Plays Unpleasant by George Bernard Shaw

Author:George Bernard Shaw
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 1999-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

ACT III

Paramore’s reception room in Savile Row. Viewing the room from the front windows, the door is seen in the opposite wall near the left hand corner. Another door, a light noiseless one covered with green baize, leading to the consulting room, is in the right hand wall towards the back. The fireplace is on the left. At the nearer corner of it a couch is placed at right angles to the wall, settlewise. At the other corner, an easy chair. On the right the wall is occupied by a bookcase, further orward than the green baize door. Beyond the door is a cabinet of anatomical preparations, with a framed photograph of Rembrandt’s School of Anatomy hanging on the wall above it. In front, a little to the right, a teatable.

Paramore is seated in a round-backed chair, on castors, pouring out tea. Julia sits opposite him, with her back to the fire. He is in high spirits: she very downcast.

PARAMORE [handing her the cup he has just filled] There! Making tea is one of the few things I consider myself able to do thoroughly well. Cake?

JULIA. No, thank you. I dont like sweet things. [She sets down the cup untasted].

PARAMORE. Anything wrong with the tea?

JULIA. No. It’s very nice.

PARAMORE. I’m afraid I’m a bad entertainer. The fact is, I am too professional. I shine only in consultation. I almost wish you had something serious the matter with you; so that you might call out my knowledge and sympathy. As it is, I can only admire you, and feel how pleasant it is to have you here.

JULIA [bitterly] And pet me, and say pretty things to me. I wonder you dont offer me a saucer of milk at once.

PARAMORE [astonished] Why?

JULIA. Because you seem to regard me very much as if I were a Persian cat.

PARAMORE [in strong remonstrance] Miss Cra –

JULIA [cutting him short] Oh, you neednt protest. I’m used to it: it’s the sort of attachment I seem always to inspire. [Ironically] You cant think how nattering it is.

PARAMORE. My dear Miss Craven, what a cynical thing to say! You! who are loved at first sight by the people in the street as you pass. Why, in the club I can tell by the faces of the men whether you have been lately in the room or not.

JULIA [shrinking fiercely] Oh, I hate that look in their faces. Do you know that I have never had one human being care for me since I was born?

PARAMORE. Thats not true, Miss Craven. Even if it were true of your father, and of Charteris, who loves you madly in spite of your dislike for him, it is not true of me.

JULIA [startled] Who told you that about Charteris?

PARAMORE. Why, he himself.

JULIA [with deep, poignant conviction] He cares for only one person in the world; and that is himself. There is not in his whole nature one unselfish spot. He would not spend one hour of his real life with – [a sob chokes her: she rises passionately, crying] You are all alike, every one of you.

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