Man and Superman: A Comedy and a PhilosophyShaw, Bernard
Philosophy
Man and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy
Shaw, Bernard
English drama; Man-woman relationships -- Drama
MENDOZA. [to Violet] Do YOU remember me, madam?
VIOLET. Oh, quite well; but I am so stupid about names.
MENDOZA. It was at the Savoy Hotel. [To Hector] You, sir, used to come
with this lady [Violet] to lunch. [To Octavius] You, sir, often brought
this lady [Ann] and her mother to dinner on your way to the Lyceum
Theatre. [To Ramsden] You, sir, used to come to supper, with [dropping
his voice to a confidential but perfectly audible whisper] several
different ladies.
RAMSDEN. [angrily] Well, what is that to you, pray?
OCTAVIUS. Why, Violet, I thought you hardly knew one another before this
trip, you and Malone!
VIOLET. [vexed] I suppose this person was the manager.
MENDOZA. The waiter, madam. I have a grateful recollection of you all.
I gathered from the bountiful way in which you treated me that you all
enjoyed your visits very much.
VIOLET. What impertinence! [She turns her back on him, and goes up the
hill with Hector].
RAMSDEN. That will do, my friend. You do not expect these ladies to
treat you as an acquaintance, I suppose, because you have waited on them
at table.
MENDOZA. Pardon me: it was you who claimed my acquaintance. The ladies
followed your example. However, this display of the unfortunate manners
of your class closes the incident. For the future, you will please
address me with the respect due to a stranger and fellow traveller. [He
turns haughtily away and resumes his presidential seat].
TANNER. There! I have found one man on my journey capable of reasonable
conversation; and you all instinctively insult him. Even the New Man
is as bad as any of you. Enry: you have behaved just like a miserable
gentleman.
STRAKER. Gentleman! Not me.
RAMSDEN. Really, Tanner, this tone--
ANN. Don't mind him, Granny: you ought to know him by this time [she
takes his arm and coaxes him away to the hill to join Violet and Hector.
Octavius follows her, doglike].
VIOLET. [calling from the hill] Here are the soldiers. They are getting
out of their motors.
DUVAL. [panicstricken] Oh, nom de Dieu!
THE ANARCHIST. Fools: the State is about to crush you because you spared
it at the prompting of the political hangers-on of the bourgeoisie.
THE SULKY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT. [argumentative to the last] On the contrary,
only by capturing the State machine--
THE ANARCHIST. It is going to capture you.
THE ROWDY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT. [his anguish culminating] Ow, chock it. Wot
are we ere for? WOT are we wytin for?
MENDOZA. [between his teeth] Goon. Talk politics, you idiots: nothing
sounds more respectable. Keep it up, I tell you.
The soldiers line the road, commanding the amphitheatre with their
rifles. The brigands, struggling with an over-whelming impulse to hide
behind one another, look as unconcerned as they can. Mendoza rises
superbly, with undaunted front. The officer in command steps down from
the road in to the amphitheatre; looks hard at the brigands; and then
inquiringly at Tanner.
THE OFFICER. Who are these men, Senor Ingles?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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