The Country Wife, William Wycherley [debian ebook reader txt] 📗

sir? Horner I do know your wife, sir; she’s a woman, sir, and consequently a monster, sir, a greater monster than a husband, sir. Sir Jasper A husband! how, sir? Horner So, sir; but I make no more cuckolds, sir. Makes horns. Sir Jasper Ha! ha! ha! Mercury! Mercury! Lady Fidget Pray, Sir Jasper, let us be gone from this rude fellow. Mrs. Dainty Who, by his breeding, would think he had ever been in France? Lady Fidget Foh! he’s but too much a French fellow, such as hate women of quality and virtue for their love to their husbands. Sir Jasper, a woman is hated by ’em as much for loving her husband as for loving their money. But pray let’s be gone. Horner You do well, madam; for I have nothing that you came for. I have brought over not so much as a bawdy picture, no new postures, nor the second part of the Ecole des Filles; nor⁠— Quack Hold, for shame, sir! what d’ye mean? you’ll ruin yourself forever with the sex⁠—Apart to Horner. Sir Jasper Ha! ha! ha! he hates women perfectly, I find. Mrs. Dainty What pity ’tis he should! Lady Fidget Ay, he’s a base fellow for’t. But affectation makes not a woman more odious to them than virtue. Horner Because your virtue is your greatest affectation, madam. Lady Fidget How, you saucy fellow! would you wrong my honour? Horner If I could. Lady Fidget How d’ye mean, sir? Sir Jasper Ha! ha! ha! no, he can’t wrong your ladyship’s honour, upon my honour. He, poor man⁠—hark you in your ear⁠—a mere eunuch. Whispers. Lady Fidget O filthy French beast! foh! foh! why do we stay? let’s be gone: I can’t endure the sight of him. Sir Jasper Stay but till the chairs come; they’ll be here presently. Lady Fidget No, no. Sir Jasper Nor can I stay longer. ’Tis, let me see, a quarter and half quarter of a minute past eleven. The council will be sat; I must away. Business must be preferred always before love and ceremony with the wise, Mr. Horner. Horner And the impotent, Sir Jasper. Sir Jasper Ay, ay, the impotent, Master Horner; hah! hah! hah! Lady Fidget What, leave us with a filthy man alone in his lodgings? Sir Jasper He’s an innocent man now, you know. Pray stay, I’ll hasten the chairs to you.⁠—Mr. Horner, your servant; I should be glad to see you at my house. Pray come and dine with me, and play at cards with my wife after dinner; you are fit for women at that game yet, ha! ha!⁠—Aside. ’Tis as much a husband’s prudence to provide innocent diversion for a wife as to hinder her unlawful pleasures; and he had better employ her than let her employ herself.⁠—Aloud. Farewell. Horner Your servant, Sir Jasper. Exit Sir Jasper. Lady Fidget I will not stay with him, foh!⁠— Horner Nay, madam, I beseech you stay, if it be but to see I can be as civil to ladies yet as they would desire. Lady Fidget No, no, foh! you cannot be civil to ladies. Mrs. Dainty You as civil as ladies would desire? Lady Fidget No, no, no, foh! foh! foh! Exeunt Lady Fidget and Mrs. Dainty Fidget. Quack Now, I think, I, or you yourself, rather, have done your business with the women. Horner Thou art an ass. Don’t you see already, upon the report, and my carriage, this grave man of business leaves his wife in my lodgings, invites me to his house and wife, who before would not be acquainted with me out of jealousy? Quack Nay, by this means you may be the more acquainted with the husbands, but the less with the wives. Horner Let me alone; if I can but abuse the husbands, I’ll soon disabuse the wives. Stay⁠—I’ll reckon you up the advantages I am like to have by my stratagem. First, I shall be rid of all my old acquaintances, the most insatiable sort of duns, that invade our lodgings in a morning; and next to the pleasure of making a new mistress is that of being rid of an old one, and of all old debts. Love, when it comes to be so, is paid the most unwillingly. Quack Well, you may be so rid of your old acquaintances; but how will you get any new ones? Horner Doctor, thou wilt never make a good chemist, thou art so incredulous and impatient. Ask but all the young fellows of the town if they do not lose more time, like huntsmen, in starting the game, than in running it down. One knows not where to find ’em; who will or will not. Women of quality are so civil, you can hardly distinguish love from good breeding, and a man is often mistaken: but now I can be sure she that shows an aversion to me loves the sport, as those women that are gone, whom I warrant to be right. And then the next thing is, your women of honour, as you call ’em, are only chary of their reputations, not their persons; and ’tis scandal they would avoid, not men. Now may I have, by the reputation of an eunuch, the privileges of one, and be seen in a lady’s chamber in a morning as early as her husband; kiss virgins before their parents or lovers; and may be, in short, the passe-partout of the town. Now, doctor. Quack Nay, now you shall be the doctor; and your process is so new that we do not know but it may succeed. Horner Not so new neither; probatum est, doctor. Quack Well, I wish you luck, and many patients, whilst I go to mine. Exit. Enter Harcourt and Dorilant. Harcourt Come, your appearance at the play yesterday, has, I hope, hardened you for the future against the women’s contempt, and the men’s raillery; and now you’ll abroad as you were wont. Horner Did I not bear it bravely? Dorilant With a most theatrical impudence, nay, more than the orange-wenches show there, or a drunken vizard-mask, or a great-bellied actress; nay, or the most impudent of creatures, an