An Ideal Husband, Oscar Wilde [free ebook reader TXT] 📗

one in a

dreadful dream. Then she turns round and looks at her husband. She

looks at him with strange eyes, as though she were seeing him for the

first time.]

 

LADY CHILTERN. You sold a Cabinet secret for money! You began your

life with fraud! You built up your career on dishonour! Oh, tell me

it is not true! Lie to me! Lie to me! Tell me it is not true!

 

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. What this woman said is quite true. But,

Gertrude, listen to me. You don’t realise how I was tempted. Let me

tell you the whole thing. [Goes towards her.]

 

LADY CHILTERN. Don’t come near me. Don’t touch me. I feel as if

you had soiled me for ever. Oh! what a mask you have been wearing

all these years! A horrible painted mask! You sold yourself for

money. Oh! a common thief were better. You put yourself up to sale

to the highest bidder! You were bought in the market. You lied to

the whole world. And yet you will not lie to me.

 

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [Rushing towards her.] Gertrude! Gertrude!

 

LADY CHILTERN. [Thrusting him back with outstretched hands.] No,

don’t speak! Say nothing! Your voice wakes terrible memories -

memories of things that made me love you - memories of words that

made me love you - memories that now are horrible to me. And how I

worshipped you! You were to me something apart from common life, a

thing pure, noble, honest, without stain. The world seemed to me

finer because you were in it, and goodness more real because you

lived. And now - oh, when I think that I made of a man like you my

ideal! the ideal of my life!

 

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. There was your mistake. There was your error.

The error all women commit. Why can’t you women love us, faults and

all? Why do you place us on monstrous pedestals? We have all feet

of clay, women as well as men; but when we men love women, we love

them knowing their weaknesses, their follies, their imperfections,

love them all the more, it may be, for that reason. It is not the

perfect, but the imperfect, who have need of love. It is when we are

wounded by our own hands, or by the hands of others, that love should

come to cure us - else what use is love at all? All sins, except a

sin against itself, Love should forgive. All lives, save loveless

lives, true Love should pardon. A man’s love is like that. It is

wider, larger, more human than a woman’s. Women think that they are

making ideals of men. What they are making of us are false idols

merely. You made your false idol of me, and I had not the courage to

come down, show you my wounds, tell you my weaknesses. I was afraid

that I might lose your love, as I have lost it now. And so, last

night you ruined my life for me - yes, ruined it! What this woman

asked of me was nothing compared to what she offered to me. She

offered security, peace, stability. The sin of my youth, that I had

thought was buried, rose up in front of me, hideous, horrible, with

its hands at my throat. I could have killed it for ever, sent it

back into its tomb, destroyed its record, burned the one witness

against me. You prevented me. No one but you, you know it. And now

what is there before me but public disgrace, ruin, terrible shame,

the mockery of the world, a lonely dishonoured life, a lonely

dishonoured death, it may be, some day? Let women make no more

ideals of men! let them not put them on alters and bow before them,

or they may ruin other lives as completely as you - you whom I have

so wildly loved - have ruined mine!

 

[He passes from the room. LADY CHILTERN rushes towards him, but the

door is closed when she reaches it. Pale with anguish, bewildered,

helpless, she sways like a plant in the water. Her hands,

outstretched, stem to tremble in the air like blossoms in the mind.

Then she flings herself down beside a sofa and buries her face. Her

sobs are like the sobs of a child.]

ACT DROP THIRD ACT SCENE

The Library in Lord Goring’s house. An Adam room. On the right is

the door leading into the hall. On the left, the door of the

smoking-room. A pair of folding doors at the back open into the

drawing-room. The fire is lit. Phipps, the butler, is arranging

some newspapers on the writing-table. The distinction of Phipps is

his impassivity. He has been termed by enthusiasts the Ideal Butler.

The Sphinx is not so incommunicable. He is a mask with a manner. Of

his intellectual or emotional life, history knows nothing. He

represents the dominance of form.

 

[Enter LORD GORING in evening dress with a buttonhole. He is wearing

a silk hat and Inverness cape. White-gloved, he carries a Louis

Seize cane. His are all the delicate fopperies of Fashion. One sees

that he stands in immediate relation to modern life, makes it indeed,

and so masters it. He is the first well-dressed philosopher in the

history of thought.]

 

LORD GORING. Got my second buttonhole for me, Phipps?

 

PHIPPS. Yes, my lord. [Takes his hat, cane, and cape, and presents

new buttonhole on salver.]

 

LORD GORING. Rather distinguished thing, Phipps. I am the only

person of the smallest importance in London at present who wears a

buttonhole.

 

PHIPPS. Yes, my lord. I have observed that,

 

LORD GORING. [Taking out old buttonhole.] You see, Phipps, Fashion

is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other

people wear.

 

PHIPPS. Yes, my lord.

 

LORD GORING. Just as vulgarity is simply the conduct of other

people.

 

PHIPPS. Yes, my lord.

 

LORD GORING. [Putting in a new buttonhole.] And falsehoods the

truths of other people.

 

PHIPPS. Yes, my lord.

 

LORD GORING. Other people are quite dreadful. The only possible

society is oneself.

 

PHIPPS. Yes, my lord.

 

LORD GORING. To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance,

Phipps.

 

PHIPPS. Yes, my lord.

 

LORD GORING. [Looking at himself in the glass.] Don’t think I quite

like this buttonhole, Phipps. Makes me look a little too old. Makes

me almost in the prime of life, eh, Phipps?

 

PHIPPS. I don’t observe any alteration in your lordship’s

appearance.

 

LORD GORING. You don’t, Phipps?

 

PHIPPS. No, my lord.

 

LORD GORING. I am not quite sure. For the future a more trivial

buttonhole, Phipps, on Thursday evenings.

 

PHIPPS. I will speak to the florist, my lord. She has had a loss in

her family lately, which perhaps accounts for the lack of triviality

your lordship complains of in the buttonhole.

 

LORD GORING. Extraordinary thing about the lower classes in England

- they are always losing their relations.

 

PHIPPS. Yes, my lord! They are extremely fortunate in that respect.

 

LORD GORING. [Turns round and looks at him. PHIPPS remains

impassive.] Hum! Any letters, Phipps?

 

PHIPPS. Three, my lord. [Hands letters on a salver.]

 

LORD GORING. [Takes letters.] Want my cab round in twenty minutes.

 

PHIPPS. Yes, my lord. [Goes towards door.]

 

LORD GORING. [Holds up letter in pink envelope.] Ahem! Phipps,

when did this letter arrive?

 

PHIPPS. It was brought by hand just after your lordship went to the

club.

 

LORD GORING. That will do. [Exit PHIPPS.] Lady Chiltern’s

handwriting on Lady Chiltern’s pink notepaper. That is rather

curious. I thought Robert was to write. Wonder what Lady Chiltern

has got to say to me? [Sits at bureau and opens letter, and reads

it.] ‘I want you. I trust you. I am coming to you. Gertrude.’

[Puts down the letter with a puzzled look. Then takes it up, and

reads it again slowly.] ‘I want you. I trust you. I am coming to

you.’ So she has found out everything! Poor woman! Poor woman! [

Pulls out watch and looks at it.] But what an hour to call! Ten

o’clock! I shall have to give up going to the Berkshires. However,

it is always nice to be expected, and not to arrive. I am not

expected at the Bachelors’, so I shall certainly go there. Well, I

will make her stand by her husband. That is the only thing for her

to do. That is the only thing for any woman to do. It is the growth

of the moral sense in women that makes marriage such a hopeless, one-sided institution. Ten o’clock. She should be here soon. I must

tell Phipps I am not in to any one else. [Goes towards bell]

 

[Enter PHIPPS.]

 

PHIPPS. Lord Caversham.

 

LORD GORING. Oh, why will parents always appear at the wrong time?

Some extraordinary mistake in nature, I suppose. [Enter LORD

CAVERSHAM.] Delighted to see you, my dear father. [Goes to meet

him.]

 

LORD CAVERSHAM. Take my cloak off.

 

LORD GORING. Is it worth while, father?

 

LORD CAVERSHAM. Of course it is worth while, sir. Which is the most

comfortable chair?

 

LORD GORING. This one, father. It is the chair I use myself, when I

have visitors.

 

LORD CAVERSHAM. Thank ye. No draught, I hope, in this room?

 

LORD GORING. No, father.

 

LORD CAVERSHAM. [Sitting down.] Glad to hear it. Can’t stand

draughts. No draughts at home.

 

LORD GORING. Good many breezes, father.

 

LORD CAVERSHAM. Eh? Eh? Don’t understand what you mean. Want to

have a serious conversation with you, sir.

 

LORD GORING. My dear father! At this hour?

 

LORD CAVERSHAM. Well, sir, it is only ten o’clock. What is your

objection to the hour? I think the hour is an admirable hour!

 

LORD GORING. Well, the fact is, father, this is not my day for

talking seriously. I am very sorry, but it is not my day.

 

LORD CAVERSHAM. What do you mean, sir?

 

LORD GORING. During the Season, father, I only talk seriously on the

first Tuesday in every month, from four to seven.

 

LORD CAVERSHAM. Well, make it Tuesday, sir, make it Tuesday.

 

LORD GORING. But it is after seven, father, and my doctor says I

must not have any serious conversation after seven. It makes me talk

in my sleep.

 

LORD CAVERSHAM. Talk in your sleep, sir? What does that matter?

You are not married.

 

LORD GORING. No, father, I am not married.

 

LORD CAVERSHAM. Hum! That is what I have come to talk to you about,

sir. You have got to get married, and at once. Why, when I was your

age, sir, I had been an inconsolable widower for three months, and

was already paying my addresses to your admirable mother. Damme,

sir, it is your duty to get married. You can’t be always living for

pleasure. Every man of position is married nowadays. Bachelors are

not fashionable any more. They are a damaged lot. Too much is known

about them. You must get a wife, sir. Look where your friend Robert

Chiltern has got to by probity, hard work, and a sensible marriage

with a good woman. Why don’t you imitate him, sir? Why don’t you

take him for your model?

 

LORD GORING. I think I shall, father.

 

LORD CAVERSHAM. I wish you would, sir. Then I should be happy. At

present I make your mother’s life miserable on your account. You are

heartless, sir, quite heartless

 

LORD GORING. I hope not, father.

 

LORD CAVERSHAM. And it is high time for you to get married. You are

thirty-four years of age, sir.

 

LORD