments in money. I daresay you
think that sordid; but I know what I'm talking about. My father died of
starvation in Ireland in the black 47, Maybe you've heard of it.
VIOLET. The Famine?
MALONE. [with smouldering passion] No, the starvation. When a country
is full of food, and exporting it, there can be no famine. My father
was starved dead; and I was starved out to America in my mother's
arms. English rule drove me and mine out of Ireland. Well, you can keep
Ireland. I and my like are coming back to buy England; and we'll buy the
best of it. I want no middle class properties and no middle class women
for Hector. That's straightforward isn't it, like yourself?
VIOLET. [icily pitying his sentimentality] Really, Mr Malone, I am
astonished to hear a man of your age and good sense talking in that
romantic way. Do you suppose English noblemen will sell their places to
you for the asking?
MALONE. I have the refusal of two of the oldest family mansions in
England. One historic owner can't afford to keep all the rooms dusted:
the other can't afford the death duties. What do you say now?
VIOLET. Of course it is very scandalous; but surely you know that the
Government will sooner or later put a stop to all these Socialistic
attacks on property.
MALONE. [grinning] D'y' think they'll be able to get that done before I