Mrs. Warren's Profession. The Dark Lady of the Sonnets / Профессия миссис Уоррен. Смуглая леди сонетов

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Бернард Шоу. Mrs. Warren's Profession. The Dark Lady of the Sonnets / Профессия миссис Уоррен. Смуглая леди сонетов

Mrs. Warren’s Profession. 1984

Act I

Act II

Act III

Act IV

The Dark Lady of the Sonnets. 1910

Отрывок из книги

[Summer afternoon in a cottage garden on the eastern slope of a hill a little south of Haslemere in Surrey. Looking up the hill, the cottage is seen in the left hand corner of the garden, with its thatched roof and porch, and a large latticed window to the left of the porch. A paling completely shuts in the garden, except for a gate on the right. The common rises uphill beyond the paling to the sky line. Some folded canvas garden chairs are leaning against the side bench in the porch. A lady’s bicycle is propped against the wall, under the window. A little to the right of the porch a hammock is slung from two posts. A big canvas umbrella, stuck in the ground, keeps the sun off the hammock, in which a young lady is reading and making notes, her head towards the cottage and her feet towards the gate. In front of the hammock, and within reach of her hand, is a common kitchen chair, with a pile of serious-looking books and a supply of writing paper on it.]

[A gentleman walking on the common comes into sight from behind the cottage. He is hardly past middle age, with something of the artist about him, unconventionally but carefully dressed, and clean-shaven except for a moustache, with an eager susceptible face and very amiable and considerate manners. He has silky black hair, with waves of grey and white in it. His eyebrows are white, his moustache black. He seems not certain of his way. He looks over the palings; takes stock of the place; and sees the young lady.]

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CROFTS. You’re afraid of him.

MRS WARREN [angry]. I’ll trouble you to mind your own business, and not try any of your sulks on me. I’m not afraid of you, anyhow. If you can’t make yourself agreeable, you’d better go home. [She gets up, and, turning her back on him, finds herself face to face with Praed]. Come, Praddy, I know it was only your tender-heartedness. You’re afraid I’ll bully her.

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