LUBIN. What about accidental death? That was always possible.

FRANKLYN. Precisely. Adam and Eve were hung up between two frightful
possibilities. One was the extinction of mankind by their accidental
death. The other was the prospect of living for ever. They could bear
neither. They decided that they would just take a short turn of a
thousand years, and meanwhile hand on their work to a new pair.
Consequently, they had to invent natural birth and natural death, which
are, after all, only modes of perpetuating life without putting on any
single creature the terrible burden of immortality.

LUBIN. I see. The old must make room for the new.

SURGE. Death is nothing but making room. Thats all there is in it or
ever has been in it.

FRANKLYN. Yes; but the old must not desert their posts until the new are
ripe for them. They desert them now two hundred years too soon.

SAVVY. I believe the old people are the new people reincarnated, Nunk.
I suspect I am Eve. I am very fond of apples; and they always disagree
with me.

CONRAD. You are Eve, in a sense. The Eternal Life persists; only It
wears out Its bodies and minds and gets new ones, like new clothes. You
are only a new hat and frock on Eve.

FRANKLYN. Yes. Bodies and minds ever better and better fitted to carry
out Its eternal pursuit.

LUBIN [_with quiet scepticism_] What pursuit, may one ask, Mr Barnabas?

FRANKLYN. The pursuit of omnipotence and omniscience. Greater power and
greater knowledge: these are what we are all pursuing even at the risk
of our lives and the sacrifice of our pleasures. Evolution is that
pursuit and nothing else. It is the path to godhead. A man differs from
a microbe only in being further on the path.

LUBIN. And how soon do you expect this modest end to be reached?

FRANKLYN. Never, thank God! As there is no limit to power and knowledge
there can be no end. 'The power and the glory, world without end': have
those words meant nothing to you?

BURGE [_pulling out an old envelope_] I should like to make a note of
that. [_He does so_].

CONRAD. There will always be something to live for.

SURGE [_pocketing his envelope and becoming more and more businesslike_]
Right: I have got that. Now what about sin? What about the Fall? How do
you work them in?

CONRAD. I don't work in the Fall. The Fall is outside Science. But I
daresay Frank can work it in for you.

SURGE [_to Franklyn_] I wish you would, you know. It's important. Very
important.

FRANKLYN. Well, consider it this way. It is clear that when Adam and
Eve were immortal it was necessary that they should make the earth an
extremely comfortable place to live in.

BURGE. True. If you take a house on a ninety-nine years lease, you
spend a good deal of money on it. If you take it for three months you
generally have a bill for dilapidations to pay at the end of them.

FRANKLYN. Just so. Consequently, when Adam had the Garden of Eden on a
lease for ever, he took care to make it what the house agents call a
highly desirable country residence. But the moment he invented death,
and became a tenant for life only, the place was no longer worth the
trouble. It was then that he let the thistles grow. Life was so short
that it was no longer worth his while to do anything thoroughly well.

BURGE. Do you think that is enough to constitute what an average elector
would consider a Fall? Is it tragic enough?

FRANKLYN. That is only the first step of the Fall. Adam did not fall
down that step only: he fell down a whole flight. For instance, before
he invented birth he dared not have lost his temper; for if he had
killed Eve he would have been lonely and barren to all eternity. But
when he invented birth, and anyone who was killed could be replaced, he
could afford to let himself go. He undoubtedly invented wife-beating;
and that was another step down. One of his sons invented meat-eating.
The other was horrified at the innovation. With the ferocity which
is still characteristic of bulls and other vegetarians, he slew his
beefsteak-eating brother, and thus invented murder. That was a very
steep step. It was so exciting that all the others began to kill one
another for sport, and thus invented war, the steepest step of all. They
even took to killing animals as a means of killing time, and then, of
course, ate them to save the long and difficult labor of agriculture. I
ask you to contemplate our fathers as they came crashing down all the
steps of this Jacob's ladder that reached from paradise to a hell on
earth in which they had multiplied the chances of death from violence,
accident, and disease until they could hardly count on three score and
ten years of life, much less the thousand that Adam had been ready to
face! With that picture before you, will you now ask me where was the
Fall? You might as well stand at the foot of Snowdon and ask me where is
the mountain. The very children see it so plainly that they compress its
history into a two line epic:


    Old Daddy Long Legs wouldn't say his prayers:
    Take him by the hind legs and throw him downstairs.


LUBIN [_still immovably sceptical_] And what does Science say to this
fairy tale, Doctor Barnabas? Surely Science knows nothing of Genesis, or
of Adam and Eve.

CONRAD. Then it isnt Science: thats all. Science has to account for
everything; and everything includes the Bible.

FRANKLYN. The Book of Genesis is a part of nature like any other part of
nature. The fact that the tale of the Garden of Eden has survived and
held the imagination of men spellbound for centuries, whilst hundreds
of much more plausible and amusing stories have gone out of fashion
and perished like last year's popular song, is a scientific fact; and
Science is bound to explain it. You tell me that Science knows nothing
of it. Then Science is more ignorant than the children at any village
school.

CONRAD. Of course if you think it more scientific to say that what we
are discussing is not Adam and Eve and Eden, but the phylogeny of the
blastoderm--

SAVVY. You neednt swear, Nunk.

CONRAD. Shut up, you: I am not swearing. [_To Lubin_] If you want the
professional humbug of rewriting the Bible in words of four syllables,
and pretending it's something new, I can humbug you to your heart's
content. I can call Genesis Phylogenesis. Let the Creator say, if you
like, 'I will establish an antipathetic symbiosis between thee and the
female, and between thy blastoderm and her blastoderm.' Nobody will
understand you; and Savvy will think you are swearing. The meaning is
the same.

HASLAM. Priceless. But it's quite simple. The one version is poetry: the
other is science.

FRANKLYN. The one is classroom jargon: the other is inspired human
language.

LUBIN [_calmly reminiscent_] One of the few modern authors into whom
I have occasionally glanced is Rousseau, who was a sort of Deist like
Burge--

BURGE [_interrupting him forcibly_] Lubin: has this stupendously
important communication which Professor Barnabas has just made to us: a
communication for which I shall be indebted to him all my life long: has
this, I say, no deeper effect on you than to set you pulling my leg by
trying to make out that I am an infidel?

LUBIN. It's very interesting and amusing, Burge; and I think I see a
case in it. I think I could undertake to argue it in an ecclesiastical
court. But important is hardly a word I should attach to it.

BURGE. Good God! Here is this professor: a man utterly removed from the
turmoil of our political life: devoted to pure learning in its most
abstract phases; and I solemnly declare he is the greatest politician,
the most inspired party leader, in the kingdom. I take off my hat to
him. I, Joyce Burge, give him best. And you sit there purring like an
Angora cat, and can see nothing in it!

CONRAD [_opening his eyes widely_] Hallo! What have I done to deserve
this tribute?

SURGE. Done! You have put the Liberal Party into power for the next
thirty years, Doctor: thats what you've done.

CONRAD. God forbid!

BURGE. It's all up with the Church now. Thanks to you, we go to the
country with one cry and one only. Back to the Bible! Think of the
effect on the Nonconformist vote. You gather that in with one hand; and
you gather in the modern scientific sceptical professional vote with the
other. The village atheist and the first cornet in the local Salvation
Army band meet on the village green and shake hands. You take your
school children, your Bible class under the Cowper-Temple clause, into
the museum. You shew the kids the Piltdown skull; and you say, 'Thats
Adam. Thats Eve's husband.' You take the spectacled science student
from the laboratory in Owens College; and when he asks you for a truly
scientific history of Evolution, you put into his hand The Pilgrim's
Progress. You--[_Savvy and Haslam explode into shrieks of merriment_].
What are you two laughing at?

SAVVY. Oh, go on, Mr Burge. Dont stop.

HASLAM. Priceless!

FRANKLYN. Would thirty years of office for the Liberal Party seem so
important to you, Mr Burge, if you had another two and a half centuries
to live?

BURGE [_decisively_] No. You will have to drop that part of it. The
constituencies wont swallow it.

LUBIN [_seriously_] I am not so sure of that, Burge. I am not sure that
it may not prove the only point they will swallow.

BURGE. It will be no use to us even if they do. It's not a party point.
It's as good for the other side as for us.

LUBIN. Not necessarily. If we get in first with it, it will be
associated in the public mind with our party. Suppose I put it forward
as a plank in our program that we advocate the extension of human life
to three hundred years! Dunreen, as leader of the opposite party, will
be bound to oppose me: to denounce me as a visionary and so forth. By
doing so he will place himself in the position of wanting to rob the
people of two hundred and thirty years of their natural life. The
Unionists will become the party of Premature Death; and we shall become
the Longevity party.

BURGE [_shaken_] You really think the electorate would swallow it?

LUBIN. My dear Burge: is there anything the electorate will not swallow
if it is judiciously put to them? But we must make sure of our ground.
We must have the support of the men of science. Is there serious
agreement among them, Doctor, as to the possibility of such an evolution
as you have described?

CONRAD. Yes. Ever since the reaction against Darwin set in at the
beginning of the present century, all scientific opinion worth counting
has been converging rapidly upon Creative Evolution.

FRANKLYN. Poetry has been converging on it: philosophy has been
converging on it: religion has been converging on it. It is going to
be the religion of the twentieth century: a religion that has its
intellectual roots in philosophy and science just as medieval
Christianity had its intellectual roots in Aristotle.

LUBIN. But surely any change would be so extremely gradual that--

CONRAD. Dont deceive yourself. It's only the politicians who improve the
world so gradually that nobody can see the improvement. The notion that
Nature does not proceed by jumps is only one of the budget of plausible
lies that we call classical education. Nature always proceeds by jumps.
She may spend twenty thousand years making up her mind to jump; but when
she makes it up at last, the jump is big enough to take us into a new
age.

LUBIN [_impressed_] Fancy my being leader of the party for the next
three hundred years!

BURGE. What!!

LUBIN. Perhaps hard on some of the younger men. I think in fairness I
shall have to step aside to make room after another century or so: that
is, if Mimi can be persuaded to give up Downing Street.

BURGE. This is too much. Your colossal conceit blinds you to the most
obvious necessity of the political situation.

LUBIN. You mean my retirement. I really cannot see that it is a
necessity. I could not see it when I was almost an old man--or at least
an elderly one. Now that it appears that I am a young man, the case
for it breaks down completely. [_To Conrad_] May I ask are there any
alternative theories? Is there a scientific Opposition?

CONRAD. Well, some authorities hold that the human race is a failure,
and that a new form of life, better adapted to high civilization, will
supersede us as we have superseded the ape and the elephant.

BURGE. The superman: eh!

CONRAD. No. Some being quite different from us.

LUBIN. Is that altogether desirable?

FRANKLYN. I fear so. However that may be, we may be quite sure of one
thing. We shall not be let alone. The force behind evolution, call it
what you will, is determined to solve the problem of civilization; and
if it cannot do it through us, it will produce some more capable agents.
Man is not God's last word: God can still create. If you cannot do His
work He will produce some being who can.

BURGE [_with zealous reverence_] What do we know about Him, Barnabas?
What does anyone know about Him?

CONRAD. We know this about Him with absolute certainty. The power my
brother calls God proceeds by the method of Trial and Error; and if we
turn out to be one of the errors, we shall go the way of the mastodon
and the megatherium and all the other scrapped experiments.

LUBIN [_rising and beginning to walk up and down the room with his
considering cap on_] I admit that I am impressed, gentlemen. I will go
so far as to say that your theory is likely to prove more interesting
than ever Welsh Disestablishment was. But as a practical politician--hm!
Eh, Burge?

CONRAD. We are not practical politicians. We are out to get something
done. Practical politicians are people who have mastered the art of
using parliament to prevent anything being done.

FRANKLYN. When we get matured statesmen and citizens--

LUBIN [_stopping short_] Citizens! Oh! Are the citizens to live three
hundred years as well as the statesmen?

CONRAD. Of course.

LUBIN. I confess that had not occurred to me [_he sits down abruptly,
evidently very unfavorably affected by this new light_].

_Savvy and Haslam look at one another with unspeakable feelings._

BURGE. Do you think it would be wise to go quite so far at first? Surely
it would be more prudent to begin with the best men.

FRANKLYN. You need not be anxious about that. It will begin with the
best men.

LUBIN. I am glad to hear you say so. You see, we must put this into a
practical parliamentary shape.

BURGE. We shall have to draft a Bill: that is the long and the short of
it. Until you have your Bill drafted you don't know what you are really
doing: that is my experience.

LUBIN. Quite so. My idea is that whilst we should interest the
electorate in this as a sort of religious aspiration and personal hope,
using it at the same time to remove their prejudices against those of us
who are getting on in years, it would be in the last degree upsetting
and even dangerous to enable everyone to live longer than usual.
Take the mere question of the manufacture of the specific, whatever
it may be! There are forty millions of people in the country. Let
me assume for the sake of illustration that each person would
have to consume, say, five ounces a day of the elixir. That
would be--let me see--five times three hundred and sixty-five
is--um--twenty-five--thirty-two--eighteen--eighteen hundred and
twenty-five ounces a year: just two ounces over the hundredweight.

BURGE. Two million tons a year, in round numbers, of stuff that everyone
would clamor for: that men would trample down women and children in the
streets to get at. You couldnt produce it. There would be blue murder.
It's out of the question. We must keep the actual secret to ourselves.

CONRAD [_staring at them_] The actual secret! What on earth is the man
talking about?

BURGE. The stuff. The powder. The bottle. The tabloid. Whatever it is.
You said it wasnt lemons.

CONRAD. My good sir: I have no powder, no bottle, no tabloid. I am not a
quack: I am a biologist. This is a thing thats going to happen.

LUBIN [_completely let down_] Going to happen! Oh! Is that all? [_He
looks at his watch_].

BURGE. Going to happen! What do you mean? Do you mean that you cant make
it happen?

CONRAD. No more than I could have made you happen.

FRANKLYN. We can put it into men's heads that there is nothing to
prevent its happening but their own will to die before their work is
done, and their own ignorance of the splendid work there is for them to
do.

CONRAD. Spread that knowledge and that conviction; and as surely as the
sun will rise tomorrow, the thing will happen.

FRANKLYN. We don't know where or when or to whom it will happen. It may
happen first to someone in this room.

HASLAM. It wont happen to me: thats jolly sure.

CONRAD. It might happen to anyone. It might happen to the parlor maid.
How do we know?

SAVVY. The parlor maid! Oh, thats nonsense, Nunk.

LUBIN [_once more quite comfortable_] I think Miss Savvy has delivered
the final verdict.

BURGE. Do you mean to say that you have nothing more practical to offer
than the mere wish to live longer? Why, if people could live by merely
wishing to, we should all be living for ever already! Everybody would
like to live for ever. Why don't they?

CONRAD. Pshaw! Everybody would like to have a million of money. Why
havnt they? Because the men who would like to be millionaires wont save
sixpence even with the chance of starvation staring them in the face.
The men who want to live for ever wont cut off a glass of beer or a pipe
of tobacco, though they believe the teetotallers and non-smokers live
longer. That sort of liking is not willing. See what they do when they
know they must.

FRANKLYN. Do not mistake mere idle fancies for the tremendous
miracle-working force of Will nerved to creation by a conviction of
Necessity. I tell you men capable of such willing, and realizing its
necessity, will do it reluctantly, under inner compulsion, as all great
efforts are made. They will hide what they are doing from themselves:
they will take care not to know what they are doing. They will live
three hundred years, not because they would like to, but because the
soul deep down in them will know that they must, if the world is to be
saved.

LUBIN [_turning to Franklyn and patting him almost paternally_] Well,
my dear Barnabas, for the last thirty years the post has brought me at
least once a week a plan from some crank or other for the establishment
of the millennium. I think you are the maddest of all the cranks; but
you are much the most interesting. I am conscious of a very curious
mixture of relief and disappointment in finding that your plan is all
moonshine, and that you have nothing practical to offer us. But what
a pity! It is such a fascinating idea! I think you are too hard on us
practical men; but there are men in every Government, even on the Front
Bench, who deserve all you say. And now, before dropping the subject,
may I put just one question to you? An idle question, since nothing can
come of it; but still--

FRANKLYN. Ask your question.

LUBIN. Why do you fix three hundred years as the exact figure?

FRANKLYN. Because we must fix some figure. Less would not be enough; and
more would be more than we dare as yet face.

LUBIN. Pooh! I am quite prepared to face three thousand, not to say
three million.

CONRAD. Yes, because you don't believe you Will be called on to make
good your word.

FRANKLYN [_gently_] Also, perhaps, because you have never been troubled
much by vision of the future.

BURGE [_with intense conviction_] The future does not exist for Henry
Hopkins Lubin.

LUBIN. If by the future you mean the millennial delusions which you
use as a bunch of carrots to lure the uneducated British donkey to the
polling booth to vote for you, it certainly does not.

SURGE. I can see the future not only because, if I may say so in all
humility, I have been gifted with a certain power of spiritual vision,
but because I have practised as a solicitor. A solicitor has to advise
families. He has to think of the future and know the past. His office is
the real modern confessional. Among other things he has to make people's
wills for them. He has to shew them how to provide for their daughters
after their deaths. Has it occurred to you, Lubin, that if you live
three hundred years, your daughters will have to wait a devilish long
time for their money?

FRANKLYN. The money may not wait for them. Few investments flourish for
three hundred years.

SAVVY. And what about before your death? Suppose they didn't get
married! Imagine a girl living at home with her mother and on her father
for three hundred years! Theyd murder her if she didn't murder them
first.

LUBIN. By the way, Barnabas, is your daughter to keep her good looks all
the time?

FRANKLYN. Will it matter? Can you conceive the most hardened flirt going
on flirting for three centuries? At the end of half the time we shall
hardly notice whether it is a woman or a man we are speaking to.

LUBIN [_not quite relishing this ascetic prospect_] Hm! [_He rises_].
Ah, well: you must come and tell my wife and my young people all about
it; and you will bring your daughter with you, of course. [_He shakes
hands with Savvy_]. Goodbye. [_He shakes hands with Franklyn_]. Goodbye,
Doctor. [_He shakes hands with Conrad_]. Come on, Burge: you must
really tell me what line you are going to take about the Church at the
election?

BURGE. Havnt you heard? Havnt you taken in the revelation that has been
vouchsafed to us? The line I am going to take is Back to Methuselah.

LUBIN [_decisively_] Dont be ridiculous, Burge. You don't suppose, do
you, that our friends here are in earnest, or that our very pleasant
conversation has had anything to do with practical politics! They have
just been pulling our legs very wittily. Come along. [_He goes out,
Franklyn politely going with him, but shaking his head in mute
protest_].

BURGE [_shaking Conrad's hand_] It's beyond the old man, Doctor. No
spiritual side to him: only a sort of classical side that goes down with
his own set. Besides, he's done, gone, past, burnt out, burst up; thinks
he is our leader and is only our rag and bottle department. But you may
depend on me. I will work this stunt of yours in. I see its value. [_He
begins moving towards the door with Conrad_]. Of course I cant put it
exactly in your way; but you are quite right about our needing something
fresh; and I believe an election can be fought on the death rate and on
Adam and Eve as scientific facts. It will take the Opposition right out
of its depth. And if we win there will be an O.M. for somebody when the
first honors list comes round [_by this time he has talked himself out
of the room and out of earshot, Conrad accompanying him_].

_Savvy and Haslam, left alone, seize each other in an ecstasy of
amusement, and jazz to the settee, where they sit down again side by
side._

HASLAM [_caressing her_] Darling! what a priceless humbug old Lubin is!

SAVVY. Oh, sweet old thing! I love him. Burge is a flaming fraud if you
like.

HASLAM. Did you notice one thing? It struck me as rather curious.

SAVVY. What?

HASLAM. Lubin and your father have both survived the war. But their sons
were killed in it.

SAVVY [_sobered_] Yes. Jim's death killed mother.

HASLAM. And they never said a word about it!

SAVVY. Well, why should they? The subject didn't come up. _I_ forgot
about it too; and I was very fond of Jim.

HASLAM. _I_ didn't forget it, because I'm of military age; and if I
hadnt been a parson I'd have had to go out and be killed too. To me the
awful thing about their political incompetence was that they had to
kill their own sons. It was the war casualty lists and the starvation
afterwards that finished me up with politics and the Church and
everything else except you.

SAVVY. Oh, I was just as bad as any of them. I sold flags in the streets
in my best clothes; and--hsh! [_she jumps up and pretends to be looking
for a book on the shelves behind the settee_].

_Franklyn and Conrad return, looking weary and glum._

CONRAD. Well, thats how the gospel of the brothers Barnabas is going to
be received! [_He drops into Burge's chair_].

FRANKLYN [_going back to his seat at the table_] It's no use. Were you
convinced, Mr Haslam?

HASLAM. About our being able to live three hundred years? Frankly no.

CONRAD [_to Savvy_] Nor you, I suppose?

SAVVY. Oh, I don't know. I thought I was for a moment. I can believe, in
a sort of way, that people might live for three hundred years. But when
you came down to tin tacks, and said that the parlor maid might, then I
saw how absurd it was.

FRANKLYN. Just so. We had better hold our tongues about it, Con. We
should only be laughed at, and lose the little credit we earned on false
pretences in the days of our ignorance.

CONRAD. I daresay. But Creative Evolution doesnt stop while people are
laughing. Laughing may even lubricate its job.

SAVVY. What does that mean?

CONRAD. It means that the first man to live three hundred years maynt
have the slightest notion that he is going to do it, and may be the
loudest laugher of the lot.

SAVVY. Or the first woman?

CONRAD [_assenting_] Or the first woman.

HASLAM. Well, it wont be one of us, anyhow.

FRANKLYN. How do you know?

_This is unanswerable. None of them have anything more to say._




PART III

The Thing Happens


_A summer afternoon in the year 2170 A.D. The official parlor of the
President of the British Islands. A board table, long enough for three
chairs at each side besides the presidential chair at the head and an
ordinary chair at the foot, occupies the breadth of the room. On the
table, opposite every chair, a small switchboard with a dial. There is
no fireplace. The end wall is a silvery screen nearly as large as a pair
of folding doors. The door is on your left as you face the screen; and
there is a row of thick pegs, padded and covered with velvet, beside it.

A stoutish middle-aged man, good-looking and breezily genial, dressed
in a silk smock, stockings, handsomely ornamented sandals, and a gold
fillet round his brows, comes in. He is like Joyce Burge, yet also like
Lubin, as if Nature had made a composite photograph of the two men.
He takes off the fillet and hangs it on a peg; then sits down in the
presidential chair at the head of the table, which is at the end
farthest from the door. He puts a peg into his switchboard; turns
the pointer on the dial; puts another peg in; and presses a button.
Immediately the silvery screen vanishes; and in its place appears, in
reverse from right to left, another office similarly furnished, with a
thin, unamiable man similarly dressed, but in duller colors, turning
over some documents at the table. His gold fillet is hanging up on a
similar peg beside the door. He is rather like Conrad Barnabas, but
younger, and much more commonplace._

BURGE-LUBIN. Hallo, Barnabas!

BARNABAS [_without looking round_] What number?

BURGE-LUBIN. Five double x three two gamma. Burge-Lubin.

_Barnabas puts a plug in number five; turns his pointer to double x; and
another plug in 32; presses a button and looks round at Burge-Lubin, who
is now visible to him as well as audible._

BARNABAS [_curtly_] Oh! That you, President?

BURGE-LUBIN. Yes. They told me you wanted me to ring you up. Anything
wrong?

BARNABAS [_harsh and querulous_] I wish to make a protest.

BURGE-LUBIN [_good-humored and mocking_] What! Another protest! Whats
wrong now?

BARNABAS. If you only knew all the protests I havnt made, you would be
surprised at my patience. It is you who are always treating me with the
grossest want of consideration.

BURGE-LUBIN. What have I done now?

BARNABAS. You have put me down to go to the Record Office today to
receive that American fellow, and do the honors of a ridiculous cinema
show. That is not the business of the Accountant General: it is the
business of the President. It is an outrageous waste of my time, and an
unjustifiable shirking of your duty at my expense. I refuse to go. You
must go.

BURGE-LUBIN. My dear boy, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to
take the job off your hands--

BARNABAS. Then do it. Thats all I want [_he is about to switch off_].

BURGE-LUBIN. Dont switch off. Listen. This American has invented a
method of breathing under water.

BARNABAS. What do I care? I don't want to breathe under water.

BURGE-LUBIN. You may, my dear Barnabas, at any time. You know you never
look where you are going when you are immersed in your calculations.
Some day you will walk into the Serpentine. This man's invention may
save your life.

BARNABAS [_angrily_] Will you tell me what that has to do with your
putting your ceremonial duties on to my shoulders? I will not be trifled
[_he vanishes and is replaced by the blank screen_]--

BURGE-LUBIN [_indignantly holding down his button_] Dont cut us off,
please: we have not finished. I am the President, speaking to the
Accountant General. What are you dreaming of?

A WOMAN'S VOICE. Sorry. [_The screen shews Barnabas as before_].

BURGE-LUBIN. Since you take it that way, I will go in your place. It's a
pity, because, you see, this American thinks you are the greatest living
authority on the duration of human life; and--

BARNABAS [_interrupting_] The American thinks! What do you mean? I am
the greatest living authority on the duration of human life. Who dares
dispute it?

BURGE-LUBIN. Nobody, dear lad, nobody. Dont fly out at me. It is evident
that you have not read the American's book.

BARNABAS. Dont tell me that you have, or that you have read any book
except a novel for the last twenty years; for I wont believe you.

BURGE-LUBIN. Quite right, dear old fellow: I havnt read it. But I have
read what The Times Literary Supplement says about it.

BARNABAS. I don't care two straws what it says about it. Does it say
anything about me?

BURGE-LUBIN. Yes.

BARNABAS. Oh, does it? What?

BURGE-LUBIN. It points out that an extraordinary number of first-rate
persons like you and me have died by drowning during the last two
centuries, and that when this invention of breathing under water takes
effect, your estimate of the average duration of human life will be
upset.

BARNABAS [_alarmed_] Upset my estimate! Gracious Heavens! Does the fool
realize what that means? Do you realize what that means?

BURGE-LUBIN. I suppose it means that we shall have to amend the Act.

BARNABAS. Amend my Act! Monstrous!

BURGE-LUBIN. But we must. We cant ask people to go on working until they
are forty-three unless our figures are unchallengeable. You know what
a row there was over those last three years, and how nearly the
too-old-at-forty people won.

BARNABAS. They would have made the British Islands bankrupt if theyd
won. But you dont care for that; you care for nothing but being popular.

BURGE-LUBIN. Oh, well: I shouldn't worry if I were you; for most people
complain that there is not enough work for them, and would be only too
glad to stick on instead of retiring at forty-three, if only they were
asked as a favor instead of having to.

BARNABAS. Thank you: I need no consolation. [_He rises determinedly and
puts on his fillet_].

BURGE-LUBIN. Are you off? Where are you going to?

BARNABAS. To that cinema tomfoolery, of course. I shall put this
American impostor in his place. [_He goes out_].

BURGE-LUBIN [_calling after him_] God bless you, dear old chap! [_With
a chuckle, he switches off; and the screen becomes blank. He presses a
button and holds it down while he calls_] Hallo!

A WOMAN'S VOICE. Hallo!

BURGE-LUBIN [_formally_] The President respectfully solicits the
privilege of an interview with the Chief Secretary, and holds himself
entirely at his honor's august disposal.

A CHINESE VOICE. He is coming.

BURGE-LUBIN. Oh! That you, Confucius? So good of you. Come along [_he
releases the button_].

_A man in a yellow gown, presenting the general appearance of a Chinese
sage, enters._

BURGE-LUBIN [_jocularly_] Well, illustrious Sage-&-Onions, how are your
poor sore feet?

CONFUCIUS [_gravely_] I thank you for your kind inquiries. I am well.

BURGE-LUBIN. Thats right. Sit down and make yourself comfortable. Any
business for me today?

CONFUCIUS [_sitting down on the first chair round the corner of the
table to the President's right_] None.

BURGE-LUBIN. Have you heard the result of the bye-election?

CONFUCIUS. A walk-over. Only one candidate.

BURGE-LUBIN. Any good?

CONFUCIUS. He was released from the County Lunatic Asylum a fortnight
ago. Not mad enough for the lethal chamber: not sane enough for any
place but the division lobby. A very popular speaker.

BURGE-LUBIN. I wish the people would take a serious interest in
politics.

CONFUCIUS. I do not agree. The Englishman is not fitted by nature to
understand politics. Ever since the public services have been manned by
Chinese, the country has been well and honestly governed. What more is
needed?

BURGE-LUBIN. What I cant make out is that China is one of the worst
governed countries on earth.

CONFUCIUS. No. It was badly governed twenty years ago; but since we
forbade any Chinaman to take part in our public services, and imported
natives of Scotland for that purpose, we have done well. Your
information here is always twenty years out of date.

BURGE-LUBIN. People don't seem to be able to govern themselves. I cant
understand it. Why should it be so?

CONFUCIUS. Justice is impartiality. Only strangers are impartial.

BURGE-LUBIN. It ends in the public services being so good that the
Government has nothing to do but think.

CONFUCIUS. Were it otherwise, the Government would have too much to do
to think.

BURGE-LUBIN. Is that any excuse for the English people electing a
parliament of lunatics?

CONFUCIUS. The English people always did elect parliaments of lunatics.
What does it matter if your permanent officials are honest and
competent?

BURGE-LUBIN. You do not know the history of this country. What would my
ancestors have said to the menagerie of degenerates that is still called
the House of Commons? Confucius: you will not believe me; and I do not
blame you for it; but England once saved the liberties of the world by
inventing parliamentary government, which was her peculiar and supreme
glory.

CONFUCIUS. I know the history of your country perfectly well. It proves
the exact contrary.

BURGE-LUBIN. How do you make that out?

CONFUCIUS. The only power your parliament ever had was the power of
withholding supplies from the king.

BURGE-LUBIN. Precisely. That great Englishman Simon de Montfort--

CONFUCIUS. He was not an Englishman: he was a Frenchman. He imported
parliaments from France.

BURGE-LUBIN [_surprised_] You dont say so!

CONFUCIUS. The king and his loyal subjects killed Simon for forcing his
French parliament on them. The first thing British parliaments always
did was to grant supplies to the king for life with enthusiastic
expressions of loyalty, lest they should have any real power, and be
expected to do something.

BURGE-LUBIN. Look here, Confucius: you know more history than I do, of
course; but democracy--

CONFUCIUS. An institution peculiar to China. And it was never really a
success there.

BURGE-LUBIN. But the Habeas Corpus Act!

CONFUCIUS. The English always suspended it when it threatened to be of
the slightest use.

BURGE-LUBIN. Well, trial by jury: you cant deny that we established
that?

CONFUCIUS. All cases that were dangerous to the governing classes were
tried in the Star Chamber or by Court Martial, except when the prisoner
was not tried at all, but executed after calling him names enough to
make him unpopular.

BURGE-LUBIN. Oh, bother! You may be right in these little details; but
in the large we have managed to hold our own as a great race. Well,
people who could do nothing couldnt have done that, you know.

CONFUCIUS. I did not say you could do nothing. You could fight. You
could eat. You could drink. Until the twentieth century you could
produce children. You could play games. You could work when you were
forced to. But you could not govern yourselves.

BURGE-LUBIN. Then how did we get our reputation as the pioneers of
liberty?

CONFUCIUS. By your steadfast refusal to be governed at all. A horse that
kicks everyone who tries to harness and guide him may be a pioneer of
liberty; but he is not a pioneer of government. In China he would be
shot.

BURGE-LUBIN. Stuff! Do you imply that the administration of which I am
president is no Government?

CONFUCIUS. I do. _I_ am the Government.

BURGE-LUBIN. You! You!! You fat yellow lump of conceit!

CONFUCIUS. Only an Englishman could be so ignorant of the nature of
government as to suppose that a capable statesman cannot be fat, yellow,
and conceited. Many Englishmen are slim, red-nosed, and modest. Put them
in my place, and within a year you will be back in the anarchy and chaos
of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

BURGE-LUBIN. Oh, if you go back to the dark ages, I have nothing more to
say. But we did not perish. We extricated ourselves from that chaos. We
are now the best governed country in the world. How did we manage that
if we are such fools as you pretend?

CONFUCIUS. You did not do it until the slaughter and ruin produced by
your anarchy forced you at last to recognize two inexorable facts.
First, that government is absolutely necessary to civilization, and that
you could not maintain civilization by merely doing down your neighbor,
as you called it, and cutting off the head of your king whenever he
happened to be a logical Scot and tried to take his position seriously.
Second, that government is an art of which you are congenitally
incapable. Accordingly, you imported educated negresses and Chinese to
govern you. Since then you have done very well.

BURGE-LUBIN. So have you, you old humbug. All the same, I don't know
how you stand the work you do. You seem to me positively to like public
business. Why wont you let me take you down to the coast some week-end
and teach you marine golf?

CONFUCIUS. It does not interest me. I am not a barbarian.

BURGE-LUBIN. You mean that I am?

CONFUCIUS. That is evident.

BURGE-LUBIN. How?

CONFUCIUS. People like you. They like cheerful goodnatured barbarians.
They have elected you President five times in succession. They will
elect you five times more. _I_ like you. You are better company than a
dog or a horse because you can speak.

BURGE-LUBIN. Am I a barbarian because you like me?

CONFUCIUS. Surely. Nobody likes me: I am held in awe. Capable persons
are never liked. I am not likeable; but I am indispensable.

BURGE-LUBIN. Oh, cheer up, old man: theres nothing so disagreeable about
you as all that. I don't dislike you; and if you think I'm afraid of
you, you jolly well don't know Burge-Lubin: thats all.

CONFUCIUS. You are brave: yes. It is a form of stupidity.

BURGE-LUBIN. You may not be brave: one doesn't expect it from a Chink.
But you have the devil's own cheek.

CONFUCIUS. I have the assured certainty of the man who sees and knows.
Your genial bluster, your cheery self-confidence, are pleasant, like the
open air. But they are blind: they are vain. I seem to see a great dog
wag his tail and bark joyously. But if he leaves my heel he is lost.

BURGE-LUBIN. Thank you for a handsome compliment. I have a big dog; and
he is the best fellow I know. If you knew how much uglier you are than a
chow, you wouldn't start those comparisons, though. [_Rising_] Well, if
you have nothing for me to do, I am going to leave your heel for the
rest of the day and enjoy myself. What would you recommend me to do with
myself?

CONFUCIUS. Give yourself up to contemplation; and great thoughts will
come to you.

BURGE-LUBIN. Will they? If you think I am going to sit here on a fine
day like this with my legs crossed waiting for great thoughts, you
exaggerate my taste for them. I prefer marine golf. [_Stopping short_]
Oh, by the way, I forgot something. I have a word or two to say to the
Minister of health. [_He goes back to his chair_].

CONFUCIUS. Her number is--

BURGE-LUBIN. I know it.

CONFUCIUS [_rising_] I cannot understand her attraction for you. For me
a woman who is not yellow does not exist, save as an official. [_He goes
out_].

_Burge-Lubin operates his switchboard as before. The screen vanishes:
and a dainty room with a bed, a wardrobe, and a dressing-table with a
mirror and a switch on it, appears. Seated at it a handsome negress is
trying on a brilliant head scarf. Her dressing-gown is thrown back
from her shoulders to her chair. She is in corset, knickers, and silk
stockings._

BURGE-LUBIN [_horrified_] I beg your pardon a thousand times--[_The
startled negress snatches the peg out of her switchboard and vanishes_].

THE NEGRESS'S VOICE. Who is it?

BURGE-LUBIN. Me. The President. Burge-Lubin. I had no idea your bedroom
switch was in. I beg your pardon.

_The negress reappears. She has pulled the dressing-gown perfunctorily
over her shoulders, and continues her experiments with the scarf, not at
all put out, and rather amused by Surge's prudery._

THE NEGRESS. Stupid of me. I was talking to another lady this morning;
and I left the peg in.

BURGE-LUBIN. But I am so sorry.

THE NEGRESS [_sunnily: still busy with the scarf_] Why? It was my fault.

BURGE-LUBIN [_embarrassed_] Well--er--But I suppose you were used to it
in Africa.

THE NEGRESS. Your delicacy is very touching, Mr President. It would be
funny if it were not so unpleasant, because, like all white delicacy, it
is in the wrong place. How do you think this suits my complexion?

BURGE-LUBIN. How can any really vivid color go wrong with a black satin
skin? It is our women's wretched pale faces that have to be matched and
lighted. Yours is always right.

THE NEGRESS. Yes: it is a pity your white beauties have all the same
ashy faces, the same colorless drab, the same age. But look at their
beautiful noses and little lips! They are physically insipid: they have
no beauty: you cannot love them; but how elegant!

BURGE-LUBIN. Cant you find an official pretext for coming to see me?
Isnt it ridiculous that we have never met? It's so tantalizing to see
you and talk to you, and to know all the time that you are two hundred
miles away, and that I cant touch you?

THE NEGRESS. I cannot live on the East Coast: it is hard enough to keep
my blood warm here. Besides, my friend, it would not be safe. These
distant flirtations are very charming; and they teach self-control.

BURGE-LUBIN. Damn self-control! I want to hold you in my arms--to--[_the
negress snatches out the peg from the switchboard and vanishes. She
is still heard laughing_]. Black devil! [_He snatches out his peg
furiously: her laugh is no longer heard_]. Oh, these sex episodes! Why
can I not resist them? Disgraceful!

_Confucius returns._

CONFUCIUS. I forgot. There is something for you to do this morning. You
have to go to the Record Office to receive the American barbarian.

BURGE-LUBIN. Confucius: once for all, I object to this Chinese habit of
describing white men as barbarians.

CONFUCIUS [_standing formally at the end of the table with his hands
palm to palm_] I make a mental note that you do not wish the Americans
to be described as barbarians.

BURGE-LUBIN. Not at all. The Americans are barbarians. But we are not. I
suppose the particular barbarian you are speaking of is the American who
has invented a means of breathing under water.

CONFUCIUS. He says he has invented such a method. For some reason which
is not intelligible in China, Englishmen always believe any statement
made by an American inventor, especially one who has never invented
anything. Therefore you believe this person and have given him a public
reception. Today the Record Office is entertaining him with a display of
the cinematographic records of all the eminent Englishmen who have lost
their lives by drowning since the cinema was invented. Why not go to see
it if you are at a loss for something to do?

BURGE-LUBIN. What earthly interest is there in looking at a moving
picture of a lot of people merely because they were drowned? If they had
had any sense, they would not have been drowned, probably.

CONFUCIUS. That is not so. It has never been noticed before; but the
Record Office has just made two remarkable discoveries about the public
men and women who have displayed extraordinary ability during the
past century. One is that they retained unusual youthfulness up to an
advanced age. The other is that they all met their death by drowning.

BURGE-LUBIN. Yes: I know. Can you explain it?

CONFUCIUS. It cannot be explained. It is not reasonable. Therefore I do
not believe it.

_The Accountant General rushes in, looking ghastly. He staggers to the
middle of the table._

BURGE-LUBIN. Whats the matter? Are you ill?

BARNABAS [_choking_] No. I--[_he collapses into the middle chair_]. I
must speak to you in private.

_Confucius calmly withdraws._

BURGE-LUBIN. What on earth is it? Have some oxygen.

BARNABAS. I have had some. Go to the Record Office. You will see men
fainting there again and again, and being revived with oxygen, as I have
been. They have seen with their own eyes as I have.

BURGE-LUBIN. Seen what?

BARNABAS. Seen the Archbishop of York.

BURGE-LUBIN. Well, why shouldn't they see the Archbishop of York? What
are they fainting for? Has he been murdered?

BARNABAS. No: he has been drowned.

BURGE-LUBIN. Good God! Where? When? How? Poor fellow!

BARNABAS. Poor fellow! Poor thief! Poor swindler! Poor robber of his
country's Exchequer! Poor fellow indeed! Wait til I catch him.

BURGE-LUBIN. How can you catch him when he is dead? Youre mad.

BARNABAS. Dead! Who said he was dead?

BURGE-LUBIN. You did. Drowned.

BARNABAS [_exasperated_] Will you listen to me? Was old Archbishop
Haslam, the present man's last predecessor but four, drowned or not?

BURGE-LUBIN. I don't know. Look him up in the Encyclopedia Britannica.

BARNABAS. Yah! Was Archbishop Stickit, who wrote Stickit on the Psalms,
drowned or not?

BURGE-LUBIN. Yes, mercifully. He deserved it.

BARNABAS. Was President Dickenson drowned? Was General Bullyboy drowned?

BURGE-LUBIN. Who is denying it?

BARNABAS. Well, wave had moving pictures of all four put on the screen
today for this American; and they and the Archbishop are the same man.
Now tell me I am mad.

BURGE-LUBIN. I do tell you you are mad. Stark raving mad.

BARNABAS. Am I to believe my own eyes or am I not?

BURGE-LUBIN. You can do as you please. All I can tell you is that _I_
don't believe your eyes if they cant see any difference between a live
archbishop and two dead ones. [_The apparatus rings, he holds the button
down_]. Yes?

THE WOMAN'S VOICE. The Archbishop of York, to see the President.

BARNABAS [_hoarse with rage_] Have him in. I'll talk to the scoundrel.

BURGE-LUBIN [_releasing the button_] Not while you are in this state.

BARNABAS [_reaching furiously for his button and holding it down_] Send
the Archbishop in at once.

BURGE-LUBIN. If you lose your temper, Barnabas, remember that we shall
be two to one.

_The Archbishop enters. He has a white band round his throat, set in a
black stock. He wears a sort of kilt of black ribbons, and soft black
boots that button high up on his calves. His costume does not differ
otherwise from that of the President and the Accountant General; but
its color scheme is black and white. He is older than the Reverend Bill
Haslam was when he wooed Miss Savvy Barnabas; but he is recognizably the
same man. He does not look a day over fifty, and is very well preserved
even at that; but his boyishness of manner is quite gone: he now has
complete authority and self-possession: in fact the President is a
little afraid of him; and it seems quite natural and inevitable that he
should speak fast._

THE ARCHBISHOP. Good day, Mr President.

BURGE-LUBIN. Good day, Mr Archbishop. Be seated.

THE ARCHBISHOP [_sitting down between them_] Good day, Mr Accountant
General.

BARNABAS [_malevolently_] Good day to you. I have a question to put to
you, if you don't mind.

THE ARCHBISHOP [_looking curiously at him, jarred by his uncivil tone_]
Certainly. What is it?

BARNABAS. What is your definition of a thief?

THE ARCHBISHOP. Rather an old-fashioned word, is it not?

BARNABAS. It survives officially in my department.

THE ARCHBISHOP. Our departments are full of survivals. Look at my tie!
my apron! my boots! They are all mere survivals; yet it seems that
without them I cannot be a proper Archbishop.

BARNABAS. Indeed! Well, in my department the word thief survives,
because in the community the thing thief survives. And a very despicable
and dishonorable thing he is, too.

THE ARCHBISHOP [_coolly_] I daresay.

BARNABAS. In my department, sir, a thief is a person who lives longer
than the statutory expectation of life entitles him to, and goes on
drawing public money when, if he were an honest man, he would be dead.

THE ARCHBISHOP. Then let me say, sir, that your department does not
understand its own business. If you have miscalculated the duration of
human life, that is not the fault of the persons whose longevity you
have miscalculated. And if they continue to work and produce, they pay
their way, even if they live two or three centuries.

BARNABAS. I know nothing about their working and producing. That is not
the business of my department. I am concerned with their expectation of
life; and I say that no man has any right to go on living and drawing
money when he ought to be dead.

THE ARCHBISHOP. You do not comprehend the relation between income and
production.

BARNABAS. I understand my own department.

THE ARCHBISHOP. That is not enough. Your department is part of a
synthesis which embraces all the departments.

BURGE-LUBIN. Synthesis! This is an intellectual difficulty. This is a
job for Confucius. I heard him use that very word the other day; and I
wondered what the devil he meant. [_Switching on_] Hallo! Put me through
to the Chief Secretary.

CONFUCIUS'S VOICE. You are speaking to him.

BURGE-LUBIN. An intellectual difficulty, old man. Something we don't
understand. Come and help us out.

THE ARCHBISHOP. May I ask how the question has arisen?