by Oscar Wilde
LORD ILLINGWORTH: Then why does he write to me?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT: What do you mean?
LORD ILLINGWORTH: What letter is this? (Takes up letter.)
MRS. ARBUTHNOT: That – is nothing. Give it to me.
LORD ILLINGWORTH: It is addressed to me.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT: You are not to open it. I forbid you to open it.
LORD ILLINGWORTH: And in Gerald’s handwriting.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT: It was not to have been sent. It is a letter he wrote to you this morning, before he saw me. But he is sorry now he wrote it, very sorry. You are not to open it. Give it to me.
LORD ILLINGWORTH: It belongs to me. (Opens it, sits down and reads it slowly. MRS. ARBUTHNOT watches him all the time.) You have read this letter, I suppose, Rachel?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT: No.
LORD ILLINGWORTH: You know what is in it?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT: Yes!
LORD ILLINGWORTH: I don’t admit for a moment that the boy is right in what he says. I don’t admit that it is any duty of mine to marry you. I deny it entirely. But to get my son back I am ready – yes, I am ready to marry you, Rachel – and to treat you always with the deference and respect due to my wife. I will marry you as soon as you choose. I give you my word of honour.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT: You made that promise to me once before and broke it.
LORD ILLINGWORTH: I will keep it now. And that will show you that I love my son, at least as much as you love him. For when I marry you, Rachel, there are some ambitions I shall have to surrender. High ambitions, too, if any ambition is high.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT: I decline to marry you, Lord Illingworth.
LORD ILLINGWORTH: Are you serious?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT: Yes.
LORD ILLINGWORTH: Do tell me your reasons. They would interest me enormously.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT: I have already explained them to my son.
LORD ILLINGWORTH: I suppose they were intensely sentimental, weren’t they? You women live by your emotions and for them. You have no philosophy of life.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT: You are right. We women live by our emotions and for them. By our passions, and for them, if you will. I have two passions, Lord Illingworth: my love of him, my hate of you. You cannot kill those. They feed each other.
LORD ILLINGWORTH: What sort of love is that which needs to have hate as its brother?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT: It is the sort of love I have for Gerald. Do you think that terrible? Well, it is terrible. All love is terrible. All love is a tragedy. I loved you once, Lord Illingworth. Oh, what a tragedy for a woman to have loved you!
LORD ILLINGWORTH: So you really refuse to marry me?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT: Yes.
LORD ILLINGWORTH: Because you hate me?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT: Yes.
LORD ILLINGWORTH: And does my son hate me as you do?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT: No.
LORD ILLINGWORTH: I am glad of that, Rachel.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT: He merely despises you.
LORD ILLINGWORTH: What a pity! What a pity for him, I mean.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT: Don’t be deceived, George. Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely if ever do they forgive them.
LORD ILLINGWORTH (reads letter over again, very slowly): May I ask by what arguments you made the boy who wrote this letter, this beautiful, passionate letter, believe that you should not marry his father, the father of your own child?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT: It was not I who made him see it. It was another.
LORD ILLINGWORTH: What fin-de-siècle person?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT: The Puritan, Lord Illingworth. (A pause.)
LORD ILLINGWORTH (winces, then rises slowly and goes over to table where his hat and gloves are. MRS. ARBUTHNOT is standing close to the table. He picks up one of the gloves, and begins putting it on): There is not much then for me to do here, Rachel?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT: Nothing.
LORD ILLINGWORTH: It is good-bye, is it?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT: For ever, I hope, this time, Lord Illingworth.
LORD ILLINGWORTH: How curious! At this moment you look exactly as you looked the night you left me twenty years ago. You have just the same expression in your mouth. Upon my word, Rachel, no woman ever loved me as you did. Why, you gave yourself to me like a flower, to do anything I liked with. You were the prettiest of playthings, the most fascinating of small romances…(Pulls out watch.) Quarter to two! Must be strolling back to Hunstanton. Don’t suppose I shall see you there again. I’m sorry, I am, really. It’s been an amusing experience to have met amongst people of one’s own rank, and treated quite seriously too, one’s mistress and one’s –
MRS. ARBUTHNOT snatches up glove and strikes LORD ILLINGWORTH across the face with it. LORD ILLINGWORTH starts. He is dazed by the insult of his punishment. Then he controls himself and goes to window and looks out at his son. Sighs and leaves the room.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT (falls sobbing on the sofa): He would have said it. He would have said it.
Enter GERALD and HESTER from the garden.
GERALD: Well, dear mother. You never came out after all. So we have come in to fetch you. Mother, you have not been crying? (Kneels down beside her.)
MRS. ARBUTHNOT: My boy! My boy! My boy! (Running her fingers through his hair.)
HESTER (coming over): But you have two children now. You’ll let me be your daughter?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT (looking up): Would you choose me for a mother?
HESTER: You of all women I have ever known.
They move towards the door leading into garden with their arms round each other’s waists. GERALD goes to table L.C. for his hat. On turning round he sees LORD ILLINGWORTH’S glove lying on the floor, and picks it up.
GERALD: Hallo, mother, whose glove is this? You have had a visitor. Who was it?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT (turning round): Oh, no one. No one in particular. A man of no importance.
CURTAIN
AN IDEAL HUSBAND
The persons of the play
THE EARL OF CAVERSHAM, K.G. PHIPPS, Lord Goring’s servant
VISCOUNT GORING, his son JAMES and HAROLD, Footmen
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN, Bart., LADY CHILTERN
Under-Secretary for Foreign LADY MARKBY
Affairs THE COUNTESS OF BASILDON
VICOMTE DE NANJAC, Attaché MRS. MARCHMONT
at French Embassy in London MISS MABEL CHILTERN, Sir Robert
MR. MONTFORD Chiltern’s sister
MASON, Butler to Sir Robert MRS. CHEVELEY
Chiltern
ACT ONE
SCENE: The octagon room at Sir Robert Chiltern’s house in Grosvenor Square, London. The action of the play is completed within twenty-four hours. TIME: The present.
The room is brilliantly lighted and full of guests.
At the top of the staircase stands LADY CHILTERN, a woman of grave Greek beauty, about twenty-seven years of age. She receives the guests as they come up. Over the well of the staircase hangs a great chandelier with wax lights, which illumine a large eighteenth-century French tapestry – representing the Triumph of Love, from a design by Boucher – that is stretched on the staircase wall. On the right is the entrance to the music-room. The sound of a string quartette is faintly heard. The entrance on the left leads to other reception-rooms. MRS. MARCHMONT and LADY BASILDON, two very pretty women, are seated together on a Louis Seize sofa. They are types of exquisite fragility. Their affectation of manner has a delicate charm. Watteau would have loved to paint them.
MRS. MARCHMONT: Going on to the Hartlocks’ to-night, Margaret?
LADY BASILDON: I suppose so. Are you?
MRS. MARCHMONT: Yes. Horribly tedious parties they give, don’t they?
LADY BASILDON: Horribly tedious! Never know why I go. Never know why I go anywhere.
MRS. MARCHMONT: I come here to be educated.
LADY BASILDON: Ah! I hate being educated!
MRS. MARCHMONT: So do I. It puts one almost on a level with the commercial classes, doesn’t it? Bu
t dear Gertrude Chiltern is always telling me that I should have some serious purpose in life. So I come here to try to find one.
LADY BASILDON (looking round through her lorgnette): I don’t see anybody here to-night whom one could possibly call a serious purpose. The man who took me in to dinner talked to me about his wife the whole time.
MRS. MARCHMONT: How very trivial of him!
LADY BASILDON: Terribly trivial! What did your man talk about?
MRS. MARCHMONT: About myself.
LADY BASILDON (languidly): And were you interested?
MRS. MARCHMONT (shaking her head): Not in the smallest degree.
LADY BASILDON: What martyrs we are, dear Margaret!
MRS. MARCHMONT (rising): And how well it becomes us, Olivia!
They rise and go towards the music-room. The VICOMTE DE NANJAC, a young attache known for his neckties and his Anglomania, approaches with a low bow, and enters into conversation.
MASON (announcing guests from the top of the staircase): Mr. and Lady Jane Barford. Lord Caversham.
Enter LORD CAVERSHAM, an old gentleman of seventy, wearing the riband and star of the Garter. A fine Whig type. Rather like a portrait by Lawrence.
LORD CAVERSHAM: Good-evening, Lady Chiltern! Has my good-for-nothing young son been here?
LADY CHILTERN (smiling): I don’t think Lord Goring has arrived yet.
MABEL CHILTERN (coming up to LORD CAVERSHAM): Why do you call Lord Goring good-for-nothing?
MABEL CHILTERN is a perfect example of the English type of prettiness, the apple-blossom type. She has all the fragrance and freedom of a flower. There is ripple after ripple of sunlight in her hair, and the little mouth, with its parted lips, is expectant, like the mouth of a child. She has the fascinating tyranny of youth, and the astonishing courage of innocence. To sane people she is not reminiscent of any work of art. But she is really like a Tanagra statuette, and would be rather annoyed if she were told so.
LORD CAVERSHAM: Because he leads such an idle life.
MABEL CHILTERN: How can you say such a thing? Why, he rides in the Row at ten o’clock in the morning, goes to the Opera three times a week, changes his clothes at least five times a day, and dines out every night of the season. You don’t call that leading an idle life, do you?
LORD CAVERSHAM (looking at her with a kindly twinkle in his eyes): You are a very charming young lady!
MABEL CHILTERN: How sweet of you to say that, Lord Caversham! Do come to us more often. You know we are always at home on Wednesdays, and you look so well with your star!
LORD CAVERSHAM: Never go anywhere now. Sick of London Society. Shouldn’t mind being introduced to my own tailor; he always votes on the right side. But object strongly to being sent down to dinner with my wife’s milliner. Never could stand Lady Caversham’s bonnets.
MABEL CHILTERN: Oh, I love London Society! I think it has immensely improved. It is entirely composed now of beautiful idiots and brilliant lunatics. Just what Society should be.
LORD CAVERSHAM: Hum! Which is Goring? Beautiful idiot, or the other thing?
MABEL CHILTERN (gravely): I have been obliged for the present to put Lord Goring into a class quite by himself. But he is developing charmingly!
LORD CAVERSHAM: Into what?
MABEL CHILTERN (with a little curtsey): I hope to let you know very soon, Lord Caversham!
MASON (announcing guests): Lady Markby. Mrs. Cheveley.
Enter LADY MARKBY and MRS. CHEVELEY. LADY MARKBY is a pleasant, kindly, popular woman, with grey hair a la marquise and good lace. MRS. CHEVELEY, who accompanies her, is tall and rather slight. Lips very thin and highly-coloured, a line of scarlet on a pallid face. Venetian red hair, aquiline nose, and long throat. Rouge accentuates the natural paleness of her complexion. Gray-green eyes that move restlessly. She is in heliotrope, with diamonds. She looks rather like an orchid, and makes great demands on one’s curiosity. In all her movements she is extremely graceful. A work of art, on the whole, but showing the influence of too many schools.
LADY MARKBY: Good-evening, dear Gertrude! So kind of you to let me bring my friend, Mrs. Cheveley. Two such charming women should know each other!
LADY CHILTERN (advances towards MRS. CHEVELEY with a sweet smile. Then suddenly stops, and bows rather distantly): I think Mrs. Cheveley and I have met before. I did not know she had married a second time.
LADY MARKBY (genially): Ah, nowadays people marry as often as they can, don’t they? It is most fashionable. (To DUCHESS OF MARYBOROUGH): Dear Duchess, and how is the Duke? Brain still weak, I suppose? Well, that is only to be expected, is it not? His good father was just the same. There is nothing like race, is there?
MRS. CHEVELEY (playing with her fan): But have we really met before, Lady Chiltern? I can’t remember where. I have been out of England for so long.
LADY CHILTERN: We were at school together, Mrs. Cheveley.
MRS. CHEVELEY (superciliously): Indeed? I have forgotten all about my schooldays. I have a vague impression that they were detestable.
LADY CHILTERN (coldly): I am not surprised!
MRS. CHEVELEY (in her sweetest manner): Do you know, I am quite looking forward to meeting your clever husband, Lady Chiltern. Since he has been at the Foreign Office, he has been so much talked of in Vienna. They actually succeed in spelling his name right in the newspapers. That in itself is fame, on the continent.
LADY CHILTERN: I hardly think there will be much in common between you and my husband, Mrs. Cheveley! (Moves away.)
VICOMTE DE NANJAC: Ah, chère Madame, quelle surprise! I have not seen you since Berlin!
MRS. CHEVELEY: Not since Berlin, Vicomte. Five years ago!
VICOMTE DE NANJAC: And you are younger and more beautiful than ever. How do you manage it?
MRS. CHEVELEY: By making it a rule only to talk to perfectly charming people like yourself.
VICOMIE DE NANJAC: Ah! You flatter me. You butter me, as they say here.
MRS. CHEVELEY: Do they say that here? How dreadful of them!
VICOMTE DE NANJAC: Yes, they have a wonderful language. It should be more widely known.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN enters. A man of forty, but looking somewhat younger. Clean-shaven, with finely-cut features, dark-haired and dark-eyed. A personality of mark. Not popular – few personalities are. But intensely admired by the few, and deeply respected by the many. The note of his manner is that of perfect distinction, with a slight touch of pride. One feels that he is conscious of the success he has made in life. A nervous temperament, with a tired look. The firmly-chiselled mouth and chin contrast strikingly with the romantic expression in the deep-set eyes. The variance is suggestive of an almost complete separation of passion and intellect, as though thought and emotion were each isolated in its own sphere through some violence of will-power. There is nervousness in the nostrils, and in the pale, thin, pointed hands. It would be inaccurate to call him picturesque. Picturesqueness cannot survive the House of Commons. But Vandyck would have liked to have painted his head.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Good-evening, Lady Markby. I hope you have brought Sir John with you?
LADY MARKBY: Oh! I have brought a much more charming person than Sir John. Sir John’s temper since he has taken seriously to politics has become quite unbearable. Really, now that the House of Commons is trying to become useful, it does a great deal of harm.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: I hope not, Lady Markby. At any rate we do our best to waste the public time, don’t we? But who is this charming person you have been kind enough to bring to us?
LADY MARKBY: Her name is Mrs. Cheveley! One of the Dorsetshire Cheveleys, I suppose. But I really don’t know. Families are so mixed nowadays. Indeed, as a rule, everybody turns out to be somebody else.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Mrs. Cheveley? I seem to know the name.
LADY MARKBY: She has just arrived from Vienna.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Ah! Yes. I think I know whom you mean.
LADY MARKBY: Oh! She goes everywhere there, and has s
uch pleasant scandals about all her friends. I really must go to Vienna next winter. I hope there is a good chef at the Embassy.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: If there is not, the Ambassador will certainly have to be recalled. Pray point out Mrs. Cheveley to me. I should like to see her.
LADY MARKBY: Let me introduce you. (To MRS. CHEVELEY): My dear, Sir Robert Chiltern is dying to know you!
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN (bowing): Every one is dying to know the brilliant Mrs. Cheveley. Our attaches at Vienna write to us about nothing else.
MRS. CHEVELEY: Thank you, Sir Robert. An acquaintance that begins with a compliment is sure to develop into a real friendship. It starts in the right manner. And I find that I know Lady Chiltern already.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Really?
MRS. CHEVELEY: Yes. She has just reminded me that we were at school together. I remember it perfectly now. She always got the good conduct prize. I have a distinct recollection of Lady Chiltern always getting the good conduct prize!
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN (smiling): And what prizes did you get, Mrs. Cheveley?
MRS. CHEVELEY: My prizes came a little later on in life. I don’t think any of them were for good conduct. I forget!
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: I am sure they were for something charming!
MRS. CHEVELEY: I don’t know that women are always rewarded for being charming. I think they are usually punished for it! Certainly, more women grow old nowadays through the faithfulness of their admirers than through anything else! At least that is the only way I can account for the terribly haggard look of most of your pretty women in London!
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: What an appalling philosophy that sounds! To attempt to classify you, Mrs. Cheveley, would be an impertinence. But may I ask, at heart, are you an optimist or a pessimist? Those seem to be the only two fashionable religions left to us nowadays.
MRS. CHEVELEY: Oh, I’m neither. Optimism begins in a broad grin, and Pessimism ends with blue spectacles. Besides, they are both of them merely poses.
