Major Barbara Page #13

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factory of death? That's what I ask myself.

I've always thought of

it as a sort of pit...

where lost creatures with blackened

faces stirred up smoking fires...

and were driven and

tormented by my father.

- Is it like that, Papa?

- My dear, you'll see for yourself.

[Machinery Thumping, Clanking]

[Clanging]

[Cusins] Raw materials of destruction.

[Undershaft] Or construction. How

about railway lines, for instance?

[No Audible Dialogue]

Astonishing.

Remember the words of Plato?

Plato? You dare quote a

Greek philosopher to me?

Plato says, my friend, that

society cannot be saved...

until either the professors of

Greek take to making gunpowder...

or else the makers of gunpowder

become professors of Greek.

My predecessors, the old swordsmiths,

used the same stuff... boiling steel.

Have you found anything discreditable?

Nope.

The men call him Dandy Andy and

are proud he's a cunning old rascal.

Well?

You're driving me against

my nature. I hate war.

Hatred is the coward's

revenge for being intimidated.

Dare you make war on war...

here are the means.

Well, Euripides?

You coming into my business?

Understand this, you old demon...

You have me in a horrible dilemma.

I want Barbara.

Like most young men, you greatly

exaggerate the difference...

between one young woman and another.

Quite true, Dolly.

I refuse to walk another step through

all these sheds and pipes and boilers.

They mean nothing to me.

I've never asked you to come look at

the kitchen range and the scullery sink.

[Loud Rumbling, Hissing]

Why is that roof making a

noise like a whale with asthma?

It's breathing, my love. Come and see.

This is ridiculous. Is

it snow, or salt, or what?

Nitrates to make explosives.

Or sulfates to fertilize your fields.

If you prefer the explosive way,

that's your affair, not mine.

Come, Euripides, you think that

nitrates are good for nothing but death.

Now I'll show you the

sort of life they produce.

This is where my workers live. Here

they own everything and I own nothing.

- Sort of a cooperative touch, huh?

- Exactly, Mr. Lomax.

It makes it very difficult for

them to leave my employment.

- But then they don't want to leave it.

- Why?

Because they can't better

themselves, my love.

- Slavery, I call it.

- Do you, my dear?

[Children Laughing, Chattering]

## [Congregation Singing Hymn]

- Sort of ideal church exhibition, what?

- Exactly, Mr. Lomax.

It's the result of our

belief in religious freedom.

Its official name is the meeting

place of all the religions.

The men call it Piety Square.

Are you sure that all this pampering

is really good for the men's characters?

My dear boy, when you're

organizing civilization...

you have to make up your mind whether

trouble and anxiety are good things or not.

If you decide that they are, then I take

it you simply don't organize civilization.

Good morning.

However, our characters are safe here.

A sufficient dose of

anxiety is always provided...

by the fact that we may all be

blown to smithereens at any moment.

- Well?

- Not a ray of hope.

Everything perfect, wonderful, real.

It only needs a cathedral to be a

heavenly city instead of a hellish one.

And to think of all that being yours, and

you've kept it to yourself all these years.

It doesn't belong to me, I belong to

it. It's the Undershaft inheritance.

It is not.

Your ridiculous cannons and that noisy, banging

foundry may be the Undershaft inheritance...

but all that plate and linen, all those houses

and orchards and gardens, they belong to us.

They belong to me. They're not a

man's business. I won't give them up!

- What lovely flowers.

- Never mind about the flowers, Andrew.

You're trying to put me off the subject

of the inheritance. Well, you shan't.

I don't ask it any longer for Stephen.

He's inherited far too much of

your perversity to be fit for it.

But Barbara has rights

as well as Stephen.

Why should not Adolphus

succeed to the inheritance?

[Undershaft] I should ask nothing

better if Adolphus were a foundling.

He's exactly the sort of new blood

that's wanted in English business.

But he's not a foundling,

and there's an end of it.

Not quite.

I think... Mind, I'm not committing

myself in any way as to my future course...

but I think the foundling

difficulty can be got over.

- What do you mean? - Well, I have something

to say which is in the nature of a confession.

- A confession?

- A confession?

Yes, a confession.

Listen, all of you.

Won't you sit down?

Until I met Barbara, I thought myself

in the main an honorable, truthful man...

because I wanted the approval of my

conscience more than I wanted anything else.

But the moment I saw Barbara, I wanted her

far more than the approval of my conscience.

- Adolphus!

- I thought she was a woman of the people...

and that a marriage with a professor

of Greek would be far beyond...

the wildest social

ambitions of her rank.

- [Lady Brit] Adolphusl

- No, really!

- When I learnt the horrible truth...

- What do you mean by the horrible truth, pray?

That she was enormously rich, that her grandfather was

an earl, that her father was the prince of darkness...

- Shh! - And that I was only an

adventurer trying to catch a rich wife...

then I stooped to deceive

her about my birth.

- Dolly!

- Your birth?

Adolphus, don't dare make up a wicked story

for the sake of these wretched cannons.

Remember, I've seen

photographs of your parents.

The agent general for Southwestern

Australia knows them personally...

and has assured me they are the

most respectable married people.

Oh, so they are, in Australia.

But here they're outcasts.

Their marriage is legal in

Australia, but not in England.

My mother is my father's

deceased wife's sister...

and in this island I am,

consequently, a foundling.

I think not. You can marry your

wife's sister even in England.

Ah, you can now, but not

when my parents married.

Is the subterfuge good

enough, Machiavelli?

You're an educated man.

That's against the tradition.

Greek hasn't destroyed my

mind, it's nourished it.

Beside, I didn't learn it

in an English public school.

Biddy, this may be a way

out of the difficulties.

Stuff! A man cannot make cannons any better for

being his own cousin instead of his proper self.

Well, I can't afford to be too particular.

He's cornered the foundling market.

Let it pass.

You're eligible,

Euripides, you're eligible!

You know that you'll have to change

your name. You object to that?

Would any man named Adolphus...

any man called Dolly...

object to being called something else?

Hardly.

Now, as to money, I propose to treat

you handsomely from the beginning.

You shall start at a thousand a year.

A thousand?

You dare offer a miserable thousand

to the son-in-law of a millionaire?

No, by heavens, Machiavelli,

you shall not cheat me.

You can't do without me,

and I can do without you.

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