by Oscar Wilde
LADY HUNSTANTON. What are you saying, Lord Illingworth, about the drum?
LORD ILLINGWORTH. I was merely talking to Mrs. Allonby about the leading articles in the London newspapers.
LADY HUNSTANTON. But do you believe all that is written in the newspapers?
LORD ILLINGWORTH. I do. Nowadays it is only the unreadable that occurs. (Rises with MRS. ALLONBY.)
LADY HUNSTANTON. Are you going, Mrs. Allonby?
MRS. ALLONBY. Just as far as the conservatory. Lord Illingworth told me this morning that there was an orchid there as beautiful as the seven deadly sins.
LADY HUNSTANTON. My dear, I hope there is nothing of the kind. I will certainly speak to the gardener.
Exit MRS. ALLONBY and LORD ILLINGWORTH.
LADY CAROLINE. Remarkable type, Mrs. Allonby.
LADY HUNSTANTON. She lets her clever tongue run away with her sometimes.
LADY CAROLINE. Is that the only thing, Jane, Mrs. Allonby allows to run away with her?
LADY HUNSTANTON. I hope so, Caroline, I am sure.
Enter LORD ALFRED.
Dear Lord Alfred, do join us.
LORD ALFRED sits down beside LADY STUTFIELD.
LADY CAROLINE. You believe good of every one, Jane. It is a great fault.
LADY STUTFIELD. Do you really, really think, Lady Caroline, that one should believe evil of every one?
LADY CAROLINE. I think it is much safer to do so, Lady Stutfield. Until, of course, people are found out to be good. But that requires a great deal of investigation nowadays.
LADY STUTFIELD. But there is so much unkind scandal in modern life.
LADY CAROLINE. Lord Illingworth remarked to me last night at dinner that the basis of every scandal is an absolutely immoral certainty.
KELVIL. Lord Illingworth is, of course, a very brilliant man, but he seems to me to be lacking in that fine faith in the nobility and purity of life which is so important in this century.
LADY STUTFIELD. Yes, quite, quite important, is it not?
KELVIL. He gives me the impression of a man who does not appreciate the beauty of our English home-life. I would say that he was tainted with foreign ideas on the subject.
LADY STUTFIELD. There is nothing, nothing like the beauty of home-life, is there?
KELVIL. It is the mainstay of our moral system in England, Lady Stutfield. Without it we would become like our neighbours.
LADY STUTFIELD. That would be so, so sad, would it not?
KELVIL. I am afraid, too, that Lord Illingworth regards woman simply as a toy. Now, I have never regarded woman as a toy. Woman is the intellectual helpmeet of man in public as in private life. Without her we should forget the true ideals. (Sits down beside LADY STUTFIELD.)
LADY STUTFIELD. I am so very, very glad to hear you say that.
LADY CAROLINE. You are a married man, Mr. Kettle?
SIR JOHN. Kelvil, dear, Kelvil.
KELVIL. I am married, Lady Caroline.
LADY CAROLINE. Family?
KELVIL. Yes.
LADY CAROLINE. How many?
KELVIL. Eight.
LADY STUTFIELD turns her attention to LORD ALFRED.
LADY CAROLINE. Mrs Kettle and the children are, I suppose, at the seaside?
SIR JOHN shrugs his shoulders.
KELVIL. My wife is at the seaside with the children, Lady Caroline.
LADY CAROLINE. You will join them later on, no doubt?
KELVIL. If my public engagements permit me.
LADY CAROLINE. Your public life must be a great source of gratification to Mrs. Kettle.
SIR JOHN. Kelvil, my love, Kelvil.
LADY STUTFIELD (to LORD ALFRED). How very, very charming those gold-tipped cigarettes of yours are, Lord Alfred.
LORD ALFRED. They are awfully expensive. I can only afford them when I’m in debt.
LADY STUTFIELD. It must be terribly, terribly distressing to be in debt.
LORD ALFRED. One must have some occupation nowadays. If I hadn’t my debts I shouldn’t have anything to think about. All the chaps I know are in debt.
LADY STUTFIELD. But don’t the people to whom you owe the money give you a great, great deal of annoyance?
Enter FOOTMAN.
LORD ALFRED. Oh, no, they write; I don’t.
LADY STUTFIELD. How very, very strange.
LADY HUNSTANTON. Ah, here is a letter, Caroline, from dear Mrs. Arbuthnot. She won’t dine. I am so sorry. But she will come in the evening. I am very pleased, indeed. She is one of the sweetest of women. Writes a beautiful hand, too, so large, so firm. (Hands letter to LADY CAROLINE.)
LADY CAROLINE (looking at it). A little lacking in femininity, Jane. Femininity is the quality I admire most in women.
LADY HUNSTANTON (taking back letter and leaving it on table). Oh! she is very feminine, Caroline, and so good, too. You should hear what the Archdeacon says of her. He regards her as his right hand in the parish. (FOOTMAN speaks to her.) In the Yellow Drawing-room. Shall we all go in? Lady Stutfield, shall we go in to tea?
LADY STUTFIELD. With pleasure, Lady Hunstanton.
They rise and proceed to go off. SIR JOHN offers to carry LADY STUTFIELD’S cloak.
LADY CAROLINE. John! If you would allow your nephew to look after Lady Stutfield’s cloak, you might help me with my work-basket.
Enter LORD ILLINGWORTH and MRS. ALLONBY.
SIR JOHN. Certainly, my love.
Exeunt.
MRS. ALLONBY. Curious thing, plain women are always jealous of their husbands, beautiful women never are!
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Beautiful women never have time. They are always so occupied in being jealous of other people’s husbands.
MRS. ALLONBY. I should have thought Lady Caroline would have grown tired of conjugal anxiety by this time! Sir John is her fourth!
LORD ILLINGWORTH. So much marriage is certainly not becoming. Twenty years of romance make a woman look like a ruin; but twenty years of marriage make her something like a public building.
MRS. ALLONBY. Twenty years of romance! Is there such a thing?
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Not in our day. Women have become too brilliant. Nothing spoils a romance so much as a sense of humour in the woman.
MRS. ALLONBY. Or the want of it in the man.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. You are quite right. In a Temple every one should be serious, except the thing that is worshipped.
MRS. ALLONBY. And that should be man?
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Women kneel so gracefully; men don’t.
MRS. ALLONBY. You are thinking of Lady Stutfield!
LORD ILLINGWORTH. I assure you I have not thought of Lady Stutfield for the last quarter of an hour.
MRS. ALLONBY. Is she such a mystery?
LORD ILLINGWORTH. She is more than a mystery – she is a mood.
MRS. ALLONBY. Moods don’t last.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. It is their chief charm.
Enter HESTER and GERALD.
GERALD. Lord Illingworth, every one has been congratulating me, Lady Hunstanton and Lady Caroline, and … every one. I hope I shall make a good secretary.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. You will be the pattern secretary, Gerald. (Talks to him.)
MRS. ALLONBY. You enjoy country life, Miss Worsley?
HESTER. Very much, indeed.
MRS. ALLONBY. Don’t you find yourself longing for a London dinner-party?
HESTER. I dislike London dinner-parties.
MRS. ALLONBY. I adore them. The clever people never listen, and the stupid people never talk.
HESTER. I think the stupid people talk a great deal.
MRS. ALLONBY. Ah, I never listen!
LORD ILLINGWORTH. My dear boy, if I didn’t like you I wouldn’t have made you the offer. It is because I like you so much that I want to have you with me.
Exit HESTER with GERALD.
Charming fellow, Gerald Arbuthnot!
MRS. ALLONBY. He is very nice; very nice indeed. But I can’t stand the American young lady.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Why?
>
MRS. ALLONBY. She told me yesterday, and in quite a loud voice too, that she was only eighteen. It was most annoying.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that would tell one anything.
MRS. ALLONBY. She is a Puritan besides –
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Ah, that is inexcusable. I don’t mind plain women being Puritans. It is the only excuse they have for being plain. But she is decidedly pretty. I admire her immensely. (Looks steadfastly at MRS. ALLONBY.)
MRS. ALLONBY. What a thoroughly bad man you must be!
LORD ILLINGWORTH. What do you call a bad man?
MRS. ALLONBY. The sort of man who admires innocence.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. And a bad woman?
MRS. ALLONBY. Oh! the sort of woman a man never gets tired of.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. You are severe – on yourself.
MRS. ALLONBY. Define us as a sex.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Sphinxes without secrets.
MRS. ALLONBY. Does that include the Puritan women?
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Do you know, I don’t believe in the existence of Puritan women? I don’t think there is a woman in the world who would not be a little flattered if one made love to her. It is that which makes women so irresistibly adorable.
MRS. ALLONBY. You think there is no woman in the world who would object to being kissed?
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Very few.
MRS. ALLONBY. Miss Worsley would not let you kiss her.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Are you sure?
MRS. ALLONBY. Quite.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. What do you think she’d do if I kissed her?
MRS. ALLONBY. Either marry you, or strike you across the face with her glove. What would you do if she struck you across the face with her glove?
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Fall in love with her, probably.
MRS. ALLONBY. Then it is lucky you are not going to kiss her!
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Is that a challenge?
MRS. ALLONBY. It is an arrow shot into the air.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Don’t you know that I always succeed in whatever I try?
MRS. ALLONBY. I am sorry to hear it. We women adore failures. They lean on us.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. You worship successes. You cling to them.
MRS. ALLONBY. We are the laurels to hide their baldness.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. And they need you always, except at the moment of triumph.
MRS. ALLONBY. They are uninteresting then.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. How tantalising you are? (A pause.) MRS. ALLONBY. Lord Illingworth, there is one thing I shall always like you for.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Only one thing? And I have so many bad qualities.
MRS. ALLONBY. Ah, don’t be too conceited about them. You may lose them as you grow old.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. I never intend to grow old. The soul is born old but grows young. That is the comedy of life.
MRS. ALLONBY. And the body is born young and grows old. That is life’s tragedy.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Its comedy also, sometimes. But what is the mysterious reason why you will always like me? MRS. ALLONBY. It is that you have never made love to me.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. I have never done anything else.
MRS. ALLONBY. Really? I have not noticed it.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. How unfortunate! It might have been a tragedy for both of us.
MRS. ALLONBY. We should each have survived.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. One can survive everything nowadays, except death, and live down anything except a good reputation.
MRS. ALLONBY. Have you tried a good reputation?
LORD ILLINGWORTH. It is one of the many annoyances to which I have never been subjected.
MRS. ALLONBY. It may come.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Why do you threaten me?
MRS. ALLONBY. I will tell you when you have kissed the Puritan.
Enter FOOTMAN.
FRANCIS. Tea is served in the Yellow Drawing-room, my lord.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Tell her ladyship we are coming in.
FRANCIS. Yes, my lord. (Exit.)
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Shall we go in to tea?
MRS. ALLONBY. Do you like such simple pleasures?
LORD ILLINGWORTH. I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex. But, if you wish, let us stay here. Yes, let us stay here. The Book of Life begins with a man and a woman in a garden.
MRS. ALLONBY. It ends with Revelations.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. You fence divinely. But the button has come off your foil.
MRS. ALLONBY. I have still the mask.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. It makes your eyes lovelier.
MRS. ALLONBY. Thank you. Come.
LORD ILLINGWORTH (sees MRS. ARBUTHNOT’S letter on table, and takes it up and looks at envelope). What a curious handwriting! It reminds me of the handwriting of a woman I used to know years ago.
MRS. ALLONBY. Who?
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Oh! no one. No one in particular. A woman of no importance. (Throws letter down, and passed up the steps of the terrace with MRS. ALLONBY. They smile at each other.)
Curtain.
Second Act
SCENE
Drawing-room at Hunstanton Chase, after dinner, lamps lit. Door L.C. Door R.C.
Ladies seated on sofa.
MRS. ALLONBY. What a comfort it is to have got rid of the men for a little!
LADY STUTFIELD. Yes; men persecute us dreadfully, don’t they?
MRS. ALLONBY. Persecute us? I wish they did.
LADY HUNSTANTON. My dear?
MRS. ALLONBY. The annoying thing is that the wretches can be perfectly happy without us. That is why I think it is every woman’s duty never to leave them alone for a single moment, except during this short breathing space after dinner; without which, I believe, we poor women would be absolutely worn to shadows.
Enter SERVANTS with coffee.
LADY HUNSTANTON. Worn to shadows, dear?
MRS. ALLONBY. Yes, Lady Hunstanton. It is such a strain keeping men up to the mark. They are always trying to escape from us.
LADY STUTFIELD. It seems to me that it is we who are always trying to escape from them. Men are so very, very heartless. They know their power and use it.
LADY CAROLINE (takes coffee from SERVANT). What Stuff and nonsense all this about men is! The thing to do is to keep men in their proper place.
MRS. ALLONBY. But what is their proper place, Lady Caroline?
LADY CAROLINE. Looking after their wives, Mrs. Allonby.
MRS. ALLONBY (takes coffee from SERVANT). Really? And if they’re not married?
LADY CAROLINE. If they are not married, they would be looking after a wife. It’s perfectly scandalous the amount of bachelors who are going about society. There should be a law passed to compel them all to marry within twelve months.
LADY STUTFIELD (refuses coffee). But if they’re in love with some one who, perhaps, is tied to another?
LADY CAROLINE. In that case, Lady Stutfield, they would be married off in a week to some plain respectable girl, in order to teach them not to meddle with other people’s property.
MRS. ALLONBY. I don’t think that we should ever be spoken of as other people’s property. All men are married women’s property. That is the only true definition of what married women’s property really is. But we don’t belong to any one.
LADY STUTFIELD. Oh, I am so very, very glad to hear you say so.
LADY HUNSTANTON. But do you really think, dear Caroline, that legislation would improve matters in any way? I am told that, nowadays, all the married men live like bachelors, and all the bachelors like married men.
MRS. ALLONBY. I certainly never know one from the other.
LADY STUTFIELD. Oh, I think one can always know at once whether a man has home claims upon his life or not. I have noticed a very, very sad expression in the eyes of so many married men.
MRS. ALLONBY. Ah, all that I have noticed is that they are horribly tedious when they are good husbands, and
abominably conceited when they are not.
LADY HUNSTANTON. Well, I suppose the type of husband has completely changed since my young days, but I’m bound to state that poor dear Hunstanton was the most delightful of creatures, and as good as gold.
MRS. ALLONBY. Ah, my husband is a sort of promissory note; I’m tired of meeting him.
LADY CAROLINE. But you renew him from time to time, don’t you?
MRS. ALLONBY. Oh no, Lady Caroline. I have only had one husband as yet. I suppose you look upon me as quite an amateur.
LADY CAROLINE. With your views on life I wonder you married at all.
MRS. ALLONBY. So do I.
LADY HUNSTANTON. My dear child, I believe you are really very happy in your married life, but that you like to hide your happiness from others.
MRS. ALLONBY. I assure you I was horribly deceived in Ernest.
LADY HUNSTANTON. Oh, I hope not, dear. I knew his mother quite well. She was a Stratton, Caroline, one of Lord Crowland’s daughters.
LADY CAROLINE. Victoria Stratton? I remember her perfectly. A silly, fair-haired woman with no chin.
MRS. ALLONBY. Ah, Ernest has a chin. He has a very strong chin, a square chin. Ernest’s chin is far too square.
LADY STUTFIELD. But do you really think a man’s chin can be too square? I think a man should look very, very strong, and that his chin should be quite, quite square.
MRS. ALLONBY. Then you should certainly know Ernest, Lady Stutfield. It is only fair to tell you beforehand he has got no conversation at all.
LADY STUTFIELD. I adore silent men.
MRS. ALLONBY. Oh, Ernest isn’t silent. He talks the whole time. But he has got no conversation. What he talks about I don’t know. I haven’t listened to him for years.
LADY STUTFIELD. Have you never forgiven him then? How sad that seems! But all life is very, very sad, is it not?
MRS. ALLONBY. Life, Lady Stutfield, is simply a mauvais quart d’heure made up of exquisite moments.
LADY STUTFIELD. Yes, there are moments, certainly. But was it something very, very wrong that Mr. Allonby did? Did he become angry with you, and say anything that was unkind or true?
MRS. ALLONBY. Oh, dear, no. Ernest is invariably calm. That is one of the reasons he always gets on my nerves. Nothing is so aggravating as calmness. There is something positively brutal about the good temper of most modern men. I wonder we women stand it as well as we do.
