Back to Methuselah

not? Have you not heard the saying of the Chinese sage Dee Ning, that a good garden needs weeding? But it is not necessary for us to interfere. We are naturally rather particular as to the conditions on which we consent to live. One does not mind the accidental loss of an arm or a leg or an eye: after all, no one with two legs is unhappy because he has not three; so why should a man with one be unhappy because he has not two? But infirmities of mind and temper are quite another matter. If one of us has no self-control, or is too weak to bear the strain of our truthful life without wincing, or is tormented by depraved appetites and superstitions, or is unable to keep free from pain and depression, he naturally becomes discouraged, and refuses to live. The Elderly Gentleman Good Lord! Cuts his throat, do you mean? Zoo No: why should he cut his throat? He simply dies. He wants to. He is out of countenance, as we call it. The Elderly Gentleman Well!!! But suppose he is depraved enough not to want to die, and to settle the difficulty by killing all the rest of you? Zoo Oh, he is one of the thoroughly degenerate short-livers whom we occasionally produce. He emigrates. The Elderly Gentleman And what becomes of him then? Zoo You short-lived people always think very highly of him. You accept him as what you call a great man. The Elderly Gentleman You astonish me; and yet I must admit that what you tell me accounts for a great deal of the little I know of the private life of our great men. We must be very convenient to you as a dumping place for your failures. Zoo I admit that. The Elderly Gentleman Good. Then if you carry out your plan of colonization, and leave no short-lived countries in the world, what will you do with your undesirables? Zoo Kill them. Our tertiaries are not at all squeamish about killing. The Elderly Gentleman Gracious Powers! Zoo Glancing up at the sun. Come. It is just sixteen o’clock; and you have to join your party at half-past in the temple in Galway. The Elderly Gentleman Rising. Galway! Shall I at last be able to boast of having seen that magnificent city? Zoo You will be disappointed: we have no cities. There is a temple of the oracle: that is all. The Elderly Gentleman Alas! and I came here to fulfil two long-cherished dreams. One was to see Galway. It has been said, “See Galway and die.” The other was to contemplate the ruins of London. Zoo Ruins! We do not tolerate ruins. Was London a place of any importance? The Elderly Gentleman Amazed. What! London! It was the mightiest city of antiquity. Rhetorically. Situate just where the Dover Road crosses the Thames, it⁠— Zoo Curtly interrupting. There is nothing there now. Why should anybody pitch on such a spot to live? The nearest houses are at a place called Strand-on-the-Green: it is very old. Come. We shall go across the water. She goes down the steps. The Elderly Gentleman Sic transit gloria mundi! Zoo From below. What did you say? The Elderly Gentleman Despairingly. Nothing. You would not understand. He goes down the steps.

Act II

A courtyard before the columned portico of a temple. The temple door is in the middle of the portico. A veiled and robed woman of majestic carriage passes along behind the columns towards the entrance. From the opposite direction a man of compact figure, clean-shaven, saturnine, and self-centred: in short, very like Napoleon I, and wearing a military uniform of Napoleonic cut, marches with measured steps; places his hand in his lapel in the traditional manner; and fixes the woman with his eye. She stops, her attitude expressing haughty amazement at his audacity. He is on her right: she on his left.

Napoleon	Impressively. I am the Man of Destiny.
The Veiled Woman	Unimpressed. How did you get in here?
Napoleon	I walked in. I go on until I am stopped. I never am stopped. I tell you I am the Man of Destiny.
The Veiled Woman	You will be a man of very short destiny if you wander about here without one of our children to guide you. I suppose you belong to the Baghdad envoy.
Napoleon	I came with him; but I do not belong to him. I belong to myself. Direct me to the oracle if you can. If not, do not waste my time.
The Veiled Woman	Your time, poor creature, is short. I will not waste it. Your envoy and his party will be here presently. The consultation of the oracle is arranged for them, and will take place according to the prescribed ritual. You can wait here until they come. She turns to go into the temple.
Napoleon	I never wait. She stops. The prescribed ritual is, I believe, the classical one of the pythoness on her tripod, the intoxicating fumes arising from the abyss, the convulsions of the priestess as she delivers the message of the God, and so on. That sort of thing does not impose on me: I use it myself to impose on simpletons. I believe that what is, is. I know that what is not, is not. The antics of a woman sitting on a tripod and pretending to be drunk do not interest me. Her words are put into her mouth, not by a god, but by a man three hundred years old, who has had the capacity to profit by his experience. I wish to speak to that man face to face, without mummery or imposture.
The Veiled Woman	You seem to be an unusually sensible person. But there is no old man. I am the oracle on duty today. I am on my way to take my place on the tripod, and go through the usual mummery, as you rightly call it, to impress your friend the envoy. As