The Millionairess/Act II
Documents libres.
| Act I | The Millionairess ~ Act II written by George Bernard Shaw | Act III |
A dismal old coffee room in an ancient riverside inn. An immense
and hideous sideboard of the murkiest mahogany stretches across the
end wall. Above it hang, picturewise, two signboards, nearly black
with age: one shewing the arms of the lord of the manor, and the
other a sow standing upright and playing a flageolet. Underneath
the sow is inscribed in tall letters THE PIG & WHISTLE. Between
these works of art is a glass case containing an enormous stuffed
fish, certainly not less than a century old.
At right angles to the sideboard, and extending nearly the whole length of the room, are two separate long tables, laid for lunch for about a dozen people each. The chairs, too close together, are plain wooden ones, hard and uncomfortable. The cutlery is cheap kitchen ware, with rickety silver cruets and salt cellars to keep up appearances. The table cloths are coarse, and are not fresh from the laundry.
The walls are covered with an ugly Victorian paper which may have begun as a design of dull purple wreaths on a dark yellow background, but is now a flyblown muck of no describable color. On the floor a coarse drugget, very old. The door, which stands wide open and has COFFEE ROOM inscribed on it, is to the right of anyone contemplating the sideboard from the opposite end of the room. Next the door an old fashioned hatstand flattens itself against the wall; and on it hang the hat and light overcoat of Mr Adrian Blenderbland.
He, with Epifania, is seated at the end of the table farthest from the door. They have just finished a meal. The cheese and biscuits are still on the table. She looks interested and happy. He is in the worst of tempers.
EPIFANIA. How jolly!
ADRIAN [looking round disparagingly] I must be a very attractive man.
EPIFANIA [opening her eyes wide] Indeed! Not that I am denying it; but what has it to do with what I have just said?
ADRIAN. You said 'How jolly!' I look round at this rotten old inn trying to pretend that it's a riverside hotel. We have just had a horrible meal of tomato tea called soup, the remains of Sunday's joint, sprouts, potatoes, apple tart and stale American synthetic cheese. If you can suffer this and say 'How jolly!' there must be some irresistible attraction present; and I can see nothing that is not utterly repulsive except myself.
EPIFANIA. Dont you like these dear old-world places? I do.
ADRIAN. I dont. They ought all to be rooted up, pulled down, burnt to the ground. Your flat on the Embankment in London cost more to furnish than this place did to build from the cellar to the roof. You can get a decent lunch there, perfectly served, by a word through the telephone. Your luxurious car will whisk you out to one of a dozen first rate hotels in lovely scenery. And yet you choose this filthy old inn and say 'How jolly!' What is the use of being a millionairess on such terms?
EPIFANIA. Psha! When I was first let loose on the world with unlimited money, how long do you think it took me to get tired of shopping and sick of the luxuries you think so much of? About a fortnight. My father, when he had a hundred millions, travelled third class and never spent more than ten shillings a day on himself except when he was entertaining people who were useful to him. Why should he? He couldnt eat more than anyone else. He couldnt drink more than anyone else. He couldnt wear more than anyone else. Neither can I.
ADRIAN. Then why do you love money and hate spending it?
EPIFANIA. Because money is power. Money is security. Money is freedom. It's the difference between living on the slope of a volcano and being safe in the garden of the Hesperides. And there is the continual pleasure of making more of it, which is quite easy if you have plenty to start with. I can turn a million into two million much more easily than a poor woman can turn five pounds into ten, even if she could get the five pounds to begin with. It turns itself, in fact.
ADRIAN. To me money is a vulgar bore and a soul destroying worry. I need it, of course; but I dont like it. I never think of it when I can possibly help it.
EPIFANIA. If you dont think about money what do you think about? Women?
ADRIAN. Yes, of course; but not exclusively.
EPIFANIA. Food?
ADRIAN. Well, I am not always thinking about my food; but I am rather particular about it. I confess I looked forward to a better lunch than [indicating the table] that.
EPIFANIA. Oho! So that is what has put you out of temper, is it?
ADRIAN [annoyed] I am not out of temper, I hope. But you promised me a very special treat. You said you had found out the most wonderful place on the river, where we could be ourselves and have a delicious cottage meal in primitive happiness. Where is the charm of this dismal hole? Have you ever eaten a viler lunch? There is not even a private sitting room: anybody can walk in here at any moment. We should have been much more comfortable at Richmond or Maidenhead. And I believe it is raining.
EPIFANIA. Is that my fault?
ADRIAN. It completes your notion of a happy day up the river. Why is it that the people who know how to enjoy themselves never have any money, and the people who have money never know how to enjoy themselves?
EPIFANIA. You are not making yourself agreeable, Adrian.
ADRIAN. You are not entertaining me very munificently, Epifania. For heaven's sake let us get into the car and drive about the country. It is much more luxurious than this hideous coffee room, and more private.
EPIFANIA. I am tired of my car.
ADRIAN. I am not. I wish I could afford one like it.
EPIFANIA. I thought you would enjoy sitting in this crazy out-of- way place talking to me. But I find you are a spoilt old bachelor: you care about nothing but your food and your little comforts. You are worse than Alastair; for he at least could talk about boxing and tennis.
ADRIAN. And you can talk about nothing but money.
EPIFANIA. And you think money uninteresting! Oh, you should have known my father!
ADRIAN. I am very glad I did not.
EPIFANIA [suddenly dangerous] Whats that you say?
ADRIAN. My dear Epifania, if we are to remain friends, I may as well be quite frank with you. Everything you have told me about your father convinces me that though he was no doubt an affectionate parent and amiable enough to explain your rather tiresome father fixation, as Dr Freud would call it, he must have been quite the most appalling bore that ever devastated even a Rotary club.
EPIFANIA [stunned for a moment by this blasphemy] My father! You infinite nothingness! My father made a hundred and fifty millions. You never made even half a million.
ADRIAN. My good girl, your father never made anything. I have not the slightest notion of how he contrived to get a legal claim on so much of what other people made; but I do know that he lost four fifths of it by being far enough behind the times to buy up the properties of the Russian nobility in the belief that England would squash the Soviet revolution in three weeks or so. Could anyone have made a stupider mistake? Not I.
EPIFANIA [springing up] You rotten thing. [He rises apprehensively]. Take that for calling my father a bore. [She throws him].
ADRIAN [picking himself up painfully] Oh! Restrain yourself. You might have hurt me very seriously.
EPIFANIA. I will hurt you until you wish yourself dead. Scum! Filth! Take that for saying he never made anything. [She throws him again].
ADRIAN. Help! Help! There is a madwoman here: I shall not be able to hold her single handed. Help! [He comes behind her and seizes her round the waist].
EPIFANIA. Vermin! [She throws him over her shoulder].
ADRIAN. Police! She is murdering me. She is mad. Help! help! [He scrambles up and is flying to the door when she overtakes him].
EPIFANIA. Dirt! Carrion! [She throws him out head over heels and flings his hat and overcoat after him].
ADRIAN [outside, rolling downstairs with appalling bumps] Oh! Oh! Help! Murder! Police! Oh! [He faints. Silence].
EPIFANIA. You brute! You have killed me. [She totters to the nearest chair and sinks into it, scattering the crockery as she clutches the table with her outstretched arms and sprawls on it in convulsions].
A serious looking middleaged Egyptian gentleman in an old black frock coat and a tarboosh, speaking English too well to be mistaken for a native, hurries in.
THE EGYPTIAN [peremptorily] Whats the matter? What is going on here?
EPIFANIA [raising her head slowly and gazing at him] Who the devil are you?
THE EGYPTIAN. I am an Egyptian doctor. I hear a great disturbance. I hasten to ascertain the cause. I find you here in convulsions. Can I help?
EPIFANIA. I am dying.
THE DOCTOR. Nonsense! You can swear. The fit has subsided. You can sit up now: you are quite well. Good afternoon.
EPIFANIA. Stop. I am not quite well: I am on the point of death. I need a doctor. I am a rich woman.
THE DOCTOR. In that case you will have no difficulty in finding an English doctor. Is there anyone else who needs my help? I was upstairs. The noise was of somebody falling downstairs. He may have broken some bones. [He goes out promptly].
EPIFANIA [struggling to her feet and calling after him] Never mind him: if he had broken every bone in his body it is no more than he deserves. Come back instantly. I want you. Come back. Come back.
THE DOCTOR [returning] The landlord is taking the gentleman to the Cottage Hospital in your car.
EPIFANIA. In my car! I will not permit it. Let them get an ambulance.
THE DOCTOR. The car has gone. You should be very glad that it is being so useful.
EPIFANIA. It is your business to doctor me, not to lecture me.
THE DOCTOR. I am not your doctor: I am not in general practice. I keep a clinic for penniless Mahometan refugees; and I work in the hospital. I cannot attend to you.
EPIFANIA. You can attend to me. You must attend to me. Are you going to leave me here to die?
THE DOCTOR. You are not dying. Not yet, at least. Your own doctor will attend to you.
EPIFANIA. You are my own doctor. I tell you I am a rich woman: doctors' fees are nothing to me: charge me what you please. But you must and shall attend to me. You are abominably rude; but you inspire confidence as a doctor.
THE DOCTOR. If I attended all those in whom I inspire confidence I should be worn out in a week. I have to reserve myself for poor and useful people.
EPIFANIA. Then you are either a fool or a Bolshevik.
THE DOCTOR. I am nothing but a servant of Allah.
EPIFANIA. You are not: you are my doctor: do you hear? I am a sick woman: you cannot abandon me to die in this wretched place.
THE DOCTOR. I see no symptoms of any sickness about you. Are you in pain?
EPIFANIA. Yes. Horrible pain.
THE DOCTOR. Where?
EPIFANIA. Dont cross-examine me as if you didnt believe me. I must have sprained my wrist throwing that beast all over the place.
THE DOCTOR. Which hand?
EPIFANIA [presenting a hand] This.
THE DOCTOR [taking her hand in a businesslike way, and pulling and turning the fingers and wrist] Nothing whatever the matter.
EPIFANIA. How do you know? It's my hand, not yours.
THE DOCTOR. You would scream the house down if your wrist were sprained. You are shamming. Lying. Why? Is it to make yourself interesting?
EPIFANIA. Make myself interesting! Man: I am interesting.
THE DOCTOR. Not in the least, medically. Are you interesting in any other way?
EPIFANIA. I am the most interesting woman in England. I am Epifania Ognisanti di Parerga.
THE DOCTOR. Never heard of her. Italian aristocrat, I presume.
EPIFANIA. Aristocrat! Do you take me for a fool? My ancestors were moneylenders to all Europe five hundred years ago: we are now bankers to all the world.
THE DOCTOR. Jewess, eh?
EPIFANIA. Christian, to the last drop of my blood. Jews throw half their money away on charities and fancies like Zionism. The stupidest di Parerga can just walk round the cleverest Jew when it comes to moneymaking. We are the only real aristocracy in the world: the aristocracy of money.
THE DOCTOR. The plutocracy, in fact.
EPIFANIA. If you like. I am a plutocrat of the plutocrats.
THE DOCTOR. Well, that is a disease for which I do not prescribe. The only known cure is a revolution; but the mortality rate is high; and sometimes, if it is the wrong sort of revolution, it intensifies the disease. I can do nothing for you. I must go back to my work. Good morning.
EPIFANIA [holding him] But this is your work. What else have you to do?
THE DOCTOR. There is a good deal to be done in the world besides attending rich imaginary invalids.
EPIFANIA. But if you are well paid?
THE DOCTOR. I make the little money I need by work which I venture to think more important.
EPIFANIA [throwing him away and moving about distractedly] You are a pig and a beast and a Bolshevik. It is the most abominable thing of you to leave me here in my distress. My car is gone. I have no money. I never carry money about.
THE DOCTOR. I have none to carry. Your car will return presently. You can borrow money from your chauffeur.
EPIFANIA. You are an unmitigated hippopotamus. You are a Bashibazouk. I might have known it from your ridiculous tarboosh. You should take it off in my presence. [She snatches it from his head and holds it behind her back]. At least have the manners to stay with me until my chauffeur comes back.
The motor horn is heard honking.
THE DOCTOR. He has come back.
EPIFANIA. Damn! Cant you wait until he has had his tea and a cigarette?
THE DOCTOR. No. Be good enough to give me back my fez.
EPIFANIA. I wanted to see what you looked like without it. [She puts it tenderly on his head]. Listen to me. You are having an adventure. Have you no romance in you? Havent you even common curiosity? Dont you want to know why I threw that beast downstairs? Dont you want to throw your wretched work to the devil for once and have an afternoon on the river with an interesting and attractive woman?
THE DOCTOR. Women are neither interesting nor attractive to me except when they are ill. I know too much about them, inside and out. You are perfectly well.
EPIFANIA. Liar. Nobody is perfectly well, nor ever has been, nor ever will be. [She sits down, sulking].
THE DOCTOR. That is true. You must have brains of a sort. [He sits down opposite to her]. I remember when I began as a young surgeon I killed several patients by my operations because I had been taught that I must go on cutting until there was nothing left but perfectly healthy tissue. As there is no such thing as perfectly healthy tissue I should have cut my patients entirely away if the nurse had not stopped me before they died on the table. They died after they left the hospital; but as they were carried away from the table alive I was able to claim a successful operation. Are you married?
EPIFANIA. Yes. But you need not be afraid. My husband is openly unfaithful to me and cannot take you into court if you make love to me. I can divorce him if necessary.
THE DOCTOR. And the man you threw downstairs: who was he? One does not throw one's husband downstairs. Did he make love to you?
EPIFANIA. No. He insulted my father's memory because he was disappointed with his lunch here. When I think of my father all ordinary men seem to me the merest trash. You are not an ordinary man. I should like to see some more of you. Now that you have asked me confidential questions about my family, and I have answered them, you can no longer pretend that you are not my family doctor. So that is settled.
THE DOCTOR. A father fixation, did you say?
EPIFANIA [nods]!
THE DOCTOR. And an excess of money?
EPIFANIA. Only a beggarly thirty millions.
THE DOCTOR. A psychological curiosity. I will consider it.
EPIFANIA. Consider it! You will feel honored, gratified, delighted.
THE DOCTOR. I see. Enormous self-confidence. Reckless audacity. Insane egotism. Apparently sexless.
EPIFANIA. Sexless! Who told you that I am sexless?
THE DOCTOR. You talk to me as if you were a man. There is no mystery, no separateness, no sacredness about men to you. A man to you is only a male of your species.
EPIFANIA. My species indeed! Men are a different and very inferior species. Five minutes conversation with my husband will convince you that he and I do not belong to the same species. But there are some great men, like my father. And there are some good doctors, like you.
THE DOCTOR. Thank you. What does your regular doctor say about you?
EPIFANIA. I have no regular doctor. If I had I should have an operation a week until there was nothing left of me or of my bank balance. I shall not expect you to maul me about with a stethoscope, if that is what you are afraid of. I have the lungs of a whale and the digestion of an ostrich. I have a clockwork inside. I sleep eight hours like a log. When I want anything I lose my head so completely about it that I always get it.
THE DOCTOR. What things do you want mostly?
EPIFANIA. Everything. Anything. Like a lightning flash. And then there is no stopping me.
THE DOCTOR. Everything and anything is nothing.
EPIFANIA. Five minutes ago I wanted you. Now I have got you.
THE DOCTOR. Come! You cannot bluff a doctor. You may want the sun and the moon and the stars; but you cannot get them.
EPIFANIA. That is why I take good care not to want them. I want only what I can get.
THE DOCTOR. Good. A practical intellect. And what do you want at present, for instance?
EPIFANIA. That is the devil of it. There is nothing one can get except more money.
THE DOCTOR. What about more men?
EPIFANIA. More Alastairs! More Blenderblands! Those are not deep wants. At present I want a motor launch.
THE DOCTOR. There is no such thing in this little place.
EPIFANIA. Tell the landlord to stop the first one that comes along and buy it.
THE DOCTOR. Tcha! People will not sell their boats like that.
EPIFANIA. Have you ever tried?
THE DOCTOR. No.
EPIFANIA. I have. When I need a car or a motor boat or a launch or anything like that I buy straight off the road or off the river or out of the harbor. These things cost thousands when they are new; but next day you cannot get fifty pounds for them. Offer £300 for any of them, and the owner dare not refuse: he knows he will never get such an offer again.
THE DOCTOR. Aha! You are a psychologist. This is very interesting.
EPIFANIA. Nonsense! I know how to buy and sell, if that is what you mean.
THE DOCTOR. That is how good psychologists make money.
EPIFANIA. Have you made any?
THE DOCTOR. No. I do not care for money: I care for knowledge.
EPIFANIA. Knowledge is no use without money. Are you married?
THE DOCTOR. I am married to Science. One wife is enough for me, though by my religion I am allowed four.
EPIFANIA. Four! What do you mean?
THE DOCTOR. I am what you call a Mahometan.
EPIFANIA. Well, you will have to be content with two wives if you marry me.
THE DOCTOR. Oh! Is there any question of that between us?
EPIFANIA. Yes. I want to marry you.
THE DOCTOR. Nothing doing, lady. Science is my bride.
EPIFANIA. You can have Science as well: I shall not be jealous of her. But I made a solemn promise to my father on his deathbed--
THE DOCTOR [interrupting] Stop. I had better tell you that I made a solemn promise to my mother on her deathbed.
EPIFANIA. What!!!
THE DOCTOR. My mother was a very wise woman. She made me swear to her that if any woman wanted to marry me, and I felt tempted, I would hand the woman two hundred piastres and tell her that unless she would go out into the world with nothing but that and the clothes she stood in, and earn her living alone and unaided for six months, I would never speak to her again.
EPIFANIA. And if she stood the test?
THE DOCTOR. Then I must marry her even if she were the ugliest devil on earth.
EPIFANIA. And you dare ask me--me, Epifania Ognisanti di Parerga! to submit myself to this test--to any test!
THE DOCTOR. I swore. I have a mother fixation. Allah willed it so. I cannot help myself.
EPIFANIA. What was your mother?
THE DOCTOR. A washerwoman. A widow. She brought up eleven children. I was the youngest, the Benjamin. The other ten are honest working folk. With their help she made me a man of learning. It was her ambition to have a son who could read and write. She prayed to Allah; and he endowed me with the necessary talent.
EPIFANIA. And you think I will allow myself to be beaten by an old washerwoman?
THE DOCTOR. I am afraid so. You could never pass the test.
EPIFANIA. Indeed! And my father's test for a husband worthy of me?
THE DOCTOR. Oh! The husband is to be tested too! That never occurred to me.
EPIFANIA. Nor to your mother either, it seems. Well, you know better now. I am to give you a hundred and fifty pounds. In six months you are to increase it to fifty thousand. How is that for a test?
THE DOCTOR. Quite conclusive. At the end of the six months I shall not have a penny of it left, praise be to Allah.
EPIFANIA. You confess yourself beaten?
THE DOCTOR. Absolutely. Completely.
EPIFANIA. And you think I am beaten too.
THE DOCTOR. Hopelessly. You do not know what homeless poverty is; and Allah the Compassionate will take care that you never do.
EPIFANIA. How much is two hundred piastres?
THE DOCTOR. At the rate of exchange contemplated by my mother, about thirtyfive shillings.
EPIFANIA. Hand it over.
THE DOCTOR. Unfortunately my mother forgot to provide for this contingency. I have not got thirtyfive shillings. I must borrow them from you.
EPIFANIA. I have not a penny on me. No matter: I will borrow it from the chauffeur. He will lend you a hundred and fifty pounds on my account if you dare ask him. Goodbye for six months. [She goes out].
THE DOCTOR. There is no might and no majesty save in Thee, O Allah; but oh! most Great and Glorious, is this another of Thy terrible jokes?
