Elizabeth Bibesco

“ Ann: Something obvious and all-embracing.
Philip: So you’ve reached the obvious, have you?
Ann: I have always believed in the obvious.
Philip: What would you call an obvious and all-embracing thing to say?
Ann: I love you.
Philip: Why do women always want to be told that one loves them? They must know whether it is true or not.
Ann: There may be truths that are better left unsaid, but there are no nice truths that are not the better for being repeated.
Philip: Do you call love a nice truth?
Ann: A respectable truth. ”

“ Are the women you take seriously serious women?
Lord William: Selina, you are my daughter, and in every sense of the word, my creation. I have told you before now that your cousin Ann is the only serious woman in the world. I am for the moment using the term woman as a form of praise. There are, of course, many serious persons of the female sex.
Tim: I don’t call Ann serious. She bubbles over with gaiety.
Mrs. Martineau: But she takes things seriously.
Selina: She is good.
[20]
Molyneux: She is unique. A woman we all adore, who can be described as good.
Selina: Do you adore Ann, Mr. Jordan? ”

“ Lady Emily: Ann, how silent you are.
Ann: I was always the most silent of the Cathcarts, but even that is enough to get me the reputation of a chatterbox outside the family circle.
Ninian: Uncle William, I am very glad you should be here, as I am thinking of starting a league for combating budding Bolshevism in this country. Your active help would be invaluable to me.
Lord William: Molly and I are too old to see red.
Molyneux: And being autocrats ourselves we approve of Lenin.
Lord William: I suppose you feel bound to fight the only people who hate liberty more than you do. ”

“ Ann: It is a devastating topic. Everyone always gets cross and silly.
Selina: And they go on overstating their cases until it becomes an auction of folly.
Lady Emily: It is extraordinary how exacerbating subjects of world importance can be. After an hour of Ninian, I find myself getting frenzied about Smyrna.
Ann: Pro-Turk or pro-Greek?
Lady Emily: I forget which. It depends on the other person.
Selina: Yes. When we are with the vicar, who calls the Turks infidels, we are pro-Turk; and when we are with Ninian, who calls the Turks gentlemen, we are pro-Greek. ”

“ Lord William: I believe that one can fall off.
Selina: Mr. Jordan, do you think that this is the right atmosphere in which to bring up a young girl?
Mrs. Martineau: We shall drive you to romance.
Selina: And then what will become of me?
Lord William: You will return to us, my dear.
Selina: I can’t think why Ann has you in the house.
Lord William: I am her uncle. She believes that Molly has a heart of gold. Mrs. Martineau played with her in the nursery. Tim is a saint, and Jordan, as he told you, takes some women and some things seriously. Ann is the woman and she selects the things. ”

“ Martineau: Where is Ann?
Lord William: I don’t know.
Molyneux: We should see more of Ann if we could appear to her as a duty. Unfortunately, we are undoubtedly a pleasure.
Selina: You might make a bid as sinners in need of reform.
Tim: But that is just what is so wonderful about Ann. She never wants anyone to be better—only happier.
Lord William: Ann is my niece. She is, of course, a saint, but she is not a fool. No Cathcart is a fool. ”

“ Selina: Blue serge and black velvet are safest in all things.
Mrs. Martineau: There isn’t much blue serge and black velvet about you, Selina.
Selina: No. I’m always in the worst of taste.
Mrs. Martineau: We all dress for women, really.
Selina: To annoy women, you mean?
Lady Emily: With some people all admiration is a form of envy, and all pleasure is a compound of pleasing and annoying your friends.
Selina: How moral you are this evening, Aunt Emily.
Lady Emily: Not moral, my dear, moralizing—it’s not the same thing.
Selina: No, indeed. Look at Ann. She never gives us advice. ”

“ Molyneux: My dear child, you should remember that Mrs. Martineau always believes the worst on principle.
Ann: But I can prove to her that it’s true, that he wasn’t drunk or—with someone like that.
Ninian: Don’t be absurd. By the worst, Molyneux means your assertion that Jordan was your lover. If that story got about, someone who didn’t know you might believe it.
Ann (quite calmly) : It’s true.
Lord William: It is delightful to know anyone as innocent as you are, Ann. To sit there deliberately and tell us a fifth-rate politician is your lover! ”

“ Ann: Of course you are refreshing. It is only that I am showing absolute self-interest. I don’t want even the film of a headache to come between us after dinner.
Lady Emily: Molly can never believe that a woman is resting. He remembers that in his youth it invariably meant that she was with someone else.
Molyneux: I have always felt that instead of saying strong as an ox, one should say strong as a woman.
Selina: You haven’t read your Shakespeare. “Frailty, thy name is woman.”
Molyneux: That had a moral, not a physical, significance, my dear. I am not speaking of robust virtue. ”

“ You watch Uncle Bill if somebody makes a pun—he glows—not because he very much likes puns, but because they make him feel young. It must be so sad to see the world drifting away out of your ken into a strange new century full of distorted angles and alien values.
Philip (violently) : I don’t understand you, any of you—your uncle or your aunt or Selina.
Ann (interrupting) : Selina is just very young and uncompromising—a ruthless, fastidious realist. At least she thinks she is a realist, because she can face things, but it is so easy to face things before one has ever been hurt. ”

“ Ann: I am afraid that what I said the other night distressed you.
Ninian: That tommy-rot about Jordan?
Ann: Yes.
Ninian: Hysteria, that’s what it was.
Ann: Yes.
Ninian: You cold women aren’t quite normal. No natural outlets, so you go and invent things.
Ann: It was just a silly joke.
Ninian (putting his arm around her) : After all, you didn’t need to invent a lover.
Ann (shuddering) : Don’t!
Ninian: I see what a fool I’ve been to let my little prude be a little prude.
Ann: You mustn’t....
Ninian: Turn your face around.
Ann: No.
Ninian: Those days are over, my darling. ”

“ Lady Emily: It has played the same part in my life that it plays in other people’s. It has been the refuge of unwelcome guests.
Lord William (calling) : Ann. Ann! There is something the matter with Emily to-night. She has become a moralist. Everyone is very odd. Selina is silent, Tim is restless, Ninian is absent-minded, and Mrs. Martineau is sunny. Why the devil should they run away from themselves like that? By the way, Ann, what are you?
Ann (smiling) : I am happy.
Molyneux: Tell us, Ann, is virtue really its own reward? We should so like to know. We need cheering up. ”

“ Selina: A saint who works miracles.
Mrs. Martineau: A siren, in fact.
Lord William: You should always remember, Selina, that virtue has its charms.
Molyneux: Which will be a strain, my poor child, as you will seldom be reminded of it.
Tim: Except when you are staying with Ann.
Selina: I am afraid that, however virtuous I may become, I shall never be as charming as Ann.
Mrs. Martineau (acidly) : Not in Tim’s eyes.
Lord William: Let me beg you, my dear, not to regard Tim as representative of his sex. He is a knight errant. He puts women on a pedestal. ”

“ Ninian gets up and drags Ann to the sofa, pushing her on to her knees and imprisoning her between his two legs. With one hand he is holding her two wrists behind her back, with the other he is stroking her hair.
Ninian: They didn’t know how to treat you, did they? Tim and the others? Only Jordan knew. Women always capitulate to the men who think lightly of love.
Ann: Ninian, you’re hurting me.
Ninian: I’m asserting myself, my dear. Master and Mistress—that’s what a household needs. ”

“ Ann makes a gesture.
If you want to have children, marry. If you want to love you will have to pay the bill, but see that it is a cash transaction. I meet you—a good woman, a beautiful woman, a charming woman. I am attracted to you as hundreds of men have been before me. ”

“ Selina: Papa, I think you’re very vulgar.
Tim: Ann is so radiantly uncensoriously good.
Molyneux: Ann is a damned good-looking woman.
Lord William: But she does lead a silly life. I did think that once the war was over and she had stopped nursing cholera in Siberia we should be all right. But what has peace brought us? Why, the house is positively infested with Mayors and clergymen and cranks and old maids, and when she’s tired of talking to her Socialist friends, she thinks of Ninian, plasters on the family jewels, resumes the rôle of the Lord Lieutenant’s wife and entertains the county. ”

“ Martineau: I only meant that Ann is not exactly a Bohemian. All her meals are in the dining-room. There are no trays in her life.
Tim: That is Ninian.
Mrs. Martineau: Well, she is responsible for him, isn’t she? Husbands aren’t gifts from God like one’s relations.
Molyneux: A husband is every woman’s first big mistake.
Mrs. Martineau: Which is the next?
Molyneux: Her second lover.
Mrs. Martineau: How subtle you are.
Lord William: A woman’s first lover is usually a slight caricature of her husband. People don’t escape from one thing to another, but from one thing to the same thing. ”

“ Now, for a change, you and I are going to be fellow conspirators.
Ann (frightened) : What do you mean?
Ninian: I’m a simple man; I don’t go in for psychology. I can’t talk. I don’t want to. It is a curtain between you and life. Your uncle, your aunt, Molyneux, Selina, they make patterns over everything, but it doesn’t change the underneath.
[87]
Ann: They only pretend.
Ninian: They think they pretend, but they get caught themselves. They thought it would be amusing to have a saint in the family. You were the only possible candidate. In fact, I agree that you fitted admirably into the rôle. ”

“ Jordan who is coming, Thompson?
Thompson: I believe him to be in the Cabinet, m’lord.
Selina: Aren’t you sure?
Thompson: Well, in a manner of speaking, yes, Miss Selina.
Selina: Why do you always say you believe when you know, Thompson?
Thompson: My father always said to me, miss, a good servant should never presume to be sure. He should avoid conveying information as if he were instructing his betters.
[12]
Lord William: A wise man, your father, Thompson—if only people could get it into their heads that each time they are right somebody loves them less. How is her ladyship? ”

“ Lord William: Ninian is one of those men who believe implicitly in their own all-conquering charm and, consequently, in the absence of temperament of every woman who resists them. They never consider the possibility of anyone who is not passionately in love with them being passionately in love with anyone else.
Tim: Well, no one suspects Ann of being in love with Jordan. ”

“ Martineau: I suggest a woman.
Lady Emily: What sort of woman shall we have—a poor victim, or a common vampire?
Selina: Let us have both—the one to prove him a villain, and the other a fool.
Molyneux: Why are you so vindictive?
Selina: Because I was so much bored. “I am brave enough to admit, Miss Selina, that I take some things seriously.”
Ninian: The best thing about him.
[68]
Mrs. Martineau: But even with all the details that we have supplied, I don’t see how he lost his reputation as a politician.
Lady Emily: It is probably only a temporary eclipse. No one’s political career is ever over. ”

“ Ninian too is like other people.
[47]
Ann: Yes—once one has given one’s heart all other gifts are so small. That is where it seems to me that the moralists go wrong—they seem to think the body so much more important than the heart or the soul.
Philip: Moralists aren’t occupied with the heart or the soul. They are interested in the structure of society.
Ann: Then why don’t they become county councillors or politicians? ”

“ Lord William: Tim is a little more discriminating in his charity than you are.
Selina: Where is Ninian?
Ann: At his anti-Bolshevist Committee Meeting.
Lord William: Is that bud bursting into flower?
Ann: It keeps a lot of violent-minded people busy. If “minded” be the word.
Selina: I had a letter from Mrs. Sidebotham—Sidebotham ... this morning. She wants me to organize an entertainment in the village. I am afraid that Papa’s vulgar jokes wouldn’t do for that.
Ann: Nor would Red Pottage.
Selina: “I’m a red rag to the Reds, so we’re all of us red together.” ”

“ Selina: I beg your pardon. He only felt free to insult the immortal.
Ninian: We are all of us immortal.
Molyneux: But the fact is only known about some of us.
Mrs. Martineau (to Tim. They are on stool D. S. C. and she speaks in an undertone that is not heard by the rest of the party) : What is the matter with Ann?
Tim: Is anything the matter?
Mrs. Martineau: She’s been so moody lately.
Tim: She overworks.
Mrs. Martineau: Every time I see Ninian I realize that marriage to him was the only adequate punishment for marrying him.
Tim: He is very good-looking.
Mrs. Martineau: Why did Ann do it? ”

“ Ninian: I don’t understand. Education is at the bottom of all the mischief; teaches the people discontent and damned little else. What does a working-man need to know except how to do an honest day’s work and watch his cricket or his football on a Saturday? ”

“ Lord William: But we agreed that it was a mistake to waste malice on the dead.
Ann (with a muffled cry) : The dead?
Lord William: His reputation has come to an untimely end. He is, however, I believe, in excellent health.
[67]
Lady Emily: What did his reputation die of?
Lord William: Guess.
Molyneux: I suggest drink.
Ninian: He was never quite a gentleman.
Selina: Do gentlemen always have strong heads?
Molyneux: They sometimes have a good wine.
Mrs. Martineau: Was that it? Do tell us about it. Did he get very drunk?
Selina: As Ninian would say, he couldn’t carry his liquor like a gentleman. ”