people who have not wit enough to entertain themselves, Ibsen and Shaw,
Maeterlinck and Gorky must remain enigmas. It is so much pleasanter to
ignore than to face unpleasant realities--to take Riverside Drive and
not Mulberry Street as the exponent of our life and the expression of
our civilization. These men are the sappers and miners of the advancing
army of justice. The audience which demands the truth and despises the
contemptible conventions that dominate alike our stage and our life is
daily growing. Shaw and men like him--if indeed he is not absolutely
unique--will not for the future lack a hearing.

M.






ARMS AND THE MAN

ACT I

Night. A lady's bedchamber in Bulgaria, in a small
town near the Dragoman Pass. It is late in
November in the year 1885, and through an open
window with a little balcony on the left can be
seen a peak of the Balkans, wonderfully white and
beautiful in the starlit snow. The interior of the
room is not like anything to be seen in the east
of Europe. It is half rich Bulgarian, half cheap
Viennese. The counterpane and hangings of the bed,