Knowledge house - Oscar Wilde - The Complete Works

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.

·46· lady hunstanton

But do you really think, dear Caroline, that legislation would improve matters in any way? I am told that, now-a-days, 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 am tired of meeting him.

·47· 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.

·48· 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 ·49· 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.

lady stutfield

Yes; men’s good temper shows they are not so sensitive as we are, not so finely strung. It makes a great barrier often between husband and wife, does it not? But I would so much like to know what was the wrong thing Mr. Allonby did.

mrs. allonby

Well, I will tell you, if you solemnly promise to tell everybody else.

·50· lady stutfield

Thank you, thank you. I will make a point of repeating it.

mrs. allonby

When Ernest and I were engaged he swore to me positively on his knees that he never had loved any one before in the whole course of his life. I was very young at the time, so I didn’t believe him, I needn’t tell you. Unfortunately, however, I made no enquiries of any kind till after I had been actually married four or five months. I found out then that what he had told me was perfectly true. And that sort of thing makes a man so absolutely uninteresting.

lady hunstanton

My dear!

mrs. allonby

Men always want to be a woman’s first love. That is their clumsy vanity. We women have a more subtle instinct about things. What we like is to be a man’s last romance.

lady stutfield

I see what you mean. It’s very, very beautiful.

lady hunstanton

My dear child, you don’t mean to tell me that you won’t forgive your husband because he never loved any one else? Did you ever hear such a thing, Caroline? I am quite surprised.

·51· lady caroline

Oh, women have become so highly educated, Jane, that nothing should surprise us now-a-days, except happy marriages. They apparently are getting remarkably rare.

mrs. allonby

Oh, they’re quite out of date.

lady stutfield

Except amongst the middle classes, I have been told.

mrs. allonby

How like the middle classes!

lady stutfield

Yes—is it not?—very, very like them.

lady caroline

If what you tell us about the middle classes is true, Lady Stutfield, it redounds greatly to their credit. It is much to be regretted that in our rank of life the wife should be so persistently frivolous, under the impression apparently that it is the proper thing to be. It is to that I attribute the unhappiness of so many marriages we all know of in society.

mrs. allonby

Do you know, Lady Caroline, I don’t think the ·52· frivolity of the wife has ever anything to do with it. More marriages are ruined now-a-days by the common sense of the husband than by anything else. How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly rational being?

lady hunstanton

My dear!

mrs. allonby

Man, poor, awkward, reliable, necessary man belongs to a sex that has been rational for millions and millions of years. He can’t help himself. It is in his race. The History of Woman is very different. We have always been picturesque protests against the mere existence of common sense. We saw its dangers from the first.

lady stutfield

Yes, the common sense of husbands is certainly most, most trying. Do tell me your conception of the Ideal Husband. I think it would be so very, very helpful.

mrs. allonby

The Ideal Husband? There couldn’t be such a thing. The institution is wrong.

lady stutfield

The Ideal Man, then, in his relations to us .

·53· lady caroline

He would probably be extremely realistic.

mrs. allonby

The Ideal Man! Oh, the Ideal Man should talk to us as if we were goddesses, and treat us as if we were children. He should refuse all our serious requests, and gratify every one of our whims. He should encourage us to have caprices, and forbid us to have missions. He should always say much more than he means, and always mean much more than he says.

lady hunstanton

But how could he do both, dear?

mrs. allonby

He should never run down other pretty women. That would show he had no taste, or make one suspect that he had too much. No; he should be nice about them all, but say that somehow they don’t attract him.

lady stutfield

Yes, that is always very, very pleasant to hear about other women.

mrs. allonby

If we ask him a question about anything, he should give us an answer all about ourselves. ·54· He should invariably praise us for whatever qualities he knows we haven’t got. But he should be pitiless, quite pitiless, in reproaching us for the virtues that we have never dreamed of possessing. He should never believe that we know the use of useful things. That would be unforgiveable. But he should shower on us everything we don’t want.