Back to Methuselah

Which of us do you think he will support when I explain to him that your object in revealing his age is to get him killed? Barnabas Desperate. Burge: are you going to back up this yellow abomination against me? Are we public men and members of the Government? or are we damned blackguards? Confucius Unmoved. Have you ever known a public man who was not what vituperative people called a damned blackguard when some inconsiderate person wanted to tell the public more than was good for it? Barnabas Hold your tongue, you insolent heathen. Burge: I spoke to you. Burge-Lubin Well, you know, my dear Barnabas, Confucius is a very long-headed chap. I see his point. Barnabas Do you? Then let me tell you that, except officially, I will never speak to you again. Do you hear? Burge-Lubin Cheerfully. You will. You will. Barnabas And don’t you ever dare speak to me again. Do you hear? He turns to the door. Burge-Lubin I will. I will. Goodbye, Barnabas. God bless you. Barnabas May you live forever, and be the laughingstock of the whole world! He dashes out in a fury. Burge-Lubin Laughing indulgently. He will keep the secret all right. I know Barnabas. You needn’t worry. Confucius Troubled and grave. There are no secrets except the secrets that keep themselves. Consider. There are those films at the Record Office. We have no power to prevent the Master of the Records from publishing this discovery made in his department. We cannot silence the American⁠—who can silence an American?⁠—nor the people who were there today to receive him. Fortunately, a film can prove nothing but a resemblance. Burge-Lubin That’s very true. After all, the whole thing is confounded nonsense, isn’t it? Confucius Raising his head to look at him. You have decided not to believe it now that you realize its inconveniences. That is the English method. It may not work in this case. Burge-Lubin English be hanged! It’s common sense. You know, those two people got us hypnotized: not a doubt of it. They must have been kidding us. They were, werent they? Confucius You looked into that woman’s face; and you believed. Burge-Lubin Just so. That’s where she had me. I shouldn’t have believed her a bit if she’d turned her back to me. Confucius Shakes his head slowly and repeatedly. ??? Burge-Lubin You really think⁠—? He hesitates. Confucius The Archbishop has always been a puzzle to me. Ever since I learnt to distinguish between one English face and another I have noticed what the woman pointed out: that the English face is not an adult face, just as the English mind is not an adult mind. Burge-Lubin Stow it, John Chinaman. If ever there was a race divinely appointed to take charge of the non-adult races and guide them and train them and keep them out of mischief until they grow up to be capable of adopting our institutions, that race is the English race. It is the only race in the world that has that characteristic. Now! Confucius That is the fancy of a child nursing a doll. But it is ten times more childish of you to dispute the highest compliment ever paid you. Burge-Lubin You call it a compliment to class us as grown-up children. Confucius Not grown-up children, children at fifty, sixty, seventy. Your maturity is so late that you never attain to it. You have to be governed by races which are mature at forty. That means that you are potentially the most highly developed race on earth, and would be actually the greatest if you could live long enough to attain to maturity. Burge-Lubin Grasping the idea at last. By George, Confucius, you’re right! I never thought of that. That explains everything. We are just a lot of schoolboys: theres no denying it. Talk to an Englishman about anything serious, and he listens to you curiously for a moment just as he listens to a chap playing classical music. Then he goes back to his marine golf, or motoring, or flying, or women, just like a bit of stretched elastic when you let it go. Soaring to the height of his theme. Oh, you’re quite right. We are only in our infancy. I ought to be in a perambulator, with a nurse shoving me along. It’s true: it’s absolutely true. But some day we’ll grow up; and then, by Jingo, we’ll show em. Confucius The Archbishop is an adult. When I was a child I was dominated and intimidated by people whom I now know to have been weaker and sillier than I, because there was some mysterious quality in their mere age that overawed me. I confess that, though I have kept up appearances, I have always been afraid of the Archbishop. Burge-Lubin Between ourselves, Confucius, so have I. Confucius It is this that convinced me. It was this in the woman’s face that convinced you. Their new departure in the history of the race is no fraud. It does not even surprise me. Burge-Lubin Oh, come! Not surprise you! It’s your pose never to be surprised at anything; but if you are not surprised at this you are not human. Confucius I am staggered, just as a man may be staggered by an explosion for which he has himself laid the charge and lighted the fuse. But I am not surprised, because, as a philosopher and a student of evolutionary biology, I have come to regard some such development as this as inevitable. If I had not thus prepared myself to be credulous, no mere evidence of films and well-told tales would have persuaded me to believe. As it is, I do believe. Burge-Lubin Well, that being settled, what the devil is to happen next? What’s the next move for us? Confucius We do not make the next move. The next move will be made by the Archbishop and the woman. Burge-Lubin Their marriage? Confucius More than that. They have made the momentous discovery that they are not alone in the world. Burge-Lubin You think there are others? Confucius There must be many