The Shewing up of Blanco Posnet
G >>
George Bernard Shaw >> The Shewing up of Blanco Posnet
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 | 8
FEEMY. Thats so. At four I saw him. [To Blanco] Thats done for
you.
THE SHERIFF. You say you saw him on my horse?
FEEMY. I did.
BLANCO. And I ate it, I suppose, before Strapper fetched up with
me. [Suddenly and dramatically] Sheriff: I accuse Feemy of
immoral relations with Strapper.
FEEMY. Oh you liar!
BLANCO. I accuse the fair Euphemia of immoral relations with
every man in this town, including yourself, Sheriff. I say this
is a conspiracy to kill me between Feemy and Strapper because I
wouldn't touch Feemy with a pair of tongs. I say you darent hang
any white man on the word of a woman of bad character. I stand
on the honor and virtue of my American manhood. I say that she's
not had the oath, and that you darent for the honor of the town
give her the oath because her lips would blaspheme the holy Bible
if they touched it. I say thats the law; and if you are a proper
United States Sheriff and not a low-down lyncher, youll hold up
the law and not let it be dragged in the mud by your brother's
kept woman.
[Great excitement among the women. The men much puzzled.]
JESSIE. Thats right. She didn't ought to be let kiss the Book.
EMMA. How could the like of her tell the truth?
BABSY. It would be an insult to every respectable woman here to
believe her.
FEEMY. It's easy to be respectable with nobody ever offering you
a chance to be anything else.
THE WOMEN [clamoring all together] Shut up, you hussy. Youre a
disgrace. How dare you open your lips to answer your betters?
Hold your tongue and learn your place, miss. You painted slut!
Whip her out of the town!
THE SHERIFF. Silence. Do you hear? Silence. [The clamor ceases].
Did anyone else see the prisoner with the horse?
FEEMY [passionately] Aint I good enough?
BABSY. No. Youre dirt: thats what you are.
FEEMY. And you--
THE SHERIFF. Silence. This trial is a man's job; and if the women
forget their sex they can go out or be put out. Strapper and Miss
Evans: you cant have it two ways. You can run straight, or you
can run gay, so to speak; but you cant run both ways together.
There is also a strong feeling among the men of this town that a
line should be drawn between those that are straight wives and
mothers and those that are, in the words of the Book of Books,
taking the primrose path. We don't wish to be hard on any woman;
and most of us have a personal regard for Miss Evans for the sake
of old times; but theres no getting out of the fact that she has
private reasons for wishing to oblige Strapper, and that--if she
will excuse my saying so--she is not what I might call morally
particular as to what she does to oblige him. Therefore I ask the
prisoner not to drive us to give Miss Evans the oath. I ask him
to tell us fair and square, as a man who has but a few minutes
between him and eternity, what he done with my horse.
THE BOYS. Hear, hear! Thats right. Thats fair. That does it. Now
Blanco. Own up.
BLANCO. Sheriff: you touch me home. This is a rotten world; but
there is still one thing in it that remains sacred even to the
rottenest of us, and that is a horse.
THE BOYS. Good. Well said, Blanco. Thats straight.
BLANCO. You have a right to your horse, Sheriff; and if I could
put you in the way of getting it back, I would. But if I had that
horse I shouldn't be here. As I hope to be saved, Sheriff--or
rather as I hope to be damned; for I have no taste for pious
company and no talent for playing the harp--I know no more of
that horse's whereabouts than you do yourself.
STRAPPER. Who did you trade him to?
BLANCO. I did not trade him. I got nothing for him or by him. I
stand here with a rope round my neck for the want of him. When
you took me, did I fight like a thief or run like a thief; and
was there any sign of a horse on me or near me?
STRAPPER. You were looking at a rainbow, like a damned silly fool
instead of keeping your wits about you; and we stole up on you
and had you tight before you could draw a bead on us.
THE SHERIFF. That don't sound like good sense. What would he look
at a rainbow for?
BLANCO. I'll tell you, Sheriff. I was looking at it because there
was something written on it.
SHERIFF. How do you mean written on it?
BLANCO. The words were, "Ive got the cinch on you this time,
Blanco Posnet." Yes, Sheriff, I saw those words in green on the
red streak of the rainbow; and as I saw them I felt Strapper's
grab on my arm and Squinty's on my pistol.
THE FOREMAN. He's shammin mad: thats what he is. Aint it about
time to give a verdict and have a bit of fun, Sheriff?
THE BOYS. Yes, lets have a verdict. We're wasting the whole
afternoon. Cut it short.
THE SHERIFF [making up his mind] Swear Feemy Evans, Elder. She
don't need to touch the Book. Let her say the words.
FEEMY. Worse people than me has kissed that Book. What wrong Ive
done, most of you went shares in. Ive to live, havnt I? same as
the rest of you. However, it makes no odds to me. I guess the
truth is the truth and a lie is a lie, on the Book or off it.
BABSY. Do as youre told. Who are you, to be let talk about it?
THE SHERIFF. Silence there, I tell you. Sail ahead, Elder.
ELDER DANIELS. Feemy Evans: do you swear to tell the truth and
the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
FEEMY. I do, so help me--
SHERIFF. Thats enough. Now, on your oath, did you see the
prisoner on my horse this morning on the road to Pony Harbor?
FEEMY. On my oath--[Disturbance and crowding at the door].
AT THE DOOR. Now then, now then! Where are you shovin to? Whats
up? Order in court. Chuck him out. Silence. You cant come in
here. Keep back.
(Strapper rushes to the door and forces his way out.)
SHERIFF [savagely] Whats this noise? Cant you keep quiet there?
Is this a Sheriff's court or is it a saloon?
BLANCO. Dont interrupt a lady in the act of hanging a gentleman.
Wheres your manners?
FEEMY. I'll hang you, Blanco Posnet. I will. I wouldn't for fifty
dollars hadnt seen you this morning. I'll teach you to be civil
to me next time, for all I'm not good enough to kiss the Book.
BLANCO. Lord keep me wicked till I die! I'm game for anything
while youre spitting dirt at me, Feemy.
RENEWED TUMULT AT THE DOOR. Here, whats this? Fire them out. Not
me. Who are you that I should get out of your way? Oh, stow it.
Well, she cant come in. What woman? What horse? Whats the good of
shoving like that? Who says? No! you don't say!
THE SHERIFF. Gentlemen of the Vigilance Committee: clear that
doorway. Out with them in the name of the law.
STRAPPER [without] Hold hard, George. [At the door] Theyve got
the horse. [He comes in, followed by Waggoner Jo, an elderly
carter, who crosses the court to the jury side. Strapper pushes
his way to the Sheriff and speaks privately to him].
THE BOYS. What! No! Got the horse! Sheriff's horse? Who took it,
then? Where? Get out. Yes it is, sure. I tell you it is. It's the
horse all right enough. Rot. Go and look. By Gum!
THE SHERIFF [to Strapper] You don't say!
STRAPPER. It's here, I tell you.
WAGGONER JO. It's here all right enough, Sheriff.
STRAPPER. And theyve got the thief too.
ELDER DANIELS. Then it aint Blanco.
STRAPPER. No: it's a woman. [Blanco yells and covers his eyes
with his hands].
THE WHOLE CROWD. A woman!
THE SHERIFF. Well, fetch her in. [Strapper goes out. The Sheriff
continues, to Feemy] And what do you mean, you lying jade, by
putting up this story on us about Blanco?
FEEMY. I aint put up no story on you. This is a plant: you see if
it isnt.
[Strapper returns with a woman. Her expression of intense grief
silences them as they crane over one another's heads to see her.
Strapper takes her to the corner of the table. The Elder moves up
to make room for her.]
BLANCO [terrified]: that woman aint real. You take care. That
woman will make you do what you never intended. Thats the rainbow
woman. Thats the woman that brought me to this.
THE SHERIFF. Shut your mouth, will you. Youve got the horrors.
[To the woman] Now you. Who are you? and what are you doing with
a horse that doesn't belong to you?
THE WOMAN. I took it to save my child's life. I thought it would
get me to a doctor in time. It was choking with croup.
BLANCO [strangling, and trying to laugh] A little choker: thats
the word for him. His choking wasn't real: wait and see mine. [He
feels his neck with a sob].
THE SHERIFF. Where's the child?
STRAPPER. On Pug Jackson's bench in his shed. He's makin a coffin
for it.
BLANCO [with a horrible convulsion of the throat--frantically]
Dead! The little Judas kid! The child I gave my life for! [He
breaks into hideous laughter].
THE SHERIFF [jarred beyond endurance by the sound] Hold you
noise! will you? Shove his neckerchief into his mouth if he don't
stop. [To the woman] Dont you mind him, maam: he's mad with drink
and devilment. I suppose theres no fake about this, Strapper. Who
found her?
WAGGONER JO. I did, Sheriff. Theres no fake about it. I came on
her on the track round by Red Mountain. She was settin on the
ground with the dead body on her lap, stupid-like. The horse was
grazin on the other side of the road.
THE SHERIFF [puzzled] Well, this is blamed queer. [To the woman]
What call had you to take the horse from Elder Daniels' stable to
find a doctor? Theres a doctor in the very next house.
BLANCO [mopping his dabbled red crest and trying to be ironically
gay] Story simply wont wash, my angel. You got it from the man
that stole the horse. He gave it to you because he was a softy
and went to bits when you played off the sick kid on him. Well, I
guess that clears me. I'm not that sort. Catch me putting my neck
in a noose for anybody's kid!
THE FOREMAN. Dont you go putting her up to what to say. She said
she took it.
THE WOMAN. Yes: I took it from a man that met me. I thought God
sent him to me. I rode here joyfully thinking so all the time to
myself. Then I noticed that the child was like lead in my arms.
God would never have been so cruel as to send me the horse to
disappoint me like that.
BLANCO. Just what He would do.
STRAPPER. We aint got nothin to do with that. This is the man,
aint he? [pointing to Blanco].
THE WOMAN [pulling herself together after looking scaredly at
Blanco, and then at the Sheriff and at the jury] No.
THE FOREMAN. You lie.
THE SHERIFF. Youve got to tell us the truth. Thats the law, you
know.
THE WOMAN. The man looked a bad man. He cursed me; and he cursed
the child: God forgive him! But something came over him. I was
desperate, I put the child in his arms; and it got its little
fingers down his neck and called him Daddy and tried to kiss him;
for it was not right in its head with the fever. He said it was a
little Judas kid, and that it was betraying him with a kiss, and
that he'd swing for it. And then he gave me the horse, and went
away crying and laughing and singing dreadful dirty wicked words
to hymn tunes like as if he had seven devils in him.
STRAPPER. She's lying. Give her the oath, George.
THE SHERIFF. Go easy there. Youre a smart boy, Strapper; but
youre not Sheriff yet. This is my job. You just wait. I submit
that we're in a difficulty here. If Blanco was the man, the lady
cant, as a white woman, give him away. She oughtnt to be put in
the position of having either to give him away or commit perjury.
On the other hand, we don't want a horse-thief to get off
through a lady's delicacy.
THE FOREMAN. No we don't; and we don't intend he shall. Not while
I am foreman of this jury.
BLANCO [with intense expression] A rotten foreman! Oh, what a
rotten foreman!
THE SHERIFF. Shut up, will you. Providence shows us a way out
here. Two women saw Blanco with a horse. One has a delicacy about
saying so. The other will excuse me saying that delicacy is not
her strongest holt. She can give the necessary witness. Feemy
Evans: you've taken the oath. You saw the man that took the
horse.
FEEMY. I did. And he was a low-down rotten drunken lying hound
that would go further to hurt a woman any day than to help her.
And if he ever did a good action it was because he was too drunk
to know what he was doing. So it's no harm to hang him. She
said he cursed her and went away blaspheming and singing things
that were not fit for the child to hear.
BLANCO [troubled] I didn't mean them for the child to hear, you
venomous devil.
THE SHERIFF. All thats got nothing to do with us. The question
you have to answer is, was that man Blanco Posnet?
THE WOMAN. No. I say no. I swear it. Sheriff: don't hang that
man: oh don't. You may hang me instead if you like: Ive nothing
to live for now. You darent take her word against mine. She never
had a child: I can see it in her face.
FEEMY [stung to the quick] I can hang him in spite of you,
anyhow. Much good your child is to you now, lying there on Pug
Jackson's bench!
BLANCO [rushing at her with a shriek] I'll twist your heart out
of you for that. [They seize him before he can reach her].
FEEMY [mocking at him as he struggles to get at her] Ha, ha,
Blanco Posnet. You cant touch me; and I can hang you. Ha, ha! Oh,
I'll do for you. I'll twist your heart and I'll twist your neck.
[He is dragged back to the bar and leans on it, gasping and
exhausted.] Give me the oath again, Elder. I'll settle him. And
do you [to the woman] take your sickly face away from in front
of me.
STRAPPER. Just turn your back on her there, will you?
THE WOMAN. God knows I don't want to see her commit murder. [She
folds her shawl over her head].
THE SHERIFF. Now, Miss Evans: cut it short. Was the prisoner the
man you saw this morning or was he not? Yes or no?
FEEMY [a little hysterically] I'll tell you fast enough. Dont
think I'm a softy.
THE SHERIFF [losing patience] Here: weve had enough of this. You
tell the truth, Feemy Evans; and let us have no more of your lip.
Was the prisoner the man or was he not? On your oath?
FEEMY. On my oath and as I'm a living woman--[flinching] Oh God!
he felt the little child's hands on his neck--I cant [bursting
into a flood of tears and scolding at the other woman] It's you
with your snivelling face that has put me off it. [Desperately]
No: it wasn't him. I only said it out of spite because he
insulted me. May I be struck dead if I ever saw him with the
horse!
[Everybody draws a long breath. Dead silence.]
BLANCO [whispering at her] Softy! Cry-baby! Landed like me! Doing
what you never intended! [Taking up his hat and speaking in his
ordinary tone] I presume I may go now, Sheriff.
STRAPPER. Here, hold hard.
THE FOREMAN. Not if we know it, you don't.
THE BOYS [barring the way to the door] You stay where you are.
Stop a bit, stop a bit. Dont you be in such a hurry. Dont let him
go. Not much.
[Blanco stands motionless, his eye fixed, thinking hard, and
apparently deaf to what is going on.]
THE SHERIFF [rising solemnly] Silence there. Wait a bit. I take
it that if the Sheriff is satisfied and the owner of the horse is
satisfied, theres no more to be said. I have had to remark on
former occasions that what is wrong with this court is that
theres too many Sheriffs in it. To-day there is going to be one,
and only one; and that one is your humble servant. I call that to
the notice of the Foreman of the jury, and also to the notice
of young Strapper. I am also the owner of the horse. Does any man
say that I am not? [Silence]. Very well, then. In my opinion, to
commandeer a horse for the purpose of getting a dying child to a
doctor is not stealing, provided, as in the present case, that
the horse is returned safe and sound. I rule that there has
been no theft.
NESTOR. That aint the law.
THE SHERIFF. I fine you a dollar for contempt of court, and will
collect it myself off you as you leave the building. And as the
boys have been disappointed of their natural sport, I shall give
them a little fun by standing outside the door and taking up a
collection for the bereaved mother of the late kid that shewed up
Blanco Posnet.
THE BOYS. A collection. Oh, I say! Calls that sport? Is this a
mothers' meeting? Well, I'll be jiggered! Where does the sport
come in?
THE SHERIFF [continuing] The sport comes in, my friends, not so
much in contributing as in seeing others fork out. Thus each
contributes to the general enjoyment; and all contribute to his.
Blanco Posnet: you go free under the protection of the Vigilance
Committee for just long enough to get you out of this town, which
is not a healthy place for you. As you are in a hurry, I'll sell
you the horse at a reasonable figure. Now, boys, let nobody go
out till I get to the door. The court is adjourned. [He goes
out].
STRAPPER [to Feemy, as he goes to the door] I'm done with you. Do
you hear? I'm done with you. [He goes out sulkily].
FEEMY [calling after him] As if I cared about a stingy brat like
you! Go back to the freckled maypole you left for me: you've
been fretting for her long enough.
THE FOREMAN [To Blanco, on his way out] A man like you makes me
sick. Just sick. [Blanco makes no sign. The Foreman spits
disgustedly, and follows Strapper out. The Jurymen leave the box,
except Nestor, who collapses in a drunken sleep].
BLANCO [Suddenly rushing from the bar to the table and jumping up
on it] Boys, I'm going to preach you a sermon on the moral of
this day's proceedings.
THE BOYS [crowding round him] Yes: lets have a sermon. Go ahead,
Blanco. Silence for Elder Blanco. Tune the organ. Let us pray.
NESTOR [staggering out of his sleep] Never hold up your head in
this town again. I'm done with you.
BLANCO [pointing inexorably to Nestor] Drunk in church.
Disturbing the preacher. Hand him out.
THE BOYS [chivying Nestor out] Now, Nestor, outside. Outside,
Nestor. Out you go. Get your subscription ready for the Sheriff.
Skiddoo, Nestor.
NESTOR. Afraid to be hanged! Afraid to be hanged! [At the door]
Coward! [He is thrown out].
BLANCO. Dearly beloved brethren--
A BOY. Same to you, Blanco. [Laughter].
BLANCO. And many of them. Boys: this is a rotten world.
ANOTHER BOY. Lord have mercy on us, miserable sinners. [More
laughter].
BLANCO [Forcibly] No: thats where youre wrong. Dont flatter
yourselves that youre miserable sinners. Am I a miserable sinner?
No: I'm a fraud and a failure. I started in to be a bad man like
the rest of you. You all started in to be bad men or you wouldn't
be in this jumped-up, jerked-off, hospital-turned-out camp that
calls itself a town. I took the broad path because I thought I
was a man and not a snivelling canting turning-the-other-cheek
apprentice angel serving his time in a vale of tears. They talked
Christianity to us on Sundays; but when they really meant
business they told us never to take a blow without giving it
back, and to get dollars. When they talked the golden rule to me,
I just looked at them as if they werent there, and spat. But when
they told me to try to live my life so that I could always look
my fellowman straight in the eye and tell him to go to hell, that
fetched me.
THE BOYS. Quite right. Good. Bully for you, Blanco, old son.
Right good sense too. Aha-a-ah!
BLANCO. Yes; but whats come of it all? Am I a real bad man? a man
of game and grit? a man that does what he likes and goes over or
through other people to his own gain? or am I a snivelling cry-
baby that let a horse his life depended on be took from him by a
woman, and then sat on the grass looking at the rainbow and let
himself be took like a hare in a trap by Strapper Kemp: a lad
whose back I or any grown man here could break against his knee?
I'm a rottener fraud and failure than the Elder here. And youre
all as rotten as me, or youd have lynched me.
A BOY. Anything to oblige you, Blanco.
ANOTHER. We can do it yet if you feel really bad about it.
BLANCO. No: the devil's gone out of you. We're all frauds. Theres
none of us real good and none of us real bad.
ELDER DANIELS. There is One above, Blanco.
BLANCO. What do you know about Him? you that always talk as if He
never did anything without asking your rotten leave first? Why
did the child die? Tell me that if you can. He cant have wanted
to kill the child. Why did He make me go soft on the child if
He was going hard on it Himself? Why should He go hard on the
innocent kid and go soft on a rotten thing like me? Why did I go
soft myself? Why did the Sheriff go soft? Why did Feemy go soft?
Whats this game that upsets our game? For seems to me theres two
games bein played. Our game is a rotten game that makes me feel
I'm dirt and that youre all as rotten dirt as me. T'other game
may be a silly game; but it aint rotten. When the Sheriff played
it he stopped being rotten. When Feemy played it the paint nearly
dropped off her face. When I played it I cursed myself for a
fool; but I lost the rotten feel all the same.
ELDER DANIELS. It was the Lord speaking to your soul, Blanco.
BLANCO. Oh yes: you know all about the Lord, don't you? Youre in
the Lord's confidence. He wouldn't for the world do anything to
shock you, would He, Boozy dear? Yah! What about the croup? It
was early days when He made the croup, I guess. It was the best
He could think of then; but when it turned out wrong on His hands
He made you and me to fight the croup for him. You bet He didn't
make us for nothing; and He wouldn't have made us at all if He
could have done His work without us. By Gum, that must be what
we're for! He'd never have made us to be rotten drunken
blackguards like me, and good-for-nothing rips like Feemy. He
made me because He had a job for me. He let me run loose til the
job was ready; and then I had to come along and do it, hanging or
no hanging. And I tell you it didn't feel rotten: it felt bully,
just bully. Anyhow, I got the rotten feel off me for a minute of
my life; and I'll go through fire to get it off me again. Look
here! which of you will marry Feemy Evans?
THE BOYS [uproariously] Who speaks first? Who'll marry Feemy?
Come along, Jack. Nows your chance, Peter. Pass along a husband
for Feemy. Oh my! Feemy!
FEEMY [shortly] Keep your tongue off me, will you?
BLANCO. Feemy was a rose of the broad path, wasn't she? You all
thought her the champion bad woman of this district. Well, she's
a failure as a bad woman; and I'm a failure as a bad man. So let
Brother Daniels marry us to keep all the rottenness in the
family. What do you say, Feemy?
FEEMY. Thank you; but when I marry I'll marry a man that could do
a decent action without surprising himself out of his senses.
Youre like a child with a new toy: you and your bit of human
kindness!
THE WOMAN. How many would have done it with their life at stake?
FEEMY. Oh well, if youre so much taken with him, marry him
yourself. Youd be what people call a good wife to him, wouldn't
you?
THE WOMAN. I was a good wife to the child's father. I don't think
any woman wants to be a good wife twice in her life. I want
somebody to be a good husband to me now.
BLANCO. Any offer, gentlemen, on that understanding? [The boys
shake their heads]. Oh, it's a rotten game, our game. Here's a
real good woman; and she's had enough of it, finding that it only
led to being put upon.
HANNAH. Well, if there was nothing wrong in the world there
wouldn't be anything left for us to do, would there?
ELDER DANIELS. Be of good cheer, brothers. Fight on. Seek the
path.
BLANCO. No. No more paths. No more broad and narrow. No more good
and bad. Theres no good and bad; but by Jiminy, gents, theres a
rotten game, and theres a great game. I played the rotten game;
but the great game was played on me; and now I'm for the great
game every time. Amen. Gentlemen: let us adjourn to the saloon. I
stand the drinks. [He jumps down from the table].
THE BOYS. Right you are, Blanco. Drinks round. Come along, boys.
Blanco's standing. Right along to the Elder's. Hurrah! [They rush
out, dragging the Elder with them].
BLANCO [to Feemy, offering his hand] Shake, Feemy.
FEEMY. Get along, you blackguard.
BLANCO. It's come over me again, same as when the kid touched me.
Shake, Feemy.
FEEMY. Oh well, here. [They shake hands].
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 | 8