Back to Methuselah eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 408 pages of information about Back to Methuselah.

Back to Methuselah eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 408 pages of information about Back to Methuselah.

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-sh!  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 noble 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 passably.  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.

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Back to Methuselah from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.