GEORGE SHAW - Collected Works

CATHERINE.

( entering hastily, full of good news ). Raina—( she pronounces it Rah-eena, with the stress on the ee ) Raina—( she goes to the bed, expecting to find Raina there. ) Why, where—( Raina looks into the room. ) Heavens! child, are you out in the night air instead of in your bed? You’ll catch your death. Louka told me you were asleep.

RAINA.

( coming in ). I sent her away. I wanted to be alone. The stars are so beautiful! What is the matter?

CATHERINE.

Such news. There has been a battle!

RAINA.

( her eyes dilating ). Ah! ( She throws the cloak on the ottoman, and comes eagerly to Catherine in her nightgown, a pretty garment, but evidently the only one she has on. )

CATHERINE.

A great battle at Slivnitza! A victory! And it was won by Sergius.

RAINA.

( with a cry of delight ). Ah! ( Rapturously. ) Oh, mother! ( Then, with sudden anxiety ) Is father safe?

CATHERINE.

Of course: he sent me the news. Sergius is the hero of the hour, the idol of the regiment.

RAINA.

Tell me, tell me. How was it! ( Ecstatically ) Oh, mother, mother, mother! ( Raina pulls her mother down on the ottoman; and they kiss one another frantically. )

CATHERINE.

( with surging enthusiasm ). You can’t guess how splendid it is. A cavalry charge—think of that! He defied our Russian commanders—acted without orders—led a charge on his own responsibility—headed it himself—was the first man to sweep through their guns. Can’t you see it, Raina; our gallant splendid Bulgarians with their swords and eyes flashing, thundering down like an avalanche and scattering the wretched Servian dandies like chaff. And you—you kept Sergius waiting a year before you would be betrothed to him. Oh, if you have a drop of Bulgarian blood in your veins, you will worship him when he comes back.

RAINA.

What will he care for my poor little worship after the acclamations of a whole army of heroes? But no matter: I am so happy—so proud! ( She rises and walks about excitedly. ) It proves that all our ideas were real after all.

CATHERINE.

( indignantly ). Our ideas real! What do you mean?

RAINA.

Our ideas of what Sergius would do—our patriotism—our heroic ideals. Oh, what faithless little creatures girls are!—I sometimes used to doubt whether they were anything but dreams. When I buckled on Sergius’s sword he looked so noble: it was treason to think of disillusion or humiliation or failure. And yet—and yet—( Quickly. ) Promise me you’ll never tell him.

CATHERINE.

Don’t ask me for promises until I know what I am promising.

RAINA.

Well, it came into my head just as he was holding me in his arms and looking into my eyes, that perhaps we only had our heroic ideas because we are so fond of reading Byron and Pushkin, and because we were so delighted with the opera that season at Bucharest. Real life is so seldom like that—indeed never, as far as I knew it then. ( Remorsefully. ) Only think, mother, I doubted him: I wondered whether all his heroic qualities and his soldiership might not prove mere imagination when he went into a real battle. I had an uneasy fear that he might cut a poor figure there beside all those clever Russian officers.

CATHERINE.

A poor figure! Shame on you! The Servians have Austrian officers who are just as clever as our Russians; but we have beaten them in every battle for all that.

RAINA.

( laughing and sitting down again ). Yes, I was only a prosaic little coward. Oh, to think that it was all true—that Sergius is just as splendid and noble as he looks—that the world is really a glorious world for women who can see its glory and men who can act its romance! What happiness! what unspeakable fulfilment! Ah! ( She throws herself on her knees beside her mother and flings her arms passionately round her. They are interrupted by the entry of Louka, a handsome, proud girl in a pretty Bulgarian peasant’s dress with double apron, so defiant that her servility to Raina is almost insolent. She is afraid of Catherine, but even with her goes as far as she dares. She is just now excited like the others; but she has no sympathy for Raina’s raptures and looks contemptuously at the ecstasies of the two before she addresses them. )

LOUKA.

If you please, madam, all the windows are to be closed and the shutters made fast. They say there may be shooting in the streets. ( Raina and Catherine rise together, alarmed. ) The Servians are being chased right back through the pass; and they say they may run into the town. Our cavalry will be after them; and our people will be ready for them you may be sure, now that they are running away. ( She goes out on the balcony and pulls the outside shutters to; then steps back into the room. )

RAINA.

I wish our people were not so cruel. What glory is there in killing wretched fugitives?

CATHERINE.

( business-like, her housekeeping instincts aroused ). I must see that everything is made safe downstairs.

RAINA.

( to Louka ). Leave the shutters so that I can just close them if I hear any noise.

CATHERINE.

( authoritatively, turning on her way to the door ). Oh, no, dear, you must keep them fastened. You would be sure to drop off to sleep and leave them open. Make them fast, Louka.

LOUKA.

Yes, madam. ( She fastens them. )

RAINA.

Don’t be anxious about me. The moment I hear a shot, I shall blow out the candles and roll myself up in bed with my ears well covered.

CATHERINE.

Quite the wisest thing you can do, my love. Good-night.

RAINA.

Good-night. ( They kiss one another, and Raina’s emotion comes back for a moment. ) Wish me joy of the happiest night of my life—if only there are no fugitives.

CATHERINE.

Go to bed, dear; and don’t think of them. ( She goes out. )

LOUKA.

( secretly, to Raina ). If you would like the shutters open, just give them a push like this. ( She pushes them: they open: she pulls them to again. ) One of them ought to be bolted at the bottom; but the bolt’s gone.

RAINA.

( with dignity, reproving her ). Thanks, Louka; but we must do what we are told. ( Louka makes a grimace. ) Good-night.

LOUKA.

( carelessly ). Good-night. ( She goes out, swaggering. )

( Raina, left alone, goes to the chest of drawers, and adores the portrait there with feelings that are beyond all expression. She does not kiss it or press it to her breast, or shew it any mark of bodily affection; but she takes it in her hands and elevates it like a priestess. )

RAINA.

( looking up at the picture with worship. ) Oh, I shall never be unworthy of you any more, my hero—never, never, never.

( She replaces it reverently, and selects a novel from the little pile of books. She turns over the leaves dreamily; finds her page; turns the book inside out at it; and then, with a happy sigh, gets into bed and prepares to read herself to sleep. But before abandoning herself to fiction, she raises her eyes once more, thinking of the blessed reality and murmurs )

My hero! my hero!

( A distant shot breaks the quiet of the night outside. She starts, listening; and two more shots, much nearer, follow, startling her so that she scrambles out of bed, and hastily blows out the candle on the chest of drawers. Then, putting her fingers in her ears, she runs to the dressing-table and blows out the light there, and hurries back to bed. The room is now in darkness: nothing is visible but the glimmer of the light in the pierced ball before the image, and the starlight seen through the slits at the top of the shutters. The firing breaks out again: there is a startling fusillade quite close at hand. Whilst it is still echoing, the shutters disappear, pulled open from without, and for an instant the rectangle of snowy starlight flashes out with the figure of a man in black upon it. The shutters close immediately and the room is dark again. But the silence is now broken by the sound of panting. Then there is a scrape; and the flame of a match is seen in the middle of the room. )