Source Text: CANDIDA2.2Morell: Pooh, nonsense! you cant take any notice of it. Never mind.
Burgess: Oh, Hi dont mind. Hi'm above it. But is it right? thats what I want to know. Is it right?
Morell: Thats a question for the Church, not for the laity. Has it done you any harm? thats the question for you, eh? Of course it hasnt. Think no more of it.
Burgess: What did I tell you? Mad as a atter. When's dinner, James?
Morell: Not for a couple of hours yet.
Burgess: Gimme a nice book to read over the fire, will you, James: thur's a good chap.
Morell: What sort of book? A good one?
Burgess: Nah-oo! Summat pleasant, just to pass the time. Thank yer, James.
Morell: Candida will come to entertain you presently. She has got rid of her pupil. She is filling the lamps.
Marchbanks: But that will soil her hands. I cant bear that, Morell: it's a shame. I'll go and fill them.
Morell: Youd better not. She'd only set you to clean my boots, to save me the trouble of doing it myself in the morning.
Burgess: Dont you keep a servant now, James?
Morell: Yes; but she isnt a slave; and the house looks as if I kept three. That means that everyone has to lend a hand. It's not a bad plan: Prossy and I can talk business after breakfast while we're washing up. Washing up's no trouble when there are two people to do it.
Marchbanks: Do you think every woman is as coarse-grained as Miss Garnett?
Burgess: Thats quite right, Mr Morchbanks: thats quite right. She is corse-grained.
Morell: Marchbanks!
Marchbanks: Yes?
Morell: How many servants does your father keep?
Marchbanks: Oh, I dont know.
Morell: So many that you dont know! When theres anything coarse-grained to be done, you just ring the bell and throw it onto somebody else, eh?
Marchbanks: Oh, dont torture me. You dont even ring the bell. But your wife's beautiful fingers are dabbling in paraffin oil while you sit here comfortably preaching about it: everlasting preaching! preaching! words! words! words!
Burgess: Har, har! Devil a better! Ad you there, James, straight.
Candida: If you stay with us, Eugene, I think I will hand over the lamps to you.
Marchbanks: I will stay on the condition that you hand over all the rough work to me.
Candida: Thats very gallant; but I think I should like to see how you do it first. James: youve not been looking after the house properly.
Morell: What have I done -- or not done -- my love?
Candida: My own particular pet scrubbing brush has been used for blackleading. Whats the matter? Are you ill, Eugene?
Marchbanks: No: not ill. Only horror! horror! horror!
Burgess: What! Got the orrors, Mr Morchbanks! Oh, thats bad, at your age. You must leave it off grajally.
Candida: Nonsense, papa! It's only poetic horror, isnt it, Eugene?
Burgess: Oh, poetic orror, is it? I beg your pordon, I'm shore.
Candida: What is it, Eugene? the scrubbing brush? Well, there! never mind. Wouldnt you like to present me with a nice new one, with an ivory back inlaid with mother-of-pearl?
Marchbanks: No, not a scrubbing brush, but a boat: a tiny shallop to sail away in, far from the world, where the marble floors are washed by the rain and dried by the sun; where the south winds dusts the beautiful green and purple carpets. Or a chariot! to carry us up into the sky, where the lamps are stars, and dont need to be filled with paraffin oil every day.
Morell: And where there is nothing to do but to be idle, selfish, and useless.
Candida: Oh, James! how could you spoil it all?
Marchbanks: Yes, to be idle, selfish, and useless: that is, to be beautiful and free and happy: hasnt every man desired that with all his soul for the woman he loves? Thats my ideal: whats yours, and that of all the dreadful people who live in these hideous rows of houses? Sermons and scrubbing brushes! With you to preach the sermon and your wife to scrub.
Candida: He cleans the boots, Eugene. You will have to clean them to-morrow for saying that about him.
Marchbanks: Oh, dont talk about boots! Your feet should be beautiful on the mountains.
Candida: My feet would not be beautiful on the Hackney Road without boots.
Burgess: Come, Candy! dont be vulgar. Mr Morchbanks aint accustomed to it. Youre givin him the orrors again. I mean the poetic ones.
Proserpine: Reply paid. The boy's waiting. Maria is ready for you now in the kitchen, Mrs Morell. The onions have come.
Marchbanks: Onions!
Candida: Yes, onions. Not even Spanish ones: nasty little red onions. You shall help me to slice them. Come along.
Burgess: Candy didnt oughter andle a hearl's nevvy like that. It's goin too fur with it. Lookee ere, James: do e often git taken queer like that?
Morell: I dont know.
Burgess: He talks very pretty. I awlus had a turn for a bit of poetry. Candy takes arter me that-a-way. Huseter make me tell er fairy stories when she was ony a little kiddy not that igh.
Morell: Ah, indeed.
Proserpine: Used you to make the fairy stories up out of your own head?
Proserpine: I should never have supposed you had it in you. By the way, I'd better warn you, since youve taken such a fancy to Mr Marchbanks. He's mad.
Burgess: Mad! What! Im too!!
Proserpine: Mad as a March hare. he did frighten me, I cant tell you, just before you came in that time. Havent you noticed the queer things he says?
Burgess: So thats what the poetic orrors means. Blame me if it didnt come into my ed once or twyst that he was a bit horff is chump! Well, this is a pretty sort of asylum for a man to be in, with no one but you to take care of him!
Proserpine: Yes, what a dreadful thing it would be if anything happened to you!
Burgess: Dont you haddress no remorks to me. Tell your hemployer that Ive gone into the gorden for a smoke.
Proserpine: Oh!
Burgess: Goin for a turn in the gording to smoke, James.
Morell: Oh, all right, all right. Well, Miss Prossy, why have you been calling my father-in-law names?
Proserpine: I --
Morell: Oh, come! come! come! Never mind, Pross: he is a silly old fathead, isnt he?
Morell: Well? Where is Eugene?
Candida: Washing his hands in the scullery under the tap. He will make an excellent cook if he can only get over his dread of Maria.
Morell: Ha! No doubt.
Candida: Come here, dear. Let me look at you. Turn your face to the light. My boy is not looking well. Has he been overworking?
Morrell: Nothing more than usual.
Candida: He looks very pale, and grey, and wrinkled, and old. Here: youve done enough writing for today. Leave Prossy to finish it. Come and talk to me.
Morell: But --
Candida: Yes, I must be talked to. Now youre beginning to look better already. Why must you go out ever night lecturing and talking? I hardly have one evening a week with you. Of course what you say is all very true; but it does no good: they dont mind what you say to them one little bit. They think they agree with you; but whats the use of their agreeing with you if they go and do just the opposite of what you tell them the moment your back is turned? Look at our congregation at St Dominic's! Why do they come to hear you talking about Christianity every Sunday? Why, just because theyve been so full of business and money-making for six days that they want to forget all about it and have a rest on the seventh; so that they can to back fresh and make money harder than ever! You positively help them at it instead of hindering them.
Morell: You know very well, Candida, that I often blow them up soundly for that. And if there is nothing in their churchgoing but rest and diversion, why dont they try something more amusing? more self-indulgent? There must be some good in the fact that they prefer St Dominic's to worse places on Sundays.
Candida: Oh, the worse places arnt open; and even if they were, they darent be seen going to them. Besides, James dear, you preach so splendidly that it's as good as a play for them. Why do you think the women are so enthusiastic?
Morell: Candida!
Candida: Oh I know. You silly boy: you think it's your Socialism and your religion; but if it were that, theyd do what you tell them instead of only coming back to look at you. They all have Prossy's complaint.
Morell: Prossy's complaint! What do you mean, Candida?
Candida: Yes, Prossy, and all the other secretaries you ever had. Why does Prossy condescend to wash up the things, and to peel the potatoes and abase herself in all manner of ways for six shillings a week less than she used to get in a city office? She's in love with you, James: thats the reason. They are all in love with you. And you are in love with preaching because you do it so beautifully. And you think it's all enthusiasm for the kingdom of Heaven on earth; and so do they. You dear silly!
Morell: Candida: What dreadful! What soul-destroying cynicism! Are you jesting? Or -- can it be? -- are you jealous?
Candida: Yes, I feel a little jealous sometimes.
Morell: Of Prossy?
Candida: No, no, no, no. Not jealous of anybody. Jealous for somebody else, who is not loved as he ought to be.
Morell: Me?
Candida: You! Why, youre spoiled with love and worship: you get far more than is good for you. No: I mean Eugene.
Morell: Eugene!
Candida: It seems unfair that all the love should go to you, and none to him; although he needs it so much more than you do. Whats the matter? Am I worrying you?
Morell: Not at all. You know that I have perfect confidence in you, Candida.
Candida: You vain thing! Are you so sure of your irresistible attractions?
Morell: Candida: you are shocking me. I never thought of my attractions. I thought of your goodness, of your purity. That is what I confide in.
Candida: What a nasty uncomfortable thing to say to me! Oh, you are a clergyman, James: a thorough clergyman!
Morell: So Eugene says.
Candida: Eugene's always right. He's a wonderful boy: I have grown fonder and fonder of him all the time I was away. Do you know, James, that though he has not the least suspicion of it himself, he is ready to fall madly in love with me.
Morell: Oh, he has no suspicion of it himself, hasnt he?
Candida: Not a bit. Some day he will know: when he is grown up and experienced, like you. And he will know that I must have known. I wonder what he will think of me then.
Morell: No evil, Candida. I hope and trust, no evil.
Candida: That will depend.
Morell: Depend!
Candida: Yes: it will depend on what happens to him. Dont you see? It will depend on how he comes to learn what love really is. I mean on the sort of woman who will teach it to him.
Morell: Yes. No. I dont know what you mean.
Candida: If he learns it from a good woman, then it will be all right: he will forgive me.
Morell: Forgive?
Candida: But suppose he learns it from a bad woman, as so many men do, especially poetic men, who imagine all women are angels! Suppose he only discovers the value of love when he has thrown it away and degrades himself in his ignorance! Will he forgive me then, do you think?
Morell: Forgive you for what?
Candida: Dont you understand? I mean, will he forgive me for not teaching him myself? For abandoning him to the bad women for the sake of my goodness, of my purity, as you call it? Ah, James, how little you understand me, to talk of your confidence in my goodness and purity! I would give them both to poor Eugene as willingly as I would give my shawl to a beggar dying of cold, if there were nothing else to restrain me. Put your trust in my love for you, James; for if that went, I should care very little for your sermons: mere phrases that you cheat yourself and others with every day.
Morell: His words!
Candida: Whose words?
Morell: Eugene's.
Candida: He is always right. He understands you; he understands me; he understands Prossy; and you, darling, you understand nothing.
Morell: How can you bear to do that when -- Oh, Candida I had rather you had plunged a grappling iron into my heart than given me that kiss.
Candida: My dear: whats the matter?
Morell: Dont touch me.
Candida: James!!!