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Page 8
LADY BRITOMART [amazed] Another son! I never said anything of the
kind. I never dreamt of such a thing. This is what comes of
interrupting me.
STEPHEN. But you said--
LADY BRITOMART [cutting him short] Now be a good boy, Stephen,
and listen to me patiently. The Undershafts are descended from a
foundling in the parish of St. Andrew Undershaft in the city.
That was long ago, in the reign of James the First. Well, this
foundling was adopted by an armorer and gun-maker. In the course
of time the foundling succeeded to the business; and from some
notion of gratitude, or some vow or something, he adopted another
foundling, and left the business to him. And that foundling did
the same. Ever since that, the cannon business has always been
left to an adopted foundling named Andrew Undershaft.
STEPHEN. But did they never marry? Were there no legitimate sons?
LADY BRITOMART. Oh yes: they married just as your father did; and
they were rich enough to buy land for their own children and
leave them well provided for. But they always adopted and trained
some foundling to succeed them in the business; and of course
they always quarrelled with their wives furiously over it. Your
father was adopted in that way; and he pretends to consider
himself bound to keep up the tradition and adopt somebody to
leave the business to. Of course I was not going to stand that.
There may have been some reason for it when the Undershafts could
only marry women in their own class, whose sons were not fit to
govern great estates. But there could be no excuse for passing
over my son.
STEPHEN [dubiously] I am afraid I should make a poor hand of
managing a cannon foundry.
LADY BRITOMART. Nonsense! you could easily get a manager and pay
him a salary.
STEPHEN. My father evidently had no great opinion of my capacity.
LADY BRITOMART. Stuff, child! you were only a baby: it had
nothing to do with your capacity. Andrew did it on principle,
just as he did every perverse and wicked thing on principle. When
my father remonstrated, Andrew actually told him to his face that
history tells us of only two successful institutions: one the
Undershaft firm, and the other the Roman Empire under the
Antonines. That was because the Antonine emperors all adopted
their successors. Such rubbish! The Stevenages are as good as the
Antonines, I hope; and you are a Stevenage. But that was Andrew
all over. There you have the man! Always clever and unanswerable
when he was defending nonsense and wickedness: always awkward and
sullen when he had to behave sensibly and decently!
STEPHEN. Then it was on my account that your home life was broken
up, mother. I am sorry.
LADY BRITOMART. Well, dear, there were other differences. I
really cannot bear an immoral man. I am not a Pharisee, I hope;
and I should not have minded his merely doing wrong things: we
are none of us perfect. But your father didn't exactly do wrong
things: he said them and thought them: that was what was so
dreadful. He really had a sort of religion of wrongness just as
one doesn't mind men practising immorality so long as they own
that they are in the wrong by preaching morality; so I couldn't
forgive Andrew for preaching immorality while he practised
morality. You would all have grown up without principles, without
any knowledge of right and wrong, if he had been in the house.
You know, my dear, your father was a very attractive man in some
ways. Children did not dislike him; and he took advantage of it
to put the wickedest ideas into their heads, and make them quite
unmanageable. I did not dislike him myself: very far from it; but
nothing can bridge over moral disagreement.
STEPHEN. All this simply bewilders me, mother. People may differ
about matters of opinion, or even about religion; but how can
they differ about right and wrong? Right is right; and wrong is
wrong; and if a man cannot distinguish them properly, he is
either a fool or a rascal: that's all.
LADY BRITOMART [touched] That's my own boy [she pats his cheek]!
Your father never could answer that: he used to laugh and get out
of it under cover of some affectionate nonsense. And now that you
understand the situation, what do you advise me to do?
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