60 Plays: The George Bernard Shaw Edition (Illustrated). GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
turns her back on the Gadfly and goes, with Martini, towards the windows. There is another burst of applause. The windows are opened and the guests come out laughing and chattering about the singing. The Signora Grassini is with them in high spirits.
SIGNORA GRASSINI [to Gemma as she comes down the steps] He sang twice for us — the darling! — though he has five more engagements this evening. And you actually stole away, Rivarez. If he had seen you he would never have forgiven me. What do you mean by such conduct?
GADFLY. It seems wasteful and inhuman to me to set a man to make that sort of noise when a goat would do it so much better.
SIGNORA GRASSINI. What a terrible critic you are! So cynical!
Grassini comes from the house.
GRASSINI. He’s gone. He went like lightning; he has fourteen other engagements. Ah, Rivarez! How are you; delighted. I saw you come in, but couldn’t get to you through the crowd round the piano. Your charming friend, Madame Zita Reni, is looking for you everywhere. She has promised to sing for us. I must tell her where you are; I promised to find you for her.
He hurries indoors.
GEMMA [to the Gadfly] Excuse me, Signor Rivarez; do you present Madame Zita Reni as one of our friends?
GADFLY. Signora, I don’t present her at all. She is unpresentable.
GEMMA. Oh nonsense, sir; I am speaking to you seriously. Please keep your wit until we have got through our business. Who is Madame Reni?
GADFLY. An improper person at present attached to me, but not to the revolutionary cause. She would sell it, myself included, for a dozen pairs of scarlet silk stockings.
Grassini appears on the terrace with Zita on his arm.
She is gorgeously dressed in amber and scarlet, and looks like a tropical bird among sparrows and starlings. She is handsome with a vivid, animal, unintelligent beauty; but the perfect harmony and freedom of her movements are delightful to see. Her forehead is low and narrow, and her expression unsympathetic, almost cruel. Count Soltykov, a very young gentleman, evidently hopelessly in love with her, enters with her, dancing attendance on her; but she pays hardly any attention to him or to Grassini as she stops on the terrace, looking jealously about for the Gadfly.
GEMMA [to the Gadfly — looking at Zita as if she were some vulgar article of luxury] Oh! You can afford that, can you? I thought you were as poor as the rest of us.
GADFLY. So I am.
GEMMA. Then you have spoken treacherously of that woman, or else she is a spy. If she stays with you, it must be either for money or love. If it is money, it must come from the government if it does not come from you. If it is love, you had better say so instead of making vulgar jokes about silk stockings.
GADFLY. What a genius I have for making people despise me! Yes: she loves me enough to be most amusingly jealous. But no doubt she is paid by the government too. Most women have business faculty enough to combine pleasure with profit.
ZITA [detecting him at last and coming down from the terrace] Monsieur Rivarez, I have been looking for you everywhere. Count Soltykov wants to know whether you can go to his villa tomorrow night, there will be dancing.
GADFLY [spinning round so as to show his lameness]
Dancing! How charming for me!
ZITA [jealously] Is this lady one of your friends?
GADFLY. She permits me to confer with her. Signora Bolla: allow me to introduce to you Madame Zita Reni.
The women bow to one another.
ZITA. Confer with her? What does that mean?
GADFLY. A diplomatic expression.
Grassini has gone into the house and returned with a mandoline.
GRASSINI [pleadingly offering her the instrument] Will Madame Reni be persuaded?
ZITA. Felice: my castanets.
The Gadfly produces the castanets from his pocket, inviting Gemma’s attention sardonically to his servitude by a grimace.
Zita takes them from him.
GADFLY [aside to Gemma] I should be made to play them if I had fingers enough.
ZITA. Felice, where are you going? Stay here: I’m going to sing. Soltykov, do you play the mandoline? I want my hands for the castanets. The bolero.
Song and dance.
GADFLY. Brava! Bravissima! [to Gemma] What would you not give to be able to do that? [He turns to Zita and puts the castanets in his pocket]
SIGNORA GRASSINI. How delightful! What a gift! Even Signor Rivarez, who ran away from our greatest tenor, had to listen!
GADFLY. Rapt! Spellbound!
ZITA [to the Gadfly] I want something to drink after that. Take me in.
GADFLY. Try Soltykov instead. I have business here.
ZITA. You want to speak to that woman.
GADFLY. Of course I do [lowering his voice] If you dare make a scene, I’ll hand you over to Soltykov altogether [aloud] Soltykov: Madame Reni wants you to take her in to supper.
Soltykov takes her in, wounded and angry, but afraid to refuse. The guests follow, Signora Grassini bringing up the rear on a gentleman’s arm. Martini, Gemma, Grassini, and the Gadfly remain behind.
GRASSINI. Now is our time for business. What news have you for us, Martini?
MARTINI. Nothing, except that we are convinced in Genoa that it is too late for all this pamphleteering and scheming to undermine the influence of the Cardinal. Things have come to a head with a rush within the last fortnight. We all believe that a rising cannot be prevented now, even if we wanted to prevent it. Before the end of the month we shall be at it, hammer and tongs, on the barricades.
GADFLY. Piff, paff, poof! [He rattles the castanets].
GEMMA. In that case, this gentleman can be of no use to us.
GADFLY [with mock affection] Dear lady!
GEMMA. We must have men of action — earnest men.
GRASSINI. Domenichino?
GEMMA. Yes, Domenichino. But he is only one. He must stay here in command. Who is to undertake the distribution of the weapons?
MARTINI. Where are they?
GEMMA [looking mistrustfully at the Gadfly] I will not tell you just now.
GADFLY. I will. They are hidden in the caves in the hills near Brisighella. They must be got out and distributed in the towns — in Brisighella itself first, under the Cardinal’s nose. Don’t send anyone you love, Signora Bolla. He’ll be killed — or taken, which comes to the same thing.
GEMMA. We are not likely to send anyone who is not prepared for that. We all are, and we shall not find a man who is not loved by somebody.
GADFLY. True, Signora: every pot finds its cover.
Even I am adored by Zita.
MARTINI. Where is the man who convoyed the weapons from Genoa to the caves?
GRASSINI. Egad, yes. That was a man in a thousand.
We have a splendid disguise for him. Passport and all complete.
GADFLY. What is it?
GRASSINI. An old Spanish pilgrim — a repentant brigand from the Sierras who killed his son and made a pilgrimage to Rome for absolution. He fell ill in Ancona last year; and one of our friends took him on board a trading-vessel out of charity, and set him down in Venice where he had friends. He left his papers with us to show his gratitude. In that disguise the man who convoyed the weapons for us could distribute them.
GEMMA. Yes; he would do. Unfortunately, we don’t know him.
MARTINI.