Tragedy of an Elderly Gentleman: A.D. 3000. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Pier. Wash out. [She puts up the fork, and addresses the man]. I sent a call for someone to take care of him. I have been trying to talk to him; but I can understand very little of what he says. You must take better care of him: he is badly discouraged already. If I can be of any further use, Fusima, Gort, will find me. [She goes away].
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Any further use! She has been of no use to me. She spoke to me without any introduction, like any improper female. And she has made off with my shilling.
THE MAN. Please speak slowly. I cannot follow. What is a shilling? What is an introduction? Improper female doesnt make sense.
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Nothing seems to make sense here. All I can tell you is that she was the most impenetrably stupid woman I have ever met in the whole course of my life.
THE MAN. That cannot be. She cannot appear stupid to you. She is a secondary, and getting on for a tertiary at that.
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. What is a tertiary? Everybody here keeps talking to me about primaries and secondaries and tertiaries as if people were geological strata.
THE MAN. The primaries are in their first century. The secondaries are in their second century. I am still classed as a primary [he points to his number]; but I may almost call myself a secondary, as I shall be ninety-five next January. The tertiaries are in their third century. Did you not see the number two on her badge? She is an advanced secondary.
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. That accounts for it. She is in her second childhood.
THE MAN. Her second childhood! She is in her fifth childhood.
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [again resorting to the bollard] Oh! I cannot bear these unnatural arrangements.
THE MAN [impatient and helpless] You shouldn't have come among us. This is no place for you.
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [nerved by indignation] May I ask why? I am a Vice-President of the Travellers' Club. I have been everywhere: I hold the record in the Club for civilized countries.
THE MAN. What is a civilized country?
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. It is—well, it is a civilized country. [Desperately] I don't know: I—I—I—I shall go mad if you keep on asking me to tell you things that everybody knows. Countries where you can travel comfortably. Where there are good hotels. Excuse me; but, though you say you are ninety-four, you are worse company than a child of five with your eternal questions. Why not call me Daddy at once?
THE MAN. I did not know your name was Daddy.
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. My name is Joseph Popham Bolge Bluebin Barlow, O.M.
THE MAN. That is five men's names. Daddy is shorter. And O.M. will not do here. It is our name for certain wild creatures, descendants of the aboriginal inhabitants of this coast. They used to be called the O'Mulligans. We will stick to Daddy.
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. People will think I am your father.
THE MAN [shocked] Sh-sh! People here never allude to such relationships. It is not quite delicate, is it? What does it matter whether you are my father or not?
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. My worthy nonagenarian friend: your faculties are totally decayed. Could you not find me a guide of my own age?
THE MAN. A young person?
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Certainly not. I cannot go about with a young person.
THE MAN. Why?
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Why! Why!! Why!!! Have you no moral sense?
THE MAN. I shall have to give you up. I cannot understand you.
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. But you meant a young woman, didn't you?
THE MAN. I meant simply somebody of your own age. What difference does it make whether the person is a man or a woman?
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. I could not have believed in the existence of such scandalous insensibility to the elementary decencies of human intercourse.
THE MAN. What are decencies?
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [shrieking] Everyone asks me that.
THE MAN [taking out a tuning-fork and using it as the woman did] Zozim on Burrin Pier to Zoo Ennistymon I have found the discouraged shortliver he has been talking to a secondary and is much worse I am too old he is asking for someone of his own age or younger come if you can. [He puts up his fork and turns to the Elderly Gentleman]. Zoo is a girl of fifty, and rather childish at that. So perhaps she may make you happy.
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Make me happy! A bluestocking of fifty! Thank you.
THE MAN. Bluestocking? The effort to make out your meaning is fatiguing. Besides, you are talking too much to me: I am old enough to discourage you. Let us be silent until Zoo comes. [He turns his back on the Elderly Gentleman, and sits down on the edge of the pier, with his legs dangling over the water].
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Certainly. I have no wish to force my conversation on any man who does not desire it. Perhaps you would like to take a nap. If so, pray do not stand on ceremony.
THE MAN. What is a nap?
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [exasperated, going to him and speaking with great precision and distinctness] A nap, my friend, is a brief period of sleep which overtakes superannuated persons when they endeavor to entertain unwelcome visitors or to listen to scientific lectures. Sleep. Sleep. [Bawling into his ear] Sleep.
THE MAN. I tell you I am nearly a secondary. I never sleep.
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [awestruck] Good Heavens!
A young woman with the number one on her cap arrives by land. She looks no older than Savvy Barnabas, whom she somewhat resembles, looked a thousand years before. Younger, if anything.
THE YOUNG WOMAN. Is this the patient?
THE MAN [scrambling up] This is Zoo. [To Zoo] Call him Daddy.
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [vehemently] No.
THE MAN [ignoring the interruption] Bless you for taking him off my hands! I have had as much of him as I can bear. [He goes down the steps and disappears].
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [ironically taking off his hat and making a sweeping bow from the edge of the pier in the direction of the Atlantic Ocean] Good afternoon, sir; and thank you very much for your extraordinary politeness, your exquisite consideration for my feelings, your courtly manners. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. [Clapping his hat on again] Pig! Ass!
ZOO [laughs very heartily at him]!!!
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [turning sharply on her] Good afternoon, madam. I am sorry to have had to put your friend in his place; but I find that here as elsewhere it is necessary to assert myself if I am to be treated with proper consideration. I had hoped that my position as a guest would protect me from insult.
ZOO. Putting my friend in his place. That is some poetic expression, is it not? What does it mean?
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Pray, is there no one in these islands who understands plain English?
ZOO. Well, nobody except the oracles. They have to make a special historical study of what we call the dead thought.
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Dead thought! I have heard of the dead languages, but never of the dead thought.
ZOO. Well, thoughts die sooner than languages. I understand your language; but I do not always understand your thought. The oracles will understand you perfectly. Have you had your consultation yet?
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. I did not come to consult the oracle, madam. I am here simply as a gentleman travelling for pleasure in the company of my daughter, who is the wife of the British Prime Minister, and of General Aufsteig, who, I may tell you in confidence, is really the Emperor of Turania, the greatest military genius of the age.