Misalliance E-Book

Bernard Shaw

• Herausgeber: muhammad ali
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Misalliance is a play written in 1909–1910 by George Bernard Shaw. The play takes place entirely on a single Saturday afternoon in the conservatory of a large country house in Hindhead, Surrey in Edwardian era England.It is a continuation of some of the ideas on marriage that he expressed in 1908 in his play, Getting Married. It was also a continuation of some of his other ideas on Socialism, physical fitness, the Life Force, and "The New Woman": i.e. women intent on escaping Victorian standards of helplessness, passivity, stuffy propriety, and non-involvement in politics or general affairs.Shaw subtitled his play A Debate in One Sitting, and in the program of its first presentation in 1910 inserting this program note: "The debate takes place at the house of John Tarleton of Hindhead, Surrey, on 31 May 1909. As the debate is a long one, the curtain will be lowered twice. The audience is requested to excuse these interruptions, which are made solely for its convenience."Misalliance is an ironic examination of the mating instincts of a varied group of people gathered at a wealthy man's country home on a summer weekend. Most of the romantic interest centers on the host's daughter, Hypatia Tarleton, a typical Shaw heroine who exemplifies his lifelong theory that in courtship, women are the relentless pursuers and men the apprehensively pursued.Hypatia is the daughter of newly-wealthy John Tarleton who made his fortune in the unglamorous but lucrative underwear business. She is fed up with the stuffy conventions that surround her and with the hyperactive talk of the men in her life. Hypatia is engaged to Bentley Summerhays, an intellectually bright but physically and emotionally underdeveloped aristocrat.Hypatia is restless with her engagement as the play starts, even as it is revealed she has also had a proposal of engagement from her betrothed's father, Lord Summerhays. She has no desire to be a nurse to the elderly and is in no hurry to be made a widow. She longs for some adventure to drop out of the sky, and it does ... an aircraft crashes through the roof of the conservatory to close the end of the first act.At the beginning of Act II, it is revealed that the aircraft brings two unexpected guests. The pilot, Joey Percival, is a handsome young man who immediately arouses Hypatia's hunting instinct. The passenger, Lina Szczepanowska, is a female dare-devil of a circus acrobat whose vitality and directness inflame all the other men at the house-party.An additional uninvited guest arrives in the form of Gunner. He is a cashier who is very unhappy with his lot in life. He blames the wealthy class in particular for the plight of the ordinary worker, and he blames John Tarleton in particular for a romantic dalliance that he once had with Gunner's mother. Gunner arrives with intent to kill Tarleton but hides inside a piece of furniture. From this position, he becomes wise to Hypatia's pursuit of Percival. His character comes to introduce the themes of socialism to the play, as well as serving to question the conventional views on marriage and social order.All together there are eight marriage proposals offered for consideration in the course of one summer afternoon. The question of whether any one of these combinations of marriage might be an auspicious alliance, or a misalliance, prompts one of the prospective husbands to utter the famous Shavian speculation:"If marriages were made by putting all the men's names into one sack and the women's names into another, and having them taken out by a blind-folded child like lottery numbers, there would be just as high a percentage of happy marriages as we have now."

Leseprobe

Bernard Shaw

 

 

 

 

Johnny Tarleton, an ordinary young business man of thirty or less, is

taking his weekly Friday to Tuesday in the house of his father, John

Tarleton, who has made a great deal of money out of Tarleton's

Underwear. The house is in Surrey, on the slope of Hindhead; and

Johnny, reclining, novel in hand, in a swinging chair with a little

awning above it, is enshrined in a spacious half hemisphere of glass

which forms a pavilion commanding the garden, and, beyond it, a barren

but lovely landscape of hill profile with fir trees, commons of

bracken and gorse, and wonderful cloud pictures.

The glass pavilion springs from a bridgelike arch in the wall of the

house, through which one comes into a big hall with tiled flooring,

which suggests that the proprietor's notion of domestic luxury is

founded on the lounges of week-end hotels. The arch is not quite in

the centre of the wall. There is more wall to its right than to its

left, and this space is occupied by a hat rack and umbrella stand in

which tennis rackets, white parasols, caps, Panama hats, and other

summery articles are bestowed. Just through the arch at this corner

stands a new portable Turkish bath, recently unpacked, with its crate

beside it, and on the crate the drawn nails and the hammer used in

unpacking. Near the crate are open boxes of garden games: bowls and

croquet. Nearly in the middle of the glass wall of the pavilion is a

door giving on the garden, with a couple of steps to surmount the

hot-water pipes which skirt the glass. At intervals round the

pavilion are marble pillars with specimens of Viennese pottery on

them, very flamboyant in colour and florid in design. Between them

are folded garden chairs flung anyhow against the pipes. In the side

walls are two doors: one near the hat stand, leading to the interior

of the house, the other on the opposite side and at the other end,

leading to the vestibule.

There is no solid furniture except a sideboard which stands against

the wall between the vestibule door and the pavilion, a small writing

table with a blotter, a rack for telegram forms and stationery, and a

wastepaper basket, standing out in the hall near the sideboard, and a

lady's worktable, with two chairs at it, towards the other side of the

lounge. The writing table has also two chairs at it. On the

sideboard there is a tantalus, liqueur bottles, a syphon, a glass jug

of lemonade, tumblers, and every convenience for casual drinking.

Also a plate of sponge cakes, and a highly ornate punchbowl in the

same style as the keramic display in the pavilion. Wicker chairs and

little bamboo tables with ash trays and boxes of matches on them are

scattered in all directions. In the pavilion, which is flooded with

sunshine, is the elaborate patent swing seat and awning in which

Johnny reclines with his novel. There are two wicker chairs right and

left of him.

Bentley Summerhays, one of those smallish, thinskinned youths, who

from 17 to 70 retain unaltered the mental airs of the later and the

physical appearance of the earlier age, appears in the garden and

comes through the glass door into the pavilion. He is unmistakably a

grade above Johnny socially; and though he looks sensitive enough, his

assurance and his high voice are a little exasperating.

JOHNNY. Hallo! Wheres your luggage?

BENTLEY. I left it at the station. Ive walked up from Haslemere.

[He goes to the hat stand and hangs up his hat].

JOHNNY [shortly] Oh! And who's to fetch it?

BENTLEY. Dont know. Dont care. Providence, probably. If not, your

mother will have it fetched.

JOHNNY. Not her business, exactly, is it?

BENTLEY. [returning to the pavilion] Of course not. Thats why one

loves her for doing it. Look here: chuck away your silly week-end

novel, and talk to a chap. After a week in that filthy office my

brain is simply blue-mouldy. Lets argue about something intellectual.

[He throws himself into the wicker chair on Johnny's right].

JOHNNY. [straightening up in the swing with a yell of protest] No.

Now seriously, Bunny, Ive come down here to have a pleasant week-end;

and I'm not going to stand your confounded arguments. If you want to

argue, get out of this and go over to the Congregationalist

minister's. He's a nailer at arguing. He likes it.

BENTLEY. You cant argue with a person when his livelihood depends on

his not letting you convert him. And would you mind not calling me

Bunny. My name is Bentley Summerhays, which you please.

JOHNNY. Whats the matter with Bunny?

BENTLEY. It puts me in a false position. Have you ever considered

the fact that I was an afterthought?

JOHNNY. An afterthought? What do you mean by that?

BENTLEY. I—

JOHNNY. No, stop: I dont want to know. It's only a dodge to start

an argument.

BENTLEY. Dont be afraid: it wont overtax your brain. My father was

44 when I was born. My mother was 41. There was twelve years between

me and the next eldest. I was unexpected. I was probably

unintentional. My brothers and sisters are not the least like me.

Theyre the regular thing that you always get in the first batch from

young parents: quite pleasant, ordinary, do-the-regular-thing sort:

all body and no brains, like you.

JOHNNY. Thank you.

BENTLEY. Dont mention it, old chap. Now I'm different. By the time

I was born, the old couple knew something. So I came out all brains

and no more body than is absolutely necessary. I am really a good

deal older than you, though you were born ten years sooner. Everybody

feels that when they hear us talk; consequently, though it's quite

natural to hear me calling you Johnny, it sounds ridiculous and

unbecoming for you to call me Bunny. [He rises].

JOHNNY. Does it, by George? You stop me doing it if you can: thats

all.

BENTLEY. If you go on doing it after Ive asked you not, youll feel an

awful swine. [He strolls away carelessly to the sideboard with his

eye on the sponge cakes]. At least I should; but I suppose youre not

so particular.

JOHNNY [rising vengefully and following Bentley, who is forced to

turn and listen] I'll tell you what it is, my boy: you want a good

talking to; and I'm going to give it to you. If you think that

because your father's a K.C.B., and you want to marry my sister, you

can make yourself as nasty as you please and say what you like, youre

mistaken. Let me tell you that except Hypatia, not one person in this

house is in favor of her marrying you; and I dont believe shes happy

about it herself. The match isnt settled yet: dont forget that.

Youre on trial in the office because the Governor isnt giving his

daughter money for an idle man to live on her. Youre on trial here

because my mother thinks a girl should know what a man is like in the

house before she marries him. Thats been going on for two months now;

and whats the result? Youve got yourself thoroughly disliked in the

office; and youre getting yourself thoroughly disliked here, all

through your bad manners and your conceit, and the damned impudence

you think clever.

BENTLEY. [deeply wounded and trying hard to control himself] Thats

enough, thank you. You dont suppose, I hope, that I should have come

down if I had known that that was how you felt about me. [He makes

for the vestibule door].

JOHNNY. [collaring him]. No: you dont run away. I'm going to

have this out with you. Sit down: d'y' hear? [Bentley attempts to

go with dignity. Johnny slings him into a chair at the writing table,

where he sits, bitterly humiliated, but afraid to speak lest he should

burst into tears]. Thats the advantage of having more body than

brains, you see: it enables me to teach you manners; and I'm going to

do it too. Youre a spoilt young pup; and you need a jolly good

licking. And if youre not careful youll get it: I'll see to that

next time you call me a swine.

BENTLEY. I didnt call you a swine. But [bursting into a fury of

tears] you are a swine: youre a beast: youre a brute: youre a

cad: youre a liar: youre a bully: I should like to wring your

damned neck for you.

JOHNNY. [with a derisive laugh] Try it, my son. [Bentley gives

an inarticulate sob of rage]. Fighting isnt in your line. Youre too

small and youre too childish. I always suspected that your cleverness

wouldnt come to very much when it was brought up against something

solid: some decent chap's fist, for instance.

BENTLEY. I hope your beastly fist may come up against a mad bull or a

prizefighter's nose, or something solider than me. I dont care about

your fist; but if everybody here dislikes me— [he is checked by a

sob]. Well, I dont care. [Trying to recover himself] I'm sorry I

intruded: I didnt know. [Breaking down again] Oh you beast! you

pig! Swine, swine, swine, swine, swine! Now!

JOHNNY. All right, my lad, all right. Sling your mud as hard as you

please: it wont stick to me. What I want to know is this. How is it

that your father, who I suppose is the strongest man England has

produced in our time—

BENTLEY. You got that out of your halfpenny paper. A lot you know

about him!

JOHNNY. I dont set up to be able to do anything but admire him and

appreciate him and be proud of him as an Englishman. If it wasnt for

my respect for him, I wouldnt have stood your cheek for two days, let

alone two months. But what I cant understand is why he didnt lick it

out of you when you were a kid. For twenty-five years he kept a place

twice as big as England in order: a place full of seditious

coffee-colored heathens and pestilential white agitators in the middle

of a lot of savage tribes. And yet he couldnt keep you in order. I

dont set up to be half the man your father undoubtedly is; but, by

George, it's lucky for you you were not my son. I dont hold with my

own father's views about corporal punishment being wrong. It's

necessary for some people; and I'd have tried it on you until you

first learnt to howl and then to behave yourself.

BENTLEY. [contemptuously] Yes: behavior wouldnt come naturally to

your son, would it?

JOHNNY. [stung into sudden violence] Now you keep a civil tongue

in your head. I'll stand none of your snobbery. I'm just as proud of

Tarleton's Underwear as you are of your father's title and his K.C.B.,

and all the rest of it. My father began in a little hole of a shop in

Leeds no bigger than our pantry down the passage there. He—

BENTLEY. Oh yes: I know. Ive read it. "The Romance of Business, or

The Story of Tarleton's Underwear. Please Take One!" I took one the

day after I first met Hypatia. I went and bought half a dozen

unshrinkable vests for her sake.

JOHNNY. Well: did they shrink?

BENTLEY. Oh, dont be a fool.

JOHNNY. Never mind whether I'm a fool or not. Did they shrink?

Thats the point. Were they worth the money?

BENTLEY. I couldnt wear them: do you think my skin's as thick as

your customers' hides? I'd as soon have dressed myself in a nutmeg

grater.

JOHNNY. Pity your father didnt give your thin skin a jolly good

lacing with a cane—!

BENTLEY. Pity you havnt got more than one idea! If you want to know,

they did try that on me once, when I was a small kid. A silly

governess did it. I yelled fit to bring down the house and went into

convulsions and brain fever and that sort of thing for three weeks.

So the old girl got the sack; and serve her right! After that, I was

let do what I like. My father didnt want me to grow up a

broken-spirited spaniel, which is your idea of a man, I suppose.

JOHNNY. Jolly good thing for you that my father made you come into

the office and shew what you were made of. And it didnt come to much:

let me tell you that. When the Governor asked me where I thought we

ought to put you, I said, "Make him the Office Boy." The Governor

said you were too green. And so you were.

BENTLEY. I daresay. So would you be pretty green if you were shoved

into my father's set. I picked up your silly business in a fortnight.

Youve been at it ten years; and you havnt picked it up yet.

JOHNNY. Dont talk rot, child. You know you simply make me pity you.

BENTLEY. "Romance of Business" indeed! The real romance of

Tarleton's business is the story that you understand anything about

it. You never could explain any mortal thing about it to me when I

asked you. "See what was done the last time": that was the beginning

and the end of your wisdom. Youre nothing but a turnspit.

JOHNNY. A what!

BENTLEY. A turnspit. If your father hadnt made a roasting jack for

you to turn, youd be earning twenty-four shillings a week behind a

counter.

JOHNNY. If you dont take that back and apologize for your bad

manners, I'll give you as good a hiding as ever—

BENTLEY. Help! Johnny's beating me! Oh! Murder! [He throws

himself on the ground, uttering piercing yells].

JOHNNY. Dont be a fool. Stop that noise, will you. I'm not going to

touch you. Sh—sh—

Hypatia rushes in through the inner door, followed by Mrs Tarleton,

and throws herself on her knees by Bentley. Mrs Tarleton, whose knees

are stiffer, bends over him and tries to lift him. Mrs Tarleton is a

shrewd and motherly old lady who has been pretty in her time, and is

still very pleasant and likeable and unaffected. Hypatia is a typical

English girl of a sort never called typical: that is, she has an

opaque white skin, black hair, large dark eyes with black brows and

lashes, curved lips, swift glances and movements that flash out of a

waiting stillness, boundless energy and audacity held in leash.

HYPATIA. [pouncing on Bentley with no very gentle hand] Bentley:

whats the matter? Dont cry like that: whats the use? Whats

happened?

MRS TARLETON. Are you ill, child? [They get him up.] There, there,

pet! It's all right: dont cry [they put him into a chair]: there!

there! there! Johnny will go for the doctor; and he'll give you

something nice to make it well.

HYPATIA. What has happened, Johnny?

MRS TARLETON. Was it a wasp?

BENTLEY. [impatiently] Wasp be dashed!

MRS TARLETON. Oh Bunny! that was a naughty word.

BENTLEY. Yes, I know: I beg your pardon. [He rises, and extricates

himself from them] Thats all right. Johnny frightened me. You know

how easy it is to hurt me; and I'm too small to defend myself against

Johnny.

MRS TARLETON. Johnny: how often have I told you that you must not

bully the little ones. I thought youd outgrown all that.

HYPATIA. [angrily] I do declare, mamma, that Johnny's brutality

makes it impossible to live in the house with him.

JOHNNY. [deeply hurt] It's twenty-seven years, mother, since you

had that row with me for licking Robert and giving Hypatia a black eye

because she bit me. I promised you then that I'd never raise my hand

to one of them again; and Ive never broken my word. And now because

this young whelp begins to cry out before he's hurt, you treat me as

if I were a brute and a savage.

MRS TARLETON. No dear, not a savage; but you know you must not call

our visitor naughty names.

BENTLEY. Oh, let him alone—

JOHNNY. [fiercely] Dont you interfere between my mother and me:

d'y' hear?

HYPATIA. Johnny's lost his temper, mother. We'd better go. Come,

Bentley.

MRS TARLETON. Yes: that will be best. [To Bentley] Johnny doesnt

mean any harm, dear: he'll be himself presently. Come.

The two ladies go out through the inner door with Bentley, who turns

at the door to grin at Johnny as he goes out.

Johnny, left alone, clenches his fists and grinds his teeth, but can

find no relief in that way for his rage. After choking and stamping

for a moment, he makes for the vestibule door. It opens before he

reaches it; and Lord Summerhays comes in. Johnny glares at him,

speechless. Lord Summerhays takes in the situation, and quickly takes

the punchbowl from the sideboard and offers it to Johnny.

LORD SUMMERHAYS. Smash it. Dont hesitate: it's an ugly thing.

Smash it: hard. [Johnny, with a stifled yell, dashes it in pieces,

and then sits down and mops his brow]. Feel better now? [Johnny

nods]. I know only one person alive who could drive me to the point

of having either to break china or commit murder; and that person is

my son Bentley. Was it he? [Johnny nods again, not yet able to

speak]. As the car stopped I heard a yell which is only too familiar

to me. It generally means that some infuriated person is trying to

thrash Bentley. Nobody has ever succeeded, though almost everybody

has tried. [He seats himself comfortably close to the writing table,

and sets to work to collect the fragments of the punchbowl in the

wastepaper basket whilst Johnny, with diminishing difficulty, collects

himself]. Bentley is a problem which I confess I have never been

able to solve. He was born to be a great success at the age of fifty.

Most Englishmen of his class seem to be born to be great successes at

the age of twenty-four at most. The domestic problem for me is how to

endure Bentley until he is fifty. The problem for the nation is how

to get itself governed by men whose growth is arrested when they are

little more than college lads. Bentley doesnt really mean to be

offensive. You can always make him cry by telling him you dont like

him. Only, he cries so loud that the experiment should be made in the

open air: in the middle of Salisbury Plain if possible. He has a

hard and penetrating intellect and a remarkable power of looking facts

in the face; but unfortunately, being very young, he has no idea of

how very little of that sort of thing most of us can stand. On the

other hand, he is frightfully sensitive and even affectionate; so that

he probably gets as much as he gives in the way of hurt feelings.

Youll excuse me rambling on like this about my son.

JOHNNY. [who has pulled himself together] You did it on purpose.

I wasnt quite myself: I needed a moment to pull round: thank you.

LORD SUMMERHAYS. Not at all. Is your father at home?

JOHNNY. No: he's opening one of his free libraries. Thats another

nice little penny gone. He's mad on reading. He promised another

free library last week. It's ruinous. Itll hit you as well as me

when Bunny marries Hypatia. When all Hypatia's money is thrown away

on libraries, where will Bunny come in? Cant you stop him?

LORD SUMMERHAYS. I'm afraid not. Hes a perfect whirlwind.

Indefatigable at public work. Wonderful man, I think.

JOHNNY. Oh, public work! He does too much of it. It's really a sort

of laziness, getting away from your own serious business to amuse

yourself with other people's. Mind: I dont say there isnt another

side to it. It has its value as an advertisement. It makes useful

acquaintances and leads to valuable business connections. But it

takes his mind off the main chance; and he overdoes it.

LORD SUMMERHAYS. The danger of public business is that it never ends.

A man may kill himself at it.

JOHNNY. Or he can spend more on it than it brings him in: thats how

I look at it. What I say is that everybody's business is nobody's

business. I hope I'm not a hard man, nor a narrow man, nor unwilling

to pay reasonable taxes, and subscribe in reason to deserving

charities, and even serve on a jury in my turn; and no man can say I

ever refused to help a friend out of a difficulty when he was worth

helping. But when you ask me to go beyond that, I tell you frankly I

dont see it. I never did see it, even when I was only a boy, and had

to pretend to take in all the ideas the Governor fed me up with. I

didnt see it; and I dont see it.

LORD SUMMERHAYS. There is certainly no business reason why you should

take more than your share of the world's work.

JOHNNY. So I say. It's really a great encouragement to me to find

you agree with me. For of course if nobody agrees with you, how are

you to know that youre not a fool?