George Bernard Shaw

PASSION, POISON, AND PETRIFACTION

Avia Artis

2022

ISBN: 978-83-8226-589-7

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PASSION, POISON, AND PETRIFACTION

OR THE FATAL GAZOGENE

In a bed-sitting room in a fashionable quarter of London a lady sits at her dressing-table, with her maid combing her hair. It is late. and the electric lamps are glowing. Apparently the room is bedless, but there stands against the opposite wall to that at which the dressing-table is placed a piece of furniture that suggests a bookcase without carrying conviction. On the same side is a chest of drawers of that disastrous kind which, recalcitrant to the opener until she is provoked to violence, then suddenly come wholly out and defy all her efforts to fit them in again. Opposite this chest of drawers, on the lady's side of the room, is a cupboard. The presence of a row of gentleman's boots beside the chest of drawers proclaims that the lady is married. Her own boots are beside the cupboard. The third wall is pierced midway by the door, above which is a cuckoo clock. Near the door a pedestal bears a portrait bust of the lady in plaster. There is a fan on the dressing-table, a hatbox and rug strap on the chest of drawers, an umbrella and a bootjack against the wall near the bed. The general impression is one of brightness, beauty, and social ambition, damped by somewhat inadequate means. A certain air of theatricality is produced by the fact that though the room is rectangular it has only three walls. Not a sound is heard except the overture and the crackling of the lady’s hair as the maid's brush draws electric sparks from it in the dry air of the London midsummer. The cuckoo clock strikes sixteen.

THE LADY. How much did the clock strike, Phyllis?

PHYLLIS. Sixteen, my lady.

THE LADY. That means eleven o'clock, does it not?

PHYLLIS. Eleven at night, my lady. In the morning it means half-past two; so if you hear it strike sixteen during your slumbers, do not rise.

THE LADY. I will not, Phyllis. Phyllis: I am weary. I will go to bed. Prepare my couch.

Phyllis crosses the room to the bookcase and touches a button. The front of the bookcase falls out with a crash and becomes a bed. A roll of distant thunder echoes the crash.

PHYLLIS [shuddering] It is a terrible night Heaven help all poor mariners at sea! My master is late. I trust nothing has happened to him. Your bed is ready, my lady.

THE LADY. Thank you, Phyllis. [She rises and approaches the bed.] Goodnight.

PHYLLIS. Will your ladyship not undress?

THE LADY. Not tonight, Phyllis. [Glancing through where the fourth wall is missing] Not under the circumstances.

PHYLLIS [impulsively throwing herself on her knees by her mistress's side, and clasping her round the waist] Oh, my beloved mistress, I know not why or how; but I feel that I shall never see you alive again. There is murder in the air. [Thunder.] Hark!

THE LADY. Strange! As I sat there methought I heard angels singing. “Oh, wont you come home. Bill Bailey?” Why should angels call me Bill Bailey? My name is Magnesia Fitztollemache.

PHYLLIS [emphasizing the title] Lady Magnesia Fitztollemache.

LADY MAGNESIA. In case we should never again meet in this world, let us take a last farewell.

PHYLLIS [embracing her with tears] My poor murdered angel mistress!

LADY MAGNESIA. In case we should meet again, call me at half-past eleven.

PHYLLIS. I will, I will.

Phyllis withdraws, overcome by emotion. Lady Magnesia switches off the electric light, and immediately hears the angels quite distinctly. They sing Bill Bailey so sweetly that she can attend to nothing else and forgets to remove even her boots as she draws the coverlet over herself and sinks to sleep, lulled by celestial harmony. A white radiance plays on her pillow, and lights up her beautiful face. But the thunder growls again, and a lurid red glow concentrates itself on the door, which is presently flung open, revealing a saturnine figure in evening dress, partially concealed by a crimson cloak. As he steals towards the bed the unnatural glare in his eyes and the broad-bladed dagger nervously gripped in his right hand bode ill for the sleeping lady. Providentially she sneezes on the very brink of eternity, and the tension of the murderer's nerves is such that he bolts precipitately under the bed at the sudden and startling Atscha! A dull, heavy, rhythmic thumping—the beating of his heart—betrays his whereabouts. Soon he emerges cautiously and raises his head above the bed coverlet level.

THE MURDERER. I can no longer cower here listening to the agonized thumpings of my own heart She but snoze in her sleep. I'll do't. [He again raises the dagger. The angels sing again. He cowers] What is this? Has that tune reached Heaven?

LADY MAGNESIA. [waking and sitting up] My husband! [All the colors of the rainbow chase one another up his face with ghastly brilliancy.] Why do you change color? And what on earth are you doing with that dagger?

FITZ [affecting unconcern, hut unhinged] It is a present for you: a present from mother. Pretty. Isnt it? [he displays it fatuously].

LADY MAGNESIA. But she promised me a fish slice.

FITZ. This is a combination fish slice and dagger. One day you have salmon for dinner. The next you have a murder to commit. See?

LADY MAGNESIA. My sweet mother-in-law! [Someone knocks at the door.] That is Adolphus's knock. [Fitz’s face turns a dazzling green.] What has happened to your complexion? You have turned green. Now I think of it, you always do when Adolphus is mentioned. Arnt you going to let him in?

FITZ. Certainly not. [He goes to the door.] Adolphus: you cannot enter. My wife is undressed and in bed.

LADY MAGNESIA. [rising] I am not Come in, Adolphus. [she switches on the electric light.]

ADOLPHUS. [without] Something most important has happened. I must come in for a moment.

FITZ. [calling to Adolphus] Something important happened? What is it?

ADOLPHUS [without] My new clothes have come home.

FITZ. He says his new clothes have come home.

LADY MAGNESIA [running to the door and opening it] Oh, come in, come in. Let me see.

Adolphus Bastable enters. He is in evening dress, made in the latest fashion, with the right half of the coat and the left half of the trousers yellow and the other halves black. His silver-spangled waistcoat has a crimson handkerchief stuck between it and his shirt front.

ADOLPHUS. What do you think of it?

LADY MAGNESIA. It is a dream! a creation! [she turns him about to admire him.]

ADOLPHUS [proudly] I shall never be mistaken for a waiter again.

FITZ. A drink, Adolphus?

ADOLPHUS. Thanks.

Fitztollemache goes to the cupboard and takes out a tray with tumblers and a bottle of

whisky. He puts them an the dressing-table.

FITZ. Is the gazogene full?

LADY MAGNESIA. Yes: you put in the powders yourself today.

FITZ. [sardonically] So I did. The special powders! Hal ha! ha! ha! ha! [His face Is again strangely variegated.]

LADY MAGNESIA. Your complexion is really going to pieces. Why do you laugh in that silly way at nothing?

FITZ. Nothing! Ha, ha! Nothing! Ha, ha, ha!

ADOLPHUS. I hope, Mr Fitztollemache, you are not laughing at my dothes. I warn you that I am an Englishman. You may laugh at my manners, at my brains, at my national institutions; but if you laugh at my clothes, one of us must die.

Thunder.

FITZ. I laughed but at the irony of Fate. [He takes a gazogene from the cupboard.]

ADOLPHUS. [satisfied] Oh, that! Oh, yes, of course!

FITZ. Let us drown all unkindness in a loving cup. [He puts the gazogene on the floor in the middle of the room.] Pardon the absence of a table: we found it in the way and pawned it. [He takes the whisky bottle from the dressing-table.]

LADY MAGNESIA. We picnic at home now. It is delightful. [She takes three tumblers from the dressing-table and sits on the floor, presiding over the gazogene, with Fitz and Adolphus squatting on her left and right respectively. Fitz pours whisky into the tumblers.]

FITZ. [as Magnesia is about to squirt soda into his tumbler] Stay! No soda for me. Let Adolphus have it all—all. I will take mine neat.

LADY MAGNESIA [proffering tumbler to Adolphus] Pledge me, Adolphus.

FITZ. Kiss the cup, Magnesia. Pledge her, man. Drink deep.

ADOLPHUS. To Magnesia!

FITZ. To Magnesia! [The two men drink.] It is done. [Scrambling to his feet] Adolphus: you have but ten minutes to live—if so long.

ADOLPHUS. What mean you?

MAGNESIA. [rising] My mind misgives me. I have a strange feeling here. [touching her heart]

ADOLPHUS. So have I, but lower down. [touching his stomach] That gazogene is disagreeing with me.

FITZ. It was poisoned!

Sensation.

ADOLPHUS [rising] Help! Police!

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Credits

George Bernard Shaw

PASSION, POISON, AND PETRIFACTION

Cover design: Avia Artis

Picture of George Bernard Shaw was used in the cover design.

Picture by: Underwood & Underwood

All rights for this edition reserved.

© Avia Artis

2022