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

jack

May I ask you then what you would advise me to do? I need hardly say I would do anything in the world to ensure Gwendolen’s happiness.

lady bracknell

I would strongly advise you, Mr. Worthing, to try and acquire some relations as soon as possible, and to make a definite effort to produce at any rate one parent, of either sex, before the season is quite over.

jack

Well, I don’t see how I could possibly manage to do that. I can produce the hand-bag at any moment. It is in my dressing-room at home. I really think that should satisfy you, Lady Bracknell.

·39· lady bracknell

Me, sir! What has it to do with me? You can hardly imagine that I and Lord Bracknell would dream of allowing our only daughter—a girl brought up with the utmost care—to marry into a cloak-room, and form an alliance with a parcel? Good morning, Mr. Worthing!

[ Lady Bracknell sweeps out in majestic indignation .]

jack

Good morning! [ Algernon, from the other room, strikes up the Wedding March. Jack looks perfectly furious, and goes to the door .] For goodness’ sake don’t play that ghastly tune, Algy! How idiotic you are!

[ The music stops, and Algernon enters cheerily .]

algernon

Didn’t it go off all right, old boy? You don’t mean to say Gwendolen refused you? I know it is a way she has. She is always refusing people. I think it is most ill-natured of her.

jack

Oh, Gwendolen is as right as a trivet. As far as she is concerned, we are engaged. Her mother is perfectly unbearable. Never met such a Gorgon … I don’t really know what a Gorgon is like, but I am quite sure that Lady Bracknell is one. In any case, she is a monster, without being a myth, which is ·40· rather unfair … I beg your pardon, Algy, I suppose I shouldn’t talk about your own aunt in that way before you.

algernon

My dear boy, I love hearing my relations abused. It is the only thing that makes me put up with them at all. Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven’t got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die.

jack

Oh, that is nonsense!

algernon

It isn’t!

jack

Well, I won’t argue about the matter. You always want to argue about things.

algernon

That is exactly what things were originally made for.

jack

Upon my word, if I thought that, I’d shoot myself … [ A pause .] You don’t think there is any chance of Gwendolen becoming like her mother in about a hundred and fifty years, do you Algy?

·41· algernon

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.

jack

Is that clever?

algernon

It is perfectly phrased! and quite as true as any observation in civilized life should be.

jack

I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever now-a-days. You can’t go anywhere without meeting clever people. The thing has become an absolute public nuisance. I wish to goodness we had a few fools left.

algernon

We have.

jack

I should extremely like to meet them. What do they talk about?

algernon

The fools? Oh! about the clever people, of course.

jack

What fools!

·42· algernon

By the way, did you tell Gwendolen the truth about your being Ernest in town, and Jack in the country?

jack

[ In a very patronising manner .] My dear fellow, the truth isn’t quite the sort of thing one tells to a nice sweet refined girl. What extraordinary ideas you have about the way to behave to a woman!

algernon

The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her, if she is pretty, and to someone else if she is plain.

jack

Oh, that is nonsense.

algernon

What about your brother? What about the profligate Ernest?

jack

Oh, before the end of the week I shall have got rid of him. I’ll say he died in Paris of apoplexy. Lots of people die of apoplexy, quite suddenly, don’t they?

·43· algernon

Yes, but it’s hereditary, my dear fellow. It’s a sort of thing that runs in families. You had much better say a severe chill.

jack

You are sure a severe chill isn’t hereditary, or anything of that kind?

algernon

Of course it isn’t!

jack

Very well, then. My poor brother Ernest is carried off suddenly in Paris, by a severe chill. That gets rid of him.

algernon

But I thought you said that … Miss Cardew was a little too much interested in your poor brother Ernest? Won’t she feel his loss a good deal?

jack

Oh, that is all right. Cecily is not a silly romantic girl, I am glad to say. She has got a capital appetite, goes long walks, and pays no attention at all to her lessons.

algernon

I would rather like to see Cecily.

·44· jack

I will take very good care you never do. She is excessively pretty, and she is only just eighteen.

algernon

Have you told Gwendolen yet that you have an excessively pretty ward who is only just eighteen?

jack

Oh! one doesn’t blurt these things out to people. Cecily and Gwendolen are perfectly certain to be extremely great friends. I’ll bet you anything you like that half an hour after they have met, they will be calling each other sister.

algernon

Women only do that when they have called each other a lot of other things first. Now, my dear boy, if we want to get a good table at Willis’s, we really must go and dress. Do you know it is nearly seven?

jack

[ Irritably .] Oh! it always is nearly seven [ E:seven.]

algernon

Well, I’m hungry.

·45· jack

I never knew you when you weren’t….

algernon

What shall we do after dinner? Go to a theatre?

jack

Oh no! I loathe listening.

algernon

Well, let us go to the Club?

jack

Oh, no! I hate talking.

algernon

Well, we might trot round to the Empire at ten?

jack

Oh no! I can’t bear looking at things. It is so silly.

algernon

Well, what shall we do?

jack

Nothing!

·46· algernon

It is awfully hard work doing nothing. However, I don’t mind hard work where there is no definite object of any kind.

[ Enter Lane .]

lane

Miss Fairfax.

[ Enter Gwendolen. Lane goes out .]

algernon

Gwendolen, upon my word!

gwendolen

Algy, kindly turn your back. I have something very particular to say to Mr. Worthing.

algernon

Really, Gwendolen, I don’t think I can allow this at all.

gwendolen

Algy, you always adopt a strictly immoral attitude towards life. You are not quite old enough to do that. [ Algernon retires to the fireplace .]

jack

My own darling!

·47· gwendolen

Ernest, we may never be married. From the expression on mamma’s face I fear we never shall. Few parents now-a-days pay any regard to what their children say to them. The old-fashioned respect for the young is fast dying out. Whatever influence I ever had over mamma, I lost at the age of three. But although she may prevent us from becoming man and wife, and I may marry someone else, and marry often, nothing that she can possibly do can alter my eternal devotion to you.

jack

Dear Gwendolen!

gwendolen

The story of your romantic origin, as related to me by mamma, with unpleasing comments, has naturally stirred the deeper fibres of my nature. Your Christian name has an irresistible fascination. The simplicity of your character makes you exquisitely incomprehensible to me. Your town address at the Albany I have. What is your address in the country?

jack

The Manor House, Woolton, Hertfordshire.

[ Algernon, who has been carefully listening, smiles to himself, and writes the address on his shirt-cuff. Then picks up the Railway Guide .]