George Bernard Shaw - Pygmalion and Three Other Plays

RIDGEON I tell you I made no mistake. I cured Blenkinsop: was there any mistake there?

JENNIFER He recovered. Oh, dont be foolishly proud, doctor. Confess to a failure, and save our friendship. Remember, Sir Ralph gave Louis your medicine; and it made him worse.

RIDGEON I cant be your friend on false pretences. Something has got me by the throat: the truth must come out. I used that medicine myself on Blenkinsop. It did not make him worse. It is a dangerous medicine: it cured Blenkinsop: it killed Louis Dubedat. When I handle it, it cures. When another man handles it, it kills — sometimes.

JENNIFER [ naively: not yet taking it all in] Then why did you let Sir Ralph give it to Louis?

RIDGEON I’m going to tell you. I did it because I was in love with you.

JENNIFER [ innocently surprised] In lo — You! an elderly man!

RIDGEON [ thunderstruck, raising his fists to heaven] Dubedat: thou art avenged! [He drops his hands and collapses on the bench ]. I never thought of that. I suppose I appear to you a ridiculous old fogey.

JENNIFER But surely — I did not mean to offend you, indeed — but you must be at least twenty years older than I am.

RIDGEON Oh, quite. More, perhaps. In twenty years you will understand how little difference that makes.

JENNIFER But even so, how could you think that I — his wife — could ever think of y o u —

RIDGEON [stopping her with a nervous waving of his fingers ] Yes, yes, yes, yes: I quite understand: you neednt rub it in.

JENNIFER But — oh, it is only dawning on me now — I was so surprised at first — do you dare to tell me that it was to gratify a miserable jealousy that you deliberately — oh! oh! you murdered him.

RIDGEON I think I did. It really comes to that.

Thou shalt not kill, but needst not strive Officiously to keep alive. [171] Quotation from “The Latest Decalogue,” by English poet Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861).

I suppose — yes: I killed him.

JENNIFER And you tell me that! to my face! callously! You are not afraid!

RIDGEON I am a doctor: I have nothing to fear. It is not an in dictable offence to call in B. B. Perhaps it ought to be; but it isnt.

JENNIFER I did not mean that. I meant afraid of my taking the law into my own hands, and killing you.

RIDGEON I am so hopelessly idiotic about you that I should not mind it a bit. You would always remember me if you did that.

JENNIFER I shall remember you always as a little man who tried to kill a great one.

RIDGEON Pardon me. I succeeded.

JENNIFER [with quiet conviction] No. Doctors think they hold the keys of life and death; but it is not their will that is fulfilled. I dont believe you made any difference at all.

RIDGEON Perhaps not. But I intended to.

JENNIFER [looking at him amazedly: not without pity] And you tried to destroy that wonderful and beautiful life merely because you grudged him a woman whom you could never have expected to care for you!

RIDGEON Who kissed my hands. Who believed in me. Who told me her friendship lasted until death.

JENNIFER And whom you were betraying.

RIDGEON No. Whom I was saving.

JENNIFER [ gently ] Pray, doctor, from what?

RIDGE ON From making a terrible discovery. From having your life laid waste.

JENNIFER How?

RIDGEON No matter. I h a v e saved you. I have been the best friend you ever had. You are happy. You are well. His works are an imperishable joy and pride for you.

JENNIFER And you think that is y o u r doing. Oh doctor, doctor! Sir Patrick is right: you do think you are a little god. How can you be so silly? Y o u did not paint those pictures which are my imperishable joy and pride: y o u did not speak the words that will always be heavenly music in my ears. I listen to them now whenever I am tired or sad. That is why I am always happy.

RIDGEON Yes, now that he is dead. Were you always happy when he was alive?

JENNIFER [wounded] Oh, you are cruel, cruel. When he was alive I did not know the greatness of my blessing. I worried meanly about little things. I was unkind to him. I was unworthy of him.

RIDGEON [ laughingbitterly ]Ha!

JENNIFER Dont insult me: dont blaspheme. [ She snatches up the book and presses it to her heart in a paroxysm of remorse, exclaiming] Oh, my King of Men!

RIDGEON King of Men! Oh, this is too monstrous, too grotesque. We cruel doctors have kept the secret from you faithfully; but it is like all secrets: it will not not keep itself. The buried truth germinates and breaks through to the light.

JENNIFER What truth?

RIDGEON What truth! Why, that Louis Dubedat, King of Men, was the most entire and perfect scoundrel, the most miraculously mean rascal, the most callously selfish blackguard that ever made a wife miserable.

JENNIFER [ unshaken: calm and lovely ] He made his wife the happiest woman in the world, doctor.

RIDGEON No: by all thats true on earth, he made his widow the happiest woman in the world; but it was I who made her a widow. And her happiness is my justification and my reward. Now you know what I did and what I thought of him. Be as angry with me as you like: at least you know me as I really am. If you ever come to care for an elderly man, you will know what you are caring for.

JENNIFER [kind and quiet] I am not angry with you any more, Sir Colenso. I knew quite well that you did not like Louis; but it is not your fault: you dont understand: that is all. You never could have believed in him. It is just like your not believing in my religion: it is a sort of sixth sense that you have not got. And [ with a gentle reassuring movement towards him] dont think that you have shocked me so dreadfully. I know quite well what you mean by his selfishness. He sacrificed everything for his art. In a certain sense he had even to sacrifice everybody —

RIDGEON Everybody except himself. By keeping that back he lost the right to sacrifice you, and gave me the right to sacrifice him. Which I did.

JENNIFER [shaking her head, pitying his error] He was one of the men who know what women know: that self-sacrifice is vain and cowardly.

RIDGEON Yes, when the sacrifice is rejected and thrown away. Not when it becomes the food of godhead.

JENNIFER I dont understand that. And I cant argue with you: you are clever enough to puzzle me, but not to shake me. You are so utterly, so wildly wrong; so incapable of appreciating Louis —

RIDGEON Oh! [taking up the SECRETARY’s list] I have marked five pictures as sold to me.

JENNIFER They will not be sold to you. Louis’ creditors insisted on selling them; but this is my birthday; and they were all bought in for me this morning by my husband.

RIDGEON By whom?!!!

JENNIFER By my husband.

RIDGEON [ gabbling and stuttering] What husband? Whose husband? Which husband? Whom? how? what? Do you mean to say that you have married again?

JENNIFER Do you forget that Louis disliked widows, and that people who have married happily once always marry again?

RIDGEON Then I have committed a purely disinterested murder!

The SECRETARY returns with a pile of catalogues.

THE SECRETARY Just got the first batch of catalogues in time. The doors are open.

JENNIFER [ to RIDGEON, politely ] So glad you like the pictures, Sir Colenso. Good morning.

RIDGEON Good morning. [He goes towards the door; hesitates; turns to say something more; gives it up as a bad job; and goes].

As WILL BE seen later on, Pygmalion needs, not a preface, but a sequel, which I have supplied in its due place.