Plays: Lady Frederick, The Explorer, A Man of Honour

Name: Plays: Lady Frederick, The Explorer, A Man of Honour
Rating: 5 (2 reviews)
Author: Сомерсет Моэм

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Сомерсет Моэм

Год написания книги

2017

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[A pause.

Rose

I've started fifteen topics of conversation in the last quarter of an hour, Gerald.

Gerald

[Smiling.] Have you?

Rose

You always agree with me, and there's an end of it. So I have to rack my brains again.

Gerald

All you say is so very wise and sensible. Of course I agree.

Rose

I wonder if you'll think me sensible and wise in ten years.

Gerald

I'm quite sure I shall.

Rose

Why, then, I'm afraid we shan't cultivate any great brilliancy of repartee.

Gerald

Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever.

Rose

Oh, don't say that. When a man's in love, he at once makes a pedestal of the Ten Commandments and stands on the top of them with his arms akimbo. When a woman's in love she doesn't care two straws for Thou Shalt and Thou Shalt Not.

Gerald

When a woman's in love she can put her heart on the slide of a microscope and examine how it beats. When a man's in love, what do you think he cares for science and philosophy and all the rest of it!

Rose

When a man's in love he can only write sonnets to the moon. When a woman's in love she can still cook his dinner and darn her own stockings.

Gerald

I wish you wouldn't cap all my observations.

[She lifts up her face, and he kisses her lips.

Rose

I'm beginning to think you're rather nice, you know.

Gerald

That's reassuring, at all events.

Rose

But no one could accuse you of being a scintillating talker.

Gerald

Have you ever watched the lovers in the Park sitting on the benches hour after hour without saying a word?

Rose

Why?

Gerald

Because I've always thought that they must be bored to the verge of tears. Now I know they're only happy.

Rose

You're certainly my soldier, so I suppose I'm your nursery-maid.

Gerald

You know, when I was at Trinity College, Dublin —

Rose

[Interrupting.] Were you there? I thought you went to Oxford.

Gerald

No, why?

Rose

Only all my people go to Magdalen.

Gerald

Yes.