Source Text: CANDIDA3.1Marchbanks: Every poet that ever lived has put that thought into a sonnet. He must: he cant help it. Havnt you been listening? Mrs Morell!
Candida: Eh?
Marchbanks: Havnt you been listening?
Candida: Oh yes. It's very nice. Go on, Eugene. I'm longing to hear what happens to the angel.
Marchbanks: I beg your pardon for boring you.
Candida: But you are not boring me, I assure you. Please go on. Do, Eugene.
Marchbanks: I finished the poem about the angel quarter of an hour ago. Ive read you several things since.
Candida: I'm so sorry, Eugene. I think the poker must have hypnotized me.
Marchbanks: It made me horribly uneasy.
Candida: Why didnt you tell me? I'd have put it down at once.
Marchbanks: I was afraid of making you uneasy too. It looked as if it were a weapon. If I were a hero of old I should have laid my drawn sword between us. If Morell had come in he would have thought you had taken up the poker because there was no sword between us.
Candida: What? I cant quite follow that. Those sonnets of yours have perfectly addled me. Why should there be a sword between us?
Marchbanks: Oh, never mind.
Candida: Put that down again, Eugene. There are limits to my appetite for poetry: even your poetry. Youve been reading to me for more than two hours, ever since James went out. I want to talk.
Marchbanks: No: I mustnt talk. I think I'll go out and take a walk in the park.
Candida: Nonsense: it's closed long ago. Come and sit down on the hearth-rug, and talk moonshine as you usually do. I want to be amused. Dont you want to?
Marchbanks: Yes.
Candida: Then come along.
Marchbanks: Oh, Ive been so miserable all the evening, because I was doing right. Now I'm doing wrong; and I'm happy.
Candida: Yes: I'm sure you feel a great grown-up wicked deceiver. --uite proud of yourself, arnt you?
Marchbanks: Take care. I'm ever so much older than you, if you only knew. May I say some wicked things to you?
Candida: No. But you may say anything you really and truly feel. Anything at all, no matter what it is. I am not afraid, so long as it is your real self that speaks, and not a mere attitude: a gallant attitude, or a wicked attitude, or even a poetic attitude. I put you on your honor and truth. Now say whatever you want to.
Marchbanks: Oh, now I cant say anything: all the words I know belong to some attitude or other --Jall except one.
Candida: What one is that?
Marchbanks: Candida, Candida, Candida, Candida, Candida. I must say that now, because you have put me on my honor and truth; and I never think or feel Mrs Morell: it is always Candida.
Candida: Of course. And what have you to say to Candida?
Marchbanks: Nothing but to repeat your name a thousand times. Dont you feel that every time is a prayer to you?
Candida: Doesnt it make you happy to be able to pray?
Marchbanks: Yes, very happy.
Candida: Well, that happiness is the answer to your prayer. Do you want anything more?
Marchbanks: No: I have come into heaven, where want is unknown.
Morell: I hope I dont disturb you.
Candida: Oh, James, how you startled me! I was so taken up with Eugene that I didnt hear your latchkey. How did the meeting go off? Did you speak well?
Morell: I have never spoken better in my life.
Candida: That was first rate! How much was the collection?
Morell: I forgot to ask.
Candida: He must have spoken splendidly, or he would never have forgotten that. Where are all the others?
Morell: They left long before I could get away: I thought I should never escape. I believe they are having supper somewhere.
Candida: Oh, in that case, Maria may go to bed. I'll tell her.
Morell: Well?
Marchbanks: Well?
Morell: Have you anything to tell me?
Marchbanks: Only that I have been making a fool of myself here in private whilst you have been making a fool of yourself in public.
Morell: Hardly in the same way, I think.
Marchbanks: The very, very very same way. I have been playing the Good Man. Just like you. When you began your heroics about leaving me here with Candida --
Morell: Candida!
Marchbanks: Oh yes: Ive got that far. But dont be afraid. Heroics are infectious: I caught the disease from you. I swore not to say a word in your absence that I would not have said a month ago in your presence.
Morell: Did you keep your oath?
Marchbanks: It kept itself somehow until about ten minutes ago. Up to that moment, I went on desperately reading to her -- reading my own poems -- anybody's poems -- to stave off a conversation. I was standing outside the gate of Heaven, refusing to go in. Oh, you cant think how heroic it was, and how uncomfortable! Then --
Morell: Then?
Marchbanks: Then she couldnt bear being read to any longer.
Morell: And you approached the gate of Heaven at last?
Marchbanks: Yes.
Morell: Well? Speak, man: have you no feeling for me?
Marchbanks: Then she became an angel; and there was a flaming sword that turned every way, so that I couldnt go in; for I saw that the gate was really the gate of Hell.
Morell: She repulsed you!
Marchbanks: No, you fool: if she had done that I should never have seen that I was in Heaven already. Repulsed me! You think that would have saved us! virtuous indignation! Oh, you are not the worthy to live in the same world with her.
Morell: Do you think you make yourself more worthy by reviling me, Eugene?
Marchbanks: Here endeth the thousand and first lesson. Morell. I dont think much of your preaching after all: I believe I could do it better myself. The man I want to meet is the man that Candida married.
Morell: The man that --? Do you mean me?
Marchbanks: I dont mean the Reverend James Mavor Morell, moralist and windbag. I mean the real man that the Reverend James must have hidden somewhere inside his black coat: the man that Candida loved. You cant make a woman like Candida love you by merely buttoning your collar at the back instead in front.
Morell: When Candida promised to marry me, I was the same moralist and windbag you now see. I wore my black coat; and my collar was buttoned behind instead of in front. Do you think she would have loved me any the better for being insincere in my profession?
Marchbanks: Oh, she forgave you, just as she forgives me for being a coward, and a weakling and what you call a sniveling little whelp and all the rest of it. A woman like that has divine insight: she loves our souls, and not our follies and vanities and illusions, nor our collars and coats, nor any other of the rags and tatters we are rolled up in. What I want to know is how you get past the flaming sword that stopped me.
Morell: Perhaps because I want not interrupted at the end of ten minutes.
Marchbanks: What!
Morell: Man can climb to the highest summits; but he cannot dwell there long.
Marchbanks: It's false: there can he dwell for ever, and there only. It's in the other moments that he can find no rest, no sense of the silent glory of life. Where would you have me spend my moments, if not on the summits?
Morell: In the scullery, slicing onions and filing lamps.
Marchbanks: Or in the pulpit, scrubbing cheap earthenware souls?
Morell: Yes, that too. It was there that I earned my golden moment, and the right in that moment, to ask her to love me. I did not take the moment on credit; nor did I use it to steal another man's happiness.
Marchbanks: I have no doubt you conducted the transaction as honestly as if you were buying a pound of cheese. I could only go to her as a beggar.
Morell: A beggar dying of cold! asking for her shawl!
Marchbanks: Thank you for touching up my poetry. Yes, if you like: a beggar dying of cold, asking for her shawl.
Morell: And she refused. Shall I tell you why she refused? I can tell you, on her own authority. It was because of --
Marchbanks: She didnt refuse.
Morell: Not!
Marchbanks: She offered me all I chose to ask for: her shawl, her wings, the wreath of stars on her head, the lilies in her hand, the crescent moon beneath her feet --
Morell: Out with the truth, man: my wife is my wife: I want no more of your poetic fripperies. I know well that if I have lost her love and you have gained it, no law will bind her.
Marchbanks: Catch me by the shirt collar, Morell: she will arrange it for me afterwards as she did this morning. I shall feel her hands touch me.
Morell: You young imp, do you know how dangerous it is to say that to me? Or has something made you brave.
Marchbanks: I'm not afraid now. I disliked you before: that was why I shrank from your touch. But I saw today -- when she tortured you --Jthat you love her. Since then I have been your friend: you may strangle me if you like.
Morell: Eugene: if that is not a heartless lie -- if you have a spark of human feeling left in you -- will you tell me what has happened during my absence.
Marchbanks: What happened! Why, the flaming sword -- Well, in plain prose, I loved her so exquisitely that I wanted nothing more than the happiness of being in such love. And before I had time to come down from the highest summits, you came in.
Morell: So it is still unsettled. Still the misery of doubt.
Marchbanks: Misery! I am the happiest of men. I desire nothing now but her happiness. Oh, Morell, let us both give her up. Why should she choose between a wretched little nervous disease like me, and a pig-headed parson like you? Let us go on a pilgrimage, you to the east and I to the west, in search of a worthy lover for her: some beautiful archangel with purple wings --
Morell: Some fiddlestick! Oh, if she is mad enough to leave me for you, who will protect her? who will help her? who will work for her? who will be a father to her children?
Marchbanks: She does not ask those silly questions. It is she who wants somebody to protect, to help, to work for: somebody to give her children to protect, to help and to work for. Some grown up man who has become as a little child again. Oh, you fool, you fool, you triple fool! I am the man, Morell: I am the man. You dont understand what a woman is. Send for her, Morell: send for her and let her choose between Q