George Bernard Shaw

“ RAINA (over her shoulder, from the top of the two steps) . Oh, poor father! As if he could help himself! (She turns the corner and passes out of sight.)
CATHERINE (looking after her, her fingers itching) . Oh, if you were only ten years younger! (Louka comes from the house with a salver, which she carries hanging down by her side.) Well?
LOUKA. There's a gentleman just called, madam—a Servian officer—
CATHERINE (flaming) . A Servian! How dare he— (Checking herself bitterly.) Oh, I forgot. We are at peace now. I suppose we shall have them calling every day to pay their compliments. ”

“ RAINA. How I have envied you, Sergius! You have been out in the world, on the field of battle, able to prove yourself there worthy of any woman in the world; whilst I have had to sit at home inactive,—dreaming—useless—doing nothing that could give me the right to call myself worthy of any man. ”

“ SERGIUS. Invaluable man! Come along! (Towering over Bluntschli, he puts his hand on his shoulder and takes him to the steps, Petkoff following. As Bluntschli puts his foot on the first step, Raina comes out of the house.)
RAINA (completely losing her presence of mind) . Oh, the chocolate cream soldier!
(Bluntschli stands rigid. Sergius, amazed, looks at Raina, then at Petkoff, who looks back at him and then at his wife.) CATHERINE (with commanding presence of mind) . My dear Raina, don't you see that we have a guest here—Captain Bluntschli, one of our new Servian friends? ”

“ CATHERINE. Oh, quite as a friend, Paul. I was just asking Captain Bluntschli to stay to lunch; but he declares he must go at once.
SERGIUS (sardonically) . Impossible, Bluntschli. We want you here badly. We have to send on three cavalry regiments to Phillipopolis; and we don't in the least know how to do it.
BLUNTSCHLI (suddenly attentive and business-like) . Phillipopolis! The forage is the trouble, eh?
PETKOFF (eagerly) . Yes, that's it. (To Sergius.) He sees the whole thing at once.
BLUNTSCHLI. I think I can shew you how to manage that. ”

“ PETKOFF. Why not shout for him?
CATHERINE. Civilized people never shout for their servants. I've learnt that while you were away.
PETKOFF. Well, I'll tell you something I've learnt, too. Civilized people don't hang out their washing to dry where visitors can see it; so you'd better have all that (indicating the clothes on the bushes) put somewhere else.
CATHERINE. Oh, that's absurd, Paul: I don't believe really refined people notice such things.
(Someone is heard knocking at the stable gates.) PETKOFF. There's Sergius. (Shouting.) Hollo, Nicola! ”

“ As for her, she's a liar; and her fine airs are a cheat; and I'm worth six of her. (She shakes the pain off hardily; tosses her head; and sets to work to put the things on the tray. He looks doubtfully at her once or twice. She finishes packing the tray, and laps the cloth over the edges, so as to carry all out together. As she stoops to lift it, he rises.)
SERGIUS. Louka! (She stops and looks defiantly at him with the tray in her hands.) A gentleman has no right to hurt a woman under any circumstances. ”

“ Tell Nicola to bring his bag here after him. Don't forget.
LOUKA (surprised) . His bag?
CATHERINE. Yes, here, as soon as possible. (Vehemently.) Be quick! (Louka runs into the house. Catherine snatches her apron off and throws it behind a bush. She then takes up the salver and uses it as a mirror, with the result that the handkerchief tied round her head follows the apron. A touch to her hair and a shake to her dressing gown makes her presentable.) Oh, how—how—how can a man be such a fool! ”

“ PETKOFF. Stuff and nonsense, Sergius. That's quite enough fuss about nothing: a soldier's daughter should be able to stand up without flinching to a little strong conversation. (He rises.) Come: it's time for us to get to business. We have to make up our minds how those three regiments are to get back to Phillipopolis:—there's no forage for them on the Sophia route. (He goes towards the house.) Come along. (Sergius is about to follow him when Catherine rises and intervenes.)
CATHERINE. Oh, Paul, can't you spare Sergius for a few moments? Raina has hardly seen him yet. ”

“ Sergius, with an exclamation of pleasure, goes impulsively to meet her. She stretches out her hand: he drops chivalrously on one knee and kisses it.)
PETKOFF (aside to Catherine, beaming with parental pride) . Pretty, isn't it? She always appears at the right moment.
CATHERINE (impatiently) . Yes: she listens for it. It is an abominable habit.
(Sergius leads Raina forward with splendid gallantry, as if she were a queen. When they come to the table, she turns to him with a bend of the head; he bows; and thus they separate, he coming to his place, and she going behind her father's chair.) ”

“ PETKOFF. You must talk to him, my dear, until Raina takes him off our hands. He bores my life out about our not promoting him—over my head, mind you.
CATHERINE. He certainly ought to be promoted when he marries Raina. Besides, the country should insist on having at least one native general.
PETKOFF. Yes, so that he could throw away whole brigades instead of regiments. It's no use, my dear: he has not the slightest chance of promotion until we are quite sure that the peace will be a lasting one.
NICOLA (at the gate, announcing) . Major Sergius Saranoff! ”

“ Child, you don't know the power such high people have over the like of you and me when we try to rise out of our poverty against them. (He goes close to her and lowers his voice.) Look at me, ten years in their service. Do you think I know no secrets? I know things about the mistress that she wouldn't have the master know for a thousand levas. I know things about him that she wouldn't let him hear the last of for six months if I blabbed them to her. I know things about Raina that would break off her match with Sergius if—
LOUKA (turning on him quickly) . ”

“ A path runs by the house, and rises by two steps at the corner where it turns out of the right along the front. In the middle a small table, with two bent wood chairs at it, is laid for breakfast with Turkish coffee pot, cups, rolls, etc.; but the cups have been used and the bread broken. There is a wooden garden seat against the wall on the left. Louka, smoking a cigaret, is standing between the table and the house, turning her back with angry disdain on a man-servant who is lecturing her. ”

“ The ridges of his eyebrows, curving with a ram's-horn twist round the marked projections at the outer corners, his jealously observant eye, his nose, thin, keen, and apprehensive in spite of the pugnacious high bridge and large nostril, his assertive chin, would not be out of place in a Paris salon. In short, the clever, imaginative barbarian has an acute critical faculty which has been thrown into intense activity by the arrival of western civilization in the Balkans ”

“ RAINA (following him to the foot of the steps and looking up at him with timid coquetry) . I shall go round and wait in full view of the library windows. Be sure you draw father's attention to me. If you are a moment longer than five minutes, I shall go in and fetch you, regiments or no regiments.
SERGIUS (laughing) . Very well. (He goes in. Raina watches him until he is out of her right. Then, with a perceptible relaxation of manner, she begins to pace up and down about the garden in a brown study.)
CATHERINE. Imagine their meeting that Swiss and hearing the whole story! ”

“ He is a middle-aged man of cool temperament and low but clear and keen intelligence, with the complacency of the servant who values himself on his rank in servility, and the imperturbability of the accurate calculator who has no illusions. ”

“ And has Nicola taken to drinking? He used to be careful enough. First he shews Captain Bluntschli out here when he knew quite well I was in the—hum!—library; and then he goes downstairs and breaks Raina's chocolate soldier. He must— (At this moment Nicola appears at the top of the steps R., with a carpet bag. He descends; places it respectfully before Bluntschli; and waits for further orders. General amazement. Nicola, unconscious of the effect he is producing, looks perfectly satisfied with himself. When Petkoff recovers his power of speech, he breaks out at him with) Are you mad, Nicola? ”