A to Z Classics - Complete Works Of Oscar Wilde (Best Navigation) (A to Z Classics)

jack

Well, my name is Ernest in town and Jack in the country, and the cigarette case was given to me in the country.

algernon

Yes, but that does not account for the fact that ·13· your small Aunt Cecily, who lives at Tunbridge Wells, calls you her dear uncle. Come, old boy, you had much better have the thing out at once.

jack

My dear Algy, you talk exactly as if you were a dentist. It is very vulgar to talk like a dentist when one isn’t a dentist. It produces a false impression.

algernon

Well, that is exactly what dentists always do. Now, go on! Tell me the whole thing. I may mention that I have always suspected you of being a confirmed and secret Bunburyist; and I am quite sure of it now.

jack

Bunburyist? What on earth do you mean by a Bunburyist?

algernon

I’ll reveal to you the meaning of that incomparable expression as soon as you are kind enough to inform me why you are Ernest in town and Jack in the country.

jack

Well, produce my cigarette case first.

·14· algernon

Here it is. [ Hands cigarette case .] Now produce your explanation, and pray make it improbable. [ Sits on sofa .]

jack

My dear fellow, there is nothing improbable about my explanation at all. In fact it’s perfectly ordinary. Old Mr. Thomas Cardew, who adopted me when I was a little boy, made me in his will guardian to his grand-daughter, Miss Cecily Cardew. Cecily, who addresses me as her uncle from motives of respect that you could not possibly appreciate, lives at my place in the country under the charge of her admirable governess, Miss Prism.

algernon

Where is that place in the country, by the way?

jack

That is nothing to you, dear boy. You are not going to be invited…. I may tell you candidly that the place is not in Shropshire.

algernon

I suspected that, my dear fellow! I have Bunburyed all over Shropshire on two separate occasions. Now, go on. Why are you Ernest in town and Jack in the country?

·15· jack

My dear Algy, I don’t know whether you will be able to understand my real motives. You are hardly serious enough. When one is placed in the position of guardian, one has to adopt a very high moral tone on all subjects. It’s one’s duty to do so. And as a high moral tone can hardly be said to conduce very much to either one’s health or one’s happiness, in order to get up to town I have always pretended to have a younger brother of the name of Ernest, who lives in the Albany, and gets into the most dreadful scrapes. That, my dear Algy, is the whole truth pure and simple.

algernon

The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!

jack

That wouldn’t be at all a bad thing.

algernon

Literary criticism is not your forte, my dear fellow. Don’t try it. You should leave that to people who haven’t been at a University. They do it so well in the daily papers. What you really are is a Bunburyist. I was quite right in saying you were a Bunburyist. You are one of the most advanced Bunburyists I know.

·16· jack

What an [ E:on] earth do you mean?

algernon

You have invented a very useful younger brother called Ernest, in order that you may be able to come up to town as often as you like. I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose. Bunbury is perfectly invaluable. If it wasn’t for Bunbury’s extraordinary bad health, for instance, I wouldn’t be able to dine with you at Willis’s to-night, for I have been really engaged to Aunt Augusta for more than a week.

jack

I haven’t asked you to dine with me anywhere to-night.

algernon

I know. You are absurdly careless about sending out invitations. It is very foolish of you. Nothing annoys people so much as not receiving invitations.

jack

You had much better dine with your Aunt Augusta.

·17· algernon

I haven’t the smallest intention of doing anything of the kind. To begin with, I dined there on Monday, and once a week is quite enough to dine with one’s own relations. In the second place, whenever I do dine there I am always treated as a member of the family, and sent down with either no woman at all, or two. In the third place, I know perfectly well whom she will place me next to, to-night. She will place me next Mary Farquhar, who always flirts with her own husband across the dinner-table. That is not very pleasant. Indeed, it is not even decent … and that sort of thing is enormously on the increase. The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks so bad. It is simply washing one’s clean linen in public. Besides, now that I know you to be a confirmed Bunburyist I naturally want to talk to you about Bunburying. I want to tell you the rules.

jack

I’m not a Bunburyist at all. If Gwendolen accepts me, I am going to kill my brother, indeed I think I’ll kill him in any case. Cecily is a little too much interested in him. It is rather a bore. So I am going to get rid of Ernest. And I strongly advise you to do the same with Mr…. with your invalid friend who has the absurd name.

algernon

Nothing will induce me to part with Bunbury, and ·18· if you ever get married, which seems to me extremely problematic, you will be very glad to know Bunbury. A man who marries without knowing Bunbury has a very tedious time of it.

jack

That is nonsense. If I marry a charming girl like Gwendolen, and she is the only girl I ever saw in my life that I would marry, I certainly won’t want to know Bunbury.

algernon

Then your wife will. You don’t seem to realize, that in married life three is company and two is none.

jack

[ Sententiously .] That, my dear young friend, is the theory that the corrupt French Drama has been propounding for the last fifty years.

algernon

Yes; and that the happy English home has proved in half the time.

jack

For heaven’s sake, don’t try to be cynical. It’s perfectly easy to be cynical.

·19· algernon

My dear fellow, it isn’t easy to be anything now-a-days. There’s such a lot of beastly competition about. [ The sound of an electric bell is heard .] Ah! that must be Aunt Augusta. Only relatives, or creditors, ever ring in that Wagnerian manner. Now, if I get her out of the way for ten minutes, so that you can have an opportunity for proposing to Gwendolen, may I dine with you to-night at Willis’s?

jack

I suppose so, if you want to.

algernon

Yes, but you must be serious about it. I hate people who are not serious about meals. It is so shallow of them.

[ Enter Lane .]

lane

Lady Bracknell and Miss Fairfax.

[ Algernon goes forward to meet them. Enter Lady Bracknell and Gwendolen .]

lady bracknell

Good afternoon, dear Algernon, I hope you are behaving very well.

algernon

I’m feeling very well, Aunt Augusta.

·20· lady bracknell

That’s not quite the same thing. In fact the two things rarely go together. [ Sees Jack and bows to him with icy coldness .]

algernon

[ To Gwendolen .] Dear me, you are smart!

gwendolen

I am always smart! Aren’t I, Mr. Worthing?

jack

You’re quite perfect, Miss Fairfax.

gwendolen

Oh! I hope I am not that. It would leave no room for developments, and I intend to develop in many directions. [ Gwendolen and Jack sit down together in the corner .]

lady bracknell

I’m sorry if we are a little late, Algernon, but I was obliged to call on dear Lady Harbury. I hadn’t been there since her poor husband’s death. I never saw a woman so altered; she looks quite twenty years younger. And now I’ll have a cup of tea, and one of those nice cucumber sandwiches you promised me.