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CUSINS [revolted] You really are a — well, what I was saying yesterday.
BARBARA What was he saying yesterday?
UNDERSHAFT Never mind, my dear. He thinks I have made you unhappy. Have I?
BARBARA Do you think I can be happy in this vulgar silly dress? I! who have worn the uniform. Do you understand what you have done to me? Yesterday I had a man’s soul in my hand. I set him in the way of life with his face to salvation. But when we took your money he turned back to drunke
UNDERSHAFT Does my daughter despair so easily? Can you strike a man to the heart and leave no mark on him?
BARBARA [her face lighting up] Oh, you are right: he can never be lost now: where was my faith?
CUSINS Oh, clever clever devil!
BARBARA You may be a devil; but God speaks through you sometimes. [She takes her father’s hands and kisses them.] You have given me back my happiness: I feel it deep down now, though my spirit is troubled.
UNDERSHAFT You have learnt something. That always feels at first as if you had lost something.
BARBARA Well, take me to the factory of death, and let me learn something more. There must be some truth or other behind all this frightful irony. Come, Dolly. [She goes out.]
CUSINS My guardian angel! [To UNDERSHAFT.] Avaunt! [He follows BARBARA.]
STEPHEN [quietly, at the writing table] You must not mind Cusins, father. He is a very amiable good fellow; but he is a Greek scholar and naturally a little eccentric.
UNDERSHAFT Ah, quite so. Thank you, Stephen. Thank you. [He goes out.]
STEPHEN smiles patronizingly; buttons his coat responsibly; and crosses the room to the door. LADY BRITOMART, dressed for out-of-doors, opens it before he reaches it. She looks round for the others; looks at STEPHEN; and turns to go without a word.
STEPHEN (embarrassed] Mother —
LADY BRITOMART Dont be apologetic, Stephen. And dont forget that you have outgrown your mother. [She goes out.] Perivale St. Andrews lies between two Middlesex hills, half climbing the northern one. It is an almost smokeless town of white walls, roofs of narrow green slates or red tiles, tall trees, domes, campaniles, and slender chimney shafts, beautifully situated and beautiful in itself. The best view of it is obtained from the crest of a slope about half a mile to the east, where the high explosives are dealt with. The foundry lies hidden in the depths between, the tops of its chimneys sprouting like huge skittles[74] into the middle distance. Across the crest runs a platform of concrete, with a parapet which suggests a fortification, because there is a huge ca
BARBARA is leaning over the parapet, looking towards the town. On her right is the ca
CUSINS arrives by the path from the town.
BARBARA Well?
CUSINS Not a ray of hope. Everything perfect, wonderful, real. It only needs a cathedral to be a heavenly city instead of a hellish one.
BARBARA Have you found out whether they have done anything for old Peter Shirley.
CUSINS They have found him a job as gatekeeper and time-keeper. He’s frightfully miserable. He calls the timekeeping brainwork, and says he isnt used to it; and his gate lodge is so splendid that hes ashamed to use the rooms, and skulks in the scullery.
BARBARA Poor Peter!
STEPHEN arrives from the town. He carries a field-glass.
STEPHEN [enthusiastically) Have you two seen the place? Why did you leave us?
CUSINS I wanted to see everything I was not intended to see; and Barbara wanted to make the men talk.
STEPHEN Have you found anything discreditable?
CUSINS No. They call him Dandy Andy and are proud of his being a cu
SARAH arrives.
SARAH Heavens! what a place! [She crosses to the trolley.] Did you see the nursing home!? [She sits down on the shell.]
STEPHEN Did you see the libraries and schools!?
SARAH Did you see the ball room and the banqueting chamber in the Town Hall!?
STEPHEN Have you gone into the insurance fund, the pension fund, the building society, the various applications of cooperation!?
UNDERSHAFT comes from the Office, with a sheaf of telegrams in his hands.
UNDERSHAFT Well, have you seen everything? I’m sorry I was called away. [Indicating the telegrams.] News from Manchuria.
STEPHEN Good news, I hope.
UNDERSHAFT Very.
STEPHEN Another Japanese victory?
UNDERSHAFT Oh, I dont know. Which side wins does not concern us here. No: the good news is that the aerial battleship is a tremendous success. At the first trial it has wiped out a fort with three hundred soldiers in it.
CUSINS [from the platform] Dummy soldiers?
UNDERSHAFT No: the real thing. [CUSINS and BARBARA exchange glances. Then CUSINS sits on the step and buries his face in his hands. BARBARA gravely lays her hand on his shoulder, and he looks up at her in a sort of whimsical desperation.] Well, Stephen, what do you think of the place?
STEPHEN Oh, magnificent. A perfect triumph of organization. Frankly, my dear father, I have been a fool: I had no idea of what it all meant — of the wonderful forethought, the power of organization, the administrative capacity, the financial genius, the colossal capital it represents. I have been repeating to myself as I came through your streets “Peace hath her victories no less renowned than War.”[75] I have only one misgiving about it all.
UNDERSHAFT Out with it.
STEPHEN Well, I ca
UNDERSHAFT Well you see, my dear boy, when you are organizing civilization you have to make up your mind whether trouble and anxiety are good things or not. If you decide that they are, then, I take it, you simply dont organize civilization; and there you are, with trouble and anxiety enough to make us all angels! But if you decide the other way, you may as well go through with it. However, Stephen, our characters are safe here. A sufficient dose of anxiety is always provided by the fact that we may be blown to smithereens at any moment.
74
pins, like bowling pins, used in the game of skittles.
75
Quotation from So