Back to Methuselah Part 56

ECRASIA. Why did you not find out how to make them like us?

STREPHON [_crying out in his grief for the first time_] Why did you not make a woman whom you could love? That was the secret you needed.

THE NEWLY BORN. Oh yes. How true! How great of you, darling Strephon!

[_She kisses him impulsively_].

STREPHON [_pa.s.sionately_] Let me alone.

MARTELLUS. Control your reflexes, child.

THE NEWLY BORN. My what!

MARTELLUS. Your reflexes. The things you do without thinking. Pygmalion is going to shew you a pair of human creatures who are all reflexes and nothing else. Take warning by them.

THE NEWLY BORN. But wont they be alive, like us?

PYGMALION. That is a very difficult question to answer, my dear. I confess I thought at first I had created living creatures; but Martellus declares they are only automata. But then Martellus is a mystic: _I_ am a man of science. He draws a line between an automaton and a living organism. I cannot draw that line to my own satisfaction.

MARTELLUS. Your artificial men have no self-control. They only respond to stimuli from without.

PYGMALION. But they are conscious. I have taught them to talk and read; and now they tell lies. That is so very lifelike.

MARTELLUS. Not at all. If they were alive they would tell the truth. You can provoke them to tell any silly lie; and you can foresee exactly the sort of lie they will tell. Give them a clip below the knee, and they will jerk their foot forward. Give them a clip in their appet.i.tes or vanities or any of their l.u.s.ts and greeds, and they will boast and lie, and affirm and deny, and hate and love without the slightest regard to the facts that are staring them in the face, or to their own obvious limitations. That proves that they are automata.

PYGMALION [_unconvinced_] I know, dear old chap; but there really is some evidence that we are descended from creatures quite as limited and absurd as these. After all, the baby there is three-quarters an automaton. Look at the way she has been going on!

THE NEWLY BORN [_indignantly_] What do you mean? How have I been going on?

ECRASIA. If they have no regard for truth, they can have no real vitality.

PYGMALION. Truth is sometimes so artificial: so relative, as we say in the scientific world, that it is very hard to feel quite sure that what is false and even ridiculous to us may not be true to them.

ECRASIA. I ask you again, why did you not make them like us? Would any true artist be content with less than the best?

PYGMALION. I couldnt. I tried. I failed. I am convinced that what I am about to shew you is the very highest living organism that can be produced in the laboratory. The best tissues we can manufacture will not take as high potentials as the natural product: that is where Nature beats us. You dont seem to understand, any of you, what an enormous triumph it was to produce consciousness at all.

ACIS. Cut the cackle; and come to the synthetic couple.

SEVERAL YOUTHS AND MAIDENS. Yes, yes. No more talking. Let us have them.

Dry up, Pyg; and fetch them along. Come on: out with them! The synthetic couple.

PYGMALION [_waving his hands to appease them_] Very well, very well.

Will you please whistle for them? They respond to the stimulus of a whistle.

_All who can, whistle like streetboys._

ECRASIA [_makes a wry face and puts her fingers in her ears_]!

PYGMALION. Sh-sh-s.h.!.+ Thats enough: thats enough: thats enough.

[_Silence_]. Now let us have some music. A dance tune. Not too fast.

_The flutists play a quiet dance._

MARTELLUS. Prepare yourselves for something ghastly.

_Two figures, a man and woman of n.o.ble appearance, beautifully modelled and splendidly attired, emerge hand in hand from the temple. Seeing that all eyes are fixed on them, they halt on the steps, smiling with gratified vanity. The woman is on the man's left._

PYGMALION [_rubbing his hands with the purring satisfaction of a creator_] This way, please.

_The Figures advance condescendingly and pose themselves centrally between the curved seats._

PYGMALION. Now if you will be so good as to oblige us with a little something. You dance so beautifully, you know. [_He sits down next Martellus, and whispers to him_] It is extraordinary how sensitive they are to the stimulus of flattery.

_The Figures, with a gracious air, dance pompously, but very pa.s.sably.

At the close they bow to one another._

ON ALL HANDS [_clapping_] Bravo! Thank you. Wonderful! Splendid.

Perfect.

_The Figures acknowledge the applause in an obvious condition of swelled head._

THE NEWLY BORN. Can they make love?

PYGMALION. Yes: they can respond to every stimulus. They have all the reflexes. Put your arm round the man's neck, and he will put his arm round your body. He cannot help it.

THE FEMALE FIGURE [_frowning_] Round mine, you mean.

PYGMALION. Yours, too, of course, if the stimulus comes from you.

ECRASIA. Cannot he do anything original?

PYGMALION. No. But then, you know, I do not admit that any of us can do anything really original, though Martellus thinks we can.

ACIS. Can he answer a question?

PYGMALION. Oh yes. A question is a stimulus, you know. Ask him one.

ACIS [_to the Male Figure_] What do you think of what you see around you? Of us, for instance, and our ways and doings?

THE MALE FIGURE. I have not seen the newspaper today.

THE FEMALE FIGURE. How can you expect my husband to know what to think of you if you give him his breakfast without his paper?

MARTELLUS. You see. He is a mere automaton.

THE NEWLY BORN. I don't think I should like him to put his arm round my neck. I don't like them. [_The Male Figure looks offended, and the Female jealous_]. Oh, I thought they couldn't understand. Have they feelings?

PYGMALION. Of course they have. I tell you they have all the reflexes.