Waste Part 31

WEDGECROFT. Not indifferent.

TREBELL. Lifeless enough already, then. [_Suddenly a thought strikes him._]

D'you think it was Horsham and his little committee persuaded O'Connell?

WEDGECROFT. On the contrary.

TREBELL. So you need not have let them into the secret?

WEDGECROFT. No.

TREBELL. Think of that.

_He almost laughs; but_ WEDGECROFT _goes on quite innocently._

WEDGECROFT. Yes ... I'm sorry.

TREBELL. Upsetting their moral digestion for nothing.

WEDGECROFT. But when O'Connell wouldn't listen to us we had to rope in the important people.

TREBELL. With their united wisdom. [_Then he breaks away again into great bitterness._] No ... what do they make of this woman's death? I saw them in that room, Gilbert, like men seen through the wrong end of a telescope.

D'you think if the little affair with Nature ... her offence and mine against the conveniences of civilization ... had ended in my death too ...

then they'd have stopped to wonder at the misuse and waste of the only force there is in the world ... come to think of it, there is no other ... than this desire for expression ... in words ... or through children. Would they have thought of that and stopped whispering about the scandal?

_Through this_ WEDGECROFT _has watched him very gravely._

WEDGECROFT. Trebell ... if the inquest to-morrow had put you out of action ...

TREBELL. Should I have grown a beard and travelled abroad and after ten years timidly tried to climb my way back into politics? When public opinion takes its heel from your face it keeps it for your finger-tips. After twenty years to be forgiven by your more broad-minded friends and tolerated as a dotard by a new generation....

WEDGECROFT. Nonsense. What age are you now ... forty-six ... forty-seven?

TREBELL. Well ... let's instance a good man. Gladstone had done his best work by sixty-five. Then he began to be popular. Think of his last years of oratory.

_He has gone to his table and now very methodically starts to tidy his papers,_ WEDGECROFT _still watching him._

WEDGECROFT. You'd have had to thank Heaven for a little that there were more lives than one to lead.

TREBELL. That's another of your faults, Gilbert ... it's a comfort just now to enumerate them. You're an anarchist ... a kingdom to yourself. You make little treaties with Truth and with Beauty, and what can disturb you? I'm a part of the machine I believe in. If my life as I've made it is to be cut short ... the rest of me shall walk out of the world and slam the door ...

with the noise of a pistol shot.

WEDGECROFT. [_Concealing some uneasiness._] Then I'm glad it's not to be cut short. You and your cabinet rank and your disestablishment bill!

TREBELL _starts to enjoy his secret._

TREBELL. Yes ... our minds have been much relieved within the last half hour, haven't they?

WEDGECROFT. I scribbled Horsham a note in a messenger office and sent it as soon as O'Connell had left me.

TREBELL. He'd be glad to get that.

WEDGECROFT. He has been most kind about the whole thing.

TREBELL. Oh, he means well.

WEDGECROFT. [_Following up his fancied advantage._] But, my friend ...

suicide whilst of unsound mind would never have done.... The hackneyed verdict hits the truth, you know.

TREBELL. You think so?

WEDGECROFT. I don't say there aren't excuses enough in this miserable world, but fundamentally ... no sane person will destroy life.

TREBELL. [_His thoughts s.h.i.+fting their plane._] Was she so very mad? I'm not thinking of her own death.

WEDGECROFT. Don't brood, Trebell. Your mind isn't healthy yet about her and--

TREBELL. And my child.

_Even_ WEDGECROFT'S _kindness is at fault before the solemnity of this._

WEDGECROFT. Is that how you're thinking of it?

TREBELL. How else? It's very inexplicable ... this sense of fatherhood.

[_The eyes of his mind travel down--what vista of possibilities. Then he shakes himself free._] Let's drop the subject. To finish the list of shortcomings, you're a bit of an artist too ... therefore I don't think you'll understand.

WEDGECROFT. [_Successfully decoyed into argument._] Surely an artist is a man who understands.

TREBELL. Everything about life, but not life itself. That's where art fails a man.

WEDGECROFT. That's where everything but living fails a man. [_Drifting into introspection himself._] Yes, it's true. I can talk cleverly and I've written a book ... but I'm barren. [_Then the healthy mind re-a.s.serts itself._] No, it's not true. Our thoughts are children ... and marry and intermarry. And we're peopling the world ... not badly.

TREBELL. Well ... either life is too little a thing to matter or it's so big that such specks of it as we may be are of no account. These are two points of view. And then one has to consider if death can't be sometimes the last use made of life.

_There is a tone of menace in this which recalls_ WEDGECROFT _to the present trouble._

WEDGECROFT. I doubt the virtue of sacrifice ... or the use of it.

TREBELL. How else could I tell Horsham that my work matters? Does he think so now?... not he.

WEDGECROFT. You mean if they'd had to throw you over?

_Once again_ TREBELL _looks up with that secretive smile._

TREBELL. Yes ... if they'd had to.

WEDGECROFT. [_Unreasonably nervous, so he thinks._] My dear fellow, Horsham would have thought it was the shame and disgrace if you'd shot yourself after the inquest. That's the proper sentimental thing for you so-called strong men to do on like occasions. Why, if your name were to come out to-morrow, your best meaning friends would be sending you pistols by post, requesting you to use them like a gentleman. Horsham would grieve over ten dinner-tables in succession and then return to his philosophy. One really mustn't waste a life trying to shock polite politicians. There'd even be a suspicion of swagger in it.

TREBELL. Quite so ... the bomb that's thrown at their feet must be something otherwise worthless.