Getting Married by George Bernard Shaw - HTML preview

Getting Married

N.B.--There is a point of some technical interest to be noted in this play. The customary division into acts and scenes has been disused, and a return made to unity of time and place, as observed in the ancient Greek drama. In the foregoing tragedy, The Doctor's Dilemma, there are five acts; the place is altered five times; and the time is spread over an undetermined period of more than a year. No doubt the strain on the attention of the audience and on the ingenuity of the playwright is much less; but I find in practice that the Greek form is inevitable when drama reaches a certain point in poetic and intellectual evolution. Its adoption was not, on my part, a deliberate display of virtuosity in form, but simply the spontaneous falling of a play of ideas into the form most suitable to it, which turned out to be the classical form. Getting Married, in several acts and scenes, with the time spread over a long period, would be impossible.

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 On a fine morning in the spring of 1908 the Norman kitchen in the Palace of the Bishop of Chelsea looks very spacious and clean and handsome and healthy.

The Bishop is lucky enough to have a XII century palace. The palace itself has been lucky enough to escape being carved up into XV century Gothic, or shaved into XVIII century ashlar, or "restored" by a XIX century builder and a Victorian architect with a deep sense of the umbrella-like gentlemanliness of XIV century vaulting. The present occupant, A. Chelsea, unofficially Alfred Bridgenorth, appreciates Norman work. He has, by adroit complaints of the discomfort of the place, induced the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to give him some money to spend on it; and with this he has got rid of the wall papers, the paint, the partitions, the exquisitely planed and moulded casings with which the Victorian cabinetmakers enclosed and hid the huge black beams of hewn oak, and of all other expedients of his predecessors to make themselves feel at home and respectable in a Norman fortress. It is a house built to last for ever. The walls and beams are big enough to carry the tower of Babel, as if the builders, anticipating our modern ideas and instinctively defying them, had resolved to show how much material they could lavish on a house built for the glory of God, instead of keeping a competitive eye on the advantage of sending in the lowest tender, and scientifically calculating how little material would be enough to prevent the whole affair from tumbling down by its own weight.

The kitchen is the Bishop's favorite room. This is not at all because he is a man of humble mind; but because the kitchen is one of the finest rooms in the house. The Bishop has neither the income nor the appetite to have his cooking done there. The windows, high up in the wall, look north and south. The north window is the largest; and if we look into the kitchen through it we see facing us the south wall with small Norman windows and an open door near the corner to the left. Through this door we have a glimpse of the garden, and of a garden chair in the sunshine. In the right-hand corner is an entrance to a vaulted circular chamber with a winding stair leading up through a tower to the upper floors of the palace. In the wall to our right is the immense fireplace, with its huge spit like a baby crane, and a collection of old iron and brass instruments which pass as the original furniture of the fire, though as a matter of fact they have been picked up from time to time by the Bishop at secondhand shops. In the near end of the left hand wall a small Norman door gives access to the Bishop's study, formerly a scullery. Further along, a great oak chest stands against the wall. Across the middle of the kitchen is a big timber table surrounded by eleven stout rushbottomed chairs: four on the far side, three on the near side, and two at each end. There is a big chair with railed back and sides on the hearth. On the floor is a drugget of thick fibre matting. The only other piece of furniture is a clock with a wooden dial about as large as the bottom of a washtub, the weights, chains, and pendulum being of corresponding magnitude; but the Bishop has long since abandoned the attempt to keep it going. It hangs above the oak chest.

The kitchen is occupied at present by the Bishop's lady, Mrs Bridgenorth, who is talking to Mr William Collins, the greengrocer. He is in evening dress, though it is early forenoon. Mrs Bridgenorth is a quiet happy-looking woman of fifty or thereabouts, placid, gentle, and humorous, with delicate features and fine grey hair with many white threads. She is dressed as for some festivity; but she is taking things easily as she sits in the big chair by the hearth, reading The Times.

Collins is an elderly man with a rather youthful waist. His muttonchop whiskers have a coquettish touch of Dundreary at their lower ends. He is an affable man, with those perfect manners which can be acquired only in keeping a shop for the sale of necessaries of life to ladies whose social position is so unquestionable that they are not anxious about it. He is a reassuring man, with a vigilant grey eye, and the power of saying anything he likes to you without offence, because his tone always implies that he does it with your kind permission. Withal by no means servile: rather gallant and compassionate, but never without a conscientious recognition, on public grounds, of social distinctions. He is at the oak chest counting a pile of napkins.

Mrs Bridgenorth reads placidly: Collins counts: a blackbird sings in the garden. Mrs Bridgenorth puts The Times down in her lap and considers Collins for a moment.

MRS BRIDGENORTH. Do you never feel nervous on these occasions, Collins?

COLLINS. Lord bless you, no, ma'am. It would be a joke, after marrying five of your daughters, if I was to get nervous over marrying the last of them.

MRS BRIDGENORTH. I have always said you were a wonderful man, Collins. COLLINS [almost blushing] Oh, ma'am!

MRS BRIDGENORTH. Yes. I never could arrange anything--a wedding or even dinner--without some hitch or other.

COLLINS . Why should you give yourself the trouble, ma'am? Send for the greengrocer, ma'am: thats the secret of easy housekeeping. Bless you, it's his business. It pays him and you, let alone the pleasure in a house like this [Mrs Bridgenorth bows in acknowledgment of the compliment]. They joke about the greengrocer, just as they joke about the mother-in-law. But they cant get on without both.

MRS BRIDGENORTH. What a bond between us, Collins!

COLLINS . Bless you, ma'am, there's all sorts of bonds between all sorts of people. You are a very affable lady, ma'am, for a Bishop's lady. I have known Bishop's ladies that would fairly provoke you to up and cheek them; but nobody would ever forget himself and his place with you, ma'am.

MRS BRIDGENORTH. Collins: you are a flatterer. You will superintend the breakfast yourself as usual, of course, wont you?

COLLINS . Yes, yes, bless you, ma'am, of course. I always do. Them fashionable caterers send down such people as I never did set eyes on. Dukes you would take them for. You see the relatives shaking hands with them and asking them about the family-- actually ladies saying "Where have we met before?" and all sorts of confusion. That's my secret in business, ma'am. You can always spot me as the greengrocer. It's a fortune to me in these days, when you cant hardly tell who any one is or isnt. [He goes out through the tower, and immediately returns for a moment to announce] The General, ma'am.

Mrs Bridgenorth rises to receive her brother-in-law, who enters resplendent in full-dress uniform, with many medals and orders. General Bridgenorth is a well set up man of fifty, with large brave nostrils, an iron mouth, faithful dog's eyes, and much natural simplicity and dignity of character. He is ignorant, stupid, and prejudiced, having been carefully trained to be so; and it is not always possible to be patient with him when his unquestionably good intentions become actively mischievous; but one blames society, not himself, for this. He would be no worse a man than Collins, had he enjoyed Collins's social opportunities. He comes to the hearth, where Mrs Bridgenorth is standing with her back to the fireplace.

MRS BRIDGENORTH . Good morning, Boxer. [They shake hands]. Another niece to give away. This is the last of them.

THE GENERAL [very gloomy] Yes, Alice. Nothing for the old warrior uncle to do but give away brides to luckier men than himself. Has--[he chokes] has your sister come yet?

MRS BRIDGENORTH. Why do you always call Lesbia my sister? Don't you know that it annoys her more than any of the rest of your tricks?

THE GENERAL . Tricks! Ha! Well, I'll try to break myself of it; but I think she might bear with me in a little thing like that. She knows that her name sticks in my throat. Better call her your sister than try to call her L-- [he almost breaks down] L-- well, call her by her name and make a fool of myself by crying. [He sits down at the near end of the table].

MRS BRIDGENORTH [going to him and rallying him] Oh come, Boxer! Really, really! We are no longer boys and girls. You cant keep up a broken heart all your life. It must be nearly twenty years since she refused you. And you know that it's not because she dislikes you, but only that she's not a marrying woman.

THE GENERAL. It's no use. I love her still. And I cant help telling her so whenever we meet, though I know it makes her avoid me. [He all but weeps].

MRS BRIDGENORTH. What does she say when you tell her?

THE GENERAL. Only that she wonders when I am going to grow out of it. I know now that I shall never grow out of it.

MRS BRIDGENORTH. Perhaps you would if you married her. I believe you're better as you are, Boxer.

THE GENERAL . I'm a miserable man. I'm really sorry to be a ridiculous old bore, Alice; but when I come to this house for a wedding--to these scenes--to--to recollections of the past-- always to give the bride to somebody else, and never to have my bride given to me--[he rises abruptly] May I go into the garden and smoke it off?

MRS BRIDGENORTH. Do, Boxer.

 Collins returns with the wedding cake.

MRS BRIDGENORTH. Oh, here's the cake. I believe it's the same one we had for Florence's wedding.

THE GENERAL . I cant bear it [he hurries out through the garden door].

COLLINS [putting the cake on the table] Well, look at that, ma'am! Aint it odd that after all the weddings he's given away at, the General cant stand the sight of a wedding cake yet. It always seems to give him the same shock.

MRS BRIDGENORTH. Well, it's his last shock. You have married the whole family now, Collins. [She takes up The Times again and resumes her seat].

COLLINS. Except your sister, ma'am. A fine character of a lady, ma'am, is Miss Grantham. I have an ambition to arrange her wedding breakfast.

MRS BRIDGENORTH. She wont marry, Collins.

COLLINS. Bless you, ma'am, they all say that. You and me said it, I'll lay. I did, anyhow.

MRS BRIDGENORTH. No: marriage came natural to me. I should have thought it did to you too.

COLLINS [pensive] No, ma'am: it didn't come natural. My wife had to break me into it. It came natural to her: she's what you might call a regular old hen. Always wants to have her family within sight of her. Wouldn't go to bed unless she knew they was all safe at home and the door locked, and the lights out. Always wants her luggage in the carriage with her. Always goes and makes the engine driver promise her to be careful. She's a born wife and mother, ma'am. That's why my children all ran away from home.

MRS BRIDGENORTH. Did you ever feel inclined to run away, Collins?

COLLINS . Oh yes, ma'am, yes: very often. But when it came to the point I couldn't bear to hurt her feelings. She’s a sensitive, affectionate, anxious soul; and she was never brought up to know what freedom is to some people. You see, family life is all the life she knows: she's like a bird born in a cage, that would die if you let it loose in the woods. When I thought how little it was to a man of my easy temper to put up with her, and how deep it would hurt her to think it was because I didn't care for her, I always put off running away till next time; and so in the end I never ran away at all. I daresay it was good for me to be took such care of; but it cut me off from all my old friends something dreadful, ma'am: especially the women, ma'am. She never gave them a chance: she didn't indeed. She never understood that married people should take holidays from one another if they are to keep at all fresh. Not that I ever got tired of her, ma'am; but my! how I used to get tired of home life sometimes. I used to catch myself envying my brother George: I positively did, ma'am.

MRS BRIDGENORTH. George was a bachelor then, I suppose?

COLLINS . Bless you, no, ma'am. He married a very fine figure of a woman; but she was that changeable and what you might call susceptible, you would not believe. She didn't seem to have any control over herself when she fell in love. She would mope for a couple of days, crying about nothing; and then she would up and say--no matter who was there to hear her--"I must go to him, George"; and away she would go from her home and her husband without with-your-leave or by-your-leave.

MRS BRIDGENORTH. But do you mean that she did this more than once? That she came back?

COLLINS. Bless you, ma'am, she done it five times to my own knowledge; and then George gave up telling us about it, he got so used to it.

MRS BRIDGENORTH. But did he always take her back?

COLLINS . Well, what could he do, ma'am? Three times out of four the men would bring her back the same evening and no harm done. Other times they'd run away from her. What could any man with a heart do but comfort her when she came back crying at the way they dodged her when she threw herself at their heads, pretending they was too noble to accept the sacrifice she was making. George told her again and again that if she'd only stay at home and hold off a bit they'd be at her feet all day long. She got sensible at last and took his advice. George always liked change of company.

MRS BRIDGENORTH. What an odious woman, Collins! Don't you think so?

COLLINS [judicially] Well, many ladies with a domestic turn thought so and said so, ma'am. But I will say for Mrs George that the variety of experience made her wonderful interesting. That's where the flighty ones score off the steady ones, ma'am. Look at my old woman! She's never known any man but me; and she cant properly know me, because she don't know other men to compare me with. Of course she knows her parents in--well, in the way one does know one's parents not knowing half their lives as you might say, or ever thinking that they was ever young; and she knew her children as children, and never thought of them as independent human beings till they ran away and nigh broke her heart for a week or two. But Mrs George she came to know a lot about men of all sorts and ages; for the older she got the younger she liked em; and it certainly made her interesting, and gave her a lot of sense. I have often taken her advice on things when my own poor old woman wouldn't have been a bit of use to me.

MRS BRIDGENORTH . I hope you don't tell your wife that you go elsewhere for advice.

COLLINS. Lord bless you, ma'am, I'm that fond of my old Matilda that I never tell her anything at all for fear of hurting her feelings. You see, she's such an out-and-out wife and mother that she's hardly a responsible human being out of her house, except when she's marketing.

MRS BRIDGENORTH. Does she approve of Mrs George?

COLLINS . Oh, Mrs George gets round her. Mrs George can get round anybody if she wants to. And then Mrs George is very particular about religion. And she’s a clairvoyant.

MRS BRIDGENORTH [surprised] A clairvoyant!

COLLINS [calm] Oh yes, ma'am, yes. All you have to do is to mesmerize her a bit; and off she goes into a trance, and says the most wonderful things! not things about herself, but as if it was the whole human race giving you a bit of its mind. Oh, wonderful, ma'am, I assure you. You couldn’t think of a game that Mrs George isn’t up to.

Lesbia Grantham comes in through the tower. She is a tall, handsome, slender lady in her prime; that is, between 36 and 55. She has what is called a well-bred air, dressing very carefully to produce that effect without the least regard for the latest fashions, sure of herself, very terrifying to the young and shy, fastidious to the ends of her long finger-tips, and tolerant and amused rather than sympathetic.

LESBIA. Good morning, dear big sister.

MRS BRIDGENORTH. Good morning, dear little sister. [They kiss].

LESBIA. Good morning, Collins. How well you are looking! And how young! [She turns the middle chair away from the table and sits down].

COLLINS . That's only my professional habit at a wedding, Miss. You should see me at a political dinner. I look nigh seventy. [Looking at his watch] Time's getting along, ma'am. May I send up word from you to Miss Edith to hurry a bit with her dressing?

MRS BRIDGENORTH. Do, Collins.

 Collins goes out through the tower, taking the cake with him.

LESBIA. Dear old Collins! Has he told you any stories this morning?

MRS BRIDGENORTH. Yes. You were just late for a particularly thrilling invention of his.

LESBIA. About Mrs George?

MRS BRIDGENORTH. Yes. He says she's a clairvoyant.

LESBIA. I wonder whether he really invented George, or stole her out of some book.

MRS BRIDGENORTH. I wonder!

LESBIA. Wheres the Barmecide?

MRS BRIDGENORTH. In the study, working away at his new book. He thinks no more now of having a daughter married than of having an egg for breakfast.

 The General, soothed by smoking, comes in from the garden.

THE GENERAL [with resolute bonhomie] Ah, Lesbia!

MRS BRIDGENORTH. How do you do? [They shake hands; and he takes the chair on her right].

 Mrs Bridgenorth goes out through the tower.

LESBIA. How are you, Boxer? You look almost as gorgeous as the wedding cake.

THE GENERAL . I make a point of appearing in uniform whenever I take part in any ceremony, as a lesson to the subalterns. It is not the custom in England; but it ought to be.

LESBIA. You look very fine, Boxer. What a frightful lot of bravery all these medals must represent!

THE GENERAL. No, Lesbia. They represent despair and cowardice. I won all the early ones by trying to get killed. You know why.

LESBIA. But you had a charmed life?

THE GENERAL . Yes, a charmed life. Bayonets bent on my buckles. Bullets passed through me and left no trace: that’s the worst of modern bullets: I've never been hit by a dum-dum. When I was only a company officer I had at least the right to expose myself to death in the field. Now I'm a General even that resource is cut off. [Persuasively drawing his chair nearer to her] Listen to me, Lesbia. For the tenth and last time--

LESBIA [interrupting] On Florence's wedding morning, two years ago, you said "For the ninth and last time."

THE GENERAL. We are two years older, Lesbia. I'm fifty: you are-

LESBIA. Yes, I know. It's no use, Boxer. When will you be old enough to take no for an answer?

THE GENERAL . Never, Lesbia, never. You have never given me a real reason for refusing me yet. I once thought it was somebody else. There were lots of fellows after you; but now they’ve all given it up and married. [Bending still nearer to her] Lesbia: tell me your secret. Why--

LESBIA [sniffing disgustedly] Oh! You've been smoking. [She rises and goes to the chair on the hearth] Keep away, you wretch.

THE GENERAL. But for that pipe, I could not have faced you without breaking down. It has soothed me and nerved me.

LESBIA [sitting down with The Times in her hand] Well, it has nerved me to tell you why I'm going to be an old maid.

THE GENERAL [impulsively approaching her] Don't say that, Lesbia. It's not natural: it's not right: it's--

LESBIA . [fanning him off] No: no closer, Boxer, please. [He retreats, discouraged]. It may not be natural; but it happens all the time. You’ll find plenty of women like me, if you care to look for them: women with lots of character and good looks and money and offers, who wont and don't get married. Cant you guess why?

THE GENERAL. I can understand when there is another.

LESBIA . Yes; but there isn’t another. Besides, do you suppose I think, at my time of life, that the difference between one decent sort of man and another is worth bothering about?

THE GENERAL. The heart has its preferences, Lesbia. One image, and one only, gets indelibly--

LESBIA . Yes. Excuse my interrupting you so often; but your sentiments are so correct that I always know what you are going to say before you finish. You see, Boxer, everybody is not like you. You are a sentimental noodle: you don't see women as they really are. You don't see me as I really am. Now I do see men as they really are. I see you as you really are.

THE GENERAL [murmuring] No: don't say that, Lesbia.

LESBIA . I'm a regular old maid. I'm very particular about my belongings. I like to have my own house, and to have it to myself. I have a very keen sense of beauty and fitness and cleanliness and order. I am proud of my independence and jealous for it. I have a sufficiently well-stocked mind to be very good company for myself if I have plenty of books and music. The one thing I never could stand is a great lout of a man smoking all over my house and going to sleep in his chair after dinner, and untidying everything. Ugh!

THE GENERAL. But love--

LESBIA . Ob, love! Have you no imagination? Do you think I have never been in love with wonderful men? heroes! archangels! princes! sages! even fascinating rascals! and had the strangest adventures with them? Do you know what it is to look at a mere real man after that? a man with his boots in every corner, and the smell of his tobacco in every curtain?

THE GENERAL [somewhat dazed] Well but--excuse my mentioning it--don't you want children?

LESBIA . I ought to have children. I should be a good mother to children. I believe it would pay the country very well to pay me very well to have children. But the country tells me that I cant have a child in my house without a man in it too; so I tell the country that it will have to do without my children. If I am to be a mother, I really cannot have a man bothering me to be a wife at the same time.

THE GENERAL. My dear Lesbia: you know I don't wish to be impertinent; but these are not the correct views for an English lady to express.

LESBIA . That is why I don't express them, except to gentlemen who wont take any other answer. The difficulty, you see, is that I really am an English lady, and am particularly proud of being one.

THE GENERAL. I'm sure of that, Lesbia: quite sure of it. I never meant--

LESBIA [rising impatiently] Oh, my dear Boxer, do please try to think of something else than whether you have offended me, and whether you are doing the correct thing as an English gentleman. You are faultless, and very dull. [She shakes her shoulders intolerantly and walks across to the other side of the kitchen].

THE GENERAL [moodily] Ha! That’s what’s the matter with me. Not clever. A poor silly soldier man.

LESBIA. The whole matter is very simple. As I say, I am an English lady, by which I mean that I have been trained to do without what I cant have on honorable terms, no matter what it is.

THE GENERAL. I really don't understand you, Lesbia.

LESBIA [turning on him] Then why on earth do you want to marry a woman you don't understand?

THE GENERAL. I don't know. I suppose I love you.

LESBIA. Well, Boxer, you can love me as much as you like, provided you look happy about it and don't bore me. But you cant marry me; and thats all about it.

THE GENERAL . It's so frightfully difficult to argue the matter fairly with you without wounding your delicacy by overstepping the bounds of good taste. But surely there are calls of nature-- LESBIA. Don't be ridiculous, Boxer.

THE GENERAL. Well, how am I to express it? Hang it all, Lesbia, don't you want a husband?

LESBIA . No. I want children; and I want to devote myself entirely to my children, and not to their father. The law will not allow me to do that; so I have made up my mind to have neither husband nor children.

THE GENERAL. But, great Heavens, the natural appetites--

LESBIA . As I said before, an English lady is not the slave of her appetites. That is what an English gentleman seems incapable of understanding. [She sits down at the end of the table, near the study door].

THE GENERAL [huffily] Oh well, if you refuse, you refuse. I shall not ask you again. I'm sorry I returned to the subject. [He retires to the hearth and plants himself there, wounded and lofty].

LESBIA. Don't be cross, Boxer.

THE GENERAL. I'm not cross, only wounded, Lesbia. And when you talk like that, I don't feel convinced: I only feel utterly at a loss.

LESBIA. Well, you know our family rule. When at a loss consult the greengrocer. [Opportunely Collins comes in through the tower]. Here he is.

COLLINS. Sorry to be so much in and out, Miss. I thought Mrs Bridgenorth was here. The table is ready now for the breakfast, if she would like to see it.

LESBIA. If you are satisfied, Collins, I am sure she will be.

THE GENERAL. By the way, Collins: I thought they’d made you an alderman.

COLLINS. So they have, General.

THE GENERAL. Then where’s your gown?

COLLINS. I don't wear it in private life, General.

THE GENERAL. Why? Are you ashamed of it?

COLLINS. No, General. To tell you the truth, I take a pride in it. I cant help it.

THE GENERAL. Attention, Collins. Come here. [Collins comes to him]. Do you see my uniform--all my medals?

COLLINS. Yes, General. They strike the eye, as it were.

THE GENERAL . They are meant to. Very well. Now you know, don't you, that your services to the community as a greengrocer are as important and as dignified as mine as a soldier?

COLLINS. I'm sure it's very honorable of you to say so, General.

THE GENERAL [emphatically] You know also, don't you, that any man who can see anything ridiculous, or unmanly, or unbecoming in your work or in your civic robes is not a gentleman, but a jumping, bounding, snorting cad?

COLLINS. Well, strictly between ourselves, that is my opinion, General.

THE GENERAL. Then why not dignify my niece's wedding by wearing your robes?

COLLINS. A bargain's a bargain, General. Mrs Bridgenorth sent for the greengrocer, not for the alderman. It's just as unpleasant to get more than you bargain for as to get less.

THE GENERAL . I'm sure she will agree with me. I attach importance to this as an affirmation of solidarity in the service of the community. The Bishop's apron, my uniform, your robes: the Church, the Army, and the Municipality.

COLLINS [retiring] Very well, General. [He turns dubiously to Lesbia on his way to the tower]. I wonder what my wife will say, Miss?

THE GENERAL . What! Is your, w