of remorse, exclaiming. Oh, my King of Men!
| Ridgeon |
King of Men! Oh, this is too monstrous, too grotesque. We cruel doctors have kept the secret from you faithfully; but it is like all secrets: it will not keep itself. The buried truth germinates and breaks through to the light. |
| Jennifer |
What truth? |
| Ridgeon |
What truth! Why, that Louis Dubedat, King of Men, was the most entire and perfect scoundrel, the most miraculously mean rascal, the most callously selfish blackguard that ever made a wife miserable. |
| Jennifer |
Unshaken: calm and lovely. He made his wife the happiest woman in the world, doctor. |
| Ridgeon |
No: by all that’s true on earth, he made his widow the happiest woman in the world; but it was I who made her a widow. And her happiness is my justification and my reward. Now you know what I did and what I thought of him. Be as angry with me as you like: at least you know me as I really am. If you ever come to care for an elderly man, you will know what you are caring for. |
| Jennifer |
Kind and quiet. I am not angry with you any more, Sir Colenso. I knew quite well that you did not like Louis; but it is not your fault: you don’t understand: that is all. You never could have believed in him. It is just like your not believing in my religion: it is a sort of sixth sense that you have not got. And with a gentle reassuring movement towards him don’t think that you have shocked me so dreadfully. I know quite well what you mean by his selfishness. He sacrificed everything for his art. In a certain sense he had even to sacrifice everybody— |
| Ridgeon |
Everybody except himself. By keeping that back he lost the right to sacrifice you, and gave me the right to sacrifice him. Which I did. |
| Jennifer |
Shaking her head, pitying his error. He was one of the men who know what women know: that self-sacrifice is vain and cowardly. |
| Ridgeon |
Yes, when the sacrifice is rejected and thrown away. Not when it becomes the food of godhead. |
| Jennifer |
I don’t understand that. And I can’t argue with you: you are clever enough to puzzle me, but not to shake me. You are so utterly, so wildly wrong; so incapable of appreciating Louis— |
| Ridgeon |
Oh! Taking up the Secretary’s list. I have marked five pictures as sold to me. |
| Jennifer |
They will not be sold to you. Louis’ creditors insisted on selling them; but this is my birthday; and they were all bought in for me this morning by my husband. |
| Ridgeon |
By whom?!!! |
| Jennifer |
By my husband. |
| Ridgeon |
Gabbling and stuttering. What husband? Whose husband? Which husband? Whom? how? what? Do you mean to say that you have married again? |
| Jennifer |
Do you forget that Louis disliked widows, and that people who have married happily once always marry again? |
|
The Secretary returns with a pile of catalogues. |
| The Secretary |
Just got the first batch of catalogues in time. The doors are open. |
| Jennifer |
To Ridgeon, politely. So glad you like the pictures, Sir Colenso. Good morning. |
| Ridgeon |
Good morning. He goes towards the door; hesitates; turns to say something more; gives it up as a bad job; and goes. |
Colophon
The Doctor’s Dilemma
was published in 1906 by
George Bernard Shaw.
This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Christopher Hapka,
and is based on transcriptions produced in 2002 and 2004 by
Eve Sobol and David Widger
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans from the
Internet Archive.
The cover page is adapted from
Chesham Street,
a painting completed in 1901 by
George Lambert.
The cover and title pages feature the
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