No. 10. MR. G. BERNARD SHAW

Fragment from an Unwritten Play

MAHOMET THE PROPHET

Act II

The library of the Prophet’s house at Medina. As the audience is looking straight into a corner, only two walls are seen. The right wall contains two high windows, through which much blue sky is visible; between them Mahomet is seated, with his back to the audience, at a handsome oak writing-desk. At the far end of the left wall is a door, and along the rest of its length runs a long blue divan, piled with multicoloured cushions, on which recline Ayesha, a slender girl with deep black eyes, pale cheeks, and golden hair, and two others of the Prophet’s eighty wives. They are drinking coffee from brass bowls and turning over the pages of illustrated magazines. The floor is strewn with rich rugs.

After five minutes’ silence the Prophet stretches his arms, rises, and turns round. He is a fleshy man with huge head, hands, and feet. His eyes are red, his nose imperious, and his beard covers half his chest. He walks up and down nervously jerking his hands, then stands still, right centre.

Mahomet: Well, well, my poor dead Khadija!

The Wives: We think you might have the decency to refrain from mentioning our predecessor in front of us.

Mahomet: Don’t be absurd, my dears. You, Ayesha, ought to have had more sense. You ought to know that my feelings are perfectly natural. Here has the army just been cutting up the big summer caravan to Mecca, chock-full of all the latest things from Constantinople. I have become the biggest property-owner in Arabia; and you refuse to let me lament the death of Khadija, who used to run the grocery-shop with me. Your behaviour is monstrous. I shall present you all at Christmas with complete editions of August Strindberg.

Ayesha (screaming): No, no, anything rather than that!

Mahomet: Well, mend your manners then. It is simply intolerable that I should drudge like a slave working up this prophet business for a pack of ungrateful women, and then get treated like this. (Enter Abu, a white-bearded servant, with a card on a tray.) Schopenhauer was right ... or was it Weininger?

Abu (advancing): Weininger, sir. I am sure that is correct, sir. I know his book very well. I used to read it to my poor wife, sir, when she was in her last illness. (Wipes his eyes.) It was a great solace to her.

Mahomet (taking the card and looking at it): I thought I had told you I was not at home. I am supposed to be at the front.

Abu (turning to go): Very well, sir.

Mahomet: Here, come back. Is there any news from Mecca?

Abu (rubbing his head): Oh, yes, sir! I quite forgot, sir. The excitement of the moment, I suppose, sir. Mecca was taken last Sunday, sir. It was dark, sir, and your men ran into the town by mistake. The other side had run out of it by mistake. Yes, it must have been an exceedingly dark night, sir.

Mahomet: Any converts?

Abu: Well, sir, it is like this, sir; there were not many left when your honour’s men had finished. A few children, perhaps. But the general who was impersonating your honour had a great reception from the troops. (Goes out.)

Mahomet (to Ayesha): Abu is really getting ridiculous. We cannot possibly keep the old fool any longer; he may give me away at any time if he goes on like this. Why the devil can’t you put an advertisement for a servant in the paper as I asked you to?

Ayesha (sulkily): Where would you be if I left off writing your wretched old Koran for you?

Mahomet: Precisely where I am, my dear. You are not indispensable. Anybody else could easily continue my Koran. In fact I think it would actually be a good thing to make a change. All those disgusting things you’ve put in about women, and so on. They really revolt me with their tactlessness.

(There is a great noise at the door, which suddenly gives way and lets in a tall, restless, thin man with a high forehead and a forked red-grey beard. He is dressed in a fawn-coloured all-wool coat and knickerbockers and wears a red tie. He nods his head sideways with a gay smile, rubs his hands and takes up his stand with his back to the corner. Mahomet and the women all stare at him in amazement, for they have never seen a dramatist before.)

The Dramatist: Come along, Prophet, brighten up. You must certainly know my name. I think this inhospitality is perfectly disgraceful. (Mahomet makes a threatening move towards him.) No, no, don’t bother about ringing for coffee for me. I don’t drink your barbarous poisons. Don’t you think you might introduce me to the ladies, Mahomet?

Mahomet (to the women): Go to your rooms at once. I cannot possibly let you listen to the conversation of this pernicious Englishman.

(Ayesha and the others, with evident reluctance, get up and file through the door, the last shutting it behind her.)

Well, sir, to what do I owe this most unwarrantable intrusion?

The Dramatist: Now, now, my friend, you can’t come it over me like that. I shall blacken your character thoroughly if you are not careful. The truth is, that I came here for the simple reason that though I have frequently put my own name into my characters’ mouths, I have never hitherto actually introduced myself as a person in one of my plays. After all, when you come to think of it, my habit of expressing my sentiments through invented characters has been utterly fantastic. And, besides, some of these confounded actors have made hay with the parts by trying to turn them into other people. One of these days I shall have to start a school for actors. No actor ought to be under eighty years of age. Men younger than that always will insist on interposing their own personalities between the author and his public. What I want is some one who will speak my lines. What on earth do people think my plays are for? I wasn’t born in order that a lot of stupid mummers should have an opportunity of parading their temperaments in public. At all events, here I am, you old reprobate (takes out his watch and looks at it), and I propose to talk to you for your good——

Mahomet (groaning and sinking on divan): But what do you want to write a play about me for? I have never done you any harm. I am only a poor prophet, earning an honest living. My Arabians are a simple, unsophisticated people, and they have never seen a play in their life, except my butler, who is merely a menial and doesn’t count.

The Dramatist: Now, really, my dear Prophet, this is the basest ingratitude. Why, in most of my plays the characters have had to tolerate a simple honest Englishman introduced into their midst. I can assure you that if I had sent you one of those instead of very kindly coming myself, you would have found him much duller company than you are finding me. Upon my oath, I think you ought to pay me for letting you off so lightly.

Mahomet (blubbering): But why do you want to drag me into it at all? Especially as my dislike of art is notorious.

The Dramatist (elevating his eyebrows): Well, my friend, if you insist, I will tell you; but your blood be upon your own head. You have about you several characteristics that make it inevitable that sooner or later I should nobble you. In the first place you are exceedingly well known; in the second place you are a humbug and an impostor; in the third place you are a shameless polygamist; and, in the fourth place, if you refer to any decent encyclopædia, you will find that you are probably an epileptic, like Cæsar and Napoleon. I ask, have you the atrocious conceit to think that you have a right to escape what Cæsar and Napoleon have had to submit to? Why, my dear sir, the thing is perfectly preposterous. I wonder you aren’t ashamed of yourself. I shall really have to write to the Times about you.

Mahomet: Wallah, Billah, Allah, Bismillah! (He falls to the ground, foaming at the mouth. The Dramatist rings bell in the wall. Abu enters.)

The Dramatist: My friend, your master seems a little indisposed.

Abu: Yes, sir. So it appears, sir. Very sad, sir. Unavoidable tragedy of our time. Clash of ideas, sir, and so on.... (Picks up the Prophet and props him against divan. The Dramatist goes out.)

Mahomet (recovering his senses): My God, Abu, where am I?... I’ve had a good many visions and revelations, but never one quite so bad as this!

Curtain