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 [seizing 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 to-day?
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?[59] 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 dont know Barbara.
UNDERSHAFT My friend: I never ask for what I can buy.
CUSINS [in a whitefury] 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 dont 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 [rented] You really are an infernal old rascal.
UNDERSHAFT [indicating PETER SHIRLEY, who has just come 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 Weve just had a splendid experience meeting at the other gate in Cripps’s lane. Ive 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 didnt. 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 cant 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. dont 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 cant get more money. I force the collections at the meetings until I am ashamed: dont 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[60] 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, isnt 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 cant 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, dont comfort me. It will be all right. We shall get the money.
UNDERSHAFT How?
JENNY By praying for it, of course. Mrs. Baines says she prayed for it last night; and she has never prayed for it in vain: never once. [She goes to the gate and looks out into the street.]
BARBARA [who has dried her eyes and regained her composure] By the way, dad, Mrs. Baines has come to march with us to our big meeting this afternoon; and she is very anxious to meet you, for some reason or other. Perhaps she’ll convert you.
59
Saint Simeon (c.390-459), called “Stylites” (pillar-dweller), spent the last thirty years of his life on a pillar (where, presumably, he could not wash easily).