The Inca of Perusalem: Prologue

Prologue

I must remind the reader that this playlet was written when its
principal character, far from being a fallen foe and virtually a
prisoner in our victorious hands, was still the Caesar whose
legions we were resisting with our hearts in our mouths. Many
were so horribly afraid of him that they could not forgive me for
not being afraid of him: I seemed to be trifling heartlessly with
a deadly peril. I knew better; and I have represented Caesar as
knowing better himself. But it was one of the quaintnesses of
popular feeling during the war that anyone who breathed the
slightest doubt of the absolute perfection of German
organization, the Machiavellian depth of German diplomacy, the
omniscience of German science, the equipment of every German with
a complete philosophy of history, and the consequent hopelessness
of overcoming so magnificently accomplished an enemy except by
the sacrifice of every recreative activity to incessant and
vehement war work, including a heartbreaking mass of fussing and
cadging and bluffing that did nothing but waste our energies and
tire our resolution, was called a pro-German.

Now that this is all over, and the upshot of the fighting has
shown that we could quite well have afforded to laugh at the
doomed Inca, I am in another difficulty. I may be supposed to be
hitting Caesar when he is down. That is why I preface the play
with this reminder that when it was written he was not down. To
make quite sure, I have gone through the proof sheets very
carefully, and deleted everything that could possibly be mistaken
for a foul blow. I have of course maintained the ancient
privilege of comedy to chasten Caesar's foibles by laughing at
them, whilst introducing enough obvious and outrageous fiction to
relieve both myself and my model from the obligations and
responsibilities of sober history and biography. But I should
certainly put the play in the fire instead of publishing it if it
contained a word against our defeated enemy that I would not have
written in 1913.

The Inca of Perusalem was performed for the first time in
England by the Pioneer Players at the Criterion Theatre,
London, on 16th December, 1917, with Gertrude Kingston as
Ermyntrude, Helen Morris as the Princess, Nigel Playfair as
the waiter, Alfred Drayton as the hotel manager, C. Wordley
Hulse as the Archdeacon, and Randle Ayrton as the Inca.

PROLOGUE

The tableau curtains are closed. An English archdeacon comes
through them in a condition of extreme irritation. He speaks
through the curtains to someone behind them.

THE ARCHDEACON. Once for all, Ermyntrude, I cannot afford to
maintain you in your present extravagance. [He goes to a flight
of steps leading to the stalls and sits down disconsolately on
the top step. A fashionably dressed lady comes through the
curtains and contemplates him with patient obstinacy. He
continues, grumbling.] An English clergyman's daughter should be
able to live quite respectably and comfortably on an allowance of
�150 a year, wrung with great difficulty from the domestic
budget.

ERMYNTRUDE. You are not a common clergyman: you are an
archdeacon.

THE ARCHDEACON [angrily]. That does not affect my emoluments to
the extent of enabling me to support a daughter whose
extravagance would disgrace a royal personage. [Scrambling to his
feet and scolding at her.] What do you mean by it, Miss?

ERMYNTRUDE. Oh really, father! Miss! Is that the way to talk to a
widow?

THE ARCHDEACON. Is that the way to talk to a father? Your
marriage was a most disastrous imprudence. It gave you habits
that are absolutely beyond your means--I mean beyond my means:
you have no means. Why did you not marry Matthews: the best
curate I ever had?

ERMYNTRUDE. I wanted to; and you wouldn't let me. You insisted on
my marrying Roosenhonkers-Pipstein.

THE ARCHDEACON. I had to do the best for you, my child.
Roosenhonkers-Pipstein was a millionaire.

ERMYNTRUDE. How did you know he was a millionaire?

THE ARCHDEACON. He came from America. Of course he was a
millionaire. Besides, he proved to my solicitors that he had
fifteen million dollars when you married him.

ERYNTRUDE. His solicitors proved to me that he had sixteen
millions when he died. He was a millionaire to the last.

THE ARCHDEACON. O Mammon, Mammon! I am punished now for bowing
the knee to him. Is there nothing left of your settlement? Fifty
thousand dollars a year it secured to you, as we all thought.
Only half the securities could be called speculative. The other
half were gilt-edged. What has become of it all?

ERMYNTRUDE. The speculative ones were not paid up; and the
gilt-edged ones just paid the calls on them until the whole show
burst up.

THE ARCHDEACON. Ermyntrude: what expressions!

ERMYNTRUDE. Oh bother! If you had lost ten thousand a year what
expressions would you use, do you think? The long and the short
of it is that I can't live in the squalid way you are accustomed
to.

THE ARCHDEACON. Squalid!

ERMYNTRUDE. I have formed habits of comfort.

THE ARCHDEACON. Comfort!!

ERMYNTRUDE. Well, elegance if you like. Luxury, if you insist.
Call it what you please. A house that costs less than a hundred
thousand dollars a year to run is intolerable to me.

THE ARCHDEACON. Then, my dear, you had better become lady's maid
to a princess until you can find another millionaire to marry
you.

ERMYNTRUDE. That's an idea. I will. [She vanishes through the
curtains.]

THE ARCHDEACON. What! Come back. Come back this instant. [The
lights are lowered.] Oh, very well: I have nothing more to say.
[He descends the steps into the auditorium and makes for the
door, grumbling all the time.] Insane, senseless extravagance!
[Barking.] Worthlessness!! [Muttering.] I will not bear it any
longer. Dresses, hats, furs, gloves, motor rides: one bill after
another: money going like water. No restraint, no self-control,
no decency. [Shrieking.] I say, no decency! [Muttering again.]
Nice state of things we are coming to! A pretty world! But I
simply will not bear it. She can do as she likes. I wash my hands
of her: I am not going to die in the workhouse for any
good-for-nothing, undutiful, spendthrift daughter; and the sooner
that is understood by everybody the better for all par-- [He is
by this time out of hearing in the corridor.]

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