Knowledge house - Oscar Wilde - The Complete Works

[ Enter Hester behind .]

gerald

I implore you to do what I ask you.

mrs. arbuthnot

What son has ever asked of his mother to make so hideous a sacrifice? None.

gerald

What mother has ever refused to marry the father of her own child? None.

mrs. arbuthnot

Let me be the first, then. I will not do it.

gerald

Mother, you believe in religion, and you brought me up to believe in it also. Well, surely your religion, the religion that you taught me when I was a boy, mother, must tell you that I am right. You know it, you feel it.

mrs. arbuthnot

I do not know it. I do not feel it, nor will I ·134· ever stand before God’s altar and ask God’s blessing on so hideous a mockery as a marriage between me and George Harford. I will not say the words the Church bids us to say. I will not say them. I dare not. How could I swear to love the man I loathe, to honour him who wrought you dishonour, to obey him who, in his mastery, made me to sin? No: marriage is a sacrament for those who love each other. It is not for such as him, or such as me. Gerald, to save you from the world’s sneers and taunts I have lied to the world. For twenty years I have lied to the world. I could not tell the world the truth. Who can, ever? But not for my own sake will I lie to God, and in God’s presence. No, Gerald, no ceremony, Church-hallowed or State-made, shall ever bind me to George Harford. It may be that I am too bound to him already, who, robbing me, yet left me richer, so that in the mire of my life, I found the pearl of price, or what I thought would be so.

gerald

I don’t understand you now.

mrs. arbuthnot

Men don’t understand what mothers are. I am no different from other women except in the wrong done me and the wrong I did, and my very heavy punishments and great disgrace. And yet, to bear you I had to look on death. To nurture you I had to wrestle with it. Death fought with me for you. All women have to fight with death ·135· to keep their children. Death, being childless, wants our children from us. Gerald, when you were naked I clothed you, when you were hungry I gave you food. Night and day all that long winter I tended you. No office is too mean, no care too lowly for the thing we women love—and oh! how I loved you . Not Hannah Samuel more. And you needed love, for you were weakly, and only love could have kept you alive. Only love can keep any one alive. And boys are careless often and without thinking give pain, and we always fancy that when they come to man’s estate and know us better, they will repay us. But it is not so. The world draws them from our side, and they make friends with whom they are happier than they are with us, and have amusements from which we are barred, and interests that are not ours: and they are unjust to us often, for when they find life bitter they blame us for it, and when they find it sweet we do not taste its sweetness with them…. You made many friends and went into their houses and were glad with them, and I, knowing my secret, did not dare to follow, but stayed at home and closed the door, shut out the sun and sat in darkness. What should I have done in honest households? My past was ever with me…. And you thought I didn’t care for the pleasant things of life. I tell you I longed for them, but did not dare to touch them, feeling I had no right. You thought I was happier working amongst the poor. That was my mission, you imagined. It was not, but ·136· where else was I to go? The sick do not ask if the hand that smooths their pillow is pure, nor the dying care if the lips that touch their brow have known the kiss of sin. It was you I thought of all the time; I gave to them the love you did not need: lavished on them a love that was not theirs…. And you thought I spent too much of my time in going to Church, and in Church duties. But where else could I turn? God’s house is the only house where sinners are made welcome, and you were always in my heart, Gerald, too much in my heart. For, though day after day, at morn or evensong, I have knelt in God’s house, I have never repented of my sin. How could I repent of my sin when you, my love, were its fruit! Even now that you are bitter to me I cannot repent. I do not. You are more to me than innocence. I would rather be your mother—oh! much rather!—than have been always pure…. Oh, don’t you see? don’t you understand? It is my dishonour that has made you so dear to me. It is my disgrace that has bound you so closely to me. It is the price I paid for you—the price of soul and body—that makes me love you as I do. Oh, don’t ask me to do this horrible thing. Child of my shame, be still the child of my shame!

gerald

Mother, I didn’t know you loved me so much as that. And I will be a better son to you than I have been. And you and I must never leave ·137· each other … but, mother … I can’t help it … you must become my father’s wife. You must marry him. It is your duty.

hester

[ Running forward and embracing Mrs. Arbuthnot .] No, no: you shall not. That would be real dishonour, the first you have ever known. That would be real disgrace: the first to touch you. Leave him and come with me. There are other countries than England…. Oh! other countries over sea, better, wiser, and less unjust lands. The world is very wide and very big.

mrs. arbuthnot

No, not for me. For me the world is shrivelled to a palm’s breadth, and where I walk there are thorns.

hester

It shall not be so. We shall somewhere find green valleys and fresh waters, and if we weep, well, we shall weep together. Have we not both loved him?

gerald

Hester!

hester

[ Waving him back .] Don’t, don’t! You cannot love me at all, unless you love her also. You ·138· cannot honour me, unless she’s holier to you. In her all womanhood is martyred. Not she alone, but all of us are stricken in her house.

gerald

Hester, Hester, what shall I do?

hester

Do you respect the man who is your father?

gerald

Respect him? I despise him! He is infamous!

hester

I thank you for saving me from him last night.

gerald

Ah, that is nothing. I would die to save you. But you don’t tell me what to do now!

hester

Have I not thanked you for saving me ?

gerald

But what should I do?

hester

Ask your own heart, not mine. I never had a mother to save, or shame.

·139· mrs. arbuthnot

He is hard—he is hard. Let me go away.

gerald

[ Rushes over and kneels down beside his mother .] Mother, forgive me: I have been to blame.

mrs. arbuthnot

Don’t kiss my hands: they are cold. My heart is cold: something has broken it.

hester

Ah, don’t say that. Hearts live by being wounded. Pleasure may turn a heart to stone, riches may make it callous, but sorrow—oh, sorrow cannot break it. Besides, what sorrows have you now? Why, at this moment you are more dear to him than ever, dear though you have been , and oh! how dear you have been always. Ah! be kind to him.

gerald

You are my mother and my father all in one. I need no second parent. It was for you I spoke, for you alone. Oh, say something, mother. Have I but found one love to lose another? Don’t tell me that. O mother, you are cruel. [ Gets up and flings himself sobbing on a sofa .]

mrs. arbuthnot

[ To Hester .] But has he found indeed another love?

·140· hester

You know I have loved him always.

mrs. arbuthnot

But we are very poor.

hester

Who, being loved, is poor? Oh, no one. I hate my riches. They are a burden. Let him share it with me.

mrs. arbuthnot

But we are disgraced. We rank among the outcasts. Gerald is nameless. The sins of the parents should be visited on the children. It is God’s law.