The Inca of Perusalem.
by George Bernard Shaw.
I must remind the reader that this playlet was written when its princ.i.p.al character, far from being a fallen foe and virtually a prisoner in our victorious hands, was still the Caesar whose legions we were resisting with our hearts in our mouths. Many were so horribly afraid of him that they could not forgive me for not being afraid of him: I seemed to be trifling heartlessly with a deadly peril. I knew better; and I have represented Caesar as knowing better himself. But it was one of the quaintnesses of popular feeling during the war that anyone who breathed the slightest doubt of the absolute perfection of German organization, the Machiavellian depth of German diplomacy, the omniscience of German science, the equipment of every German with a complete philosophy of history, and the consequent hopelessness of overcoming so magnificently accomplished an enemy except by the sacrifice of every recreative activity to incessant and vehement war work, including a heartbreaking ma.s.s of fussing and cadging and bluffing that did nothing but waste our energies and tire our resolution, was called a pro-German.
Now that this is all over, and the upshot of the fighting has shown that we could quite well have afforded to laugh at the doomed Inca, I am in another difficulty. I may be supposed to be hitting Caesar when he is down. That is why I preface the play with this reminder that when it was written he was not down. To make quite sure, I have gone through the proof sheets very carefully, and deleted everything that could possibly be mistaken for a foul blow. I have of course maintained the ancient privilege of comedy to chasten Caesar"s foibles by laughing at them, whilst introducing enough obvious and outrageous fiction to relieve both myself and my model from the obligations and responsibilities of sober history and biography. But I should certainly put the play in the fire instead of publishing it if it contained a word against our defeated enemy that I would not have written in 1913.
The Inca of Perusalem was performed for the first time in England by the Pioneer Players at the Criterion Theatre, London, on 16th December, 1917, with Gertrude Kingston as Ermyntrude, Helen Morris as the Princess, Nigel Playfair as the waiter, Alfred Drayton as the hotel manager, C. Wordley Hulse as the Archdeacon, and Randle Ayrton as the Inca.
PROLOGUE
The tableau curtains are closed. An English archdeacon comes through them in a condition of extreme irritation. He speaks through the curtains to someone behind them.
THE ARCHDEACON. Once for all, Ermyntrude, I cannot afford to maintain you in your present extravagance. [He goes to a flight of steps leading to the stalls and sits down disconsolately on the top step. A fashionably dressed lady comes through the curtains and contemplates him with patient obstinacy. He continues, grumbling.] An English clergyman"s daughter should be able to live quite respectably and comfortably on an allowance of 150 a year, wrung with great difficulty from the domestic budget.
ERMYNTRUDE. You are not a common clergyman: you are an archdeacon.
THE ARCHDEACON [angrily]. That does not affect my emoluments to the extent of enabling me to support a daughter whose extravagance would disgrace a royal personage. [Scrambling to his feet and scolding at her.] What do you mean by it, Miss?
ERMYNTRUDE. Oh really, father! Miss! Is that the way to talk to a widow?
THE ARCHDEACON. Is that the way to talk to a father? Your marriage was a most disastrous imprudence. It gave you habits that are absolutely beyond your means--I mean beyond my means: you have no means. Why did you not marry Matthews: the best curate I ever had?
ERMYNTRUDE. I wanted to; and you wouldn"t let me. You insisted on my marrying Roosenhonkers-Pipstein.
THE ARCHDEACON. I had to do the best for you, my child.
Roosenhonkers-Pipstein was a millionaire.
ERMYNTRUDE. How did you know he was a millionaire?
THE ARCHDEACON. He came from America. Of course he was a millionaire.
Besides, he proved to my solicitors that he had fifteen million dollars when you married him.
ERYNTRUDE. His solicitors proved to me that he had sixteen millions when he died. He was a millionaire to the last.
THE ARCHDEACON. O Mammon, Mammon! I am punished now for bowing the knee to him. Is there nothing left of your settlement? Fifty thousand dollars a year it secured to you, as we all thought. Only half the securities could be called speculative. The other half were gilt-edged. What has become of it all?
ERMYNTRUDE. The speculative ones were not paid up; and the gilt-edged ones just paid the calls on them until the whole show burst up.
THE ARCHDEACON. Ermyntrude: what expressions!
ERMYNTRUDE. Oh bother! If you had lost ten thousand a year what expressions would you use, do you think? The long and the short of it is that I can"t live in the squalid way you are accustomed to.
THE ARCHDEACON. Squalid!
ERMYNTRUDE. I have formed habits of comfort.
THE ARCHDEACON. Comfort!!
ERMYNTRUDE. Well, elegance if you like. Luxury, if you insist. Call it what you please. A house that costs less than a hundred thousand dollars a year to run is intolerable to me.
THE ARCHDEACON. Then, my dear, you had better become lady"s maid to a princess until you can find another millionaire to marry you.
ERMYNTRUDE. That"s an idea. I will. [She vanishes through the curtains.]
THE ARCHDEACON. What! Come back. Come back this instant. [The lights are lowered.] Oh, very well: I have nothing more to say. [He descends the steps into the auditorium and makes for the door, grumbling all the time.] Insane, senseless extravagance! [Barking.] Worthlessness!!
[Muttering.] I will not bear it any longer. Dresses, hats, furs, gloves, motor rides: one bill after another: money going like water. No restraint, no self-control, no decency. [Shrieking.] I say, no decency!
[Muttering again.] Nice state of things we are coming to! A pretty world! But I simply will not bear it. She can do as she likes. I wash my hands of her: I am not going to die in the workhouse for any good-for-nothing, undutiful, spendthrift daughter; and the sooner that is understood by everybody the better for all par---- [He is by this time out of hearing in the corridor.]
THE PLAY
A hotel sitting room. A table in the centre. On it a telephone. Two chairs at it, opposite one another. Behind it, the door. The fireplace has a mirror in the mantelpiece.
A spinster Princess, hatted and gloved, is ushered in by the hotel manager, spruce and artifically bland by professional habit, but treating his customer with a condescending affability which sails very close to the east wind of insolence.
THE MANAGER. I am sorry I am unable to accommodate Your Highness on the first floor.
THE PRINCESS [very shy and nervous.] Oh, please don"t mention it. This is quite nice. Very nice. Thank you very much.
THE MANAGER. We could prepare a room in the annexe--
THE PRINCESS. Oh no. This will do very well.
She takes of her gloves and hat: puts them on the table; and sits down.
THE MANAGER. The rooms are quite as good up here. There is less noise; and there is the lift. If Your Highness desires anything, there is the telephone--
THE PRINCESS. Oh, thank you, I don"t want anything. The telephone is so difficult: I am not accustomed to it.
THE MANAGER. Can I take any order? Some tea?
THE PRINCESS. Oh, thank you. Yes: I should like some tea, if I might--if it would not be too much trouble.
He goes out. The telephone rings. The Princess starts out of her chair, terrified, and recoils as far as possible from the instrument.
THE PRINCESS. Oh dear! [It rings again. She looks scared. It rings again. She approaches it timidly. It rings again. She retreats hastily.
It rings repeatedly. She runs to it in desperation and puts the receiver to her ear.] Who is there? What do I do? I am not used to the telephone: I don"t know how--What! Oh, I can hear you speaking quite distinctly.
[She sits down, delighted, and settles herself for a conversation.] How wonderful! What! A lady? Oh! a person. Oh, yes: I know. Yes, please, send her up. Have my servants finished their lunch yet? Oh no: please don"t disturb them: I"d rather not. It doesn"t matter. Thank you. What?
Oh yes, it"s quite easy. I had no idea--am I to hang it up just as it was? Thank you. [She hangs it up.]
Ermyntrude enters, presenting a plain and staid appearance in a long straight waterproof with a hood over her head gear. She comes to the end of the table opposite to that at which the Princess is seated.