First Plays Part 18

LADY FARRINGDON. You won't let Bob go without seeing us?

GERALD. Of course not, dear.

(He goes with them to the door and sees them out.)

GERALD (coming back to WENTWORTH). Three months. By Jove! that's nothing.

WENTWORTH. It's long enough for a man with a grievance. It gives him plenty of time to brood about it.

GERALD (anxiously). Who has Bob got a grievance against particularly?

WENTWORTH. The world.

GERALD (relieved). Ah! Still, three months, Wentworth. I could do it on my head.

WENTWORTH. You're not Bob. Bob will do it on his heart.

GERALD. We must buck him up, Wentworth. If he takes it the right way, it's nothing. I had awful thoughts of five years.

WENTWORTH. I'm not the judge, you know. It may be six months.

GERALD. Of course. How does he decide? Tosses up for it? Three months or six months or six years, it's all the same to him, and there's the poor devil in the dock praying his soul out that he'll hit on the shortest one. Good Lord! I'm glad I'm not a judge.

WENTWORTH (drily). Yes; that isn't quite the way the Law works.

GERALD. Oh, I'm not blaming the Law. (Smiling) Stick to it, Wentworth, by all means. But I should make a bad judge. I should believe everything the prisoner said, and just tell him not to do it again.

[BOB comes in awkwardly and stops at the door.]

WENTWORTH (getting up). Come along, Bob. (Taking out his case) Have a cigarette.

BOB (gruffly). No, thanks. (He takes out his pipe.)

GERALD (brightly but awkwardly). Hullo, Bob, old boy.

BOB. Where's Pamela? She said she'd be here. (He sits down in the large armchair.)

GERALD. If she said she'd be here, she will be here.

BOB (with a grunt). 'M! (There is an awkward silence.)

BOB (angrily to GERALD). Why don't you say something? You came here to say good-bye to me, I suppose--why don't you say it?

WENTWORTH. Steady, Bob.

GERALD (eagerly). Look here, Bob, old son, you mustn't take it too hardly. Wentworth thinks it will only be three months--don't you, Wentworth? You know, we none of us think any the worse of you for it.

BOB. Thanks. That will console me a lot in prison.

GERALD. Oh, Bob, don't be an old fool. You know what I mean. You have done nothing to be ashamed of, so what's the good of brooding in prison, and grousing about your bad luck, and all that sort of thing? If you had three months in bed with a broken leg, you'd try and get some sort of satisfaction out of it--well, so you can now if you try.

WENTWORTH (after waiting for BOB to say something). There's a good deal in that, Bob, you know. Prison is largely what you make it.

BOB. What do either of you know about it?

GERALD. Everything. The man with imagination knows the best and the worst of everything.

BOB (fiercely). Imagination? You think _I_ haven't imagined it?

GERALD. Wentworth's right. You can make what you like of it. You can be miserable anywhere, if you let yourself be. You can be happy anywhere, if you try to be.

WENTWORTH (to lead him on). I can't quite see myself being actually happy in prison, Gerald.

GERALD. I could, Wentworth, I swear I could.

BOB. He'd get popular with the warders; he'd love that.

GERALD (smiling). Silly old a.s.s! But there are lots of things one can do in prison, only no one ever seems to think of them. (He gets interested and begins to walk up and down the room.) Now take this solitary confinement there's so much fuss about. If you look at it the right way, there's nothing in it at all.

WENTWORTH. A bit boring, perhaps.

GERALD. Boring? Nonsense. You're allowed one book a week from the prison library, aren't you?

WENTWORTH. You know, you mustn't think that, because I'm a barrister, I know all about the inside of a prison.

GERALD. Well, suppose you are allowed one, and you choose a French dictionary, and try to learn it off by heart before you come out. Why, it's the chance of a lifetime to learn French.

WENTWORTH. Well, of course, if you _could_ get a French dictionary--

GERALD. Well, there'd be _some_ book there anyway. If it's a Bible, read it. When you've read it, count the letters in it; have little bets with yourself as to which man's name is mentioned most times in it; put your money on Moses and see if you win. Anything like that. If it's a hymn-book, count how many of the rhymes rhyme and how many don't; try and make them _all_ rhyme. Learn 'em by heart; I don't say that that would be particularly useful to you in the business world afterwards, but it would be amusing to see how quickly you could do it, how many you could keep in your head at the same time.

WENTWORTH. This is too intellectual for me; my brain would go in no time.

GERALD. You aren't doing it all day, of course; there are other things.

Physical training. Swedish exercises. Tell yourself that you'll be able to push up fifty times from the ground before you come out. Learn to walk on your hands. Practise cart-wheels, if you like. Gad! you could come out a Hercules.

WENTWORTH. I can't help feeling that the strain of improving myself so enormously would tell on me.

GERALD. Oh, you'd have your games and so on to keep you bright and jolly.

WENTWORTH (sarcastically). Golf and cricket, I suppose?

GERALD. Golf, of course; I'm doubtful about cricket. You must have another one for cricket, and I'm afraid the warder wouldn't play. But golf, and squash rackets, and bowls, and billiards--and croquet--

WENTWORTH (in despair). Oh, _go_ on!

GERALD. Really, you're hopeless. What the Swiss Family Wentworth would have done if they'd ever been s.h.i.+pwrecked, I can't think. Don't you _ever_ invent _any_thing for yourself? (Excitedly) Man alive! you've got a hymn-book and a piece of soap, what more do you want? You can play anything with that. (Thoughtfully) Oh, I forgot the Olympic games.

Standing long jump. And they talk about the boredom of it!