“THE DEVIL’S DISCIPLE”
In “Mrs. Warren’s Profession” we saw individuals battling against the law and in “Arms and the Man” we observed romanticism in an opera-bouffe catch-as-catch-can struggle with realism. In “The Devil’s Disciple” we have revealed religion bruising its fists upon the hard head of impious doubt. Dick Dudgeon, the hero (and he is a hero of the good old white-shirted, bare-necked, melodramatic sort) laughs at the commandments and the beatitudes—and then puts the virtuous to rout by an act of supreme nobility that few of them, with all their faith in post-mortem reward, would dare to venture.
It is a problem in human motives that looks formidable. Why does Dick, the excommunicated, brave Hell to save another? Why does he face death, dishonor, shame and damnation, with no hope of earthly recompense and less of glory in the beyond? For the same reason, in truth, that moved Huckleberry Finn to save the nigger Jim at the cost of his immortal soul. “I had no motive,” says Dick, in an attempt at self-analysis, “and no interest. All I can tell you is that when it came to the point whether I would take my neck out of the noose and put another man’s into it, I couldn’t do it.” You will find the psychology of this worked out in the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche, the mad German. If you think well of your belief in the good and the beautiful, don’t read them.
The scene of “The Devil’s Disciple” is a small town in New England and the time is the first year of the Revolutionary War. Shaw set the action back this far because he wanted to display Dick against a background of peculiarly steadfast and rock-ribbed faith, and the present, alackaday! has little of it that isn’t wobbly. Dick’s mother is a Puritan of the Puritans—a fetich worshiper whose fetich is the mortification of the flesh. She flays her body, her mind and her soul and in the end essays to flay the souls of those about her. Against all of this Dick revolts. He doesn’t know exactly why, for Darwin is unborn and doubt is still indecent, but he revolts, nevertheless. And so he becomes a disciple of the devil.
King George’s red-coats are abroad in the land, on the hunt for rebels, and Dick’s uncle, a blasphemer and sinner like himself, is nabbed by them and hanged for treason. Dick sees the hanging and enjoys it as a spectacle, but it fails to make him a tory, and he comes home as much an enemy of church and king as ever. Then the soldiers come nearer and the rumor spreads that they propose to hang Dick as horrible example the second. Anthony Anderson, the village pastor, undertakes to warn him, and incidentally to counsel him against his sacrilege and his sins. Dick, in turn, warns Anderson. King George’s men, he says, will not choose the village heretic the next time. The uselessness of such a course has been shown in the case of his late and unlamented uncle. When they come to hang again, he points out, they will select a patriot whose taking off will leave a profound impression and something approaching regret—to wit, Anderson himself. The pastor laughs at this. He is a holy man and a truly good one. He fears no military but the hosts of darkness.
But Dick is right after all. One morning he goes to the Anderson home and while he is there the pastor is called away to the bedside of his (Dick’s) mother. Dick does not think it is worth while to go himself. His mother has tortured and preached at him from birth and he frankly hates her. During the pastor’s absence soldiers come to the door. They have a warrant for the good dominie, charging him with treason. The sergeant sees Dick, and—
“Anthony Anderson,” he says, “I arrest you in King George’s name as a rebel.... Put on your coat and come along....”
And so Dick faces his Calvary, with no faith to lead him on. By all the books he should seek shelter behind the truth and leave self-sacrifice to the godly. But he is a man, this devil’s disciple, and he doesn’t.
“Yes,” he says, “I’ll come.”