Bernard Shaw

“ JULIA. Don't worry him now, Daddy.
CRAVEN. Well, well: I won't. (He comes to Paramore, who is pacing restlessly up and down the middle of the room.) Come, Paramore, I'm not selfish, believe me: I can feel for your disappointment. But you must face it like a man. And after all, now really, doesn't this shew that there's a lot of rot about modern science? Between ourselves, you know, it's horribly cruel: you must admit that it's a deuced nasty thing to go ripping up and crucifying camels and monkeys. It must blunt all the finer feelings sooner or later. ”

“ GRACE. I learnt it from yourself, last night and now. How I hate to be a woman when I see, by you, what wretched childish creatures we are! Those two men would cut you dead and have you turned out of the club if you were a man and had behaved in such a way before them. But because you are only a woman, they are forbearing, sympathetic, gallant—Oh, if you had a scrap of self-respect, their indulgence would make you creep all over. I understand now why Charteris has no respect for women.
JULIA. How dare you say that?
GRACE. Dare! I love him. ”

“ CHARTERIS. Ask Julia. (Paramore and Craven turn to Julia. Charteris remains doggedly looking straight before him.)
JULIA. It's quite true. He has been in love with me; he has persecuted me; and I utterly despise him.
GRAVEN. Don't rub it in, Julia: it's not kind. No man is quite himself when he's crossed in love. (To Charteris.) Now listen to me, Charteris. When I was a young fellow, Cuthbertson and I fell in love with the same woman. She preferred Cuthbertson. ”

“ GRACE (rising) . Then, if you please, I decline to be made use of for any such purpose. I will not steal you from another woman. (She begins to walk up and down the room with ominous disquiet.)
CHARTERIS. Steal me! (Comes towards her.) Grace: I have a question to put to you as an advanced woman. Mind! as an advanced woman. Does Julia belong to me? Am I her owner—her master?
GRACE. Certainly not. No woman is the property of a man. A woman belongs to herself and to nobody else.
CHARTERIS. Quite right. Ibsen for ever! That's exactly my opinion. Now tell me, do I belong to Julia ”

“ PARAMORE (fiercely) . I mean my disease—Paramore's disease—the disease I discovered—the work of my life. Look here (pointing to the B. M. J. with a ghastly expression of horror.) If this is true, it was all a mistake: there is no such disease. (Cuthbertson and Julia look at one another, hardly daring to believe the good news.)
CRAVEN (in strong remonstrance) . And you call this bad news! Now really, Paramore—
PARAMORE (cutting him short hoarsely) . It's natural for you to think only of yourself. I don't blame you: all invalids are selfish. Only a scientific man can feel what I feel now. ”

“ PARAMORE. That's not true, Miss Craven. Even if it were true of your father, and of Charteris, who loves you madly in spite of your dislike for him, it is not true of me.
JULIA (startled) . Who told you that about Charteris?
PARAMORE. Why, he himself.
JULIA (with deep, poignant conviction) . He cares for only one person in the world; and that is himself. There is not in his whole nature one unselfish spot. He would not spend one hour of his real life with— (a sob chokes her: she rises passionately, crying) You are all alike, every one of you. Even my father only makes a pet of me. ”

“ SYLVIA. Oh, the usual thing. Enough to keep any other woman from getting him.
CHARTERIS. Just so. I understand. Now listen to me: I am going to speak as a philosopher. Julia is jealous of everybody—everybody. If she saw you flirting with Paramore she'd begin to value him directly. You might play up a little, Craven, for my sake—eh?
SYLVIA (rising) . You're too awful, Leonard. For shame? However, anything to oblige a fellow Ibsenite. I'll bear your affair in mind. But I think it would be more effective if you got Grace to do it. ”

“ JULIA. Very ingenious. And pray, have I become a drunkard, or a criminal, or an imbecile?
CHARTERIS (rising) . You have become what is infinitely worse than all three together—a jealous termagant.
JULIA (shaking her head bitterly) . Yes, abuse me—call me names.
CHARTERIS. I now assert the right I reserved—the right of breaking with you when I please. Advanced views, Julia, involve advanced duties: you cannot be an advanced woman when you want to bring a man to your feet, and a conventional woman when you want to hold him there against his will. ”

“ Sylvia and I are always at him to join; but he won't.
CRAVEN. My child, I have my own club.
CHARTERIS (contemptuously) . Yes, the Junior Army and Navy! Do you call that a club? Why, they daren't let a woman cross the doorstep!
CRAVEN (a little ruffled) . Clubs are a matter of taste, Charteris. You like a cock and hen club: I don't. It's bad enough to have Julia and her sister—a girl under twenty—spending half their time at such a place. Besides, now really, such a name for a club! The Ibsen club! I should be laughed out of London. The Ibsen club! Come, Cuthbertson, back me up. ”

“ CHARTERIS. No, no, no. Congratulate him on having his life saved. Congratulate Julia on having her father spared. Swear that your discovery and your reputation are as nothing to you compared with the pleasure of restoring happiness to the household in which the best hopes of your life are centred. Confound it, man, you'll never get married if you can't turn things to account with a woman in these little ways.
PARAMORE (gravely) . Excuse me; but my self-respect is dearer to me even than Miss Craven. I cannot trifle with scientific questions for the sake of a personal advantage. ”

“ Go it, Julia!
CRAVEN. Hold your tongue, Sylvia. (He turns commandingly to Julia.) Now look here, Julia.
CHARTERIS. Hallo! A revolt of the fathers!
CRAVEN. Silence, Charteris. (To Julia, unanswerably.) The test of a man or woman's breeding is how they behave in a quarrel. Anybody can behave well when things are going smoothly. Now you said to-day, at that iniquitous club, that you were not a womanly woman. Very well: I don't mind. But if you are not going to behave like a lady when Mrs. Tranfield comes into this room, you've got to behave like a gentleman ”

“ JULIA. Leonard: have you no pity?
CHARTERIS. Not in the least. When you condescend to these antics you force me to despise you. How can a woman who behaves like a spoiled child and talks like a sentimental novel have the audacity to dream of being a companion for a man of any sort of sense or character? (She gives an inarticulate cry and throws herself sobbing on his breast.) Come, don't cry, my dear Julia: you don't look half so beautiful as when you're happy ”

“ PARAMORE. You are very kind.
GRACE. It is you who are too kind—to your patients. You sacrifice yourself. Have a little rest. Come and talk to me—tell me all about the latest scientific discoveries, and what I ought to read to keep myself up to date. But perhaps you're busy.
PARAMORE. No, not at all. Only too delighted. (They go into the recess on Ibsen's left, and sit there chatting in whispers, very confidentially.)
CHARTERIS. How they all love a doctor! They can say what they like to him! (Julia returns. He takes his feet down from the ladder and sits up.) ”

“ GRACE. I know I am right. And so we must part.
CHARTERIS. Not at all. You must marry some one else; and then I'll come and philander with you. (Sylvia comes back.)
SYLVIA (holding the door open) . Oh, I say: come along. I'm starving.
CHARTERIS. So am I. I'll lunch with you if I may.
SYLVIA. I thought you would. I've ordered soup for three. (Grace passes out. Sylvia continues, to Charteris) You can watch Paramore from our table: he's pretending to read the British Medical Journal; but he must be making up his mind for the plunge: he looks green with nervousness. ”

“ CUTHBERTSON (emphatically) . So it is, Craven, so it is.
CHARTERIS. Exactly. That's what keeps it so select: nobody but people whose reputations are above suspicion dare belong to it. If we once got a good name, we should become a mere whitewashing shop for all the shady characters in London. Better join us, Craven. Let me put you up.
CRAVEN. What! Join a club where there's some scoundrel who guaranteed my daughter to be an unwomanly woman! If I weren't an invalid, I'd kick him. ”

“ CUTHBERTSON. I decline to explain. You know as well as I do. I am going downstairs now to order lunch. I shall order it for three; but the third place is for Paramore, whom I have invited, not for you. (He goes out through the left hand door.)
CHARTERIS (putting his hand on Craven's shoulder) . Come, Craven; advise me. You've been in this sort of fix yourself probably.
CRAVEN. Charteris: no woman writes such letters to a man unless he has made advances to her.
CHARTERIS (mournfully) . How little you know the world, Colonel! The New Woman is not like that. ”

“ The nonconformist conscience is bad enough; but the scientific conscience is the very devil. (He follows Paramore and puts his arm familiarly round his shoulder, bringing him back again whilst he speaks.) Now look here, Paramore: I've got no conscience in that sense at all: I loathe it as I loathe all the snares of idealism; but I have some common humanity and common sense. (He replaces him in the easy chair and sits down opposite him.) Come: what is a really scientific theory?—a true theory, isn't it?
PARAMORE. No doubt.
CHARTERIS. For instance, you have a theory about Craven's liver, eh? ”

“ PARAMORE. I must say I prefer the elder Miss Craven to her sister.
CUTHBERTSON (his eyes lighting up) . Ah, Julia! I believe you. A splendid fine creature—every inch a woman. No Ibsenism about her!
PARAMORE. I quite agree with you there, Mr. Cuthbertson. Er—by the way, do you think is Miss Craven attached to Charteris at all?
CUTHBERTSON. What, that fellow! Not he. He hangs about after her; but he's not man enough for her. A woman of that sort likes a strong, manly, deep-throated, broad-chested man. ”

“ If you cannot behave like a gentleman, you had better go back to the society of the woman who has given you up—if such a cold-blooded, cowardly creature can be called a woman. (She rises majestically; he makes his chair fly back to the table.) I know you now, Leonard Charteris, through and through, in all your falseness, your petty spite, your cruelty and your vanity. The place you coveted has been won by a man more worthy of it.
CHARTERIS (springing up, and coming close to her, gasping with eagerness) . What do you mean? Out with it. Have you accep—
JULIA. I am engaged to Dr. Paramore. ”

“ CRAVEN. That didn't do Jo any harm: but it took away my Julia's character.
JULIA (outraged) . Daddy!
CHARTERIS. Not at the Ibsen club, quite the contrary. After all, what can we do? You know what breaks up most clubs for men and women. There's a quarrel—a scandal—cherchez la femme—always a woman at the bottom of it. Well, we knew this when we founded the club; but we noticed that the woman at the bottom of it was always a womanly woman. The unwomanly women who work for their living and know how to take care of themselves never give any trouble. ”

“ Is it at the Ibsen club that you see all this manliness and womanliness?
CHARTERIS. Certainly not: the rules of the club forbid anything of that sort. Every candidate for membership must be nominated by a man and a woman, who both guarantee that the candidate, if female, is not womanly, and if male, is not manly.
CRAVEN (chuckling cunningly and stooping to press his heated trousers against his legs, which are chilly) . Won't do, Charteris. Can't take me in with so thin a story as that.
CUTHBERTSON (vehemently) . It's true. It's monstrous, but it's true. ”

“ By the bye, what the dickens did he mean by all that about passing his life amid—what was it?—"scenes of suffering nobly endured and sacrifice willingly rendered by womanly women and manly men" and a lot more of the same sort? I suppose he's something in a hospital.
CHARTERIS. Hospital! Nonsense: he's a dramatic critic. Didn't you hear me say that he was the leading representative of manly sentiment in London?
CRAVEN. You don't say so. Now really, who'd have thought it! How jolly it must be to be able to go to the theatre for nothing! ”

“ Tranfield?
GRACE. Simply that Miss Craven is essentially a womanly woman, and, as such, not eligible for membership.
JULIA. It's false. I'm not a womanly woman. I was guaranteed when I joined just as you were.
GRACE. By Mr. Charteris, I think, at your own request. I shall call him as a witness to your thoroughly womanly conduct just now in his presence and Dr. Paramore's.
CRAVEN. Cuthbertson: are they joking; or am I dreaming?
CUTHBERTSON (grimly) . It's real, Dan: you're awake.
SYLVIA (taking Craven's left arm and hugging it affectionately) . Dear old Rip Van Winkle! ”

“ CRAVEN (pacing up and down) . I'm excessively vexed about Julia's conduct, I am indeed. She can't bear to be crossed in the slightest thing, poor child. I'll have to apologize for her you know: her going away is a downright slap in the face for these people here. Cuthbertson may be offended already for all I know.
CHARTERIS. Oh never mind about him. Mrs. Tranfield bosses this establishment.
CRAVEN (cunningly) . Ah, that's it, is it? He's just the sort of fellow that would have no control over his daughter. (He goes back to his former place on the hearthrug with his back to the fire.) ”