An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde (different e readers TXT) 📖

had

better write it at once. Such offers are not repeated. I will ask

you to excuse me for a moment, Lord Caversham.

 

LADY CHILTERN. I may come with you, Robert, may I not?

 

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Yes, Gertrude.

 

[LADY CHILTERN goes out with him.]

 

LORD CAVERSHAM. What is the matter with this family? Something

wrong here, eh? [Tapping his forehead.] Idiocy? Hereditary, I

suppose. Both of them, too. Wife as well as husband. Very sad.

Very sad indeed! And they are not an old family. Can’t understand

it.

 

LORD GORING. It is not idiocy, father, I assure you.

 

LORD CAVERSHAM. What is it then, sir?

 

LORD GORING. [After some hesitation.] Well, it is what is called

nowadays a high moral tone, father. That is all.

 

LORD CAVERSHAM. Hate these new-fangled names. Same thing as we used

to call idiocy fifty years ago. Shan’t stay in this house any

longer.

 

LORD GORING. [Taking his arm.] Oh! just go in here for a moment,

father. Third palm tree to the left, the usual palm tree.

 

LORD CAVERSHAM. What, sir?

 

LORD GORING. I beg your pardon, father, I forgot. The conservatory,

father, the conservatory - there is some one there I want you to talk

to.

 

LORD CAVERSHAM. What about, sir?

 

LORD GORING. About me, father,

 

LORD CAVERSHAM. [Grimly.] Not a subject on which much eloquence is

possible.

 

LORD GORING. No, father; but the lady is like me. She doesn’t care

much for eloquence in others. She thinks it a little loud.

 

[LORD CAVERSHAM goes out into the conservatory. LADY CHILTERN

enters.]

 

LORD GORING. Lady Chiltern, why are you playing Mrs. Cheveley’s

cards?

 

LADY CHILTERN. [Startled.] I don’t understand you.

 

LORD GORING. Mrs. Cheveley made an attempt to ruin your husband.

Either to drive him from public life, or to make him adopt a

dishonourable position. From the latter tragedy you saved him. The

former you are now thrusting on him. Why should you do him the wrong

Mrs. Cheveley tried to do and failed?

 

LADY CHILTERN. Lord Goring?

 

LORD GORING. [Pulling himself together for a great effort, and

showing the philosopher that underlies the dandy.] Lady Chiltern,

allow me. You wrote me a letter last night in which you said you

trusted me and wanted my help. Now is the moment when you really

want my help, now is the time when you have got to trust me, to trust

in my counsel and judgment. You love Robert. Do you want to kill

his love for you? What sort of existence will he have if you rob him

of the fruits of his ambition, if you take him from the splendour of

a great political career, if you close the doors of public life

against him, if you condemn him to sterile failure, he who was made

for triumph and success? Women are not meant to judge us, but to

forgive us when we need forgiveness. Pardon, not punishment, is

their mission. Why should you scourge him with rods for a sin done

in his youth, before he knew you, before he knew himself? A man’s

life is of more value than a woman’s. It has larger issues, wider

scope, greater ambitions. A woman’s life revolves in curves of

emotions. It is upon lines of intellect that a man’s life

progresses. Don’t make any terrible mistake, Lady Chiltern. A woman

who can keep a man’s love, and love him in return, has done all the

world wants of women, or should want of them.

 

LADY CHILTERN. [Troubled and hesitating.] But it is my husband

himself who wishes to retire from public life. He feels it is his

duty. It was he who first said so.

 

LORD GORING. Rather than lose your love, Robert would do anything,

wreck his whole career, as he is on the brink of doing now. He is

making for you a terrible sacrifice. Take my advice, Lady Chiltern,

and do not accept a sacrifice so great. If you do, you will live to

repent it bitterly. We men and women are not made to accept such

sacrifices from each other. We are not worthy of them. Besides,

Robert has been punished enough.

 

LADY CHILTERN. We have both been punished. I set him up too high.

 

LORD GORING. [With deep feeling in his voice.] Do not for that

reason set him down now too low. If he has fallen from his altar, do

not thrust him into the mire. Failure to Robert would be the very

mire of shame. Power is his passion. He would lose everything, even

his power to feel love. Your husband’s life is at this moment in

your hands, your husband’s love is in your hands. Don’t mar both for

him.

 

[Enter SIR ROBERT CHILTERN.]

 

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Gertrude, here is the draft of my letter.

Shall I read it to you?

 

LADY CHILTERN. Let me see it.

 

[SIR ROBERT hands her the letter. She reads it, and then, with a

gesture of passion, tears it up.]

 

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. What are you doing?

 

LADY CHILTERN. A man’s life is of more value than a woman’s. It has

larger issues, wider scope, greater ambitions. Our lives revolve in

curves of emotions. It is upon lines of intellect that a man’s life

progresses. I have just learnt this, and much else with it, from

Lord Goring. And I will not spoil your life for you, nor see you

spoil it as a sacrifice to me, a useless sacrifice!

 

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Gertrude! Gertrude!

 

LADY CHILTERN. You can forget. Men easily forget. And I forgive.

That is how women help the world. I see that now.

 

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [Deeply overcome by emotion, embraces her.] My

wife! my wife! [To LORD GORING.] Arthur, it seems that I am always

to be in your debt.

 

LORD GORING. Oh dear no, Robert. Your debt is to Lady Chiltern, not

to me!

 

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. I owe you much. And now tell me what you were

going to ask me just now as Lord Caversham came in.

 

LORD GORING. Robert, you are your sister’s guardian, and I want your

consent to my marriage with her. That is all.

 

LADY CHILTERN. Oh, I am so glad! I am so glad! [Shakes hands with

LORD GORING.]

 

LORD GORING. Thank you, Lady Chiltern.

 

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [With a troubled look.] My sister to be your

wife?

 

LORD GORING. Yes.

 

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [Speaking with great firmness.] Arthur, I am

very sorry, but the thing is quite out of the question. I have to

think of Mabel’s future happiness. And I don’t think her happiness

would be safe in your hands. And I cannot have her sacrificed!

 

LORD GORING. Sacrificed!

 

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Yes, utterly sacrificed. Loveless marriages

are horrible. But there is one thing worse than an absolutely

loveless marriage. A marriage in which there is love, but on one

side only; faith, but on one side only; devotion, but on one side

only, and in which of the two hearts one is sure to be broken.

 

LORD GORING. But I love Mabel. No other woman has any place in my

life.

 

LADY CHILTERN. Robert, if they love each other, why should they not

be married?

 

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Arthur cannot bring Mabel the love that she

deserves.

 

LORD GORING. What reason have you for saying that?

 

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [After a pause.] Do you really require me to

tell you?

 

LORD GORING. Certainly I do.

 

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. As you choose. When I called on you yesterday

evening I found Mrs. Cheveley concealed in your rooms. It was

between ten and eleven o’clock at night. I do not wish to say

anything more. Your relations with Mrs. Cheveley have, as I said to

you last night, nothing whatsoever to do with me. I know you were

engaged to be married to her once. The fascination she exercised

over you then seems to have returned. You spoke to me last night of

her as of a woman pure and stainless, a woman whom you respected and

honoured. That may be so. But I cannot give my sister’s life into

your hands. It would be wrong of me. It would be unjust, infamously

unjust to her.

 

LORD GORING. I have nothing more to say.

 

LADY CHILTERN. Robert, it was not Mrs. Cheveley whom Lord Goring

expected last night.

 

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Not Mrs. Cheveley! Who was it then?

 

LORD GORING. Lady Chiltern!

 

LADY CHILTERN. It was your own wife. Robert, yesterday afternoon

Lord Goring told me that if ever I was in trouble I could come to him

for help, as he was our oldest and best friend. Later on, after that

terrible scene in this room, I wrote to him telling him that I

trusted him, that I had need of him, that I was coming to him for

help and advice. [SIR ROBERT CHILTERN takes the letter out of his

pocket.] Yes, that letter. I didn’t go to Lord Goring’s, after all.

I felt that it is from ourselves alone that help can come. Pride

made me think that. Mrs. Cheveley went. She stole my letter and

sent it anonymously to you this morning, that you should think …

Oh! Robert, I cannot tell you what she wished you to think… .

 

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. What! Had I fallen so low in your eyes that

you thought that even for a moment I could have doubted your

goodness? Gertrude, Gertrude, you are to me the white image of all

good things, and sin can never touch you. Arthur, you can go to

Mabel, and you have my best wishes! Oh! stop a moment. There is no

name at the beginning of this letter. The brilliant Mrs. Cheveley

does not seem to have noticed that. There should be a name.

 

LADY CHILTERN. Let me write yours. It is you I trust and need. You

and none else.

 

LORD GORING. Well, really, Lady Chiltern, I think I should have back

my own letter.

 

LADY CHILTERN. [Smiling.] No; you shall have Mabel. [Takes the

letter and writes her husband’s name on it.]

 

LORD GORING. Well, I hope she hasn’t changed her mind. It’s nearly

twenty minutes since I saw her last.

 

[Enter MABEL CHILTERN and LORD CAVERSHAM.]

 

MABEL CHILTERN. Lord Goring, I think your father’s conversation much

more improving than yours. I am only going to talk to Lord Caversham

in the future, and always under the usual palm tree.

 

LORD GORING. Darling! [Kisses her.]

 

LORD CAVERSHAM. [Considerably taken aback.] What does this mean,

sir? You don’t mean to say that this charming, clever young lady has

been so foolish as to accept you?

 

LORD GORING. Certainly, father! And Chiltern’s been wise enough to

accept the seat in the Cabinet.

 

LORD CAVERSHAM. I am very glad to hear that, Chiltern … I

congratulate you, sir. If the country doesn’t go to the dogs or the

Radicals, we shall have you Prime Minister, some day.

 

[Enter MASON.]

 

MASON. Luncheon is on the table, my Lady!

 

[MASON goes out.]

 

MABEL CHILTERN. You’ll stop to luncheon, Lord Caversham, won’t you?

 

LORD CAVERSHAM. With pleasure, and I’ll drive you down to Downing

Street afterwards, Chiltern. You have a great future before you, a

great future. Wish I could say the same for you, sir. [To LORD

GORING.] But your career will have to be entirely domestic.

 

LORD GORING. Yes, father, I prefer it domestic.

 

LORD CAVERSHAM. And if you don’t make this young lady an ideal

husband, I’ll cut you off with a shilling.