George Bernard Shaw

“ 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. Never mind, dearest: you never did understand me; and you never will. Our vivisecting friend has made a successful experiment at last.
JULIA (earnestly) . It is you who are the vivisector—a far crueller, more wanton vivisector than he.
CHARTERIS. Yes; but then I learn so much more from my experiments than he does! And the victims learn as much as I do. That's where my moral superiority comes in.
JULIA (sitting down again on the couch with rueful humour) . Well, you shall not experiment on me any more. Go to your Grace if you want a victim. She'll be a tough one. ”

“ CHARTERIS. I feel as if my body had turned into the toughest of hickory. That is what comes of reminding me of Julia Craven. (Brooding, with his chin on his right hand and his elbow on his knee.) I have sat alone with her just as I am sitting with you—
GRACE (shrinking from him) . Just!
CHARTERIS (sitting upright and facing her steadily) . Just exactly. She has put her hands in mine, and laid her cheek against mine, and listened to me saying all sorts of silly things. (Grace, chilled to the soul, rises from the sofa and sits down on the piano stool, with her back to the keyboard.) ”

“ CHARTERIS. You mean I don't care a bit less for one woman than another.
SYLVIA. That makes it worse. But what I mean is that you never bother about their being only women: you talk to them just as you do to me or any other fellow. That's the secret of your success. You can't think how sick they get of being treated with the respect due to their sex.
CHARTERIS. Ah, if Julia only had your wisdom, Craven! (He gets off the table with a sigh and perches himself reflectively on the stepladder.)
SYLVIA. She can't take things easy, can she, old man? ”

“ 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. ”

“ What's up, Charteris? Julia been making love to you?
CHARTERIS (speaking to her over his shoulder) . No. Blowing me up for making love to Grace.
SYLVIA. Serve you right. You are an awful devil for philandering.
CHARTERIS (calmly) . Do you consider it good club form to talk that way to a man who might nearly be your father?
SYLVIA (knowingly) . Oh, I know you, my lad.
CHARTERIS. Then you know that I never pay any special attention to any woman.
SYLVIA (thoughtfully) . Do you know, Leonard, I really believe you. I don't think you care a bit more for one woman than for another. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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; or fond as I am of you, I'll cut you dead exactly as I would if you were my son.
PARAMORE (remonstrating) . Colonel Craven—
CRAVEN (cutting him short) . Don't be a fool, Paramore. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ JULIA. That should have made you respect me the more.
CHARTERIS (placably) . So it did, my dear. But that is not the point. As a woman of advanced views, you were determined to be free. You regarded marriage as a degrading bargain, by which a woman sold herself to a man for the social status of a wife and the right to be supported and pensioned in old age out of his income. That's the advanced view—our view. Besides, if you had married me, I might have turned out a drunkard, a criminal, an imbecile, a horror to you; and you couldn't have released yourself. Too big a risk, you see. ”

“ 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 (sitting down quickly beside her) . Yes, Julia. Can't you get it out? In the eye of something that advanced women don't believe in, en?
JULIA (throwing herself at his feet) . O Leonard, don't be cruel. I am too miserable to argue—to think. I only know I love you. You reproach me with not wanting to marry you. I would have married you at any time after I came to love you, if you had asked me. I will marry you now if you will.
CHARTERIS. I won't, my dear. That's flat. We're intellectually incompatible.
JULIA. But why? We could be so happy. You love me—I know you love me—I feel it. ”

“ 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. Advanced people form charming friendships: conventional people marry. ”

“ Your nature is richer than you think.
JULIA (doubtfully) . Do you really believe that I am not the shallow, jealous, devilish tempered creature they all pretend I am?
PARAMORE. I am ready to place my happiness in your hands. Does that prove what I think of you?
JULIA. Yes: I believe you really care for me. (He approaches her eagerly: she has a violent revulsion, and rises with her hand raised as if to beat him off, crying) No, no, no, no. I cannot. It's impossible. (She goes towards the door.)
PARAMORE (looking wistfully after her) . Is it Charteris?
JULIA (stopping and turning) . ”

“ 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.) ”

“ I am afraid, from the light way in which you speak of it, you did not sound the right chord.
CHARTERIS. My dear, when you are doing what a woman calls breaking her heart, you may sound the very prettiest chords you can find on the piano; but to her ears it is just like this— (Sits down on the bass end of the keyboard. Grace puts her fingers in her ears. He rises and moves away from the piano, saying) No, my dear: I've been kind; I've been frank; I've been everything that a goodnatured man could be: she only takes it as the making up of a lover's quarrel. (Grace winces.) ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ CHARTERIS. Because they don't want anyone to hear what they are saying to one another. (Paramore shews Grace a picture in the book. They both laugh heartily over it.)
JULIA. What is he shewing her?
CHARTERIS. Probably a diagram of the liver. (Julia, with an exclamation of disgust makes for the recess. Charteris catches her sleeve.) Stop: be careful, Julia. (She frees herself by giving him a push which upsets him into the easy chair; then crosses to the recess and stands looking down at Grace and Paramore from the corner next the fireplace.) ”

“ 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. ”