Read Ebook: The Philanderer by Shaw Bernard

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Ebook has 874 lines and 21973 words, and 18 pages

CHARTERIS. Steal me! 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; or have I a right to belong to myself?

GRACE . Of course you have; but--

CHARTERIS . Then how can you steal me from Julia if I don't belong to her? Eh, little philosopher? No, my dear: if Ibsen sauce is good for the goose, it's good for the gander as well. Besides it was nothing but a philander with Julia--nothing else in the world, I assure you.

GRACE . So much the worse! I hate your philanderings: they make me ashamed of you and of myself.

CHARTERIS. Grace: you utterly misunderstand the origin of my philanderings. Listen to me: am I a particularly handsome man?

GRACE . No!

CHARTERIS . You admit it. Am I a well dressed man?

GRACE. Not particularly.

CHARTERIS. Of course not. Have I a romantic mysterious charm about me?--do I look as if a secret sorrow preyed on me?--am I gallant to women?

GRACE. Not in the least.

CHARTERIS. Certainly not. No one can accuse me of it. Then whose fault is it that half the women I speak to fall in love with me? Not mine: I hate it: it bores me to distraction. At first it flattered me--delighted me--that was how Julia got me, because she was the first woman who had the pluck to make me a declaration. But I soon had enough of it; and at no time have I taken the initiative and persecuted women with my advances as women have persecuted me. Never. Except, of course, in your case.

GRACE. Oh, you need not make any exception. I had a good deal of trouble to induce you to come and see us. You were very coy.

CHARTERIS . With you, dearest, the coyness was sheer coquetry. I loved you from the first, and fled only that you might pursue. But come! let us talk about something really interesting. Do you love me better than anyone else in the world?

GRACE. I don't think you like to be loved too much.

CHARTERIS. That depends on who the person is. You cannot love me too much: you cannot love me half enough. I reproach you every day for your coldness--your-- Who the deuce is calling at this hour?

GRACE. I can't imagine.

A WOMAN'S VOICE OUTSIDE. Is Mr. Charteris here?

CHARTERIS . Julia! The devil!

GRACE . What can she want?

THE VOICE. Never mind: I will announce myself. Oh, this is charming. I have interrupted a pretty tete-a-tete. Oh, you villain!

CHARTERIS . Oh, Julia, Julia! This is too bad.

JULIA. Is it, indeed, too bad? What are you doing up here with that woman? You scoundrel! But now listen to me; Leonard: you have driven me to desperation; and I don't care what I do, or who hears me. I'll not bear it. She shall not have my place with you--

CHARTERIS. Sh-sh!

JULIA. No, no: I don't care: I will expose her true character before everybody. You belong to me: you have no right to be here; and she knows it.

CHARTERIS. I think you had better let me take you home, Julia.

JULIA. I will not. I am not going home: I am going to stay here--here--until I have made you give her up.

CHARTERIS. My dear, you must be reasonable. You really cannot stay in Mrs. Tranfield's house if she objects. She can ring the bell and have us both put out.

JULIA. Let her do it then. Let her ring the bell if she dares. Let us see how this pure virtuous creature will face the scandal of what I will declare about her. Let us see how you will face it. I have nothing to lose. Everybody knows how you have treated me: you have boasted of your conquests, you poor pitiful, vain creature--I am the common talk of your acquaintances and hers. Oh, I have calculated my advantage : I am a most unhappy and injured woman; but I am not the fool you take me to be. I am going to stay--see! Now, Mrs. Tranfield: there is the bell: why don't you ring? Ha! ha! I thought so.

CHARTERIS . Mrs. Tranfield: I think you had better go into another room.

JULIA. She shall not. She shall stay here. She shall know what you are, and how you have been in love with me--how it is not two days since you kissed me and told me that the future would be as happy as the past. You did: deny it if you dare.

CHARTERIS . Go!

GRACE . Get her away as soon as you can, Leonard.

JULIA . Oh, there is no need to be violent. . That is worthy of you!--to use brute force--to humiliate me before her!

CHARTERIS . This is going to be a cheerful evening. Now patience, patience, patience!

JULIA . Leonard, have you no feeling for me?

CHARTERIS. Only an intense desire to get you safely out of this.

JULIA . I am not going to stir.

CHARTERIS . Well, well.

JULIA . I am going to speak to that woman.

CHARTERIS . No, no. Hang it, Julia, don't let's have another wrestling match. I have the strength, but not the wind: you're too young for me. Sit down or else let me take you home. Suppose her father comes in.

JULIA. I don't care. It rests with you. I am ready to go if she will give you up: until then I stay. Those are my terms: you owe me that, --

CHARTERIS. I owe you just exactly nothing.

JULIA . Nothing! You can look me in the face and say that? Oh, Leonard!

CHARTERIS. Let me remind you, Julia, that when first we became acquainted, the position you took up was that of a woman of advanced views.

JULIA. That should have made you respect me the more.

CHARTERIS . 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. That's the rational view--our view. Accordingly, you reserved the right to leave me at any time if you found our companionship incompatible with--what was the expression you used?--with your full development as a human being: I think that was how you put the Ibsenist view--our view. So I had to be content with a charming philander, which taught me a great deal, and brought me some hours of exquisite happiness.

JULIA. Leonard: you confess then that you owe me something?

CHARTERIS . No: what I received, I paid. Did you learn nothing from me?--was there no delight for you in our friendship?

JULIA . No. You made me pay dearly for every moment of happiness. You revenged yourself on me for the humiliation of being the slave of your passion for me. I was never sure of you for a moment. I trembled whenever a letter came from you, lest it should contain some stab for me. I dreaded your visits almost as much as I longed for them. I was your plaything, not your companion. Oh, there was such suffering in my happiness that I hardly knew joy from pain. Better for me if I had never met you!

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