* hardware technical equipment such as tape- and cassette-recorders, film- and slide-projectors, record players, television and videotape recorders, computers, etc.; software slides, films, records and other materials used with the equipment.
UNIT FOUR
TEXT FOUR
DANGEROUS CORNER
By John Boynton Priestley
(Three fragments from the play)
John Boynton Priestley (1894 - 1984) is one of the outstanding English authors of today. His early books (1922-26) were of a critical nature. It was the success of his novel "The Good Companions" (1929) which brought him world fame. In early thirties Priestley began his work as a dramatist. "Dangerous Corner" (1932) one of the series of Seven Time Plays was his first effort in dramatic art. Priestley's other most famous novels are "They Walk in the City", "Angel Pave-ment", "Wonder Hero", "Far Away". "Let the People Sing". "Bright Day" and many others.
I
The scene is laid in a cosy drawing-room. Several men and women some of them members of the same family, others their intimate friends are idly discuss-ing a wireless play they have just heard. The host and hostess of the party are Robert Caplan and his wife Freda.
Gordon: What did you hear? Freda: The last half of a play.
Olwen: It was called "The Sleeping Dog".
Stanton: Why?
Miss M.: We're not sure something to do with lies, and a gen-tleman shooting himself-
Stanton: What fun they have at the B.B.C.!
Olwen (who has been thinking): You know I believe I understandthat play now. The sleeping dog was the truth, do you see, and that man the husband insisted upon disturbing it.
Robert: He was quite right to disturb it.
Stanton: Was he? I wonder. I think it a very sound idea the truthas a sleeping dog.
Miss M. (who doesn't care): Of course, we do spend too much ofpur time telling lies and acting them.
Betty (in her best childish manner): Oh, but one has to. I'm alwaysfibbing. I do it all day long.
Gordon (still fiddling with the wireless): You do, darling, you do.
Betty: It's the secret of my charm.
Miss M. (rather grimly): Very likely. But we meant somethingmuch more serious.
Robert: Serious or not, I'm all for it coming out. It's healthy. Stanton: I think telling the truth is about as healthy as skidding
round a corner at sixty.
Freda (who is being either malicious or enigmatic): And life's gota lot of dangerous corners hasn't it, Charles?
Stanton (a match for her or anybody else present): It can have ifyou don't choose your route well. To lie or not to lie what do you think, Olwen? You're looking terribly wise...
Olwen (thoughtfully): Well the real truth that is, every sin-gle little thing, with nothing missing at all, wouldn't be dangerous. I suppose that's God's truth. But what most people mean by truth, what that man meant in the wireless play, is only half the real truth. It doesn't tell you all that went on inside everybody. It simply gives you a lot of facts that happened to have been hidden away and were per-haps a lot better hidden away. It's rather treacherous stuff....
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II
The conversation drifts to Martin Caplan, Robert's brother, who committed sui-cide six months ago. Robert insists on knowing certain trifling facts relating to the day of the suicide. Yet, what looks trifling and innocent enough at first, leads to graver and still graver discoveries. Finally Robert is confronted with facts whose ugliness he finds himself unable to bear.
In the beginning of the fragment that follows Olwen, a friend of the Caplans, argues with Robert pointing out to him once more that half truth is dangerous.
Olwen: The real truth is something so deep you can't get at it thisway, and all this half truth does is to blow everything up. It isn't civi-lised.
Stanton: I agree.
Robert (after another drink, cynically): You agree!
Stanton: You'll get no sympathy from me, Caplan.
Robert: Sympathy from you! I never want to set eyes on you again,Stanton. You're a thief, a cheat, a liar, and a dirty cheap seducer.
Stanton: And you're a fool, Caplan. You look solid, but you're not.You've a good deal in common with that cracked brother of yours. You won't face up to real things. You've been living in a fool's paradise, and now, having got yourself out of it by to-night's efforts all your do-ing you're busy building yourself a fool's hell to live in....
III
Freda: I'm sure it's not at all the proper thing to say at such amoment, but the fact remains that I feel rather hungry. What about you, Olwen? You, Robert? Or have you been drinking too much?
Robert: Yes, I've been drinking too much. Freda: Well, it's very silly of you.
Robert (wearily): Yes. (Buries his face in his hands.) Freda: And you did ask for all this.
Robert (half looking up): I asked for it. And I got it.
Freda: Though I doubt if you minded very much until it came toBetty.
Robert: That's not true. But I can understand you're thinking so.You see, as more and more of this rotten stuff came out, so more and more I came to depend on my secret thoughts of Betty as some-one who seemed to me to represent some lovely quality of life.
Freda: I've known some time, of course, that you were getting verysentimental and noble about her. And I've known some time, too, all about Betty, and I've often thought of telling you.
Robert: I'm not sorry you didn't. Freda: You ought to be.
Robert: Why?
Freda: That kind of self -deception's rather stupid. Robert: What about you and Martin?
Freda: I didn't deceive myself. I knew everything or nearlyeverything about him. I wasn't in love with somebody who really wasn't there, somebody I'd made up.
Robert: I think you were. Probably we always are.
Olwen: Then it's not so bad then. You can always build up anoth-er image for yourself to fall in love with.
Robert: No, you can't. That's the trouble. You lose the capacity forbuilding. You run short of the stuff that creates beautiful illusions, just as if a gland had stopped working.
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Olwen: Then you have to learn to live without illusions.
Robert: Can't be done. Not for us. We started life too early for that,possibly they're breeding people now who can live without illusions. I hope so. But I can't do it. I've lived among illusions
Freda (grimly): You have.
Robert (with growing excitement): Well, what if I have? They'vegiven me hope and courage. They've helped me to live. I suppose we, ought to get all that from faith in life. But I haven't got any. No reli-
gion or anything. Just this damned farmyard to live in. That's all. And just a few bloody glands and secretions and nerves to do it with. But it didn't look too bad. I'd my little illusions, you see.
Freda (bitterly): Then why didn't you leave them alone, insteadof clamouring for the truth all night like a fool?
Robert (terribly excited now): Because I am a fool. Stanton wasright. That's the only answer. I had to meddle, like a child with a fire. I began this evening with something to keep me going. I'd good memories of Martin. I'd a wife who didn't love me, but at least seemed too good for me. I'd two partners I liked and respected. There was a girl I could idealise. And now
Olwen (distressed): No, Robert please. We know.
Robert (in a frenzy): But you don't know, you can't know notas I know or you wouldn't stand there like that, as if we'd only just had some damned silly little squabble about a hand at bridge.
Olwen: Freda, can't you ?
Robert: Don't you see, we're not living in the same world now.Everything's gone. My brother was an obscene lunatic
Freda (very sharply): Stop that.
Robert: And my wife doted on him and pestered him. One of mypartners is a liar and a cheat and a thief. The other God knows what he is some sort of hysterical young pervert (Both women try to check and calm him.) And the girl's a greedy little cat on the tiles Olwen (half screaming): No, Robert, no. This is horrible, mad. Please,
please don't go on. (Quieter.) It won't seem like this tomorrow. Robert (crazynow): Tomorrow! Tomorrow! I tell you, I'm through. I'm
through. There can't be a tomorrow. (He goes swaying to the door.) Freda (screaming moves to Olwen and grips her arm): He's got
a revolver in his bedroom.
Olwen (screaming and running to the door): Stop, Robert! Stop!Stop!
For the last few seconds the light has been fading, now it is completely dark. There is a revolver shot, a woman's scream, a moment's silence, then the sound of a woman sobbing.
ESSENTIAL VOCABULARY
Vocabulary Notes
1. malicious a feeling, showing or caused by, ill-will or spite, as a malicious person (remark, tone, face, etc.), e.g. How can you set the
child against his parents? It's a malicious thing to do. Why do you always speak ill about all your comrades? Don't be so malicious.
malice n active ill-will; spite; desire to harm others-; bear smb. malice wish smb. harm, e.g. I bear you no malice.
match n 1) a game; a contest of skill, strength, etc. 2) a personwho is able to meet another as an equal (in skill, strength, intellect, etc.), e.g. He has met his match. Soon it became clear that the younger boy was quite a match for the big one. 3) a person or thing that is exactly like another, or that agrees or corresponds perfectly, e.g. The coat and the hat are a good match (i.e. agree in colour and style),
a marriage, e.g. I'm told they are going to make a match of it (i.e. they are going to get married). 5) a person considered from the point of view of marriage, e.g. He is a very good match.
treacherous a 1) false; untrustworthy; disloyal, as a treacherous friend 2) betraying smb.'s trust; involving disloyalty, as a treach erous action 3) appearing good, but not to be depended on, as treach erous weather, a treacherous smile, e.g. The mountain roads were enveloped in such a treacherous fog that driving at night involved a serious risk.
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treachery n treacherous action; act of betraying smb., e.g. No oneknew yet by whose treachery it was that the deepest secrets of the family had become public property. Syn. betrayal, e.g. This act of his was a betrayal of all that they both had held sacred.
treacherousness n quality of being treacherous, e.g. Before thatincident I hadn't been aware of the latent treacherousness in his na-ture. Note: An act of treachery is described by the verb betray, e. g. You may be confident that I'll never betray your secret. A person guilty of treachery is described by the noun traitor, e.g. Mrs. Cheveley knew that Sir Robert Chiltern had begun his political career as a traitor, by selling a Cabinet secret for a considerable sum of money.
deceive vt cause smb. to believe what is not true, e.g. Don't tryto deceive me, I know what really happened.
deception лthe act of deceiving or being deceived, e.g. There arefew things as difficult to forgive as deception; self-deception believ-ing something not because it is true but because one wants to believe it, e.g. With a shock I realized that she didn't lie when she told ev-erybody about her coming marriage; she half-believed it herself: it was a pitiful case of self-deception. Syn. deceit n
Word Discrimination: deception, deceit.
Deception and deceit are closest when used in the meaning of actof deceiving. Yet, even in this case there is a difference. Cf. The boy s
deceit made his mother very unhappy. (Deceit here implies telling lies.) As a politician he often practised deception. (Deception implies making false promises, producing a false impression, treacherous tricks, cheating, etc.) Deceit maybe also used as a characteristic of a person, e.g. Deceit is quite foreign to her nature.
deceitful a inclined to lying; intentionally misleading, e.g. I can'tstand deceitful people.
deceptive a deceiving, producing a false impression, e.g. Appear--ances are deceptive. The evidence against him was rather deceptive.
5. breed (bred, bred) vt 1) give birth to young, e.g. Rabbits breedquickly. Birds breed in spring. 2) cause animals, birds, etc. to have young by choosing pairs (male and female) and bringing them to gether, e.g. He makes a living by breeding horses. 3) bring up, look after, teach, educate, e.g. It is a heroic country indeed that breeds such sons. He's an Englishman born and bred (i.e. by birth and edu cation). 4) be the cause of, e.g. War breeds misery and ruin. Famil iarity breeds contempt. Syn. bring up (сотг. noun upbringing).
breeding лgood manners and behaviour; knowledge given by
smb. or smth. is true to fact, e.g. "Here are some names and address-es of people who were witnesses," said the police inspector. "Of course, they'll have to be checked on." 2) hold back, control, stop, e.g. We have checked the advance of the enemy. He couldn't checkhis anger.
check л1) a control; a person or thing that keeps back or makesit impossible to do things, e.g. Wind acts as a check on speed, keep (hold) in check control, e.g. Human emotions are held in check bysocial convention. 2) a sudden stop or delay, e.g. Tom's illness gave a check to our plans. His ambitions received a sharp check. 3) an examination of the accuracy of a thing, e.g. If we both add up the figures, your result will be a check on mine. 4) a ticket or a piece of paper, wood or metal with a number on it given in return for smth. (for hats and coats in a theatre, for bags, luggage, etc.)
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"Word Combinations and Phrases
training and education, e.g. He's a man of fine breeding.
Word Discrimination: upbringing, breeding.
Upbringing denotes process, breeding denotes result. well-bred a having or showing good manners
ill-bred a badly brought up, rude, e.g. A well-bred person is alwaysmindful of others, an ill-bred one is so absorbed in himself, that the rest of the world might as well not exist.
get at smth. (coll.) set eyes on smb. (smth.) (coll.) face up to things (coll.) fool's paradise make up smth. (smb.) (as in "smb. I'd made up")
run short of smth. clamour for smth. keep smb. going dote on smb. everything's gone come out (about facts, truth, etc.)
6. faith n 1) trust, confidence, reliance, e.g. Faith means believingsomething without proof. Have you any faith in what he tells you? Robert shot himself because he had lost faith in the people surround ing him. put one's faith in smth. (smb.) trust; feel confidence in smth. (smb.), e.g. I advise you not to put your faith in such a remedy. 2) a system of religious belief, as the Christian or Mohammedan faiths
faithful a loyal; keeping faith; deserving trust, as a faithful friend,a faithful wife
unfaithful a treacherous; be (un)faithful to smb. (often appliedto husband or wife)
faithfulness n loyalty, the quality of being true to smb. or smth., e.g. His faithfulness to duty was never doubted.
7. check vt 1) examine a thing to find out whether it is accurate,usually by comparing it with something else, e.g. Will you check these figures (see that they are right)? check on smb. (smth.) try and find out whether the previous information or knowledge about
EXERCISES
