An Ideal Husband Oscar Wilde (pride and prejudice read TXT) š
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- Author: Oscar Wilde
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me stay for five minutes. I have made up my mind what I am going to do tonight in the House. The debate on the Argentine Canal is to begin at eleven. A chair falls in the drawing room. What is that?
Lord Goring
Nothing.
Sir Robert Chiltern
I heard a chair fall in the next room. Someone has been listening.
Lord Goring
No, no; there is no one there.
Sir Robert Chiltern
There is someone. There are lights in the room, and the door is ajar. Someone has been listening to every secret of my life. Arthur, what does this mean?
Lord Goring
Robert, you are excited, unnerved. I tell you there is no one in that room. Sit down, Robert.
Sir Robert Chiltern
Do you give me your word that there is no one there?
Lord Goring
Yes.
Sir Robert Chiltern
Your word of honour? Sits down.
Lord Goring
Yes.
Sir Robert Chiltern
Rises. Arthur, let me see for myself.
Lord Goring
No, no.
Sir Robert Chiltern
If there is no one there why should I not look in that room? Arthur, you must let me go into that room and satisfy myself. Let me know that no eavesdropper has heard my lifeās secret. Arthur, you donāt realise what I am going through.
Lord Goring
Robert, this must stop. I have told you that there is no one in that roomā āthat is enough.
Sir Robert Chiltern
Rushes to the door of the room. It is not enough. I insist on going into this room. You have told me there is no one there, so what reason can you have for refusing me?
Lord Goring
For Godās sake, donāt! There is someone there. Someone whom you must not see.
Sir Robert Chiltern
Ah, I thought so!
Lord Goring
I forbid you to enter that room.
Sir Robert Chiltern
Stand back. My life is at stake. And I donāt care who is there. I will know who it is to whom I have told my secret and my shame. Enters room.
Lord Goring
Great heavens! his own wife!
Sir Robert Chiltern comes back, with a look of scorn and anger on his face.
Sir Robert Chiltern
What explanation have you to give me for the presence of that woman here?
Lord Goring
Robert, I swear to you on my honour that that lady is stainless and guiltless of all offence towards you.
Sir Robert Chiltern
She is a vile, an infamous thing!
Lord Goring
Donāt say that, Robert! It was for your sake she came here. It was to try and save you she came here. She loves you and no one else.
Sir Robert Chiltern
You are mad. What have I to do with her intrigues with you? Let her remain your mistress! You are well suited to each other. She, corrupt and shamefulā āyou, false as a friend, treacherous as an enemy evenā ā
Lord Goring
It is not true, Robert. Before heaven, it is not true. In her presence and in yours I will explain all.
Sir Robert Chiltern
Let me pass, sir. You have lied enough upon your word of honour.
Sir Robert Chiltern goes out. Lord Goring rushes to the door of the drawing room, when Mrs. Cheveley comes out, looking radiant and much amused.
Mrs. Cheveley
With a mock curtsey. Good evening, Lord Goring!
Lord Goring
Mrs. Cheveley! Great heavens!ā āā ā¦ May I ask what you were doing in my drawing room?
Mrs. Cheveley
Merely listening. I have a perfect passion for listening through keyholes. One always hears such wonderful things through them.
Lord Goring
Doesnāt that sound rather like tempting Providence?
Mrs. Cheveley
Oh! surely Providence can resist temptation by this time. Makes a sign to him to take her cloak off, which he does.
Lord Goring
I am glad you have called. I am going to give you some good advice.
Mrs. Cheveley
Oh! pray donāt. One should never give a woman anything that she canāt wear in the evening.
Lord Goring
I see you are quite as wilful as you used to be.
Mrs. Cheveley
Far more! I have greatly improved. I have had more experience.
Lord Goring
Too much experience is a dangerous thing. Pray have a cigarette. Half the pretty women in London smoke cigarettes. Personally I prefer the other half.
Mrs. Cheveley
Thanks. I never smoke. My dressmaker wouldnāt like it, and a womanās first duty in life is to her dressmaker, isnāt it? What the second duty is, no one has as yet discovered.
Lord Goring
You have come here to sell me Robert Chilternās letter, havenāt you?
Mrs. Cheveley
To offer it to you on conditions. How did you guess that?
Lord Goring
Because you havenāt mentioned the subject. Have you got it with you?
Mrs. Cheveley
Sitting down. Oh, no! A well-made dress has no pockets.
Lord Goring
What is your price for it?
Mrs. Cheveley
How absurdly English you are! The English think that a chequebook can solve every problem in life. Why, my dear Arthur, I have very much more money than you have, and quite as much as Robert Chiltern has got hold of. Money is not what I want.
Lord Goring
What do you want then, Mrs. Cheveley?
Mrs. Cheveley
Why donāt you call me Laura?
Lord Goring
I donāt like the name.
Mrs. Cheveley
You used to adore it.
Lord Goring
Yes: thatās why. Mrs. Cheveley motions to him to sit down beside her. He smiles, and does so.
Mrs. Cheveley
Arthur, you loved me once.
Lord Goring
Yes.
Mrs. Cheveley
And you asked me to be your wife.
Lord Goring
That was the natural result of my loving you.
Mrs. Cheveley
And you threw me over because you saw, or said you saw, poor old Lord Mortlake trying to have a violent flirtation with me in the conservatory at Tenby.
Lord Goring
I am under the impression that my lawyer settled that matter with you on certain termsā āā ā¦ dictated by yourself.
Mrs. Cheveley
At that time I was poor; you were rich.
Lord Goring
Quite so. That is why you pretended to love me.
Mrs. Cheveley
Shrugging her shoulders. Poor old Lord Mortlake, who had only two topics of conversation, his gout and his wife! I never could quite make out which of the two he was talking about. He used the most horrible
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