Having got the whole story, it is now time to study each Act (An Act is a section of a play - like the chapter of a book. Our play is divided into 3 Acts).
It is important that you know what happens in each Act ans don't confuse the events of one act with that of the other.
Act I
Summary
The play opens at night in a lady's
bedchamber in a small Bulgarian town in 1885, the year of the Serbo-Bulgarian
war. The room is decorated in the worst possible taste, a taste reflected in
the mistress' (Catherine Petkoff's) desire to seem as cultured and as Viennese
as possible. But the room is furnished with only cheap bits of Viennese things;
the other pieces of furniture come from the Turkish Ottoman Empire, reflecting
the long occupation by the Turks of the Balkan peninsula. On the balcony,
standing and staring at the romantic beauty of the night, "intensely
conscious that her own youth and beauty are a part of it," is young Raina
Petkoff. Just inside, conspicuously visible, is a box of chocolate creams,
which will play an important part later in this act and which will ultimately
become a symbol of the type of war which Shaw will satirize.
Raina's mother, Catherine Petkoff, is
a woman who could easily pass for a splendid specimen of the wife of a mountain
fanner, but is determined to be a Viennese lady. As the play begins, Catherine
is excited over the news that the Bulgarian forces have just won a splendid
battle at Slivnitza against the Serbians, and the "hero of the hour, the
idol of the regiment" who led them to victory is Raina's fiancé, Sergius
Saranoff. She describes how Sergius boldly led a cavalry charge into the midst
of the Serbs, scattering them in all directions. Raina wonders if such a
popular hero will care any longer for her little affections, but she is
nonetheless delighted about the news. She wonders if heroes such as Sergius
esteem such heroic ideas because they have read too much Byron and Pushkin.
Real life, as she knows, is quite different.
They are interrupted by the entry of
Louka, a handsome and proud peasant girl, who announces that the Serbs have
been routed and have scattered throughout the town and that some of the
fugitives have been chased into the neighborhood. Thus, the doors must be
secured since there might be fighting and shooting in the street below. Raina
is annoyed that the fugitives must be killed, but she is immediately corrected
— in war, everyone can be killed. Catherine goes below to fasten up the doors,
and Louka shows Raina how to fasten the shutters if there is any shooting and
then leaves to help bolt the rest of the house.
Left alone, Raina picks up her
fiancé's picture, raises it above her head like a priestess worshipping it, and
calls the portrait her "soul's hero." As she prepares for bed, shots
are suddenly heard in the distance and then some more shots are heard; these
are much nearer. She scrambles out of bed, rapidly blows out the candles, and
immediately darts back into bed. She hears more shots, and then she hears
someone tampering with the shutters from outside; there is a glimmer of light,
and then someone strikes a match and warns her not to try to run away. Raina is
told to light a candle, and after she does so, she is able to see a man in a
Serbian's officer's uniform; he is completely bespattered with mud and blood,
and he warns her that if it becomes necessary, he will shoot her because if he
is caught, he will be killed — and he has no intention of dying. When they hear
a disturbance outside the house, the Serbian officer quickly snatches Raina's
cloak that she is about to use to cover herself; ungentlemanlike, he keeps it,
knowing that she won't want a group of army officers searching her room when
she is clad in only a sheer nightgown. There is more noise downstairs, and
Louka is heard at the door; she says that there is a search party downstairs,
and if Raina doesn't let them in, they will break down the door. Suddenly the
Serbian officer loses his courage; he tells Raina that he is done for. He will
shoot the first man who breaks in and "it will not be nice." Raina
impulsively changes her mind and decides to hide him behind the curtains.
Catherine, Louka, and a Russian officer dressed in a Bulgarian uniform enter,
and after inspecting the balcony and hearing Raina testify that no one came in,
they leave. (Louka, however, notices something behind the curtain and sees the
revolver lying on the ottoman; she says nothing, however.) Raina slams and
locks the door after them.
When the Serbian officer emerges and
offers his thanks, he explains that he is not really a Serbian officer; he is a
professional soldier, a Swiss citizen, in fact, and he now wishes that he had
joined with the Bulgarians rather than with the Serbs. He asks to stay a minute
to collect his thoughts, and Raina agrees, deciding to sit down also, but as
she sits on the ottoman, she sits on the man's pistol, and she lets out a
scream. Raina now realizes what it was that Louka was staring at, and she is
surprised that the others didn't notice it. She is frightened of the gun, but
the soldier tells her there is no need to be — it is not loaded: he keeps
chocolates rather than bullets in his cartridge holder. In fact, he wishes he
had some chocolates now. In mock scorn, Raina goes to the chest of drawers and
returns with a half-eaten box of chocolates, the remainder of which he
immediately devours. Raina is shocked to hear him say that only foolish young
soldiers or else stupid ones like those in charge of the recent attack on the
Serbs at Slivnitza carry bullets; wise and experienced soldiers carry
chocolates. Then he offends her further (and still innocently, of course) by
explaining how unprofessional the cavalry charge against the Serbians was, and
if there had not been a stupid mistake on the part of the Serbs, the Bulgarians
would have been massacred. Then the soldier says that the Bulgarian
"hero," the leader of the troops, acted "like an operatic tenor
. . . shouting his war-cry and charging like Don Quixote at the
windmills." He says that the fellow was the laughingstock of everyone
present: "Of all the fools let loose on a field of battle, that man must
be the very maddest." Only a stupid mistake carried the day for him. Raina
then takes the portrait of Sergius and shows it to the officer, who agrees that
this was indeed the person who was "charging the windmills and imagining
he was doing the finest thing."
Angry at the
derogatory remarks about her "heroic" betrothed, Raina orders the
stranger to leave. But he balks; he says that whereas he could climb up the
balcony, he simply can't face the descent. He is so exhausted that he tells her
to simply give out the alarm — he's beaten. Raina tries to spark some courage
in him, but realizes that he is more prudent than daring. Raina is at a loss;
she simply doesn't know what to do with him: he can't be caught in the Petkoff
house, the richest house in Bulgaria and the only one to have a library and an
inside staircase. She then remembers an opera by Verdi, Ernani, in
which a fugitive throws himself on the mercy of some aristocratic people; she
thinks that perhaps this might be the solution because, according to the opera,
the hospitality of a nobleman is sacred and inviolable. In response, the
soldier tells her that his father is a hospitable man himself; in fact, he owns
six hotels in Switzerland. Then falling asleep, he kisses her hand. Raina
panics. She insists that he stay awake until she can fetch her mother, but
before she can get out of the room, he has crawled into her bed and is asleep
in such a trance that when Raina returns with her mother, they cannot shake him
awake. His fatigue is so great that Raina tells her mother: "The poor
darling is worn out. Let him sleep." This comment arouses Catherine's
stern reproach, and the curtain falls on the first act.
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