Now we must go back to these
dreadful people and entertain them.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. They have had no dinner. Don't forget that.
HECTOR. Neither have I. And it is dark: it must be all hours.
MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, Guinness will produce some sort of dinner for
them. The servants always take jolly good care that there is food
in the house.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [raising a strange wail in the darkness]. What a
house! What a daughter!
MRS HUSHABYE [raving]. What a father!
HECTOR [following suit]. What a husband!
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Is there no thunder in heaven?
HECTOR. Is there no beauty, no bravery, on earth?
MRS HUSHABYE. What do men want? They have their food, their
firesides, their clothes mended, and our love at the end of the
day. Why are they not satisfied? Why do they envy us the pain
with which we bring them into the world, and make strange dangers
and torments for themselves to be even with us?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [weirdly chanting].
I builded a house for my daughters, and opened the doors
thereof,
That men might come for their choosing, and their betters
spring from their love;
But one of them married a numskull;
HECTOR [taking up the rhythm].
The other a liar wed;
MRS HUSHABYE [completing the stanza].
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