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BERNARD SHAW AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES

Bernard Shaw,
Sean O’Casey, and the
Dead James Connolly

Nelson O’Ceallaigh Ritschel

 Bernard Shaw and His Contemporaries

Series Editors
Nelson O’Ceallaigh Ritschel, Massachusetts Maritime Academy,
Pocasset, MA, USA
Peter Gahan, Independent Scholar, Los Angeles, CA, USA
The series Bernard Shaw and His Contemporaries presents the best and
most up-to-date research on Shaw and his contemporaries in a diverse
range of cultural contexts. Volumes in the series will further the academic
understanding of Bernard Shaw and those who worked with him, or in
reaction against him, during his long career from the 1880s to 1950 as
a leading writer in Britain and Ireland, and with a wide European and
American following.
Shaw defined the modern literary theatre in the wake of Ibsen as a
vehicle for social change, while authoring a dramatic canon to rival Shake-
speare’s. His careers as critic, essayist, playwright, journalist, lecturer,
socialist, feminist, and pamphleteer, both helped to shape the modern
world as well as pointed the way towards modernism. No one engaged
with his contemporaries more than Shaw, whether as controversialist, or
in his support of other, often younger writers. In many respects, therefore,
the series as it develops will offer a survey of the rise of the modern at the
beginning of the twentieth century and the subsequent varied cultural
movements covered by the term modernism that arose in the wake of
World War 1.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14785
 Nelson O’Ceallaigh Ritschel

Bernard Shaw, Sean

O’Casey,
and the Dead James
Connolly
Nelson O’Ceallaigh Ritschel
Massachusetts Maritime Academy
Pocasset, MA, USA

ISSN 2634-5811 ISSN 2634-582X (electronic)

Bernard Shaw and His Contemporaries
ISBN 978-3-030-74273-7 ISBN 978-3-030-74274-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74274-4

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2021
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc.
in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such
names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for
general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and informa-
tion in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither
the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with
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This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
For Shaw, O’Casey, Connolly
 Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Peter Gahan, friend and scholar. His advice over the
process of writing Bernard Shaw, Sean O’Casey, and the Dead James
Connolly has been invaluable. I also wish to thank friends and, or
scholars who also fed said process by their remarkable work, in all of
their forms: Anthony Roche, Audrey McNamara, Stephen Watt, Declan
Kiberd, Gary Richardson, Alan Brody, David Clare, Susanne Colleary,
Richard Dietrich, Leonard Conolly, Bernard Dukore, Michel Pharand,
Jean Reynolds, Elaine Craghead, to name only some.
I wish also to thank the late guiding giants from Brown University who
were so influential in their specific ways, Don B. Wilmeth—mentor and
dear friend—David Krause, L. Perry Curtis, and Tori Haring-Smith.
I also thank Palgrave Macmillan editors Eileen Srebernik and Jack
Heeney, along with Project Coordinator Aishwarya Balachandar.
All excerpts © The Estate of Sean O’Casey, by kind permission of
Macnaughton Lord Representation on behalf of the Estate of Sean
O’Casey. I thank Shivaun O’Casey as well.
My great thanks go to President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins
and partner Sabina Higgins. Their steadfast acknowledgements and
commitments to Ireland’s historical left, as epitomized by Bernard Shaw,
James Larkin, James Connolly, Sean O’Casey, Helena Molony, Marie
Perolz, Winifred Carney, Kahtleen Lynn, Madeleine ffrench-Mullen, and
Margaret Skinnider. Adding the Plough and the Stars sculpture to the
grounds of Áras an Uachtaráin acknowledges that left, which provides

vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ideals for Ireland’s future. The President’s friendship and interest in my

work has spurred on much of my recent scholarship that owes a great deal
to his commitment to bettering our world, as a sustainable world. In this
vein, great thanks are also extended to Helen Carney and Claire Power,
intrepid leaders of his staff.
I also thank Anna, Alex, and Sasha, along with, of course, Maire, Alice,
and Trixie. I thank my late parents Brenda Kelly and Frank. Most of all,
I thank my partner and wife, Carolina, whose love and support sustains
much.
 Contents

1 Introduction 1
2 Shaw, O’Casey, Connolly: Stitching the Foundation,
1890s–1915 11
3 Revolutions 1916/1917: Lynd, War Issues, the ITGWU 59
4 Shaw’s Elderly Gentleman, O’Casey’s Trilogy Begins:
Larkin/O’Brien 107
5 Shaw’s Saint Joan: Martyred Vision 147
6 The Plough and the Stars: The Lost Workers’ Republic 189
7 The Intelligent Woman’s Guide, The Silver Tassie,
and The Re-Conquest 231

Epilogue 275
Index 279

ix
 About the Author

Nelson O’Ceallaigh Ritschel is the author of six monographs, including

Bernard Shaw, W. T. Stead, and the New Journalism (Palgrave Macmillan
2017) and Shaw, Synge, Connolly, and Socialist Provocation (2011). In
addition, he co-edited Bernard Shaw and the Making of Modern Ireland
(Palgrave Macmillan 2020), and he is a member of the Editorial Board of
SHAW: The Journal of Bernard Shaw Studies. In 2017 he was interviewed
for the The Point on National Public Radio in the United States, titled
“George Bernard Shaw and the Freedom of the Press.” He is a professor
of Humanities at Massachusetts Maritime.

xi
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

On 13 January 1893, the Independent Labour Party (ILP) held its inau-
gural conference (a three-day affair) in Bradford, West Yorkshire. Bernard
Shaw attended as one of the Fabian Society’s representatives and did so
with the intent of “permeating” the ILP in order to supplant “Liber-
alism with Progressivism” (quoted in Holroyd, Shaw, I , 270). On the
evening of the conference’s third day, Shaw attended a service at the
Labour Church, which attracted, according to Shaw, 4,000 people (Shaw
Diaries, II , 894). No doubt, the ILP conference and church service,
held only hours after the conference ended, attracted the interest of
many socialists and would-be socialists throughout Britain, including the
Edinburgh-born Irish socialist and ILP member James Connolly.
The Labour Church, a Christian socialist society led by John Trevor,
attempted to take advantage of the 1893 surge of interest by launching a
monthly journal, The Labour Prophet , the following year. In its February
1894 issue, an anonymous work was included, titled The Agitator’s
Wife. Written in the form of a short story overwhelmingly composed
of dialogue, scholars Maria-Danielle Dick, Kristy Lusk, and Willy Maley
argue convincingly that it is the play (or a version of it) authored by
James Connolly and alluded to by his daughter Nora Connolly O’Brien
in her 1935 James Connolly: Portrait of a Rebel Father (“‘The Agitator’s
Wife’”, 1). If the story is this play, its dialogue and characterizations have

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2021
N. O’Ceallaigh Ritschel, Bernard Shaw, Sean O’Casey,
and the Dead James Connolly, Bernard Shaw and His Contemporaries,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74274-4_1
2 N. O’CEALLAIGH RITSCHEL

much more in common with the New Drama that was emerging in the
1890s, including with Shaw’s early plays, than with popular melodramas.
Its protagonist, for example, within her modern marriage is strong, inde-
pendently minded, highly intelligent, and accepted by her husband and
his male colleagues as an equal. One might even be tempted to believe
its author was familiar with The Quintessence of Ibsenism. In fact, these
years may well have begun Connolly’s long interest in Shaw and Shaw’s
work, which continued after he emigrated to Dublin in 1896 to establish
the Irish Socialist Republican Party (ISRP). In 1899, Connolly invited
the recently returned to Ireland, from London, journalist Frederick Ryan
to lecture the ISRP on Shaw, Shaw’s Fabian lectures, The Quintessence of
Ibsenism, and Shaw’s early plays. This study begins from this point and
will culminate with the masterful socialistic works of the 1920s authored
by Shaw and Sean O’Casey, in which Connolly is a distinct presence.
Bernard Shaw, Sean O’Casey, and the Dead James Connolly is, in
one sense, a continuation of Shaw, Synge, Connolly, and Socialist Provo-
cation (2011). The earlier study explored Shaw’s involvement with
socialist developments within Ireland from 1899 through the 1916
Easter Rising, and argued for a stage dialogue between Shaw and John
Millington Synge, ranging from 1903 to beyond Synge’s 1909 death—
including Synge’s reworking of Shaw’s John Bull’s Other Island (1904)
into The Playboy of the Western World (1907), and Shaw’s Playboy-like
The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet (1909), written during Synge’s final
days. That book also explored the simultaneous track of the increasingly
militant James Connolly, while showing the interactions—direct and indi-
rect—between him and Shaw, from Shaw’s active involvement in Irish
politics beginning in 1910 through the Rising in 1916. That monograph
contributed to critical literature by reconnecting Shaw to the fields of
Irish theatre and politics. However, Shaw’s Irish involvement did not end
in 1916 but instead increased—significantly impacting Sean O’Casey.
As the previous study functioned by contextualizing Shaw, Synge, and
Connolly within the Ireland of their time, the current study is similarly
propelled by contextualizing Shaw and O’Casey in relation to Connolly’s
reputations after his execution in 1916. In doing so, the study examines
the parallel tracks of Shaw and O’Casey, their interweaving with Irish
labour and political movements up to 1922, then into their literary and
critical responses through the 1920s, in Saint Joan, The Plough and the
Stars , The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism, and
The Silver Tassie.
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

Such an exploration of Shaw and O’Casey’s works, strongly suggests

that Connolly remained a presence for both, though for diverse reasons.
While much of what Connolly advocated for had faded into the shadows
by the time the Irish Free State was formed in 1922, Connolly perme-
ates the 1920s masterworks of Shaw and O’Casey as a socialist theorist
and, or as a militant activist—either in terms of his socialism or nation-
alism, depending on Shaw’s and O’Casey’s respective perceptions, and
changing times. There was no escaping, for either Shaw or O’Casey,
Robert Lynd’s 1917 assertion that Connolly was “Ireland’s first socialist
martyr” (“Introduction”, vii).
Near the end of Shaw’s 1904 John Bull’s Other Island, a play O’Casey
much admired and one that Connolly echoed in his last play through
character relations, the defrocked priest Peter Keegan ends a long speech,
in which he has detailed how Tom Broadbent will efficiently develop the
village of Rosscullen, in order to make profits for the land syndicate he
heads, then efficiently ruin the syndicate’s investors in order to acquire
for himself the resort “hotel for a few shillings on the pound”: “For
four wicked centuries the world has dreamed this foolish dream of effi-
ciency; and the end is not yet. But the end will come” (193). Keegan’s
is a prophecy foretelling the collapse of usury capitalism, the formidable
goal of socialists—including Connolly. A bourgeois eyewitness to Connol-
ly’s 1916 revolution, L. G. Redmond-Howard in Six Days of the Irish
Republic, asked why the “general policy of Fabianism” did not serve
Connolly’s goal (85). He found the answer, he tells us, in Connolly’s
1915 The Re-Conquest of Ireland, where Connolly calls for all “to live
freely” in a state where such freedom will be “no longer the property of
a class”. Redmond-Howard also “discovered the key not only to the man
but to the movement as well, in his definition of prophesy: ‘The only
true prophets are they who carve out the future they announce.... Every
dreamer should also be a man of action’” (85). While “action” can have
numerous interpretations, and can equally apply to Connolly, Shaw, and
O’Casey, the catalyst for the latter two in the Irish context was Connolly,
whether they agreed or disagreed with his methods or directions. Whether
right or wrong, in his efforts to force the realization of Keegan’s prophesy,
Connolly was integrated into Shaw’s and O’Casey’s separate consciences,
profoundly impacting their major literary and theoretical work of the
1920s.
Chapter 2 introduces one of the study’s thematic threads, the sewing
machine, stemming from William Butler Yeats’ dream of being haunted
4 N. O’CEALLAIGH RITSCHEL

by a clicking and grinning sewing machine, following the 1894 premiers

of his short play The Land of Heart’s Desire and Shaw’s Arms and the
Man, as told in Yeats’ 1922 Trembling of the Veil. A question that should
arise, which Yeats likely did not consider, is why a sewing machine? The
answer is to be found by considering what the sewing machine, from the
1890s to the 1920s, represented. Dominated globally in the period by
the Singer Company, the machines were the product of sweated labour,
which, in turn, made possible mass-producing clothing companies that
utilized sweated labour. Yeats’ nightmare implied that Shaw’s work was
linear and uniformly stitched, like the products of a sewing machine, yet
the machine fostered the industrialized poverty produced by modern capi-
talism that Shaw’s political work sought to remedy. This chapter suggests
a different take on Yeats’ dream.
Pursuing the Singer thread, the chapter goes on to quote from a 1905
letter on sweated labour conditions in Singer’s New Jersey factory, written
by one of its workers at the time, the very same James Connolly, who
emigrated to the United States in 1903. Soon after Connolly returned
to live in Ireland, both he and Shaw separately delivered talks in Scot-
land in October 1910: Shaw advocated for equal incomes while Connolly
argued for the syndicalization of all labourers. Within six months, Singer’s
Kilbowie factory, along the River Clyde, was on strike with fully unified
workers, regardless of skill levels, nationalities, languages, religions, and,
most importantly, genders, who demanded increased salaries. The strike
inspired James Larkin, in Dublin to lead the Irish Transport and General
Workers’ Union (ITGWU) into a series of syndicalist strikes against Irish
railways—including the Great Northern Railway that employed labourer
John Casey, to become known Sean O’Casey. O’Casey’s efforts in the
Transport Union would involve drafting the constitution of the Irish
Citizen Army (ICA), a labour militia organized following Shaw’s call for
the arming of labour at a London rally supporting Dublin workers during
the 1913 Lockout. The ICA would be the militia Connolly led in the
1916 insurrection, albeit without O’Casey.
Chapter 3 continues the socialist thread with Connolly towards and
beyond Dublin’s 1916 Easter Rising. Connolly’s play Under Which Flag ?,
is viewed in the light of The Agitator’s Wife, Connolly’s first play. Given
the would-be literary structure of that first play, Under Which Flag ? must
be seen within the closer ties between Shaw and Connolly that were still
emerging as it borrowed a social construct from John Bull’s Other Island,
as well as being a response to Shaw’s second Irish play, O’Flaherty, V. C .
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

The chapter continues by considering responses to Connolly’s 1916

Rising, including Shaw’s and Vladimir Lenin’s, the latter in Russia’s
October 1917 Revolution. Shaw’s Annajanska, the Bolshevik Empress
(1917–1918) is discussed in the Russian context, as well as efforts by
Dublin labour leader William O’Brien to rebuild the ITGWU following
Connolly’s death. In capitalizing on his comradeship with Connolly,
O’Brien initiates the 1917 reprinting of Connolly’s theoretical works,
Labour in Irish History (1910) and The Re-Conquest of Ireland (1915)
into a volume titled Labour in Ireland, which features an introduction
by Shaw’s friend Robert Lynd. Lynd, along with Shaw, George Russell,
Horace Plunkett, and Richard Tobin (the surgeon who treated Connolly
prior to his execution), contributed funds for Connolly’s wife and chil-
dren after the execution. Both Shaw and O’Casey responded to Lynd’s
Introduction: Shaw in War Issues for Irishmen (1918) and O’Casey in
The Story of the Irish Citizen Army (1919). The latter marked O’Casey’s
beginning as a professional writer, as well as his public distancing from
Connolly’s reputation. Having realized that O’Brien’s efforts to solidify
control of the ITGWU included efforts to minimize James Larkin’s role as
the union’s General Secretary (in anticipation of Larkin’s eventual return
from the United States), O’Casey began aiming his criticisms against
O’Brien. As O’Brien continued to draw on his Connolly ties to enhance
his position within Labour, Connolly also became an O’Casey target as
the ITGWU grew into two camps, one pro-Larkin and the other pro-
Connolly. The above thus sets the stage(s) for Shaw and O’Casey in the
1920s, with the latter drawing inspiration from Shaw.
Chapter 4 moves into the new decade with Shaw’s third Irish-set play,
The Tragedy of an Elderly Gentleman, the fourth part of the play-cycle
Back to Methuselah (1922), which is approached within the context of the
previous decade. After the years of suffering a note of hope is suggested
through the choice of the elderly gentleman Barlow to remain in Ireland
instead of colluding with the British Prime Minister’s unconscionable lie,
even if it means Barlow’s death. As the Irish War for Independence gives
way to Civil War, O’Casey emerges as an Abbey Theatre playwright, and
is viewed in the chapter through his plays The Shadow of the Gunman and
Juno and the Paycock. The latter connects directly to the Singer sewing
machine thematic thread that runs throughout this monograph. A back-
drop to the chapter is Larkin’s return to Ireland and the ensuing battle for
control of the ITGWU, which soon ends up in court with charges filed by
6 N. O’CEALLAIGH RITSCHEL

both sides. Larkin’s charges were dismissed and O’Brien emerged victo-
rious, which led to Larkin’s expulsion from the union he had founded in
1909. Against what he considered as a great betrayal of Larkin, O’Casey
begins writing The Plough and the Stars for the coming tenth anniversary
of the Rising. Shaw for his part not only visited Ireland for the last time,
but was working on his masterwork, Saint Joan.
Chapter 5 focuses on Shaw’s play set in fifteenth-century France,
within the Irish context of 1910–1922. While numerous scholars have
detected Irish echoes within Saint Joan, this chapter argues that the
echoes go further. While not arguing that Saint Joan is about Connolly’s
martyrdom, the chapter does argue Connolly is a presence in the play.
Given that both the play and its preface significantly focus on the process
of history, Connolly’s execution, overseen by a zealous British general
much like Shaw’s portrait of the feudal English Earl of Warwick, is exam-
ined, particularly through details that Shaw most likely, even definitely
knew. The small group of individuals, including Shaw, that financially
contributed to Connolly’s partner/wife Lily and children, had access to
knowledge of Connolly’s last days and the British efforts to proceed with
his execution through Richard Tobin, who medically treated the severely
wounded Connolly. The decision to execute descended into a contentious
debate between the British Commanding-General John Maxwell and the
Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, with the civil leadership giving way to
the military. The links between Joan’s Church trial, and Connolly’s hastily
conducted Field General Court Martial carried out by British officers with
no legal background, cannot be ignored, nor can the British efforts to
erase as much of Connolly as possible after his death. Again, it is not the
book’s contention that Saint Joan is about Connolly, rather it argues that
Connolly’s actions and execution informed Shaw’s writing of his major
1924 play, and thus reveals additional threads to the play’s tapestry and
its portrayal of the process of history.
Chapter 6 considers The Plough and the Stars , O’Casey’s 1926 play set
leading up to and during the 1916 Easter Rising, Connolly’s Revolution.
This represents the first time the play has been thoroughly explored within
the deep context of Connolly’s ICA, some of which was made possible
by Jeffrey Leddin’s 2019 The Labour Hercules: The Irish Citizen Army
and Irish Republicanism, 1913–1923. O’Casey’s setting of Acts I and II
in November 1915 is explored, being the month Connolly increased his
preparations for Irish revolution. At the same time Connolly continued
his interest in theatre by appointing Abbey Theatre actor Helena Molony
 1 INTRODUCTION 7

to head both the Irish Women’s Workers Union and the Irish Workers’
Dramatic Company, the same month Shaw’s O’Flaherty, V. C . entered
rehearsals at the Abbey, and then subsequently withdrawn. The events
surrounding the play’s rehearsals, withdrawal, and the script itself, would
clearly have been reported to Connolly by Molony and fellow Abbey
actor Sean Connolly (no relation to James)—both of who were also ICA
members; Sean Connolly held the rank of Captain, much like The Plough
and the Star’s Jack Clitheroe. O’Casey thematically criticizes Connolly
in The Plough’s Act I for inducing men, such as Clitheroe, to leave their
homes and families to go to their death, as voiced by Nora Clitheroe.
Nora, however, also expresses Connolly’s contention in The Re-Conquest
of Ireland that working-class women were slaves to their husbands, who
were themselves slaves to their capitalist employers. In essence, O’Casey
criticizes the insurrectionist Connolly, not the socialist Connolly.
The Plough and the Stars ’s Acts III and IV are read in the context of
specific events in the Easter Rising, complete with echoes from Shaw’s
post-Rising letters to The New Statesman and London’s Daily News.
O’Casey’s portrait of the play’s tenement residents looting during the
Rising’s early days, specifically in the play’s Act III, is shown to be influ-
enced by Shaw’s Saint Joan. While the bourgeois make up of much of
the Abbey’s 1926 audience would have viewed the looting of Dublin
businesses through a class lens, O’Casey does not demonize his looters—
recalling Shaw’s distinct refusal to demonize the historical individuals who
colluded in Joan’s burning. This is carried to the closing moments of
Plough’s Act IV when two British soldiers sing of home as the rebel
headquarters in the General Post Office burns—the soldiers know they
will soon be in the Great War’s front-line trenches. In Act IV we
learn of Clitheroe’s death within the Imperial Hotel, where the ICA’s
huge socialist Plough and the Stars flag flew, machine stitched, likely
with a Singer machine. The recounting of Clitheroe’s death, and the
portrait of Nora’s descent into debilitating sorrow, rings of the useless-
ness of Clitheroe’s death, and the uselessness of all the suffering and
death that the Rising produced for Dublin’s poor—caught in Connolly’
conflagration. O’Casey leaves his audience with the emptiness of failed
rebellion.
Chapter 7 pulls the threads of the study together by examining Shaw’s
deposition of socialism, The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and
Capitalism and O’Casey’s war play The Silver Tassie, both published
in 1928. The discussion of the Guide begins with its exploration of
8 N. O’CEALLAIGH RITSCHEL

nineteenth-century industrial capitalism, where smaller companies built

around inventions were bought up by larger capitalist companies for
their inventions, which were then expanded through massive production
with sweated labour. This led to the production of small machines for
home use, such as sewing machine, creating an ever-expanding consumer-
market. The Guide’s Irish connections are looked at, including Connolly’s
presence in Shaw’s discussion of labour and syndicalism, and, importantly,
in his advocacy for equal incomes. Connolly’s theoretical work, which
Shaw had access to, is probed for Connolly’s views on equal incomes.
If, as argued, Shaw had read Connolly’s Labour in Ireland, specifically
TheRe-Conquest of Ireland, he would have detected the influence of his
own 1910 Dublin lecture, “The Poor Law and Destitution in Ireland”.
The chapter discusses Connolly’s “Woman” chapter, where he asserts that
working-class women bear the greatest burden under capitalism, especially
within marriage. Connolly writes that “The worker is the slave of the capi-
talist society, the female worker is the slave of the slave” (292). Shaw’s
Guide borrows and reiterates this argument in its “Woman in the Labour
Market” chapter, using almost the same language, writing: “as capitalism
made a slave of the man, and then by paying the woman through him,
made her his slave, she became the slave of a slave, which is the worst sort
of slavery” (197).
In turn, The Silver Tassie includes not only O’Casey’s condemnation
of the Great War, an attitude he shared with Connolly, but also his most
effective, hitherto undetected, response to Connolly, specifically to his The
Re-Conquest of Ireland (originally from 1915). The Re-Conquest inex-
plicably contains no mention of the Great War and its impact on the
Dublin working class in its first years, even though much of Connol-
ly’s journalism from that time focused on the War and its impact both
on international socialism and socialism within Ireland. It was a strange
reversal of August 1914, when during the War’s first weeks, O’Casey
was endeavouring to force the aristocratic Constance Markievicz out of
the ICA, appearing oblivious to the potential destructiveness of War. By
building on Saint Joan’s considerations of the historical process, The
Silver Tassie, in contrast, foregrounds the destructiveness of the war,
and thereby highlights a weakness in one of Connolly’s most important
theoretical works.
Compared to Shaw’s O’Flaherty, V. C ., O’Casey’s Great War play high-
lights the war’s cost to the Dublin poor. Even the cost to Susie Monican,
who forges a new identity by Act III as a self-assured nurse (at first glance
 1 INTRODUCTION 9

similar to O’Flaherty’s opportunities from the War), is revealed in late Act

IV when she can express no empathy with the War maimed. It conforms
to the disturbing perception that life was only for the able-bodied. The
play’s stark portraits of its characters also reveal that nothing is learned by
its main character Harry Heegan. All he takes from the War is loss, the
loss of everything that he thought he was. That loss becomes the thrust
of the play, epitomized by the soldiers’ question from Act II of, why War?
There is no answer by play’s end, only the question of why remaining. An
answer may be found in Shaw’s exactly contemporary work, The Intelli-
gent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism, which argues that the
Great War, and all wars that will follow, will exist for as long as “we
persist in depending on Capitalism for our livelihood and our morals”
(156–157).
Although the Introduction to Shaw, Synge, Connolly, and Socialist
Provocation ended by suggesting that that book would demonstrate
“Shaw’s legacy in Irish socialism” (6), it only detailed part of that legacy.
This present work completes that task.

References
Connolly, James. The Re-Conquest of Ireland. Labour in Ireland: Labour in Irish
History, The Re-Conquest of Ireland. Dublin: Maunsel, 1917. 219–346.
Dick, Maria-Danielle, Kristy Lusk, and Willy Maley. “The Agitator’s Wife (1894):
The Story Behind James Connolly’s Lost Play?” Irish Studies Review, 27.1,
1–21. 2018.
Holroyd, Michael. Bernard Shaw: Volume I, 1856–1898, The Search for Love. New
York: Random, 1988.
Lynd, Robert. “Introduction: James Connolly.” Labour in Ireland: Labour in
Irish History, The Re-Conquest of Ireland. Dublin: Maunsell, 1917. vii-xxvi.
Redmond-Howard, L. G. Six Days of the Irish Republic. Cork: Aubane Historical
Society, 2006.
Shaw, George Bernard. The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capi-
talism. New York: Brentano’s, 1928.
———Other Island. London John Bull’s: Penguin Books, 1984.
———Bernard Shaw: The Diaries 1885–1897, Vol. II . Ed. Stanley Weintraub.
University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1986.
 CHAPTER 2

Shaw, O’Casey, Connolly: Stitching

the Foundation, 1890s–1915

In “The Tragic Generation”, part of his autobiographical The Trembling

of the Veil, published in 1922, William Butler Yeats made an infamous
remark about Bernard Shaw when recalling the 1894 premier runs of
his own The Land of Heart’s Desire and Shaw’s Arms and the Man at
London’s Avenue Theatre with Florence Farr: “Presently I had a night-
mare that I was haunted by a sewing machine, that clicked and shone,
but the incredible thing was that the machine smiled, smiled perpetu-
ally” (283). Anthony Roche, in his superb The Irish Dramatic Revival
1899–1939, argues that this scathing comment undermined Shaw’s repu-
tation in Ireland for decades, leading many Irish dramatists, excluding
O’Casey, to dismiss Shaw’s plays, and Shaw’s contributions to Irish drama.
As Roche points out, Yeats’ envisioned direction for Irish theatre in
both 1894 and 1922 meant that “Shaw’s plays [are] anathema to all
he valued in the theatre and certainly did not want them staged at the
Abbey [Theatre]”. The exception, prior to 1916, was The Shewing-up of
Blanco Posnet (1909), which had more to do with Shaw’s defiance of the
British censor, and the Abbey’s stand against the British administration
in Ireland, than it did with Yeats embracing Shaw’s canon (81).1 Indeed,
Shaw’s masterful Irish play John Bull’s Other Island did not premier at
the Abbey in 1904 but at London’s Royal Court Theatre.2 Further-
more, Yeats’ nightmare image of Shaw contributed to the exclusion of

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Switzerland AG 2021
N. O’Ceallaigh Ritschel, Bernard Shaw, Sean O’Casey,
and the Dead James Connolly, Bernard Shaw and His Contemporaries,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74274-4_2
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it never will progress in the sense you wish, nor to any end but disaster.'
He saw the scarlet flame of indignation overspread her face, he saw the anger
kindle in her great dark eyes, and he waited calmly for the explosion. But the
Lady Valeria was not explosive. Her rebuke was cold.
'Sir, you presume upon a messenger's office. You meddle in affairs that are
not your concern.'
'Do you thank God for it,' said Bellarion, unabashed. 'It is time some one gave
these things their proper names so as to remove all misconception. Do you know
whither Barbaresco and these other fools are thrusting you, madonna? Straight
into the hands of the strangler.'
Having conquered her anger once, she was not easily to be betrayed into it
again.
'If that is all you have to tell me, sir, I will leave you. I'll not remain to hear my
friends and peers maligned by a base knave to whom I speak by merest
accident.'
'Not accident, madonna.' His tone was impressive. 'A base knave I may be.
But base by birth alone. These others whom you trust and call your peers are
base by nature. Ah, wait! It was no accident that brought me!' he cried, and this
with a sincerity from which none could have suspected the violence he did to his
beliefs. 'Ask yourself why I should come again to do more than is required of me,
at some risk to myself? What are your affairs, or the affairs of the State of
Montferrat, to me? You know what I am and what my aims. Why, then, should I
tarry here? Because I cannot help myself. Because the will of Heaven has
imposed itself upon me.'
His great earnestness, his very vehemence, which seemed to invest his
simple utterances with a tone of inspiration, impressed her despite herself, as he
intended that they should. Nor did she deceive him when she dissembled this in
light derision.
'An archangel in a painter's smock!'
'By Saint Hilary, that is nearer the truth than you suppose it.'
She smiled, yet not entirely without sourness. 'You do not lack a good opinion
of yourself.'
'You may come to share it when I've said all that's in my mind. I have told you,
madonna, whither these crack-brained adventurers are thrusting you, so that they
may advance themselves. Do you know the true import of the conspiracy? Do
you know what they plan, these fools? The murder of the Marquis Theodore.'
She stared at him round-eyed, afraid. 'Murder?' she said in a voice of horror.
 He smiled darkly. 'They had not told you, eh? I knew they dared not. Yet so
indiscreet and rash are they that they betrayed it to me—to me of whom they
know nothing save that I carried as an earnest of my good faith your broken half-
ducat. What if I were just a scoundrel who would sell to the Marquis Theodore a
piece of information for which he would no doubt pay handsomely? Do you still
think that it was accident brought me to interfere in your concerns?'
'I can't believe you! I can't!' and again she breathed, aghast, that horrid word:
'Murder!'
'If they succeeded,' said Bellarion coldly, 'all would be well. Your uncle would
have no more than his deserts, and you and your brother would be rid of an evil
incubus. The notion does not shock me at all. What shocks me is that I see no
chance of success for a plot conducted by such men with such inadequate
resources. By joining them you can but advance the Regent's aims, which you
believe to be the destruction of your brother. Let the attempt be made, and fail, or
even let evidence be forthcoming of the conspiracy's existence and true purpose,
and your brother is at the Regent's mercy. The people themselves might demand
his outlawry or even his death for an attempt upon the life of a prince who has
known how to make himself beloved.'
'But my brother is not in this,' she protested. 'He knows nothing of it.'
Bellarion smiled compassionately. 'Cui bono fuerit? That is the first question
which the law will ask. Be warned, madonna! Dissociate yourself from these men
while it is time or you may enable the Regent at a single stride to reach his
ultimate ambition.'
The pallor of her face, the heave of her breast, were witnesses to her
agitation. 'You would frighten me if I did not know how false is your main
assumption: that they plot murder. They would never dare to do this thing without
my sanction, and this they have never sought.'
'Because they intend to confront you with an accomplished fact. Oh, you may
believe me, madonna. In the last twenty-four hours and chiefly from these men I
have learnt much of the history of Montferrat. And I have learnt a deal of their
own histories too. There is not one amongst them who is not reduced in
circumstances, whose state has not been diminished by lack of fortune or lack of
worth.'
But for this she had an answer, and she delivered it with a slow, wistful smile.
'You talk, sir, as if you contained all knowledge, and yet you have not learnt
that the fortunate desire no change, but labour to uphold the state whence their
prosperity is derived. Is it surprising, then, that I depend upon the unfortunate?'
'Say also the venal, those greedy of power and of possessions, whose only
spur is interest; desperate gamblers who set their heads upon the board and your
own and your brother's head with theirs. Almost they divided among themselves
in their talk the offices of State. Barbaresco promised me that the ambition he
perceived in me should be fully gratified. He assumed that I, too, had no aim but
self-aggrandisement, simply because he could assume no other reason why a
man should expose himself to risks. That told me all of him that I required to
know.'
'Barbaresco is poor,' she answered. 'He has suffered wrongs. Once, in my
father's time he was almost the greatest man in the State. My uncle has stripped
him of his honours and almost of his possessions.'
'That is the best thing I have heard of the Marquis Theodore yet.'
She did not heed him, but went on: 'Can I desert him now? Can I ...' She
checked and stiffened, seeming to grow taller. 'What am I saying? What am I
thinking?' She laughed, and there was scorn of self in her laugh. 'What arts do
you employ, you, an unknown man, a self-confessed starveling student, base and
nameless, that upon no better warrant than your word I should even ask such a
question?'
'What arts?' said he, and smiled in his turn, though without scorn. 'The art of
pure reason based on truth. It is not to be resisted.'
'Not if based on truth. But yours is based on prejudice.'
'Is it prejudice that they are plotting murder?'
'They have been misled by their devotion ...'
'By their cupidity, madonna.'
'I will not suffer you to say that.' Anger flared up again in her, loyal anger on
behalf of those she deemed her only friends in her great need. She checked it
instantly, 'Sir, I perceive your interest, and I am grateful. If you would still do me a
service, go, tell Messer Barbaresco from me that this plot of assassination must
go no further. Impose it upon him as my absolute command. Tell him that I must
be obeyed and that, rather than be a party to such an act, I would disclose the
intention to the Marquis Theodore.'
'That is something, madonna. But if when you have slept upon it ...'
She interrupted him. 'Upon whatever course I may determine I shall find
means to convey the same to my Lord Barbaresco. There will not be the need to
trouble you again. For what you have done, sir, I shall remain grateful. So, go with
God, Messer Bellarion.'
She was turning away when he arrested her.
'It is a little personal matter this. I am in need of five ducats.'
He saw the momentary frown, chased away by the beginnings of a smile.
 'You are consistent in that you misunderstand me, though I have once
reminded you that if I needed money for myself I could sell my information to the
Regent. The five ducats are for Gobbo who lent me this smock and these tools of
my pretended trade.' And he told her the exact circumstances.
She considered him more gently. 'You do not lack resource, sir?'
'It goes with intelligence, madonna,' he reminded her as an argument in favour
of what he said. But she ignored it.
'And I am sorry that I ... You shall have ten ducats, unless your pride is above
...'
'Do you see pride in me?'
She looked him over with a certain haughty amusement. 'A monstrous pride,
an overweening vanity in your acuteness.'
'I'll take ten ducats to convince you of my humility. I may yet need the other
five in the service of your highness.'
'That service, sir, is at an end, or will be when you have conveyed my
message to the Lord Barbaresco.'
Bellarion accepted his dismissal in the settled conviction that her highness
was mistaken and would presently be glad to admit it.
She was right, you see, touching that vanity of his.

CHAPTER VIII

STALEMATE

Bellarion and Barbaresco sat at supper, waited upon by an untidy and unclean
old man who afforded all the service of that decayed establishment. The fare was
frugal, more frugal far than the Convent of Cigliano had afforded out of Lent, and
the wine was thin and sharp.
When the repast was done and the old servant, having lighted candles, had
retired, Bellarion startled his host by the portentous gravity of his tone.
'My lord, you and I must talk. I told you that her highness sends no answer to
your message, which is the truth, and all that you could expect, since there was
no message and consequently could be no answer. I did not tell you, however,
that she sends you a message which is in some sense an answer to certain
suspicions that I voiced to her.'
 Barbaresco's mouth fell open, and the stare of his blue eyes grew fixed.
Clearly he was startled, and clearly paused to command himself before asking:
'Why did you not tell me this before?'
'I preferred to wait so as to make sure of not going supperless. It may, of
course, offend you that I should have communicated my suspicions to her
highness. But the poor lady was so downcast by your inaction, that to cheer her I
ventured the opinion that you are perhaps not quite so aimless as you wish to
appear.'
Whatever his convent education may have done for him, it does not seem—as
you will long since have gathered—that it had inculcated a strict regard for
exactitude. Dissimulation, I fear, was bred in the bones of him; although he would
have answered any such charge by informing you that Plato had taught him to
distinguish between the lie on the lips and the lie in the heart.
'Oh, but proceed! The opinion?' Barbaresco fiercely challenged him.
'You'll remember what Count Spigno said before you others checked him. The
arbalester ... You remember.' Bellarion appeared to falter a little under the glare of
those blue eyes and the fierce set of that heavy jaw. 'So I told her highness, to
raise her drooping spirits, that one of these fine days her friends in Casale might
cut the Gordian knot with a crossbow shaft.'
Barbaresco suggested by his attitude a mastiff crouching for a spring.
'Ah!' he commented. 'And she said?'
'The very contrary of what I expected. Where I looked for elation, I found only
distress. It was in vain I pleaded with her that thus a consummation would
speedily be reached; that if such a course had not yet been determined, it was
precisely the course that I should advocate.'
'Oh! You pleaded that! And she?'
'She bade me tell you that if such a thing were indeed in your minds, you must
dismiss it. That she would be no party to it. That sooner she would herself
denounce the intention to the Marquis Theodore.'
'Body of God!' Barbaresco came to his feet, his great face purple, the veins of
his temples standing forth like cords Whilst appearing unmoved, Bellarion braced
his muscles for action.
The attack came. But only in words. Barbaresco heaped horrible and obscene
abuse upon Bellarion's head. 'You infamous fool! You triple ass! You chattering
ape!' With these, amongst other terms, the young man found himself bombarded.
'Get you back to her, and tell her, you numskulled baboon, that there was never
any such intention.'
 'But was there not?' Bellarion cried with almost shrill ingenuousness of tone.
'Yet Count Spigno ...'
'Devil take Count Spigno, fool. Heed me. Carry my message to her highness.'
'I carry no lies,' said Bellarion firmly, and rose with great dignity.
'Lies!' gurgled Barbaresco.
'Lies,' Bellarion insisted. 'Let us have done with them. To her highness I
expressed as a suspicion what in my mind was a clear conviction. The words
Count Spigno used, and your anxiety to silence him, could leave no doubt in any
man of wit, and I am that, I hope, my lord. If you will have this message carried,
you will first show me the ends you serve by its falsehood, and let me, who am in
this thing as deep as any, be the judge of whether it is justified.'
Before this firmness the wrath went out of Barbaresco. Weakly he wrung his
hands a moment, then sank sagging into his chair.
'If the others, if Cavalcanti or Casella, had known how much you had
understood, you would never have left this house alive, lest you should do
precisely what you have done.'
'But if it is on her behalf—hers and her brother's—that you plan this thing, why
should you not take her feeling first? What else is right or fair?'
'Her feeling?' Barbaresco sneered, and Bellarion understood that the sneer
was for himself. 'God deliver me from the weariness of reasoning with a fool. Our
bolt would have been shot, and none could have guessed the hands that loosed
it. Now you have made it known, and you need to be told what will happen if we
were mad enough to go through with it. Why, the Princess Valeria would be our
instant accuser. She would come forth at once and denounce us. That is the spirit
of her; wilful, headstrong, and mawkish. And I am a fool to bid you go back to her
and persuade her that you were mistaken. When the blow fell, she would see that
what you had first told her was the truth, and our heads would pay.'
He set his elbows on the table, took his head in his hands, and fetched a
groan from his great bulk. 'The ruin you have wrought! God! The ruin!'
'Ruin?' quoth Bellarion.
'Of all our hopes,' Barbaresco explained in petulance.
'Can't you see it? Can you understand nothing for yourself, animal, save the
things you were better for not understanding? And can't you see that you have
ruined yourself with us? With your face and shape and already close in the Lady
Valeria's confidence as you are, there are no heights in the State to which you
might not have climbed.'
'I had not thought of it,' said Bellarion, sighing.
 'No, nor of me, nor of any of us. Of me!' The man's grief became passionate.
'At last I might have sloughed this beggary in which I live. And now ...' He banged
the table in his sudden rage, and got to his feet again. 'That is what you have
done. That is what you have wrecked by your silly babbling.'
'But surely, sir, by other means ...'
'There are no other means. Leastways, no other means at our command.
Have we the money to levy troops? Oh, why do I waste my breath upon you?
You'll tell the others to-morrow what you've done, and they shall tell you what
they think of it.'
It was a course that had its perils. But if once in the stillness of the night
Bellarion's shrewd wits counselled him to rise, dress, and begone, he stilled the
coward counsel. It remained to be seen whether the other conspirators would be
as easily intimidated as Barbaresco. To ascertain this, Bellarion determined to
remain. The Lady Valeria's need of him was not yet done, he thought, though why
the Lady Valeria's affairs should be the cause of his exposing himself to the
chances of a blade between the ribs was perhaps more than he could
satisfactorily have explained.
That the danger was very far from imaginary the next morning's conference
showed him. Scarcely had the plotters realised the nature of Bellarion's activities
than they were clamouring for his blood. Casella, the exile, breathing fire and
slaughter, would have sprung upon him with dagger drawn, had not Barbaresco
bodily interposed.
'Not in my house!' he roared. 'Not in my house!' his only concern being the
matter of his own incrimination.
'Nor anywhere, unless you are bent on suicide,' Bellarion calmly warned them.
He moved from behind Barbaresco, to confront them. 'You are forgetting that in
my murder the Lady Valeria will see your answer. She will denounce you, sirs, not
only for this, but for the intended murder of the Regent. Slay me, and you just as
surely slay yourselves.' He permitted himself to smile as he looked upon their
stricken faces. 'It's an interesting situation, known in chess as a stalemate.'
In their baffled fury they turned upon Count Spigno, whose indiscretion had
created this situation. Enzo Spigno, sitting there with a sneer on his white face, let
the storm rage. When at last it abated, he expressed himself.
'Rather should you thank me for having tested the ground before we stand on
it. For the rest, it is as I expected. It is an ill thing to be associated with a woman
in these matters.'
'We did not bring her in,' said Barbaresco. 'It was she who appealed to me for
assistance.'
 'And now that we are ready to afford it her,' said Casella, 'she discovers that it
is not of the sort she wishes. I say it is not hers to choose. Hopes have been
raised in us, and we have laboured to fulfil them.'
How they all harped on that, thought Bellarion. How concerned was each with
the profit that he hoped to wrest for himself, how enraged to see himself cheated
of this profit. The Lady Valeria, the State, the boy who was being corrupted that
he might be destroyed, these things were nothing to these men. Not once did he
hear them mentioned now in the futile disorderly debate that followed, whilst he
sat a little apart and almost forgotten.
At last it was Spigno, this Spigno whom they dubbed a fool—but who, after all,
had more wit than all of them together—who discovered and made the counter-
move.
'You there, Master Bellarion!' he called. 'Here is what you are to tell your lady
in answer to her threat: We who have set our hands to this task of ridding the
State of the Regent's thraldom will not draw back. We go forward with this thing
as seems best to us, and we are not to be daunted by threats. Make it clear to
this arrogant lady that she cannot betray us without at the same time betraying
herself; that whatever fate she invokes upon us will certainly overtake her as
well.'
'It may be that she has already perceived and weighed that danger,' said
Bellarion.
'Aye, as a danger; but perhaps not as a certainty. And tell her also that she as
certainly dooms her brother. Make her understand that it is not so easy to play
with the souls of men as she supposes, and that here she has evoked forces
which it is not within her power to lay again.' He turned to his associates. 'Be sure
that when she perceives precisely where she stands, she will cease to trouble us
with her qualms either now or when the thing is done.'
Bellarion had mockingly pronounced the situation interesting when by a
shrewd presentment of it he had given pause to the murderous rage of the
conspirators. Considering it later that day as he took the air along the river-brink,
he was forced to confess it more disturbingly interesting even than he had shown
it to be.
He had not been blind to that weakness in the Lady Valeria's position. But he
had been foolishly complacent, like the skilful chess-player who, perceiving a
strong move possible to his opponent, takes it for granted that the opponent
himself will not perceive it.
It seemed to him that nothing remained but to resume his interrupted
pilgrimage to Pavia, leaving the State of Montferrat and the Lady Valeria to settle
their own affairs. But in that case, her own ruin must inevitably follow, precipitated
by the action of those ruffians with whom she was allied, whether that action
succeeded or failed.
Then he asked himself what to him were the affairs of Montferrat and its
princess, that he should risk his life upon them.
He fetched a sigh. The Abbot had been right. There is no peace in this world
outside a convent wall. Certainly there was no peace in Montferrat. Let him shake
the dust of that place of unrest from his feet, and push on towards Pavia and the
study of Greek.
And so, by olive grove and vineyard, he wandered on, assuring himself that it
was towards Pavia that he now went, and repeating to himself that he would
reach the Sesia before nightfall and seek shelter in some hamlet thereabouts.
Yet dusk saw him reëntering Casale by the Lombard Gate which faces
eastwards. And this because he realised that the service he had shouldered was
a burden not so lightly to be cast aside: if he forsook her now, the vision of her
tawny head and wistful eyes would go with him to distract him with reproach.

CHAPTER IX

THE MARQUIS THEODORE

The High and Mighty Marquis Theodore Paleologo, Regent of Montferrat,

gave audience as was his gracious custom each Saturday to all who sought it,
and received petitions from all who proffered them.
A fine man, this Marquis Theodore, standing fully six feet tall, of a good shape
and soldierly carriage, despite his fifty years. His countenance was amiable and
open with boldly chiselled features and healthily tanned skin. Affable of manner,
accessible of person, he nowise suggested the schemer. The privilege of
audience which he granted so freely was never abused, so that on the Saturday
of this week with which we are dealing the attendance in the audience chamber
was as usual of modest proportions. His highness came, attended by his
Chancellor and his Captain of Justice, and followed by two secretaries; he made
a leisurely progress through the chamber, pausing at every other step to receive
this one, or to say a word to that one; and at the end of an hour departed again,
one of his secretaries bearing away the single petition that had been proffered,
and this by a tall, dark-haired young man who was vividly dressed in scarlet.
Within five minutes of the Regent's withdrawal, that same secretary returned
in quest of the tall young man in red.
 'Are you named Cane, sir?'
The tall young man bowed acknowledgment, and was ushered into a small,
pleasant chamber, whose windows overlooked the gardens with which Bellarion
had already made acquaintance. The secretary closed the door, and Bellarion
found himself under the scrutiny of a pair of close-set pale eyes whose glance
was crafty and penetrating. Cross-legged, the parti-coloured hose revealed by the
fall of the rich gown of mulberry velvet, the Regent sat in a high-backed chair of
leather wrought with stags' heads in red and gold, his left elbow resting upon a
carved writing-pulpit.
Between hands that were long and fine, he held a parchment cylinder, in
which Bellarion recognised the pretended petition he had proffered.
'Who are you, sir?' The voice was calm and level; the voice of a man who
does not permit his accents to advertise his thoughts.
'My name is Bellarion Cane. I am the adoptive son of Bonifacio Cane, Count
of Biandrate.'
Since he had found it necessary for his present purposes to adopt a father,
Bellarion had thought it best to adopt one whose name must carry weight and at
need afford protection. Therefore he had conferred this honour of paternity upon
that great soldier, Facino Cane, who was ducal governor of Milan.
There was a flash of surprise from the eyes that conned him.
'You are Facino's son! You come from Milan, then?'
'No, my lord. From the Augustinian Convent at Cigliano, where my adoptive
father left me some years ago whilst he was still in the service of Montferrat. It
was hoped that I might take the habit. But a restlessness of spirit has urged me to
prefer the world.' Thus he married pure truth to the single falsehood he had used,
the extent of which was to clothe the obscure soldier who had befriended him
with the identity of the famous soldier he had named.
'But why the world of Montferrat?'
'Chance determined that. I bore letters from my abbot to help me on my way. It
was thus I made the acquaintance of the Lord Barbaresco, and his lordship
becoming interested in me, and no doubt requiring me for certain services,
desired me to remain. He urged that here was a path already open to my
ambition, which if steadily pursued might lead to eminence.'
There was no falsehood in the statement. It was merely truth untruly told, truth
unassailable under test, yet calculated to convey a false impression.
A thin smile parted the Prince's shaven lips. 'And when you had learnt
sufficient, you found that a surer path to advancement might lie in the betrayal of
these poor conspirators?'
 'That, highness, is to set the unworthiest interpretation upon my motives.'
Bellarion made a certain show in his tone and manner of offended dignity, such
as might become the venal rascal he desired to be considered.
'You will not dispute that the course you have taken argues more intelligence
than honesty or loyalty.'
'Your highness reproaches me with lack of loyalty to traitors?'
'What was their treason to you? What loyalty do you owe to me? You have but
looked to see where lies your profit. Well, well, you are worthy to be the son,
adoptive or natural, of that rascal Facino. You follow closely in his footsteps, and
if you survive the perils of the journey you may go as far.'
'Highness! I came to serve you ...'
'Silence!' The pleasant voice was scarcely raised. 'I am speaking. I
understand your service perfectly. I know something of men, and if I choose to
use you, it is because your hope of profit may keep you loyal, and because I shall
know how to detect disloyalty and how to punish it. You engage, sir, in a service
full of perils.' The Regent seemed faintly to sneer. 'But you have thrust yourself
willingly into it. It will test you sternly and at every step. If you survive the tests, if
you conquer the natural baseness and dishonesty of your nature, you shall have
no cause to complain of my generosity.'
Bellarion flushed despite himself under the cold contempt of that level voice
and the amused contempt of those calm, pale eyes.
'The quality of my service should lead your highness to amend your judgment.'
'Is it at fault? Will you tell me, then, whence springs the regard out of which
you betray to me the aims and names of these men who have befriended you?'
Bellarion threw back his head and in his bold dark eyes was kindled a flame of
indignation. Inwardly he was a little uneasy to find the Regent accepting his word
so readily and upon such slight examination.
'Your highness,' he choked, 'will give me leave to go.'
But his highness smiled, savouring his power to torture souls where lesser
tyrants could torture only bodies.
'When I have done with you. You came at your own pleasure. You abide at
mine. Now tell me, sir: Besides the names you have here set down of these men
who seek my life, do you know of any others who work in concert with them?'
'I know that there are others whom they are labouring to seduce. Who these
others are I cannot say, nor, with submission, need it matter to your highness.
These are the leaders. Once these are crushed, the others will be without
direction.'
 'A seven-headed hydra, of which these are the heads. If I lop off these heads
...' He paused. 'Yes, yes. But have you heard none others named in these
councils?' He leaned forward a little, his eyes intent upon Bellarion's face. 'None
who are nearer to me? Think well, Master Bellarion, and be not afraid to name
names, however great.'
Bellarion perceived here, almost by instinct, the peril of too great a reticence.
'Since they profess to labour on behalf of the Marquis Gian Giacomo, it is
natural they should name him. But I have never heard it asserted that he has
knowledge of their plot.'
'Nor any other?' The Marquis was singularly insistent. 'Nor any other?' he
repeated.
Bellarion showed a blank face. 'Why? What other?'
'Nay, sir, I am asking you.'
'No, highness,' he slowly answered. 'I recall the mention of no other.'
The Prince sank back into his chair, his searching eyes never quitting the
young man's face. Then he committed what in a man so subtle was a monstrous
indiscretion, giving Bellarion the explanation that he lacked.
'You are not deep enough in their confidence yet. Return to their councils, and
keep me informed of all that transpires in them. Be diligent, and you shall find me
generous.'
Bellarion was genuinely aghast. 'Your highness will delay to strike when by
delay you may imperil ...?'
He was sternly silenced. 'Is your counsel sought? You understand what I
require of you. You have leave to go.'
'But, highness! To return amongst them now, after openly coming here to you,
will not be without its danger.'
The regent did not share his alarm. He smiled again.
'You have chosen a path of peril as I told you. But I will help you. I discover
that I have letters from Facino humbly soliciting my protection for his adoptive son
whilst in Casale. It is a petition I cannot disregard. Facino is a great lord in Milan
these days. My court shall be advised of it, and it will not be considered strange
that I make you free of the palace. You will persuade your confederates that you
avail yourself of my hospitality so that you may abuse it in their interests. That
should satisfy them, and I shall look to see you here this evening. Now go with
God.'
Bellarion stumbled out distracted. Nothing had gone as he intended after that
too promising beginning. Perhaps had he not disclosed himself as Facino Cane's
adoptive son, he would not have supplied the Regent with a pretence that should
render plausible his comings and goings. But the necessity for that disclosure
was undeniable. His conduct had been dictated by the conviction that he could do
for the Lady Valeria what she could not without self-betrayal do for herself.
Confidently he had counted upon instant action of the Regent to crush the
conspirators, and so make the Princess safe from the net in which their crazy
ambitions would entangle her. Instead he had made the discovery—from the
single indiscretion of the Regent—that the Marquis Theodore was already fully
aware of the existence of the conspiracy and of the identity of some, if not all, of
the chief conspirators. That was why he had so readily accepted Bellarion's tale.
The disclosure agreed so completely with the Regent's knowledge that he had no
cause to doubt Bellarion's veracity. And finding him true in these most intimate
details, he readily believed true the rest of his story and the specious account of
his own intervention in the affair. Possibly Bellarion's name was already known to
him as that of one of the plotters who met at Barbaresco's house.
Far, then, from achieving his real purpose, all that Bellarion had accomplished
was to offer himself as another and apparently singularly apt instrument for the
Regent's dark purposes.
It was a perturbed Bellarion, a Bellarion who perceived in what dangerous
waters he was swimming, who came back that noontide to Barbaresco's house.

CHAPTER X

THE WARNING

They were very gay that night at the hospitable court of the Marquis Theodore.
A comedy was performed early in the evening, a comedy which Fra Serafino in
his chronicle describes as lascivious, by which he may mean no more than
playful. Thereafter there was some dancing in the long hall, of which the Regent
himself set the example, leading forth the ugly but graceful young Princess of
Morea.
His nephew, the Marquis Gian Giacomo, followed with the Countess of
Ronsecco, who would have declined the honour if she had dared, for the boy's
cheeks were flushed, his eyes glazed, his step uncertain, and his speech noisy
and incoherent. And there were few who smiled as they observed the drunken
antics of their future prince. Once, indeed, the Regent paused, grave and
concerned of countenance, to whisper an admonition. The boy answered him
with a bray of insolent laughter, and flung away, dragging the pretty countess with
him. It was plain to all that the gentle, knightly Regent found it beyond his power
to control his unruly, degenerate nephew.
 Amongst the few who dared to smile was Messer Castruccio da Fenestrella,
radiant in a suit of cloth of gold, who stood watching the mischief he had made.
For it was he who had first secretly challenged Gian Giacomo to a drinking-bout
during supper, and afterwards urged him to dance with the pretty wife of stiff-
necked Ronsecco.
Awhile he stood looking on. Then, wearying of the entertainment, he
sauntered off to join a group apart of which the Lady Valeria was the centre. Her
ladies, Dionara and Isotta, were with her, the pedant Corsario, looking even less
pedantic than his habit, and a half-dozen gallants who among them made all the
chatter. Her highness was pale, and there was a frown between her eyes that so
wistfully followed her unseemly brother, inattentive of those about her, some of
whom from the kindliest motives sought to distract her attention. Her cheeks
warmed a little at the approach of Castruccio, who moved into the group with
easy, insolent grace.
'My lord is gay to-night,' he informed them lightly. None answered him. He
looked at them with his flickering, shifty eyes, a sneering smile on his lips. 'So are
not you,' he informed them. 'You need enlivening.' He thrust forward to the
Princess, and bowed. 'Will your highness dance?'
She did not look at him. Her eyes were fixed, and their glance went beyond
him and was of such intensity that Messer Castruccio turned to seek the object of
that curious contemplation.
Down the hall came striding Messer Aliprandi, the Orator of Milan, and with
him a tall, black-haired young man, in a suit of red that was more conspicuous
than suitable of fashion to the place or the occasion. Into the group about the
Princess they came, whilst the exquisite Castruccio eyed this unfashionable
young man with frank contempt, bearing his pomander-ball to his nostrils, as if to
protect his olfactory organs from possible offence.
Messer Aliprandi, trimly bearded, elegant in his furred gown, and suavely
mannered, bowed low before the Lady Valeria.
'Permit me, highness, to present Messer Bellarion Cane, the son of my good
friend Facino Cane of Biandrate.'
It was the Marquis Theodore, who had requested the Orator of Milan—as was
proper, seeing that by reason of his paternity Bellarion was to be regarded as
Milanese—to present his assumed compatriot to her highness.
Bellarion, modelling himself upon Aliprandi, executed his bow with grace.
As Fra Serafino truthfully says of him: 'He learnt manners and customs and all
things so quickly that he might aptly be termed a fluid in the jug of any
circumstance.'
 The Lady Valeria inclined her head with no more trace of recognition in her
face than there was in Bellarion's own.
'You are welcome, sir,' she said with formal graciousness, and then turned to
Aliprandi. 'I did not know that the Count of Biandrate had a son.'
'Nor did I, madonna, until this moment. It was the Marquis Theodore who
made him known to me.' She fancied in Aliprandi's tone something that seemed
to disclaim responsibility. But she turned affably to the newcomer, and Bellarion
marvelled at the ease with which she dissembled.
'I knew the Count of Biandrate well when I was a child, and I hold his memory
very dear. He was in my father's service once, as you will know. I rejoice in the
greatness he has since achieved. It should make a brave tale.'
'Per aspera ad astra is ever a brave tale,' Bellarion answered soberly. 'Too
often it is per astra ad aspera, if I may judge by what I have read.'
'You shall tell me of your father, sir. I have often wished to hear the story of his
advancement.'
'To command, highness.' He bowed again.
The others drew closer, expecting entertainment. But Bellarion, who had no
such entertainment to bestow, nor knew of Facino's life more than a fragment of
what was known to all the world, extricated himself as adroitly as he could.
'I am no practised troubadour or story-singer. And this tale of a journey to the
stars should be told under the stars.'
'Why, so it shall, then. They shine brightly enough. You shall show me
Facino's and perhaps your own.' She rose and commanded her ladies to attend
her.
Castruccio fetched a sigh of relief.
'Give thanks,' he said audibly to those about him, 'for Heaven's mercy which
has spared you this weariness.'
The door at the end of the hall stood open to the terrace and the moonlight.
Thither the Princess conducted Bellarion, her ladies in close attendance.
Approaching the threshold they came upon the Marquis Gian Giacomo,
reeling clumsily beside the Countess of Ronsecco, who was almost on the point
of tears. He paused in his caperings that he might ogle his sister.
'Where do you go, Valeria? And who's this long-shanks?'
She approached him. 'You are tired, Giannino, and the Countess, too, is tired.
You would be better resting awhile.'
'Indeed, highness!' cried the young Countess, eagerly thankful.
 But the Marquis was not at all of his sister's wise opinion.
'Tired? Resting! You're childish, Valeria. Always childish. Childish and
meddlesome. Poking your long nose into everything. Some day you'll poke it into
something that'll sting it. And what will it look like when it's stung? Have you
thought of that?' He laughed derisively, and caught the Countess by the arm.
'Let's leave long-nose and long-shanks. Ha! Ha!' His idiotic laughter shrilled up.
He was ravished by his own humour. He let his voice ring out that all might hear
and share the enjoyment of his comical conceit. 'Long-nose and long-shanks!
Long-nose and long-shanks!
 'Said she to him, your long-shanks I adore.
Said he to her, your long-nose I deplore.'

Screaming with laughter he plunged forward to resume the dance,

trod upon one of his trailing, exaggerated sleeves, tripped himself,
and went sprawling on the tessellated floor, his laughter louder and
more idiotic than ever. A dozen ran to lift him.
The Princess tapped Bellarion sharply on the arm with her fan of
ostrich-plumes. Her face was like graven stone.
'Come,' she commanded, and passed out ahead of him.
On the terrace she signed to her ladies to fall behind whilst with
her companion she moved beyond earshot along the marble
balustrade, whose moonlit pallor was here and there splashed by the
black tide of trailing plants.
'Now, sir,' she invited in a voice of ice, 'will you explain this new
identity and your presence here?'
He answered in calm, level tones: 'My presence explains itself
when I tell you that my identity is accepted by his highness the
Regent. The son of Facino Cane is not to be denied the hospitality of
the Court of Montferrat.'
'Then why did you lie to me when ...'
'No, no. This is the lie. This false identity was as necessary to
gain admission here as was the painter's smock I wore yesterday:
another lie.'
'You ask me to believe that you ...' Indignation choked her. 'My
senses tell me what you are; an agent sent to work my ruin.'
'Your senses tell you either more or less, or else you would not
now be here.'
And then it was as if the bonds of her self-control were suddenly
snapped by the strain they sought to bear. 'Oh, God!' she cried out. 'I
am near distraction. My brother ...' She broke off on something akin
to a sob.
Outwardly Bellarion remained calm. 'Shall we take one thing at a
time? Else we shall never be done. And I should not remain here too
long with you.'
'Why not? You have the sanction of my dear uncle, who sends
you.'
'Even so.' He lowered his voice to a whisper. 'It is your uncle is my
dupe, not you.'
'That is what I expected you to say.'
'You had best leave inference until you have heard me out.
Inference, highness, as I have shown you once already, is not your
strength.'
If she resented his words and the tone he took, she gave no
expression to it. Standing rigidly against the marble balustrade, she
looked away from him and down that moonlit garden with its inky
shadows and tall yew hedges that were sharp black silhouettes
against the faintly irradiated sky.
Briefly, swiftly, lucidly, Bellarion told her how her message had
been received by the conspirators.
'You thought to checkmate them. But they perceived the move
you have overlooked, whereby they checkmate you. This proves
what already I have told you: that they serve none but themselves.
You and your brother are but the instruments with which they go to
work. There was only one way to frustrate them; one only way to
serve and save you. That way I sought.'
She interrupted him there. 'You sought? You sought?' Her voice
held bewilderment, unbelief, and even some anger. 'Why should you
desire to save or serve me? If I could believe you, I must account
you impertinent. You were a messenger, no more.'
'Was I no more when I disclosed to you the true aims of these
men and the perils of your association with them?'
 'Aye, you were more,' she said bitterly. 'But what were you?'
'Your servant, madonna,' he answered simply.
'Ah, yes. I had forgotten. My servant. Sent by Providence, was it
not?'
'You are bitter, lady,' said Bellarion.
'Am I?' She turned at last to look at him. But his face was no more
than a faint white blur. 'Perhaps I find you too sweet to be real.'
He sighed. 'The rest of my tale will hardly change that opinion. Is
it worth while continuing?' He spoke without any heat, a little
wistfully.
'It should be entertaining if not convincing.'
'For your entertainment, then: what you could not do without
destroying yourself was easily possible to me.' And he told her of his
pretended petition, giving the Regent the names of those who plotted
against his life.
He saw her clutch her breast, caught the gasp of dread and
dismay that broke from her lips.
'You betrayed them!'
'Was it not what you announced that you would do if they did not
abandon their plan of murder? I was your deputy, no more. When I
presented myself as Facino Cane's adopted son I was readily
believed—because the Regent cared little whether it were true or
not, since in me he perceived the very agent that he needed.'
'Ah, now at last we have something that does not strain belief.'
'Will it strain belief that the Regent was already fully informed of
this conspiracy?'
'What!'
'Why else should he have trusted or believed me? Of his own
knowledge he knew that what I told him was true.'
 'He knew and he held his hand?' Again the question was made
scornful by unbelief.
'Because he lacked evidence that you, and, through you, your
brother, were parties to the plot. What to him are Barbaresco's
shabby crew? It is the Marquis Gian Giacomo who must be removed
in such a manner as not to impair the Lord Regent's credit. To gather
evidence am I now sent.'
She tore an ostrich-plume from her fan in her momentary passion.
'You do not hesitate to confess how you betray each in turn;
Barbaresco to the Regent; the Regent to me; and now, no doubt, me
to the Regent.'
'As for the last, madonna, to betray you I need not now be here. I
could have supplied the Regent with all the evidence he needs
against you at the same time that I supplied the evidence against the
others.'
She was silent, turning it over in her mind. And because her mind
was acute, she saw the proof his words afforded. But because
afraid, she mistrusted proof.
'It may be part of the trap,' she complained. 'If it were not, why
should you remain after denouncing my friends? The aims you
pretend would have been fully served by that.'
His answer was prompt and complete.
'If I had departed, you would never have known the answer of
those men whom you trust, nor would you have known that there is a
Judas amongst them already. It was necessary to warn you.'
'Yes,' she said slowly. 'I see, I think.' And then in sudden revolt
against the conviction he was forcing upon her, and in tones which if
low were vehement to the point of fierceness: 'Necessary!' she cried,
echoing the word he had used. 'Necessary! How was it necessary?
Whence this necessity of yours? A week ago you did not know me.
Yet for me, who am nothing to you, whose service carries no reward,
you pretend yourself prepared to labour and to take risks involving