Arms and the man pdf file download

He gobbles the comfits. He looks anxiously to see whether there are any more. There are none. He accepts the inevitable with pathetic goodhumor, and says, with grateful emotion Bless you, dear lady. You can always tell an old soldier by the inside of his holsters and cartridge boxes. The young ones carry pistols and cartridges; the old ones, grub.

Thank you. He hands back the box. She snatches it contemptuously from him and throws it away. This impatient action is so sudden that he shies again. Frighten me! Do you know, sir, that though I am only a woman, I think I am at heart as brave as you. I should think so. He sits down on the ottoman, and takes his head in his hands. Would you like to see me cry? If you would, all you have to do is to scold me just as if I were a little boy and you my nurse.

Touched by the sympathy in her tone, he raises his head and looks gratefully at her: she immediately draws back and says stiffly You must excuse me: our soldiers are not like that. She moves away from the ottoman. Oh, yes, they are. There are only two sorts of soldiers: old ones and young ones. Sheer ignorance of the art of war, nothing else. I never saw anything so unprofessional. Well, come, is it professional to throw a regiment of cavalry on a battery of machine guns, with the dead certainty that if the guns go off not a horse or man will ever get within fifty yards of the fire?

Did you see the great cavalry charge? Oh, tell me about it. Describe it to me. Ah, perhaps not—of course. Yes, first One! Then they all come. You can tell the young ones by their wildness and their slashing. The wounds are mostly broken knees, from the horses cannoning together. I believe he is a hero! Ah, I knew it! Tell me—tell me about him. He did it like an operatic tenor—a regular handsome fellow, with flashing eyes and lovely moustache, shouting a war-cry and charging like Don Quixote at the windmills.

Of course, they just cut us to bits. Of all the fools ever let loose on a field of battle, that man must be the very maddest. Would you know him again if you saw him? Shall I ever forget him. She again goes to the chest of drawers.

He watches her with a vague hope that she may have something else for him to eat. She takes the portrait from its stand and brings it to him. That is a photograph of the gentleman—the patriot and hero—to whom I am betrothed.

Looking at her. Was it fair to lead me on? He looks at the portrait again. He stifles a laugh. But when I think of him charging the windmills and thinking he was doing the finest thing— chokes with suppressed laughter. Of course. She deliberately kisses it, and looks him straight in the face, before returning to the chest of drawers to replace it. He follows her, apologizing.

Most likely he had got wind of the cartridge business somehow, and knew it was a safe job. That is to say, he was a pretender and a coward! You did not dare say that before. As he turns away to get back to the ottoman, the firing begins again in the distance. So much the better for you. You are my enemy; and you are at my mercy. What would I do if I were a professional soldier?

I know how good you have been to me: to my last hour I shall remember those three chocolate creams. It was unsoldierly; but it was angelic. And now I will do a soldierly thing. You cannot stay here after what you have just said about my future husband; but I will go out on the balcony and see whether it is safe for you to climb down into the street.

She turns to the window. Down that waterpipe! The very thought of it makes me giddy. I came up it fast enough with death behind me.

But to face it now in cold blood! Give the alarm. He drops his head in his hands in the deepest dejection. She stoops over him almost maternally: he shakes his head. Oh, you are a very poor soldier—a chocolate cream soldier. Come, cheer up: it takes less courage to climb down than to face capture—remember that. No, capture only means death; and death is sleep—oh, sleep, sleep, sleep, undisturbed sleep! Climbing down the pipe means doing something—exerting myself—thinking! Death ten times over first.

Are you so sleepy as that? Of course I must do something. He shakes himself; pulls himself together; and speaks with rallied vigour and courage. You see, sleep or no sleep, hunger or no hunger, tired or not tired, you can always do a thing when you know it must be done.

Well, that pipe must be got down— He hits himself on the chest, and adds —Do you hear that, you chocolate cream soldier? He turns to the window. I shall sleep as if the stones were a feather bed.

He makes boldly for the window, and his hand is on the shutter when there is a terrible burst of firing in the street beneath. She catches him by the shoulder, and turns him quite round. Now do what I tell you. And keep away from the window, whatever you do. She shakes him in her impatience. I am not indifferent, dear young lady, I assure you. But how is it to be done? Come away from the window—please. She coaxes him back to the middle of the room.

He submits humbly. She releases him, and addresses him patronizingly. Now listen. You must trust to our hospitality. You do not yet know in whose house you are. I am a Petkoff. I mean that I belong to the family of the Petkoffs, the richest and best known in our country. Oh, yes, of course. I beg your pardon. The Petkoffs, to be sure. How stupid of me! You know you never heard of them until this minute.

How can you stoop to pretend? I forgot. It might make you cry. He nods, quite seriously. She pouts and then resumes her patronizing tone. I must tell you that my father holds the highest command of any Bulgarian in our army. He is proudly a Major. A Major! Bless me! Think of that! You shewed great ignorance in thinking that it was necessary to climb up to the balcony, because ours is the only private house that has two rows of windows.

There is a flight of stairs inside to get up and down by. I tell you these things to shew you that you are not in the house of ignorant country folk who would kill you the moment they saw your Servian uniform, but among civilized people. We go to Bucharest every year for the opera season; and I have spent a whole month in Vienna.

I thought you might have remembered the great scene where Ernani, flying from his foes just as you are tonight, takes refuge in the castle of his bitterest enemy, an old Castilian noble. The noble refuses to give him up. His guest is sacred to him. Have your people got that notion? My mother and I can understand that notion, as you call it.

Oh, it is useless to try and make you understand. What about YOUR father? He is away at Slivnitza fighting for his country. I answer for your safety. There is my hand in pledge of it. Will that reassure you? She offers him her hand. Better not touch my hand, dear young lady. I must have a wash first. That is very nice of you. I see that you are a gentleman. You must not think I am surprised. Bulgarians of really good standing—people in OUR position—wash their hands nearly every day.

But I appreciate your delicacy. You may take my hand. She offers it again. Thanks, gracious young lady: I feel safe at last. And now would you mind breaking the news to your mother? I had better not stay here secretly longer than is necessary. If you will be so good as to keep perfectly still whilst I am away. Raina goes to the bed and wraps herself in the fur cloak.

His eyes close. She goes to the door, but on turning for a last look at him, sees that he is dropping of to sleep. You are not going asleep, are you? He murmurs inarticulately: she runs to him and shakes him. Wake up: you are falling asleep. Falling aslee—? Oh, no, not the least in the world: I was only thinking. Will you please stand up while I am away. He rises reluctantly.

All the time, mind. Certainly—certainly: you may depend on me. Raina looks doubtfully at him. He smiles foolishly. She goes reluctantly, turning again at the door, and almost catching him in the act of yawning. Sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, slee— The words trail off into a murmur. He wakes again with a shock on the point of falling. Where am I? Must keep awake. Must find it. He starts of vaguely around the room in search of it. What am I looking for?

He stumbles against the bed. Ah, yes: now I know. All right now. Not to lie down, either, only sit down. He sits on the bed. A blissful expression comes into his face. With a happy sigh he sinks back at full length; lifts his boots into the bed with a final effort; and falls fast asleep instantly.

She strides to the left side of the bed, Raina following and standing opposite her on the right. The brute! Shaking him again, harder. Vehemently shaking very bard. Let him sleep. The poor dear! She looks sternly at her daughter. The man sleeps profoundly. The sixth of March, It is a fine spring morning; and the garden looks fresh and pretty.

Beyond the paling the tops of a couple of minarets can be seen, shewing that there is a valley there, with the little town in it. A few miles further the Balkan mountains rise and shut in the view.

Within the garden the side of the house is seen on the right, with a garden door reached by a little flight of steps. On the left the stable yard, with its gateway, encroaches on the garden.

There are fruit bushes along the paling and house, covered with washing hung out to dry. A path runs by the house, and rises by two steps at the corner where it turns out of the right along the front.

In the middle a small table, with two bent wood chairs at it, is laid for breakfast with Turkish coffee pot, cups, rolls, etc. There is a wooden garden seat against the wall on the left. Louka, smoking a cigaret, is standing between the table and the house, turning her back with angry disdain on a man-servant who is lecturing her. He is a middle-aged man of cool temperament and low but clear and keen intelligence, with the complacency of the servant who values himself on his rank in servility, and the imperturbability of the accurate calculator who has no illusions.

He wears a white Bulgarian costume jacket with decorated border, sash, wide knickerbockers, and decorated gaiters. His head is shaved up to the crown, giving him a high Japanese forehead. His name is Nicola. Be warned in time, Louka: mend your manners. I know the mistress. She is so grand that she never dreams that any servant could dare to be disrespectful to her; but if she once suspects that you are defying her, out you go. If you quarrel with the family, I never can marry you. I shall always be dependent on the good will of the family.

When I leave their service and start a shop in Sofia, their custom will be half my capital: their bad word would ruin me. You have no spirit.

I should like to see them dare say a word against me! I should have expected more sense from you, Louka. Let them quarrel with me if they dare! Do you know what they would do if they heard you talk like that? Discharge you for untruthfulness. Who would believe any stories you told after that? Who would give you another situation? Who in this house would dare be seen speaking to you ever again? How long would your father be left on his little farm?

She impatiently throws away the end of her cigaret, and stamps on it. He goes close to her and lowers his voice. Look at me, ten years in their service. Do you think I know no secrets? I know things about Raina that would break off her match with Sergius if—.

How do you know? I never told you! I thought it might be something like that. You have the soul of a servant, Nicola. A loud knocking with a whip handle on a wooden door, outside on the left, is heard. Off with you and get some fresh coffee. He runs out into the stable yard. Major Petkoff comes from the stable yard, followed by Nicola.

He is a cheerful, excitable, insignificant, unpolished man of about 50, naturally unambitious except as to his income and his importance in local society, but just now greatly pleased with the military rank which the war has thrust on him as a man of consequence in his town.

The fever of plucky patriotism which the Servian attack roused in all the Bulgarians has pulled him through the war; but he is obviously glad to be home again. Breakfast out here, eh? He goes to the house door. Louka, with fresh coffee, a clean cup, and a brandy bottle on her tray meets him. Have you told the mistress?

Catherine who has at this early hour made only a very perfunctory toilet, and wears a Bulgarian apron over a once brilliant, but now half worn out red dressing gown, and a colored handkerchief tied over her thick black hair, with Turkish slippers on her bare feet, comes from the house, looking astonishingly handsome and stately under all the circumstances. Louka goes into the house. My dear Paul, what a surprise for us. She stoops over the back of his chair to kiss him.

Have they brought you fresh coffee? The treaty was signed three days ago at Bucharest; and the decree for our army to demobilize was issued yesterday. The war over! Paul: have you let the Austrians force you to make peace? What could I do? She sits down and turns away from him. But of course we saw to it that the treaty was an honorable one. It declares peace—. They wanted to put that in; but I insisted on its being struck out.

What more could I do? But I should have had to subdue the whole Austrian Empire first; and that would have kept me too long away from you. I missed you greatly. Stretches her hand affectionately across the table to squeeze his. That comes from washing your neck every day. There was an Englishman at Phillipopolis who used to wet himself all over with cold water every morning when he got up.

It all comes from the English: their climate makes them so dirty that they have to be perpetually washing themselves. Look at my father: he never had a bath in his life; and he lived to be ninety-eight, the healthiest man in Bulgaria. Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw. Man and Superman by George Bernard Shaw. Overruled by George Bernard Shaw.

Warrens Profession by George Bernard Shaw. Candida by George Bernard Shaw. His defiant young servant Louka enters and tells them that there will soon be fighting in the streets, and that they should close all their windows. He is a professional Swiss soldier fighting for Servia. Although he fights for the enemy and is not at all heroic fears for his life, threatens to cry and carries chocolates instead of ammunition Raina is touched by his plight. He annoys her when she tells him that the man who directed the cavalry charge against them was only successful because he was very lucky: the Servians were not equipped with the right ammunition.

However, Raina agrees to keep the man safe, saying that his family is one of the most powerful and richest in Bulgaria, and that his safety will be guaranteed as his guest. EMBED for wordpress. Want more? Advanced embedding details, examples, and help! Publication date Topics raina , tbe , bis , sergius , arms , man , louka , ber , petkoff , bluntschli , iii arms , dear young , chocolate cream , young lady , public domain , captain bluntschli , major saranoff , gracious young , google book , witb bis Publisher Brentano's Collection americana Digitizing sponsor Google Book from the collections of Harvard University Language English.