Major Barbara · Act II (2/2) (3/5)

| Bill | With compressed aggravation. If you was my girl and took the word out o’ me mahth lawk thet, I’d give you suthink you’d feel ’urtin’, so I would. To Adolphus. You take my tip, mate. Stop ’er jawr; or you’ll die afore your time. With intense expression. Wore aht: thets wot you’ll be: wore aht. He goes away through the gate. | | Cusins | Looking after him. I wonder! | | Barbara | Dolly! Indignant, in her mother’s manner. | | Cusins | Yes, my dear, it’s very wearing to be in love with you. If it lasts, I quite think I shall die young. | | Barbara | Should you mind? | | Cusins | Not at all. He is suddenly softened, and kisses her over the drum, evidently not for the first time, as people cannot kiss over a big drum without practice. Undershaft coughs. | | Barbara | It’s all right, papa, we’ve not forgotten you. Dolly: explain the place to papa: I haven’t time. She goes busily into the shelter. | | | Undershaft* and Adolphus now have the yard to themselves. Undershaft, seated on a form, and still keenly attentive, looks hard at Adolphus. Adolphus looks hard at him. | | Undershaft | I fancy you guess something of what is in my mind, Mr. Cusins. Cusins flourishes his drumsticks as if in the art of beating a lively rataplan, but makes no sound. Exactly so. But suppose Barbara finds you out! | | Cusins | You know, I do not admit that I am imposing on Barbara. I am quite genuinely interested in the views of the Salvation Army. The fact is, I am a sort of collector of religions; and the curious thing is that I find I can believe them all. By the way, have you any religion? | | Undershaft | Yes. | | Cusins | Anything out of the common? | | Undershaft | Only that there are two things necessary to Salvation. | | Cusins | Disappointed, but polite. Ah, the Church Catechism. Charles Lomax also belongs to the Established Church. | | Undershaft | The two things are⁠— | | Cusins | Baptism and⁠— | | Undershaft | No. Money and gunpowder. | | Cusins | Surprised, but interested. That is the general opinion of our governing classes. The novelty is in hearing any man confess it. | | Undershaft | Just so. | | Cusins | Excuse me: is there any place in your religion for honor, justice, truth, love, mercy and so forth? | | Undershaft | Yes: they are the graces and luxuries of a rich, strong, and safe life. | | Cusins | Suppose one is forced to choose between them and money or gunpowder? | | Undershaft | Choose money and gunpowder; for without enough of both you cannot afford the others. | | Cusins | That is your religion? | | Undershaft | Yes. | | | The cadence of this reply makes a full close in the conversation. Cusins twists his face dubiously and contemplates Undershaft. Undershaft contemplates him. | | Cusins | Barbara won’t stand that. You will have to choose between your religion and Barbara. | | Undershaft | So will you, my friend. She will find out that that drum of yours is hollow. | | Cusins | Father Undershaft: you are mistaken: I am a sincere Salvationist. You do not understand the Salvation Army. It is the army of joy, of love, of courage: it has banished the fear and remorse and despair of the old hellridden evangelical sects: it marches to fight the devil with trumpet and drum, with music and dancing, with banner and palm, as becomes a sally from heaven by its happy garrison. It picks the waster out of the public house and makes a man of him: it finds a worm wriggling in a back kitchen, and lo! a woman! Men and women of rank too, sons and daughters of the Highest. It takes the poor professor of Greek, the most artificial and self-suppressed of human creatures, from his meal of roots, and lets loose the rhapsodist in him; reveals the true worship of Dionysos to him; sends him down the public street drumming dithyrambs. He plays a thundering flourish on the drum. | | Undershaft | You will alarm the shelter. | | Cusins | Oh, they are accustomed to these sudden ecstasies of piety. However, if the drum worries you⁠—He pockets the drumsticks; unhooks the drum; and stands it on the ground opposite the gateway. | | Undershaft | Thank you. | | Cusins | You remember what Euripides says about your money and gunpowder? | | Undershaft | No. | | Cusins | Declaiming. | | | One and another In money and guns may outpass his brother; And men in their millions float and flow And seethe with a million hopes as leaven; And they win their will; or they miss their will; And their hopes are dead or are pined for still: But whoe’er can know As the long days go That to live is happy, has found his heaven. | | | My translation: what do you think of it? | | Undershaft | I think, my friend, that if you wish to know, as the long days go, that to live is happy, you must first acquire money enough for a decent life, and power enough to be your own master. | | Cusins | You are damnably discouraging. He resumes his declamation. | | | Is it so hard a thing to see That the spirit of God⁠—whate’er it be⁠— The Law that abides and changes not, ages long, The Eternal and Nature-born: these things be strong. What else is Wisdom? What of Man’s endeavor, Or God’s high grace so lovely and so great? To stand from fear set free? to breathe and wait? To hold a hand uplifted over Fate? And shall not Barbara be loved forever? | | Undershaft | Euripides mentions Barbara, does he? | | Cusins | It is a fair translation. The word means Loveliness. | | Undershaft | May I ask⁠—as Barbara’s father⁠—how much a year she is to be loved forever on? | | Cusins | As Barbara’s father, that is more your affair than mine. I can feed her by teaching Greek: that is about all. | | Undershaft | Do you consider it a good match for her? | | Cusins | With polite obstinacy. Mr. Undershaft: I am in many ways a weak, timid, ineffectual person; and my health is far from satisfactory. But whenever I feel that I must have anything, I get it, sooner or later. I feel that way about Barbara. I don’t like marriage: I feel intensely afraid of it; and I don’t know what I shall do with Barbara or what she will do with me. But I feel that I and nobody else must marry her. Please regard that as settled.⁠—Not that I wish to be arbitrary; but why should I waste your time in discussing what is inevitable? | | Undershaft | You mean that you will stick at nothing not even the conversion of the Salvation Army to the worship of Dionysos. | | Cusins | The business of the Salvation Army is to save, not to wrangle about the name of the pathfinder. Dionysos or another: what does it matter? | | Undershaft | Rising and approaching him. Professor Cusins you are a young man after my own heart. | | Cusins | Mr. Undershaft: you are, as far as I am able to gather, a most infernal old rascal; but you appeal very strongly to my sense of ironic humor. | | | Undershaft mutely offers his hand. They shake. | | Undershaft | Suddenly concentrating himself. And now to business. | | Cusins | Pardon me. We were discussing religion. Why go back to such an uninteresting and unimportant subject as business? | | Undershaft | Religion is our business at present, because it is through religion alone that we can win Barbara. | | Cusins | Have you, too, fallen in love with Barbara? | | Undershaft | Yes, with a father’s love. | | Cusins | A father’s love for a grownup daughter is the most dangerous of all infatuations. I apologize for mentioning my own pale, coy, mistrustful fancy in the same breath with it. | | Undershaft | Keep to the point. We have to win her; and we are neither of us Methodists. | | Cusins | That doesn’t matter. The power Barbara wields here⁠—the power that wields Barbara herself⁠—is not Calvinism, not Presbyterianism, not Methodism⁠— | | Undershaft | Not Greek Paganism either, eh? | | Cusins | I admit that. Barbara is quite original in her religion. | | Undershaft | Triumphantly. Aha! Barbara Undershaft would be. Her inspiration comes from within herself. | | Cusins | How do you suppose it got there? | | Undershaft | In towering excitement. It is the Undershaft inheritance. I shall hand on my torch to my daughter. She shall make my converts and preach my gospel. | | Cusins | What! Money and gunpowder! | | Undershaft | Yes, money and gunpowder; freedom and power; command of life and command of death. | | Cusins | Urbanely: trying to bring him down to earth. This is extremely interesting, Mr. Undershaft. Of course you know that you are mad. | | Undershaft | With redoubled force. And you? | | Cusins | Oh, mad as a hatter. You are welcome to my secret since I have discovered yours. But I am astonished. Can a madman make cannons? | | Undershaft | Would anyone else than a madman make them? And now With surging energy. question for question. Can a sane man translate Euripides? | | Cusins | No. | | Undershaft | Reining him by the shoulder. Can a sane woman make a man of a waster or a woman of a worm? | | Cusins | Reeling before the storm. Father Colossus⁠—Mammoth Millionaire⁠— | | Undershaft | Pressing him. Are there two mad people or three in this Salvation shelter today? | | Cusins | You mean Barbara is as mad as we are! | | Undershaft | Pushing him lightly off and resuming his equanimity suddenly and completely. Pooh, Professor! let us call things by their proper names. I am a millionaire; you are a poet; Barbara is a savior of souls. What have we three to do with the common mob of slaves and idolaters? He sits down again with a shrug of contempt for the mob. | | Cusins | Take care! Barbara is in love with the common people. So am I. Have you never felt the romance of that love? | | Undershaft | Cold and sardonic. Have you ever been in love with Poverty, like St. Francis? Have you ever been in love with Dirt, like St. Simeon? Have you ever been in love with disease and suffering, like our nurses and philanthropists? Such passions are not virtues, but the most unnatural of all the vices. This love of the common people may please an earl’s granddaughter and a university professor; but I have been a common man and a poor man; and it has no romance for me. Leave it to the poor to pretend that poverty is a blessing: leave it to the coward to make a religion of his cowardice by preaching humility: we know better than that. We three must stand together above the common people: how else can we help their children to climb up beside us? Barbara must belong to us, not to the Salvation Army. | | Cusins | Well, I can only say that if you think you will get her away from the Salvation Army by talking to her as you have been talking to me, you don’t know Barbara. | | Undershaft | My friend: I never ask for what I can buy. | | Cusins | In a white fury. Do I understand you to imply that you can buy Barbara? | | Undershaft | No; but I can buy the Salvation Army. | | Cusins | Quite impossible. | | Undershaft | You shall see. All religious organizations exist by selling themselves to the rich. | | Cusins | Not the Army. That is the Church of the poor. | | Undershaft | All the more reason for buying it. | | Cusins | I don’t think you quite know what the Army does for the poor. | | Undershaft | Oh yes I do. It draws their teeth: that is enough for me⁠—as a man of business⁠— | | Cusins | Nonsense! It makes them sober⁠— | | Undershaft | I prefer sober workmen. The profits are larger. | | Cusins | —honest⁠— | | Undershaft | Honest workmen are the most economical. | | Cusins | —attached to their homes⁠— | | Undershaft | So much the better: they will put up with anything sooner than change their shop. | | Cusins | —happy⁠— | | Undershaft | An invaluable safeguard against revolution. | | Cusins | —unselfish⁠— | | Undershaft | Indifferent to their own interests, which suits me exactly. | | Cusins | —with their thoughts on heavenly things⁠— | | Undershaft | Rising. And not on Trade Unionism nor Socialism. Excellent. | | Cusins | Revolted. You really are an infernal old rascal. | | Undershaft | Indicating Peter Shirley, who has just came from the shelter and strolled dejectedly down the yard between them. And this is an honest man! | | Shirley | Yes; and what ’av I got by it? He passes on bitterly and sits on the form, in the corner of the penthouse. | | | Snobby Price, beaming sanctimoniously, and Jenny Hill, with a tambourine full of coppers, come from the shelter and go to the drum, on which Jenny begins to count the money. | | Undershaft | Replying to Shirley. Oh, your employers must have got a good deal by it from first to last. He sits on the table, with one foot on the side form. Cusins, overwhelmed, sits down on the same form nearer the shelter. Barbara comes from the shelter to the middle of the yard. She is excited and a little overwrought. | | Barbara | We’ve just had a splendid experience meeting at the other gate in Cripps’s lane. I’ve hardly ever seen them so much moved as they were by your confession, Mr. Price. | | Price | I could almost be glad of my past wickedness if I could believe that it would ’elp to keep hathers stright. | | Barbara | So it will, Snobby. How much, Jenny? | | Jenny | Four and tenpence, Major. | | Barbara | Oh Snobby, if you had given your poor mother just one more kick, we should have got the whole five shillings! | | Price | If she heard you say that, miss, she’d be sorry I didn’t. But I’m glad. Oh what a joy it will be to her when she hears I’m saved! | | Undershaft | Shall I contribute the odd twopence, Barbara? The millionaire’s mite, eh? He takes a couple of pennies from his pocket. | | Barbara | How did you make that twopence? | | Undershaft | As usual. By selling cannons, torpedoes, submarines, and my new patent Grand Duke hand grenade. | | Barbara | Put it back in your pocket. You can’t buy your Salvation here for twopence: you must work it out. | | Undershaft | Is twopence not enough? I can afford a little more, if you press me. | | Barbara | Two million millions would not be enough. There is bad blood on your hands; and nothing but good blood can cleanse them. Money is no use. Take it away. She turns to Cusins. Dolly: you must write another letter for me to the papers. He makes a wry face. Yes: I know you don’t like it; but it must be done. The starvation this winter is beating us: everybody is unemployed. The General says we must close this shelter if we can’t get more money. I force the collections at the meetings until I am ashamed, don’t I, Snobby? | | Price | It’s a fair treat to see you work it, miss. The way you got them up from three-and-six to four-and-ten with that hymn, penny by penny and verse by verse, was a caution. Not a Cheap Jack on Mile End Waste could touch you at it. | | Barbara | Yes; but I wish we could do without it. I am getting at last to think more of the collection than of the people’s souls. And what are those hatfuls of pence and halfpence? We want thousands! tens of thousands! hundreds of thousands! I want to convert people, not to be always begging for the Army in a way I’d die sooner than beg for myself. | | Undershaft | In profound irony. Genuine unselfishness is capable of anything, my dear. | | Barbara | Unsuspectingly, as she turns away to take the money from the drum and put it in a cash bag she carries. Yes, isn’t it? Undershaft looks sardonically at Cusins. | | Cusins | Aside to Undershaft*. Mephistopheles! Machiavelli! | | Barbara | Tears coming into her eyes as she ties the bag and pockets it. How are we to feed them? I can’t talk religion to a man with bodily hunger in his eyes. Almost breaking down. It’s frightful. | | Jenny | Running to her. Major, dear⁠— | | Barbara | Rebounding. No: don’t comfort me. It will be all right. We shall get the money. | | Undershaft | How? |