Monologue

The Archdeacon Monologue from The Inca of Perusalem: An Almost Historical Comedietta

From The Inca of Perusalem: An Almost Historical Comedietta by Bernard Shaw

male · sarcastic · 1:49 min

Then, my dear, you had better become lady's maid to a princess until you can find another millionaire to marry you. (ERMYNTRUDE: That's an idea. I will.) What! Come back. Come back this instant. (The lights are lowered.) Oh, very well: I have nothing more to say. (He descends the steps into the auditorium and makes for the door, grumbling all the time.) Insane, senseless extravagance! (Barking.) Worthlessness!! (Muttering.) I will not bear it any longer. Dresses, hats, furs, gloves, motor rides: one bill after another: money going like water. No restraint, no self-control, no decency. (Shrieking.) I say, no decency! (Muttering again.) Nice state of things we are coming to! A pretty world! But I simply will not bear it. She can do as she likes. I wash my hands of her: I am not going to die in the workhouse for any good-for-nothing, undutiful, spendthrift daughter; and the sooner that is understood by everybody the better for all par---- (He is by this time out of hearing in the corridor.) THE PLAY A hotel sitting room. A table in the centre. On it a telephone. Two chairs at it, opposite one another. Behind it, the door. The fireplace has a mirror in the mantelpiece. A spinster Princess, hatted and gloved, is ushered in by the hotel manager, spruce and artifically bland by professional habit, but treating his customer with a condescending affability which sails very close to the east wind of insolence.

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