автордың кітабын онлайн тегін оқу  The Importance of Being Earnest

Oscar Wilde

Dramatis Personae

• John Wor­th­ing, J. P.

• Al­gernon Mon­crieff

• Rev. Canon Chas­uble, DD

• Mer­ri­man, But­ler

• Lane, Manser­vant

• Lady Brack­nell

• Hon. Gwen­dolen Fair­fax

• Ce­cily Cardew

• Miss Prism, Governess

The Scenes of the Play

Act I: Al­gernon Mon­crieff’s Flat in Half-Moon Street, W.

Act II:  The Garden at the Manor House, Woolton.

Act III: Draw­ing-Room at the Manor House, Woolton.

Time: The Present

Lon­don: St. James’s Theatre

Lessee and Man­ager: Mr. Ge­orge Al­ex­an­der

Febru­ary 14th, 1895

John Wor­th­ing,

J. P.

:

Mr. Ge­orge Al­ex­an­der.

Al­gernon Mon­crieff:

Mr. Al­len Aynes­worth.

Rev. Canon Chas­uble, DD:

Mr. 

H. H.

Vin­cent.

Mer­ri­man:

Mr. Frank Dy­all.

Lane:

Mr. 

F.

Kin­sey Peile.

Lady Brack­nell:

Miss Rose Le­clercq.

Hon. Gwen­dolen Fair­fax:

Miss Irene Van­brugh.

Ce­cily Cardew:

Miss Evelyn Mil­lard.

Miss Prism:

Mrs. Ge­orge Can­ninge.

Act I

Scene: Morn­ing-room in Al­gernon’s flat in Half-Moon Street. The room is lux­uri­ously and artist­ic­ally fur­nished. The sound of a pi­ano is heard in the ad­join­ing room.

Lane is ar­ran­ging af­ter­noon tea on the table, and after the mu­sic has ceased, Al­gernon enters.

Al­gernon

Did you hear what I was play­ing, Lane?

Lane

I didn’t think it po­lite to listen, sir.

Al­gernon

I’m sorry for that, for your sake. I don’t play ac­cur­ately—any­one can play ac­cur­ately—but I play with won­der­ful ex­pres­sion. As far as the pi­ano is con­cerned, sen­ti­ment is my forte. I keep sci­ence for Life.

Lane

Yes, sir.

Al­gernon

And, speak­ing of the sci­ence of Life, have you got the cu­cum­ber sand­wiches cut for Lady Brack­nell?

Lane

Yes, sir.

Hands them on a sal­ver.

Al­gernon

In­spects them, takes two, and sits down on the sofa.

Oh! … by the way, Lane, I see from your book that on Thursday night, when Lord Shore­man and Mr. Wor­th­ing were din­ing with me, eight bottles of cham­pagne are entered as hav­ing been con­sumed.

Lane

Yes, sir; eight bottles and a pint.

Al­gernon

Why is it that at a bach­elor’s es­tab­lish­ment the ser­vants in­vari­ably drink the cham­pagne? I ask merely for in­form­a­tion.

Lane

I at­trib­ute it to the su­per­ior qual­ity of the wine, sir. I have of­ten ob­served that in mar­ried house­holds the cham­pagne is rarely of a first-rate brand.

Al­gernon

Good heav­ens! Is mar­riage so de­mor­al­ising as that?

Lane

I be­lieve it

is

a very pleas­ant state, sir. I have had very little ex­per­i­ence of it my­self up to the present. I have only been mar­ried once. That was in con­sequence of a mis­un­der­stand­ing between my­self and a young per­son.

Al­gernon

Lan­guidly.

I don’t know that I am much in­ter­ested in your fam­ily life, Lane.

Lane

No, sir; it is not a very in­ter­est­ing sub­ject. I never think of it my­self.

Al­gernon

Very nat­ural, I am sure. That will do, Lane, thank you.

Lane

Thank you, sir.

Lane goes out.

Al­gernon

Lane’s views on mar­riage seem some­what lax. Really, if the lower or­ders don’t set us a good ex­ample, what on earth is the use of them? They seem, as a class, to have ab­so­lutely no sense of moral re­spons­ib­il­ity.

Enter Lane.

Lane

Mr. Ern­est Wor­th­ing.

Enter Jack. Lane goes out.

Al­gernon

How are you, my dear Ern­est? What brings you up to town?

Jack

Oh, pleas­ure, pleas­ure! What else should bring one any­where? Eat­ing as usual, I see, Algy!

Al­gernon

Stiffly.

I be­lieve it is cus­tom­ary in good so­ci­ety to take some slight re­fresh­ment at five o’clock. Where have you been since last Thursday?

Jack

Sit­ting down on the sofa.

In the coun­try.

Al­gernon

What on earth do you do there?

Jack

Pulling off his gloves.

When one is in town one amuses one­self. When one is in the coun­try one amuses other people. It is ex­cess­ively bor­ing.

Al­gernon

And who are the people you amuse?

Jack

Air­ily.

Oh, neigh­bours, neigh­bours.

Al­gernon

Got nice neigh­bours in your part of Shrop­shire?

Jack

Per­fectly hor­rid! Never speak to one of them.

Al­gernon

How im­mensely you must amuse them!

Goes over and takes sand­wich.

By the way, Shrop­shire is your county, is it not?

Jack

Eh? Shrop­shire? Yes, of course. Hallo! Why all these cups? Why cu­cum­ber sand­wiches? Why such reck­less ex­tra­vag­ance in one so young? Who is com­ing to tea?

Al­gernon

Oh! merely Aunt Augusta and Gwen­dolen.

Jack

How per­fectly de­light­ful!

Al­gernon

Yes, that is all very well; but I am afraid Aunt Augusta won’t quite ap­prove of your be­ing here.

Jack

May I ask why?

Al­gernon

My dear fel­low, the way you flirt with Gwen­dolen is per­fectly dis­grace­ful. It is al­most as bad as the way Gwen­dolen flirts with you.

Jack

I am in love with Gwen­dolen. I have come up to town ex­pressly to pro­pose to her.

Al­gernon

I thought you had come up for pleas­ure? … I call that busi­ness.

Jack

How ut­terly un­ro­mantic you are!

Al­gernon

I really don’t see any­thing ro­mantic in pro­pos­ing. It is very ro­mantic to be in love. But there is noth­ing ro­mantic about a def­in­ite pro­posal. Why, one may be ac­cep­ted. One usu­ally is, I be­lieve. Then the ex­cite­ment is all over. The very es­sence of ro­mance is un­cer­tainty. If ever I get mar­ried, I’ll cer­tainly try to for­get the fact.

Jack

I have no doubt about that, dear Algy. The Di­vorce Court was spe­cially in­ven­ted for people whose memor­ies are so curi­ously con­sti­tuted.

Al­gernon

Oh! there is no use spec­u­lat­ing on that sub­ject. Di­vorces are made in Heaven—

Jack puts out his hand to take a sand­wich. Al­gernon at once in­ter­feres.

Please don’t touch the cu­cum­ber sand­wiches. They are ordered spe­cially for Aunt Augusta.

Takes one and eats it

Jack

Well, you have been eat­ing them all the time.

Al­gernon

That is quite a dif­fer­ent mat­ter. She is my aunt.

Takes plate from be­low.

Have some bread and but­ter. The bread and but­ter is for Gwen­dolen. Gwen­dolen is de­voted to bread and but­ter.

Jack

Ad­van­cing to table and help­ing him­self.

And very good bread and but­ter it is too.

Al­gernon

Well, my dear fel­low, you need not eat as if you were go­ing to eat it all. You be­have as if you were mar­ried to her already. You are not mar­ried to her already, and I don’t think you ever will be.

Jack

Why on earth do you say that?

Al­gernon

Well, in the first place girls never marry the men they flirt with. Girls don’t think it right.

Jack

Oh, that is non­sense!

Al­gernon

It isn’t. It is a great truth. It ac­counts for the ex­traordin­ary num­ber of bach­el­ors that one sees all over the place. In the second place, I don’t give my con­sent.

Jack

Your con­sent!

Al­gernon

My dear fel­low, Gwen­dolen is my first cousin. And be­fore I al­low you to marry her, you will have to clear up the whole ques­tion of Ce­cily.

Rings bell.

Jack

Ce­cily! What on earth do you mean? What do you mean, Algy, by Ce­cily! I don’t know any­one of the name of Ce­cily.

Enter Lane.

Al­gernon

Bring me that ci­gar­ette case Mr. Wor­th­ing left in the smoking-room the last time he dined here.

Lane

Yes, sir.

Lane goes out.

Jack

Do you mean to say you have had my ci­gar­ette case all this time? I wish to good­ness you had let me know. I have been writ­ing frantic let­ters to Scot­land Yard about it. I was very nearly of­fer­ing a large re­ward.

Al­gernon

Well, I wish you would of­fer one. I hap­pen to be more than usu­ally hard up.

Jack

There is no good of­fer­ing a large re­ward now that the thing is found.

Enter Lane with the ci­gar­ette case on a sal­ver. Al­gernon takes it at once. Lane goes out.

Al­gernon

I think that is rather mean of you, Ern­est, I must say.

Opens case and ex­am­ines it.

However, it makes no mat­ter, for, now that I look at the in­scrip­tion in­side, I find that the thing isn’t yours after all.

Jack

Of course it’s mine.

Mov­ing to him.

You have seen me with it a hun­dred times, and you have no right what­so­ever to read what is writ­ten in­side. It is a very un­gen­tle­manly thing to read a private ci­gar­ette case.

Al­gernon

Oh! it is ab­surd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn’t. More than half of mod­ern cul­ture de­pends on what one shouldn’t read.

Jack

I am quite aware of the fact, and I don’t pro­pose to dis­cuss mod­ern cul­ture. It isn’t the sort of thing one should talk of in private. I simply want my ci­gar­ette case back.

Al­gernon

Yes; but this isn’t your ci­gar­ette case. This ci­gar­ette case is a present from someone of the name of Ce­cily, and you said you didn’t know any­one of that name.

Jack

Well, if you want to know, Ce­cily hap­pens to be my aunt.

Al­gernon

Your aunt!

Jack

Yes. Charm­ing old lady she is, too. Lives at Tun­bridge Wells. Just give it back to me, Algy.

Al­gernon

Retreat­ing to back of sofa.

But why does she call her­self little Ce­cily if she is your aunt and lives at Tun­bridge Wells?

Read­ing.

“From little Ce­cily with her fond­est love.”

Jack

Mov­ing to sofa and kneel­ing upon it.

My dear fel­low, what on earth is there in that? Some aunts are tall, some aunts are not tall. That is a mat­ter that surely an aunt may be al­lowed to de­cide for her­self. You seem to think that every aunt should be ex­actly like your aunt! That is ab­surd! For Heaven’s sake give me back my ci­gar­ette case.

Fol­lows Al­gernon round the room.

Al­gernon

Yes. But why does your aunt call you her uncle? “From little Ce­cily, with her fond­est love to her dear Uncle Jack.” There is no ob­jec­tion, I ad­mit, to an aunt be­ing a small aunt, but why an aunt, no mat­ter what her size may be, should call her own nephew her uncle, I can’t quite make out. Besides, your name isn’t Jack at all; it is Ern­est.

Jack

It isn’t Ern­est; it’s Jack.

Al­gernon

You have al­ways told me it was Ern­est. I have in­tro­duced you to every­one as Ern­est. You an­swer to the name of Ern­est. You look as if your name was Ern­est. You are the most earn­est-look­ing per­son I ever saw in my life. It is per­fectly ab­surd your say­ing that your name isn’t Ern­est. It’s on your cards. Here is one of them.

Tak­ing it from case.

“Mr. Ern­est Wor­th­ing, B. 4, The Al­bany.” I’ll keep this as a proof that your name is Ern­est if ever you at­tempt to deny it to me, or to Gwen­dolen, or to any­one else.

Puts the card in his pocket.

Jack

Well, my name is Ern­est in town and Jack in the coun­try, and the ci­gar­ette case was given to me in the coun­try.

Al­gernon

Yes, but that does not ac­count for the fact that your small Aunt Ce­cily, who lives at Tun­bridge Wells, calls you her dear uncle. Come, old boy, you had much bet­ter have the thing out at once.

Jack

My dear Algy, you talk ex­actly as if you were a dent­ist. It is very vul­gar to talk like a dent­ist when one isn’t a dent­ist. It pro­duces a false im­pres­sion.

Al­gernon

Well, that is ex­actly what dent­ists al­ways do. Now, go on! Tell me the whole thing. I may men­tion that I have al­ways sus­pec­ted you of be­ing a con­firmed and secret Bun­bury­ist; and I am quite sure of it now.

Jack

Bun­bury­ist? What on earth do you mean by a Bun­bury­ist?

Al­gernon

I’ll re­veal to you the mean­ing of that in­com­par­able ex­pres­sion as soon as you are kind enough to in­form me why you are Ern­est in town and Jack in the coun­try.

Jack

Well, pro­duce my ci­gar­ette case first.

Al­gernon

Here it is.

Hands ci­gar­ette case.

Now pro­duce your ex­plan­a­tion, and pray make it im­prob­able.

Sits on sofa.

Jack

My dear fel­low, there is noth­ing im­prob­able about my ex­plan­a­tion at all. In fact it’s per­fectly or­din­ary. Old Mr. Tho­mas Cardew, who ad­op­ted me when I was a little boy, made me in his will guard­ian to his grand­daugh­ter, Miss Ce­cily Cardew. Ce­cily, who ad­dresses me as her uncle from motives of re­spect that you could not pos­sibly ap­pre­ci­ate, lives at my place in the coun­try un­der the charge of her ad­mir­able gov­erness, Miss Prism.

Al­gernon

Where is that place in the coun­try, by the way?

Jack

That is noth­ing to you, dear boy. You are not go­ing to be in­vited … I may tell you can­didly that the place is not in Shrop­shire.

Al­gernon

I sus­pec­ted that, my dear fel­low! I have Bun­buryed all over Shrop­shire on two sep­ar­ate oc­ca­sions. Now, go on. Why are you Ern­est in town and Jack in the coun­try?

Jack

My dear Algy, I don’t know whether you will be able to un­der­stand my real motives. You are hardly ser­i­ous enough. When one is placed in the po­s­i­tion of guard­ian, one has to ad­opt a very high moral tone on all sub­jects. It’s one’s duty to do so. And as a high moral tone can hardly be said to con­duce very much to either one’s health or one’s hap­pi­ness, in or­der to get up to town I have al­ways pre­ten­ded to have a younger brother of the name of Ern­est, who lives in the Al­bany, and gets into the most dread­ful scrapes. That, my dear Algy, is the whole truth pure and simple.

Al­gernon

The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very te­di­ous if it were either, and mod­ern lit­er­at­ure a com­plete im­possib­il­ity!

Jack

That wouldn’t be at all a bad thing.

Al­gernon

Lit­er­ary cri­ti­cism is not your forte, my dear fel­low. Don’t try it. You should leave that to people who haven’t been at a University. They do it so well in the daily pa­pers. What you really are is a Bun­bury­ist. I was quite right in say­ing you were a Bun­bury­ist. You are one of the most ad­vanced Bun­bury­ists I know.

Jack

What on earth do you mean?

Al­gernon

You have in­ven­ted a very use­ful younger brother called Ern­est, in or­der that you may be able to come up to town as of­ten as you like. I have in­ven­ted an in­valu­able per­man­ent in­valid called Bun­bury, in or­der that I may be able to go down into the coun­try whenever I choose. Bun­bury is per­fectly in­valu­able. If it wasn’t for Bun­bury’s ex­traordin­ary bad health, for in­stance, I wouldn’t be able to dine with you at Wil­lis’s to­night, for I have been really en­gaged to Aunt Augusta for more than a week.

Jack

I haven’t asked you to dine with me any­where to­night.

Al­gernon

I know. You are ab­surdly care­less about send­ing out in­vit­a­tions. It is very fool­ish of you. Noth­ing an­noys people so much as not re­ceiv­ing in­vit­a­tions.

Jack

You had much bet­ter dine with your Aunt Augusta.

Al­gernon

I haven’t the smal­lest in­ten­tion of do­ing any­thing of the kind. To be­gin with, I dined there on Monday, and once a week is quite enough to dine with one’s own re­la­tions. In the second place, whenever I do dine there I am al­ways treated as a mem­ber of the fam­ily, and sent down with either no wo­man at all, or two. In the third place, I know per­fectly well whom she will place me next to, to­night. She will place me next Mary Far­quhar, who al­ways flirts with her own hus­band across the din­ner-table. That is not very pleas­ant. Indeed, it is not even de­cent … and that sort of thing is enorm­ously on the in­crease. The amount of wo­men in Lon­don who flirt with their own hus­bands is per­fectly scan­dal­ous. It looks so bad. It is simply wash­ing one’s clean linen in pub­lic. Besides, now that I know you to be a con­firmed Bun­bury­ist I nat­ur­ally want to talk to you about Bun­bury­ing. I want to tell you the rules.

Jack

I’m not a Bun­bury­ist at all. If Gwen­dolen ac­cepts me, I am go­ing to kill my brother, in­deed I think I’ll kill him in any case. Ce­cily is a little too much in­ter­ested in him. It is rather a bore. So I am go­ing to get rid of Ern­est. And I strongly ad­vise you to do the same with Mr. … with your in­valid friend who has the ab­surd name.

Al­gernon

Noth­ing will in­duce me to part with Bun­bury, and if you ever get mar­ried, which seems to me ex­tremely prob­lem­atic, you will be very glad to know Bun­bury. A man who mar­ries without know­ing Bun­bury has a very te­di­ous time of it.

Jack

That is non­sense. If I marry a charm­ing girl like Gwen­dolen, and she is the only girl I ever saw in my life that I would marry, I cer­tainly won’t want to know Bun­bury.

Al­gernon

Then your wife will. You don’t seem to real­ise, that in mar­ried life three is com­pany and two is none.

Jack

Sen­ten­tiously.

That, my dear young friend, is the the­ory that the cor­rupt French Drama has been pro­pound­ing for the last fifty years.

Al­gernon

Yes; and that the happy Eng­lish home has proved in half the time.

Jack

For heaven’s sake, don’t try to be cyn­ical. It’s per­fectly easy to be cyn­ical.

Al­gernon

My dear fel­low, it isn’t easy to be any­thing nowadays. There’s such a lot of beastly com­pet­i­tion about.

The sound of an elec­tric bell is heard.

Ah! that must be Aunt Augusta. Only re­l­at­ives, or cred­it­ors, ever ring in that Wag­n­erian man­ner. Now, if I get her out of the way for ten minutes, so that you can have an op­por­tun­ity for pro­pos­ing to Gwen­dolen, may I dine with you to­night at Wil­lis’s?

Jack

I sup­pose so, if you want to.

Al­gernon

Yes, but you must be ser­i­ous about it. I hate people who are not ser­i­ous about meals. It is so shal­low of them.

Enter Lane.

Lane

Lady Brack­nell and Miss Fair­fax.

Al­gernon goes for­ward to meet them. Enter Lady Brack­nell and Gwen­dolen.

Lady Brack­nell

Good af­ter­noon, dear Al­gernon, I hope you are be­hav­ing very well.

Al­gernon

I’m feel­ing very well, Aunt Augusta.

Lady Brack­nell

That’s not quite the same thing. In fact the two things rarely go to­gether.

Sees Jack and bows to him with icy cold­ness.

Al­gernon

To Gwen­dolen.

Dear me, you are smart!

Gwen­dolen

I am al­ways smart! Am I not, Mr. Wor­th­ing?

Jack

You’re quite per­fect, Miss Fair­fax.

Gwen­dolen

Oh! I hope I am not that. It would leave no room for de­vel­op­ments, and I in­tend to de­velop in many dir­ec­tions.

Gwen­dolen and Jack sit down to­gether in the corner.

Lady Brack­nell

I’m sorry if we are a little late, Al­gernon, but I was ob­liged to call on dear Lady Har­bury. I hadn’t been there since her poor hus­band’s death. I never saw a wo­man so altered; she looks quite twenty years younger. And now I’ll have a cup of tea, and one of those nice cu­cum­ber sand­wiches you prom­ised me.

Al­gernon

Cer­tainly, Aunt Augusta.

Goes over to tea-table.

Lady Brack­nell

Won’t you come and sit here, Gwen­dolen?

Gwen­dolen

Thanks, mamma, I’m quite com­fort­able where I am.

Al­gernon

Pick­ing up empty plate in hor­ror.

Good heav­ens! Lane! Why are there no cu­cum­ber sand­wiches? I ordered them spe­cially.

Lane

Gravely.

There were no cu­cum­bers in the mar­ket this morn­ing, sir. I went down twice.

Al­gernon

No cu­cum­bers!

Lane

No, sir. Not even for ready money.

Al­gernon

That will do, Lane, thank you.

Lane

Thank you, sir.

Goes out.

Al­gernon

I am greatly dis­tressed, Aunt Augusta, about there be­ing no cu­cum­bers, not even for ready money.

Lady Brack­nell

It really makes no mat­ter, Al­gernon. I had some crum­pets with Lady Har­bury, who seems to me to be liv­ing en­tirely for pleas­ure now.

Al­gernon

I hear her hair has turned quite gold from grief.

Lady Brack­nell

It cer­tainly has changed its col­our. From what cause I, of course, can­not say.

Al­gernon crosses and hands tea.

Thank you. I’ve quite a treat for you to­night, Al­gernon. I am go­ing to send you down with Mary Far­quhar. She is such a nice wo­man, and so at­tent­ive to her hus­band. It’s de­light­ful to watch them.

Al­gernon

I am afraid, Aunt Augusta, I shall have to give up the pleas­ure of din­ing with you to­night after all.

Lady Brack­nell

Frown­ing.

I hope not, Al­gernon. It would put my table com­pletely out. Your uncle would have to dine up­stairs. For­tunately he is ac­cus­tomed to that.

Al­gernon

It is a great bore, and, I need hardly say, a ter­rible dis­ap­point­ment to me, but the fact is I have just had a tele­gram to say that my poor friend Bun­bury is very ill again.

Ex­changes glances with Jack.

They seem to think I should be with him.

Lady Brack­nell

It is very strange. This Mr. Bun­bury seems to suf­fer from curi­ously bad health.

Al­gernon

Yes; poor Bun­bury is a dread­ful in­valid.

Lady Brack­nell

Well, I must say, Al­gernon, that I think it is high time that Mr. Bun­bury made up his mind whether he was go­ing to live or to die. This shilly-shal­ly­ing with the ques­tion is ab­surd. Nor do I in any way ap­prove of the mod­ern sym­pathy with in­val­ids. I con­sider it mor­bid. Ill­ness of any kind is hardly a thing to be en­cour­aged in oth­ers. Health is the primary duty of life. I am al­ways telling that to your poor uncle, but he never seems to take much no­tice … as far as any im­prove­ment in his ail­ment goes. I should be much ob­liged if you would ask Mr. Bun­bury, from me, to be kind enough not to have a re­lapse on Saturday, for I rely on you to ar­range my mu­sic for me. It is my last re­cep­tion, and one wants some­thing that will en­cour­age con­ver­sa­tion, par­tic­u­larly at the end of the sea­son when every­one has prac­tic­ally said whatever they had to say, which, in most cases, was prob­ably not much.

Al­gernon

I’ll speak to Bun­bury, Aunt Augusta, if he is still con­scious, and I think I can prom­ise you he’ll be all right by Saturday. Of course the mu­sic is a great dif­fi­culty. You see, if one plays good mu­sic, people don’t listen, and if one plays bad mu­sic people don’t talk. But I’ll run over the pro­gramme I’ve drawn out, if you will kindly come into the next room for a mo­ment.

Lady Brack­nell

Thank you, Al­gernon. It is very thought­ful of you.

Rising, and fol­low­ing Al­gernon.

I’m sure the pro­gramme will be de­light­ful, after a few ex­pur­ga­tions. French songs I can­not pos­sibly al­low. People al­ways seem to think that they are im­proper, and either look shocked, which is vul­gar, or laugh, which is worse. But Ger­man sounds a thor­oughly re­spect­able lan­guage, and in­deed, I be­lieve is so. Gwen­dolen, you will ac­com­pany me.

Gwen­dolen

Cer­tainly, mamma.

Lady Brack­nell and Al­gernon go into the mu­sic-room, Gwen­dolen re­mains be­hind.

Jack

Charm­ing day it has been, Miss Fair­fax.

Gwen­dolen

Pray don’t talk to me about the weather, Mr. Wor­th­ing. Whenever people talk to me about the weather, I al­ways feel quite cer­tain that they mean some­thing else. And that makes me so nervous.

Jack

I do mean some­thing else.

Gwen­dolen

I thought so. In fact, I am never wrong.

Jack

And I would like to be al­lowed to take ad­vant­age of Lady Brack­nell’s tem­por­ary ab­sence …

Gwen­dolen

I would cer­tainly ad­vise you to do so. Mamma has a way of com­ing back sud­denly into a room that I have of­ten had to speak to her about.

Jack

Ner­vously.

Miss Fair­fax, ever since I met you I have ad­mired you more than any girl … I have ever met since … I met you.

Gwen­dolen

Yes, I am quite well aware of the fact. And I of­ten wish that in pub­lic, at any rate, you had been more demon­strat­ive. For me you have al­ways had an ir­res­ist­ible fas­cin­a­tion. Even be­fore I met you I was far from in­dif­fer­ent to you.

Jack looks at her in amazement.

We live, as I hope you know, Mr. Wor­th­ing, in an age of ideals. The fact is con­stantly men­tioned in the more ex­pens­ive monthly magazines, and has reached the pro­vin­cial pul­pits, I am told; and my ideal has al­ways been to love someone of the name of Ern­est. There is some­thing in that name that in­spires ab­so­lute con­fid­ence. The mo­ment Al­gernon first men­tioned to me that he had a friend called Ern­est, I knew I was destined to love you.

Jack

You really love me, Gwen­dolen?

Gwen­dolen

Pas­sion­ately!

Jack

Darling! You don’t know how happy you’ve made me.

Gwen­dolen

My own Ern­est!

Jack

But you don’t really mean to say that you couldn’t love me if my name wasn’t Ern­est?

Gwen­dolen

But your name is Ern­est.

Jack

Yes, I know it is. But sup­pos­ing it was some­thing else? Do you mean to say you couldn’t love me then?

Gwen­dolen

Glibly.

Ah! that is clearly a meta­phys­ical spec­u­la­tion, and like most meta­phys­ical spec­u­la­tions has very little ref­er­ence at all to the ac­tual facts of real life, as we know them.

Jack

Per­son­ally, darling, to speak quite can­didly, I don’t much care about the name of Ern­est … I don’t think the name suits me at all.

Gwen­dolen

It suits you per­fectly. It is a di­vine name. It has a mu­sic of its own. It pro­duces vi­bra­tions.

Jack

Well, really, Gwen­dolen, I must say that I think there are lots of other much nicer names. I think Jack, for in­stance, a charm­ing name.

Gwen­dolen

Jack? … No, there is very little mu­sic in the name Jack, if any at all, in­deed. It does not thrill. It pro­duces ab­so­lutely no vi­bra­tions … I have known sev­eral Jacks, and they all, without ex­cep­tion, were more than usu­ally plain. Besides, Jack is a no­tori­ous do­mest­icity for John! And I pity any wo­man who is mar­ried to a man called John. She would prob­ably never be al­lowed to know the en­tran­cing pleas­ure of a single mo­ment’s solitude. The only really safe name is Ern­est

Jack

Gwen­dolen, I must get christened at once—I mean we must get mar­ried at once. There is no time to be lost.

Gwen­dolen

Mar­ried, Mr. Wor­th­ing?

Jack

Astoun­ded.

Well … surely. You know that I love you, and you led me to be­lieve, Miss Fair­fax, that you were not ab­so­lutely in­dif­fer­ent to me.

Gwen­dolen

I ad­ore you. But you haven’t pro­posed to me yet. Noth­ing has been said at all about mar­riage. The sub­ject has not even been touched on.

Jack

Well … may I pro­pose to you now?

Gwen­dolen

I think it would be an ad­mir­able op­por­tun­ity. And to spare you any pos­sible dis­ap­point­ment, Mr. Wor­th­ing, I think it only fair to tell you quite frankly be­fore­hand that I am fully de­term­ined to ac­cept you.

Jack

Gwen­dolen!

Gwen­dolen

Yes, Mr. Wor­th­ing, what have you got to say to me?

Jack

You know what I have got to say to you.

Gwen­dolen

Yes, but you don’t say it.

Jack

Gwen­dolen, will you marry me?

Goes on his knees.

Gwen­dolen

Of course I will, darling. How long you have been about it! I am afraid you have had very little ex­per­i­ence in how to pro­pose.

Jack

My own one, I have never loved any­one in the world but you.

Gwen­dolen

Yes, but men of­ten pro­pose for prac­tice. I know my brother Ger­ald does. All my girl­friends tell me so. What won­der­fully blue eyes you have, Ern­est! They are quite, quite, blue. I hope you will al­ways look at me just like that, es­pe­cially when there are other people present.

Enter Lady Brack­nell.

Lady Brack­nell

Mr. Wor­th­ing! Rise, sir, from this semi-re­cum­bent pos­ture. It is most in­dec­or­ous.

Gwen­dolen

Mamma!

He tries to rise; she re­strains him.

I must beg you to re­tire. This is no place for you. Besides, Mr. Wor­th­ing has not quite fin­ished yet.

Lady Brack­nell

Fin­ished what, may I ask?

Gwen­dolen

I am en­gaged to Mr. Wor­th­ing, mamma.

They rise to­gether.

Lady Brack­nell

Par­don me, you are not en­gaged to any­one. When you do be­come en­gaged to someone, I, or your father, should his health per­mit him, will in­form you of the fact. An en­gage­ment should come on a young girl as a sur­prise, pleas­ant or un­pleas­ant, as the case may be. It is hardly a mat­ter that she could be al­lowed to ar­range for her­self … And now I have a few ques­tions to put to you, Mr. Wor­th­ing. While I am mak­ing these in­quir­ies, you, Gwen­dolen, will wait for me be­low in the car­riage.

Gwen­dolen

Re­proach­fully.

Mamma!

Lady Brack­nell

In the car­riage, Gwen­dolen!

Gwen­dolen goes to the door. She and Jack blow kisses to each other be­hind Lady Brack­nell’s back. Lady Brack­nell looks vaguely about as if she could not un­der­stand what the noise was. Fin­ally turns round.

Gwen­dolen, the car­riage!

Gwen­dolen

Yes, mamma.

Goes out, look­ing back at Jack.

Lady Brack­nell

Sit­ting down.

You can take a seat, Mr. Wor­th­ing.

Looks in her pocket for note­book and pen­cil.

Jack

Thank you, Lady Brack­nell, I prefer stand­ing.

Lady Brack­nell

Pen­cil and note­book in hand.

I feel bound to tell you that you are not down on my list of eli­gible young men, al­though I have the same list as the dear Duchess of Bolton has. We work to­gether, in fact. However, I am quite ready to enter your name, should your an­swers be what a really af­fec­tion­ate mother re­quires. Do you smoke?

Jack

Well, yes, I must ad­mit I smoke.

Lady Brack­nell

I am glad to hear it. A man should al­ways have an oc­cu­pa­tion of some kind. There are far too many idle men in Lon­don as it is. How old are you?

Jack

Twenty-nine.

Lady Brack­nell

A very good age to be mar­ried at. I have al­ways been of opin­ion that a man who de­sires to get mar­ried should know either everything or noth­ing. Which do you know?

Jack

After some hes­it­a­tion.

I know noth­ing, Lady Brack­nell.

Lady Brack­nell

I am pleased to hear it. I do not ap­prove of any­thing that tampers with nat­ural ig­nor­ance. Ignor­ance is like a del­ic­ate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole the­ory of mod­ern edu­ca­tion is rad­ic­ally un­sound. For­tunately in Eng­land, at any rate, edu­ca­tion pro­duces no ef­fect what­so­ever. If it did, it would prove a ser­i­ous danger to the up­per classes, and prob­ably lead to acts of vi­ol­ence in Gros­venor Square. What is your in­come?

Jack

Between seven and eight thou­sand a year.

Lady Brack­nell

Makes a note in her book.

In land, or in in­vest­ments?

Jack

In in­vest­ments, chiefly.

Lady Brack­nell

That is sat­is­fact­ory. What between the du­ties ex­pec­ted of one dur­ing one’s life­time, and the du­ties ex­ac­ted from one after one’s death, land has ceased to be either a profit or a pleas­ure. It gives one po­s­i­tion, and pre­vents one from keep­ing it up. That’s all that can be said about land.

Jack

I have a coun­try house with some land, of course, at­tached to it, about fif­teen hun­dred acres, I be­lieve; but I don’t de­pend on that for my real in­come. In fact, as far as I can make out, the poach­ers are the only people who make any­thing out of it.

Lady Brack­nell

A coun­try house! How many bed­rooms? Well, that point can be cleared up af­ter­wards. You have a town house, I hope? A girl with a simple, un­spoiled nature, like Gwen­dolen, could hardly be ex­pec­ted to reside in the coun­try.

Jack

Well, I own a house in Bel­grave Square, but it is let by the year to Lady Blox­ham. Of course, I can get it back whenever I like, at six months’ no­tice.

Lady Brack­nell

Lady Blox­ham? I don’t know her.

Jack

Oh, she goes about very little. She is a lady con­sid­er­ably ad­vanced in years.

Lady Brack­nell

Ah, nowadays that is no guar­an­tee of re­spect­ab­il­ity of char­ac­ter. What num­ber in Bel­grave Square?

Jack

149.

Lady Brack­nell

Shak­ing her head.

The un­fash­ion­able side. I thought there was some­thing. However, that could eas­ily be altered.

Jack

Do you mean the fash­ion, or the side?

Lady Brack­nell

Sternly.

Both, if ne­ces­sary, I pre­sume. What are your polit­ics?

Jack

Well, I am afraid I really have none. I am a Lib­eral Union­ist.

Lady Brack­nell

Oh, they count as Tor­ies. They dine with us. Or come in the even­ing, at any rate. Now to minor mat­ters. Are your par­ents liv­ing?

Jack

I have lost both my par­ents.

Lady Brack­nell

To lose one par­ent, Mr. Wor­th­ing, may be re­garded as a mis­for­tune; to lose both looks like care­less­ness. Who was your father? He was evid­ently a man of some wealth. Was he born in what the Rad­ical pa­pers call the purple of com­merce, or did he rise from the ranks of the ar­is­to­cracy?

Jack

I am afraid I really don’t know. The fact is, Lady Brack­nell, I said I had lost my par­ents. It would be nearer the truth to say that my par­ents seem to have lost me … I don’t ac­tu­ally know who I am by birth. I was … well, I was found.

Lady Brack­nell

Found!

Jack

The late Mr. Tho­mas Cardew, an old gen­tle­man of a very char­it­able and kindly dis­pos­i­tion, found me, and gave me the name of Wor­th­ing, be­cause he happened to have a first-class ticket for Wor­th­ing in his pocket at the time. Wor­th­ing is a place in Sus­sex. It is a sea­side re­sort.

Lady Brack­nell

Where did the char­it­able gen­tle­man who had a first-class ticket for this sea­side re­sort find you?

Jack

Gravely.

In a hand­bag.

Lady Brack­nell

A hand­bag?

Jack

Very ser­i­ously.

Yes, Lady Brack­nell. I was in a hand­bag—a some­what large, black leather hand­bag, with handles to it—an or­din­ary hand­bag in fact.

Lady Brack­nell

In what loc­al­ity did this Mr. James, or Tho­mas, Cardew come across this or­din­ary hand­bag?

Jack

In the cloak­room at Vict­oria Sta­tion. It was given to him in mis­take for his own.

Lady Brack­nell

The cloak­room at Vict­oria Sta­tion?

Jack

Yes. The Brighton line.

Lady Brack­nell

The line is im­ma­ter­ial. Mr. Wor­th­ing, I con­fess I feel some­what be­wildered by what you have just told me. To be born, or at any rate bred, in a hand­bag, whether it had handles or not, seems to me to dis­play a con­tempt for the or­din­ary de­cen­cies of fam­ily life that re­minds one of the worst ex­cesses of the French Re­volu­tion. And I pre­sume you know what that un­for­tu­nate move­ment led to? As for the par­tic­u­lar loc­al­ity in which the hand­bag was found, a cloak­room at a rail­way sta­tion might serve to con­ceal a so­cial in­dis­cre­tion—has prob­ably, in­deed, been used for that pur­pose be­fore now—but it could hardly be re­garded as an as­sured basis for a re­cog­nised po­s­i­tion in good so­ci­ety.

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 hand­bag at any mo­ment. It is in my dress­ing-room at home. I really think that should sat­isfy you, Lady Brack­nell.

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 cloak­room, 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 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?

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 civ­il­ised life should be.

Jack

I am sick to death of clev­erness. Every­body is clever nowadays. 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!

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?

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 to 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.

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.

Al­gernon

Well, I’m hungry.

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!

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!

Gwen­dolen

Ern­est, we may never be mar­ried. From the ex­pres­sion on mamma’s face I fear we never shall. Few par­ents nowadays 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.

Gwen­dolen

There is a good postal ser­vice, I sup­pose? It may be ne­ces­sary to do some­thing des­per­ate. That of course will re­quire ser­i­ous con­sid­er­a­tion. I will com­mu­nic­ate with you daily.

Jack

My own one!

Gwen­dolen

How long do you re­main in town?

Jack

Till Monday.

Gwen­dolen

Good! Algy, you may turn round now.

Al­gernon

Thanks, I’ve turned round already.

Gwen­dolen

You may also ring the bell.

Jack

You will let me see you to your car­riage, my own darling?

Gwen­dolen

Cer­tainly.

Jack

To Lane, who now enters.

I will see Miss Fair­fax out.

Lane

Yes, sir.

Jack and Gwen­dolen go off. Lane presents sev­eral let­ters on a sal­ver to Al­gernon. It is to be sur­mised that they are bills, as Al­gernon, after look­ing at the en­vel­opes, tears them up.

Al­gernon

A glass of sherry, Lane.

Lane

Yes, sir.

Al­gernon

To­mor­row, Lane, I’m go­ing Bun­bury­ing.

Lane

Yes, sir.

Al­gernon

I shall prob­ably not be back till Monday. You can put up my dress clothes, my smoking jacket, and all the Bun­bury suits …

Lane

Yes, sir.

Hand­ing sherry.

Al­gernon

I hope to­mor­row will be a fine day, Lane.

Lane

It never is, sir.

Al­gernon

Lane, you’re a per­fect pess­im­ist.

Lane

I do my best to give sat­is­fac­tion, sir.

Enter Jack. Lane goes off.

Jack

There’s a sens­ible, in­tel­lec­tual girl! the only girl I ever cared for in my life.

Al­gernon is laugh­ing im­mod­er­ately.

What on earth are you so amused at?

Al­gernon

Oh, I’m a little anxious about poor Bun­bury, that is all.

Jack

If you don’t take care, your friend Bun­bury will get you into a ser­i­ous scrape some day.

Al­gernon

I love scrapes. They are the only things that are never ser­i­ous.

Jack

Oh, that’s non­sense, Algy. You never talk any­thing but non­sense.

Al­gernon

Nobody ever does.

Jack looks in­dig­nantly at him, and leaves the room. Al­gernon lights a ci­gar­ette, reads his shirt-cuff, and smiles.

Act Drop

Act II

Scene: Garden at the Manor House. A flight of grey stone steps leads up to the house. The garden, an old-fash­ioned one, full of roses. Time of year, July. Bas­ket chairs, and a table covered with books, are set un­der a large yew-tree.

Miss Prism dis­covered seated at the table. Ce­cily is at the back wa­ter­ing flowers.

Miss Prism

Calling.

Ce­cily, Ce­cily! Surely such a util­it­arian oc­cu­pa­tion as the wa­ter­ing of flowers is rather Moulton’s duty than yours? Espe­cially at a mo­ment when in­tel­lec­tual pleas­ures await you. Your Ger­man gram­mar is on the table. Pray open it at page fif­teen. We will re­peat yes­ter­day’s les­son.

Ce­cily

Com­ing over very slowly.

But I don’t like Ger­man. It isn’t at all a be­com­ing lan­guage. I know per­fectly well that I look quite plain after my Ger­man les­son.

Miss Prism

Child, you know how anxious your guard­ian is that you should im­prove your­self in every way. He laid par­tic­u­lar stress on your Ger­man, as he was leav­ing for town yes­ter­day. Indeed, he al­ways lays stress on your Ger­man when he is leav­ing for town.

Ce­cily

Dear Uncle Jack is so very ser­i­ous! So­me­times he is so ser­i­ous that I think he can­not be quite well.

Miss Prism

Draw­ing her­self up.

Your guard­ian en­joys the best of health, and his grav­ity of de­mean­our is es­pe­cially to be com­men­ded in one so com­par­at­ively young as he is. I know no one who has a higher sense of duty and re­spons­ib­il­ity.

Ce­cily

I sup­pose that is why he of­ten looks a little bored when we three are to­gether.

Miss Prism

Ce­cily! I am sur­prised at you. Mr. Wor­th­ing has many troubles in his life. Idle mer­ri­ment and tri­vi­al­ity would be out of place in his con­ver­sa­tion. You must re­mem­ber his con­stant anxi­ety about that un­for­tu­nate young man his brother.

Ce­cily

I wish Uncle Jack would al­low that un­for­tu­nate young man, his brother, to come down here some­times. We might have a good in­flu­ence over him, Miss Prism. I am sure you cer­tainly would. You know Ger­man, and geo­logy, and things of that kind in­flu­ence a man very much.

Ce­cily be­gins to write in her di­ary.

Miss Prism

Shak­ing her head.

I do not think that even I could pro­duce any ef­fect on a char­ac­ter that ac­cord­ing to his own brother’s ad­mis­sion is ir­re­triev­ably weak and va­cil­lat­ing. Indeed I am not sure that I would de­sire to re­claim him. I am not in fa­vour of this mod­ern mania for turn­ing bad people into good people at a mo­ment’s no­tice. As a man sows so let him reap. You must put away your di­ary, Ce­cily. I really don’t see why you should keep a di­ary at all.

Ce­cily

I keep a di­ary in or­der to enter the won­der­ful secrets of my life. If I didn’t write them down, I should prob­ably for­get all about them.

Miss Prism

Memory, my dear Ce­cily, is the di­ary that we all carry about with us.

Ce­cily

Yes, but it usu­ally chron­icles the things that have never happened, and couldn’t pos­sibly have happened. I be­lieve that Memory is re­spons­ible for nearly all the three-volume nov­els that Mudie sends us.

Miss Prism

Do not speak slight­ingly of the three-volume novel, Ce­cily. I wrote one my­self in earlier days.

Ce­cily

Did you really, Miss Prism? How won­der­fully clever you are! I hope it did not end hap­pily? I don’t like nov­els that end hap­pily. They de­press me so much.

Miss Prism

The good ended hap­pily, and the bad un­hap­pily. That is what Fic­tion means.

Ce­cily

I sup­pose so. But it seems very un­fair. And was your novel ever pub­lished?

Miss Prism

Alas! no. The ma­nu­script un­for­tu­nately was aban­doned.

Ce­cily starts.

I use the word in the sense of lost or mis­laid. To your work, child, these spec­u­la­tions are profit­less.

Ce­cily

Smil­ing.

But I see dear Dr. Chas­uble com­ing up through the garden.

Miss Prism

Rising and ad­van­cing.

Dr. Chas­uble! This is in­deed a pleas­ure.

Enter Canon Chas­uble.

Chas­uble

And how are we this morn­ing? Miss Prism, you are, I trust, well?

Ce­cily

Miss Prism has just been com­plain­ing of a slight head­ache. I think it would do her so much good to have a short stroll with you in the Park, Dr. Chas­uble.

Miss Prism

Ce­cily, I have not men­tioned any­thing about a head­ache.

Ce­cily

No, dear Miss Prism, I know that, but I felt in­stinct­ively that you had a head­ache. Indeed I was think­ing about that, and not about my Ger­man les­son, when the Rector came in.

Chas­uble

I hope, Ce­cily, you are not in­at­tent­ive.

Ce­cily

Oh, I am afraid I am.

Chas­uble

That is strange. Were I for­tu­nate enough to be Miss Prism’s pu­pil, I would hang upon her lips.

Miss Prism glares.

I spoke meta­phor­ic­ally.—My meta­phor was drawn from bees. Ahem! Mr. Wor­th­ing, I sup­pose, has not re­turned from town yet?

Miss Prism

We do not ex­pect him till Monday af­ter­noon.

Chas­uble

Ah yes, he usu­ally likes to spend his Sunday in Lon­don. He is not one of those whose sole aim is en­joy­ment, as, by all ac­counts, that un­for­tu­nate young man his brother seems to be. But I must not dis­turb Egeria and her pu­pil any longer.

Miss Prism

Egeria? My name is Læti­tia, Doc­tor.

Chas­uble

Bow­ing.

A clas­sical al­lu­sion merely, drawn from the Pagan au­thors. I shall see you both no doubt at Even­song?

Miss Prism

I think, dear Doc­tor, I will have a stroll with you. I find I have a head­ache after all, and a walk might do it good.

Chas­uble

With pleas­ure, Miss Prism, with pleas­ure. We might go as far as the schools and back.

Miss Prism

That would be de­light­ful. Ce­cily, you will read your Polit­ical Economy in my ab­sence. The chapter on the Fall of the Ru­pee you may omit. It is some­what too sen­sa­tional. Even these metal­lic prob­lems have their me­lo­dra­matic side.

Goes down the garden with Dr. Chas­uble.

Ce­cily

Picks up books and throws them back on table.

Hor­rid Polit­ical Economy! Hor­rid Geo­graphy! Hor­rid, hor­rid Ger­man!

Enter Mer­ri­man with a card on a sal­ver.

Mer­ri­man

Mr. Ern­est Wor­th­ing has just driven over from the sta­tion. He has brought his lug­gage with him.

Ce­cily

Takes the card and reads it.

“Mr. Ern­est Wor­th­ing, B. 4, The Al­bany, W.” Uncle Jack’s brother! Did you tell him Mr. Wor­th­ing was in town?

Mer­ri­man

Yes, Miss. He seemed very much dis­ap­poin­ted. I men­tioned that you and Miss Prism were in the garden. He said he was anxious to speak to you privately for a mo­ment.

Ce­cily

Ask Mr. Ern­est Wor­th­ing to come here. I sup­pose you had bet­ter talk to the house­keeper about a room for him.

Mer­ri­man

Yes, Miss.

Mer­ri­man goes off.

Ce­cily

I have never met any really wicked per­son be­fore. I feel rather frightened. I am so afraid he will look just like every­one else.

Enter Al­gernon, very gay and de­bon­nair.

He does!

Al­gernon

Rais­ing his hat.

You are my little cousin Ce­cily, I’m sure.

Ce­cily

You are un­der some strange mis­take. I am not little. In fact, I be­lieve I am more than usu­ally tall for my age.

Al­gernon is rather taken aback.

But I am your cousin Ce­cily. You, I see from your card, are Uncle Jack’s brother, my cousin Ern­est, my wicked cousin Ern­est.

Al­gernon

Oh! I am not really wicked at all, cousin Ce­cily. You mustn’t think that I am wicked.

Ce­cily

If you are not, then you have cer­tainly been de­ceiv­ing us all in a very in­ex­cus­able man­ner. I hope you have not been lead­ing a double life, pre­tend­ing to be wicked and be­ing really good all the time. That would be hy­po­crisy.

Al­gernon

Looks at her in amazement.

Oh! Of course I have been rather reck­less.

Ce­cily

I am glad to hear it.

Al­gernon

In fact, now you men­tion the sub­ject, I have been very bad in my own small way.

Ce­cily

I don’t think you should be so proud of that, though I am sure it must have been very pleas­ant.

Al­gernon

It is much pleas­anter be­ing here with you.

Ce­cily

I can’t un­der­stand how you are here at all. Uncle Jack won’t be back till Monday af­ter­noon.

Al­gernon

That is a great dis­ap­point­ment. I am ob­liged to go up by the first train on Monday morn­ing. I have a busi­ness ap­point­ment that I am anxious … to miss?

Ce­cily

Couldn’t you miss it any­where but in Lon­don?

Al­gernon

No: the ap­point­ment is in Lon­don.

Ce­cily

Well, I know, of course, how im­port­ant it is not to keep a busi­ness en­gage­ment, if one wants to re­tain any sense of the beauty of life, but still I think you had bet­ter wait till Uncle Jack ar­rives. I know he wants to speak to you about your emig­rat­ing.

Al­gernon

About my what?

Ce­cily

Your emig­rat­ing. He has gone up to buy your out­fit.

Al­gernon

I cer­tainly wouldn’t let Jack buy my out­fit. He has no taste in neck­ties at all.

Ce­cily

I don’t think you will re­quire neck­ties. Uncle Jack is send­ing you to Aus­tralia.

Al­gernon

Aus­tralia! I’d sooner die.

Ce­cily

Well, he said at din­ner on Wed­nes­day night, that you would have to choose between this world, the next world, and Aus­tralia.

Al­gernon

Oh, well! The ac­counts I have re­ceived of Aus­tralia and the next world, are not par­tic­u­larly en­cour­aging. This world is good enough for me, cousin Ce­cily.

Ce­cily

Yes, but are you good enough for it?

Al­gernon

I’m afraid I’m not that. That is why I want you to re­form me. You might make that your mis­sion, if you don’t mind, cousin Ce­cily.

Ce­cily

I’m afraid I’ve no time, this af­ter­noon.

Al­gernon

Well, would you mind my re­form­ing my­self this af­ter­noon?

Ce­cily

It is rather Quix­otic of you. But I think you should try.

Al­gernon

I will. I feel bet­ter already.

Ce­cily

You are look­ing a little worse.

Al­gernon

That is be­cause I am hungry.

Ce­cily

How thought­less of me. I should have re­membered that when one is go­ing to lead an en­tirely new life, one re­quires reg­u­lar and whole­some meals. Won’t you come in?

Al­gernon

Thank you. Might I have a but­ton­hole first? I never have any ap­pet­ite un­less I have a but­ton­hole first.

Ce­cily

A Mare­chal Niel?

Picks up scis­sors.

Al­gernon

No, I’d sooner have a pink rose.

Ce­cily

Why?

Cuts a flower.

Al­gernon

Be­cause you are like a pink rose, Cousin Ce­cily.

Ce­cily

I don’t think it can be right for you to talk to me like that. Miss Prism never says such things to me.

Al­gernon

Then Miss Prism is a short­sighted old lady.

Ce­cily puts the rose in his but­ton­hole.

You are the pret­ti­est girl I ever saw.

Ce­cily

Miss Prism says that all good looks are a snare.

Al­gernon

They are a snare that every sens­ible man would like to be caught in.

Ce­cily

Oh, I don’t think I would care to catch a sens­ible man. I shouldn’t know what to talk to him about.

They pass into the house. Miss Prism and Dr. Chas­uble re­turn.

Miss Prism

You are too much alone, dear Dr. Chas­uble. You should get mar­ried. A mis­an­thrope I can un­der­stand—a wo­m­an­thrope, never!

Chas­uble

With a scholar’s shud­der.

Be­lieve me, I do not de­serve so neo­lo­gistic a phrase. The pre­cept as well as the prac­tice of the Prim­it­ive Church was dis­tinctly against mat­ri­mony.

Miss Prism

Sen­ten­tiously.

That is ob­vi­ously the reason why the Prim­it­ive Church has not las­ted up to the present day. And you do not seem to real­ise, dear Doc­tor, that by per­sist­ently re­main­ing single, a man con­verts him­self into a per­man­ent pub­lic tempta­tion. Men should be more care­ful; this very cel­ib­acy leads weaker ves­sels astray.

Chas­uble

But is a man not equally at­tract­ive when mar­ried?

Miss Prism

No mar­ried man is ever at­tract­ive ex­cept to his wife.

Chas­uble

And of­ten, I’ve been told, not even to her.

Miss Prism

That de­pends on the in­tel­lec­tual sym­path­ies of the wo­man. Ma­tur­ity can al­ways be de­pended on. Ripe­ness can be trus­ted. Young wo­men are green.

Dr. Chas­uble starts.

I spoke hor­ti­cul­tur­ally. My meta­phor was drawn from fruits. But where is Ce­cily?

Chas­uble

Per­haps she fol­lowed us to the schools.

Enter Jack slowly from the back of the garden. He is dressed in the deep­est mourn­ing, with crape hat­band and black gloves.

Miss Prism

Mr. Wor­th­ing!

Chas­uble

Mr. Wor­th­ing?

Miss Prism

This is in­deed a sur­prise. We did not look for you till Monday af­ter­noon.

Jack

Shakes Miss Prism’s hand in a tra­gic man­ner.

I have re­turned sooner than I ex­pec­ted. Dr. Chas­uble, I hope you are well?

Chas­uble

Dear Mr. Wor­th­ing, I trust this garb of woe does not be­token some ter­rible calam­ity?

Jack

My brother.

Miss Prism

More shame­ful debts and ex­tra­vag­ance?

Chas­uble

Still lead­ing his life of pleas­ure?

Jack

Shak­ing his head.

Dead!

Chas­uble

Your brother Ern­est dead?

Jack

Quite dead.

Miss Prism

What a les­son for him! I trust he will profit by it.

Chas­uble

Mr. Wor­th­ing, I of­fer you my sin­cere con­dol­ence. You have at least the con­sol­a­tion of know­ing that you were al­ways the most gen­er­ous and for­giv­ing of broth­ers.

Jack

Poor Ern­est! He had many faults, but it is a sad, sad blow.

Chas­uble

Very sad in­deed. Were you with him at the end?

Jack

No. He died abroad; in Paris, in fact. I had a tele­gram last night from the man­ager of the Grand Hotel.

Chas­uble

Was the cause of death men­tioned?

Jack

A severe chill, it seems.

Miss Prism

As a man sows, so shall he reap.

Chas­uble

Rais­ing his hand.

Char­ity, dear Miss Prism, char­ity! None of us are per­fect. I my­self am pe­cu­li­arly sus­cept­ible to draughts. Will the in­ter­ment take place here?

Jack

No. He seems to have ex­pressed a de­sire to be bur­ied in Paris.

Chas­uble

In Paris!

Shakes his head.

I fear that hardly points to any very ser­i­ous state of mind at the last. You would no doubt wish me to make some slight al­lu­sion to this tra­gic do­mestic af­flic­tion next Sunday.

Jack presses his hand con­vuls­ively.

My ser­mon on the mean­ing of the manna in the wil­der­ness can be ad­ap­ted to al­most any oc­ca­sion, joy­ful, or, as in the present case, dis­tress­ing.

All sigh.

I have preached it at har­vest cel­eb­ra­tions, christen­ings, con­firm­a­tions, on days of hu­mi­li­ation and festal days. The last time I de­livered it was in the Cathed­ral, as a char­ity ser­mon on be­half of the So­ci­ety for the Pre­ven­tion of Dis­con­tent among the Up­per Orders. The Bishop, who was present, was much struck by some of the ana­lo­gies I drew.

Jack

Ah! that re­minds me, you men­tioned christen­ings I think, Dr. Chas­uble? I sup­pose you know how to christen all right?

Dr. Chas­uble looks astoun­ded.

I mean, of course, you are con­tinu­ally christen­ing, aren’t you?

Miss Prism

It is, I re­gret to say, one of the Rector’s most con­stant du­ties in this par­ish. I have of­ten spoken to the poorer classes on the sub­ject. But they don’t seem to know what thrift is.

Chas­uble

But is there any par­tic­u­lar in­fant in whom you are in­ter­ested, Mr. Wor­th­ing? Your brother was, I be­lieve, un­mar­ried, was he not?

Jack

Oh yes.

Miss Prism

Bit­terly.

People who live en­tirely for pleas­ure usu­ally are.

Jack

But it is not for any child, dear Doc­tor. I am very fond of chil­dren. No! the fact is, I would like to be christened my­self, this af­ter­noon, if you have noth­ing bet­ter to do.

Chas­uble

But surely, Mr. Wor­th­ing, you have been christened already?

Jack

I don’t re­mem­ber any­thing about it.

Chas­uble

But have you any grave doubts on the sub­ject?

Jack

I cer­tainly in­tend to have. Of course I don’t know if the thing would bother you in any way, or if you think I am a little too old now.

Chas­uble

Not at all. The sprink­ling, and, in­deed, the im­mer­sion of adults is a per­fectly ca­non­ical prac­tice.

Jack

Im­mer­sion!

Chas­uble

You need have no ap­pre­hen­sions. Sprink­ling is all that is ne­ces­sary, or in­deed I think ad­vis­able. Our weather is so change­able. At what hour would you wish the ce­re­mony per­formed?

Jack

Oh, I might trot round about five if that would suit you.

Chas­uble

Per­fectly, per­fectly! In fact I have two sim­ilar ce­re­mon­ies to per­form at that time. A case of twins that oc­curred re­cently in one of the outly­ing cot­tages on your own es­tate. Poor Jen­kins the carter, a most hard­work­ing man.

Jack

Oh! I don’t see much fun in be­ing christened along with other ba­bies. It would be child­ish. Would half-past five do?

Chas­uble

Ad­mir­ably! Ad­mir­ably!

Takes out watch.

And now, dear Mr. Wor­th­ing, I will not in­trude any longer into a house of sor­row. I would merely beg you not to be too much bowed down by grief. What seem to us bit­ter tri­als are of­ten bless­ings in dis­guise.

Miss Prism

This seems to me a bless­ing of an ex­tremely ob­vi­ous kind.

Enter Ce­cily from the house.

Ce­cily

Uncle Jack! Oh, I am pleased to see you back. But what hor­rid clothes you have got on! Do go and change them.

Miss Prism

Ce­cily!

Chas­uble

My child! my child!

Ce­cily goes to­wards Jack; he kisses her brow in a mel­an­choly man­ner.

Ce­cily

What is the mat­ter, Uncle Jack? Do look happy! You look as if you had toothache, and I have got such a sur­prise for you. Who do you think is in the din­ing-room? Your brother!

Jack

Who?

Ce­cily

Your brother Ern­est. He ar­rived about half an hour ago.

Jack

What non­sense! I haven’t got a brother.

Ce­cily

Oh, don’t say that. However badly he may have be­haved to you in the past he is still your brother. You couldn’t be so heart­less as to dis­own him. I’ll tell him to come out. And you will shake hands with him, won’t you, Uncle Jack?

Runs back into the house.

Chas­uble

These are very joy­ful tid­ings.

Miss Prism

After we had all been resigned to his loss, his sud­den re­turn seems to me pe­cu­li­arly dis­tress­ing.

Jack

My brother is in the din­ing-room? I don’t know what it all means. I think it is per­fectly ab­surd.

Enter Al­gernon and Ce­cily hand in hand. They come slowly up to Jack.

Jack

Good heav­ens!

Mo­tions Al­gernon away.

Al­gernon

Brother John, I have come down from town to tell you that I am very sorry for all the trouble I have given you, and that I in­tend to lead a bet­ter life in the fu­ture.

Jack glares at him and does not take his hand.

Ce­cily

Uncle Jack, you are not go­ing to re­fuse your own brother’s hand?

Jack

Noth­ing will in­duce me to take his hand. I think his com­ing down here dis­grace­ful. He knows per­fectly well why.

Ce­cily

Uncle Jack, do be nice. There is some good in every­one. Ern­est has just been telling me about his poor in­valid friend Mr. Bun­bury whom he goes to visit so of­ten. And surely there must be much good in one who is kind to an in­valid, and leaves the pleas­ures of Lon­don to sit by a bed of pain.

Jack

Oh! he has been talk­ing about Bun­bury, has he?

Ce­cily

Yes, he has told me all about poor Mr. Bun­bury, and his ter­rible state of health.

Jack

Bun­bury! Well, I won’t have him talk to you about Bun­bury or about any­thing else. It is enough to drive one per­fectly frantic.

Al­gernon

Of course I ad­mit that the faults were all on my side. But I must say that I think that Brother John’s cold­ness to me is pe­cu­li­arly pain­ful. I ex­pec­ted a more en­thu­si­astic wel­come, es­pe­cially con­sid­er­ing it is the first time I have come here.

Ce­cily

Uncle Jack, if you don’t shake hands with Ern­est I will never for­give you.

Jack

Never for­give me?

Ce­cily

Never, never, never!

Jack

Well, this is the last time I shall ever do it.

Shakes with Al­gernon and glares.

Chas­uble

It’s pleas­ant, is it not, to see so per­fect a re­con­cili­ation? I think we might leave the two broth­ers to­gether.

Miss Prism

Ce­cily, you will come with us.

Ce­cily

Cer­tainly, Miss Prism. My little task of re­con­cili­ation is over.

Chas­uble

You have done a beau­ti­ful ac­tion today, dear child.

Miss Prism

We must not be pre­ma­ture in our judg­ments.

Ce­cily

I feel very happy.

They all go off ex­cept Jack and Al­gernon.

Jack

You young scoun­drel, Algy, you must get out of this place as soon as pos­sible. I don’t al­low any Bun­bury­ing here.

Enter Mer­ri­man.

Mer­ri­man

I have put Mr. Ern­est’s things in the room next to yours, sir. I sup­pose that is all right?

Jack

What?

Mer­ri­man

Mr. Ern­est’s lug­gage, sir. I have un­packed it and put it in the room next to your own.

Jack

His lug­gage?

Mer­ri­man

Yes, sir. Three port­manteaus, a dress­ing-case, two hat­boxes, and a large lunch­eon-bas­ket.

Al­gernon

I am afraid I can’t stay more than a week this time.

Jack

Mer­ri­man, or­der the dog­cart at once. Mr. Ern­est has been sud­denly called back to town.

Mer­ri­man

Yes, sir.

Goes back into the house.

Al­gernon

What a fear­ful liar you are, Jack. I have not been called back to town at all.

Jack

Yes, you have.

Al­gernon

I haven’t heard any­one call me.

Jack

Your duty as a gen­tle­man calls you back.

Al­gernon

My duty as a gen­tle­man has never in­terfered with my pleas­ures in the smal­lest de­gree.

Jack

I can quite un­der­stand that.

Al­gernon

Well, Ce­cily is a darling.

Jack

You are not to talk of Miss Cardew like that. I don’t like it.

Al­gernon

Well, I don’t like your clothes. You look per­fectly ri­dicu­lous in them. Why on earth don’t you go up and change? It is per­fectly child­ish to be in deep mourn­ing for a man who is ac­tu­ally stay­ing for a whole week with you in your house as a guest. I call it grot­esque.

Jack

You are cer­tainly not stay­ing with me for a whole week as a guest or any­thing else. You have got to leave … by the four-five train.

Al­gernon

I cer­tainly won’t leave you so long as you are in mourn­ing. It would be most un­friendly. If I were in mourn­ing you would stay with me, I sup­pose. I should think it very un­kind if you didn’t.

Jack

Well, will you go if I change my clothes?

Al­gernon

Yes, if you are not too long. I never saw any­body take so long to dress, and with such little res­ult.

Jack

Well, at any rate, that is bet­ter than be­ing al­ways over­dressed as you are.

Al­gernon

If I am oc­ca­sion­ally a little over­dressed, I make up for it by be­ing al­ways im­mensely overedu­cated.

Jack

Your van­ity is ri­dicu­lous, your con­duct an out­rage, and your pres­ence in my garden ut­terly ab­surd. However, you have got to catch the four-five, and I hope you will have a pleas­ant jour­ney back to town. This Bun­bury­ing, as you call it, has not been a great suc­cess for you.

Goes into the house.

Al­gernon

I think it has been a great suc­cess. I’m in love with Ce­cily, and that is everything.

Enter Ce­cily at the back of the garden. She picks up the can and be­gins to wa­ter the flowers.

But I must see her be­fore I go, and make ar­range­ments for an­other Bun­bury. Ah, there she is.

Ce­cily

Oh, I merely came back to wa­ter the roses. I thought you were with Uncle Jack.

Al­gernon

He’s gone to or­der the dog­cart for me.

Ce­cily

Oh, is he go­ing to take you for a nice drive?

Al­gernon

He’s go­ing to send me away.

Ce­cily

Then have we got to part?

Al­gernon

I am afraid so. It’s a very pain­ful part­ing.

Ce­cily

It is al­ways pain­ful to part from people whom one has known for a very brief space of time. The ab­sence of old friends one can en­dure with equan­im­ity. But even a mo­ment­ary sep­ar­a­tion from any­one to whom one has just been in­tro­duced is al­most un­bear­able.

Al­gernon

Thank you.

Enter Mer­ri­man.

Mer­ri­man

The dog­cart is at the door, sir.

Al­gernon looks ap­peal­ingly at Ce­cily.

Ce­cily

It can wait, Mer­ri­man for … five minutes.

Mer­ri­man

Yes, Miss.

Exit Mer­ri­man.

Al­gernon

I hope, Ce­cily, I shall not of­fend you if I state quite frankly and openly that you seem to me to be in every way the vis­ible per­son­i­fic­a­tion of ab­so­lute per­fec­tion.

Ce­cily

I think your frank­ness does you great credit, Ern­est. If you will al­low me, I will copy your re­marks into my di­ary.

Goes over to table and be­gins writ­ing in di­ary.

Al­gernon

Do you really keep a di­ary? I’d give any­thing to look at it. May I?

Ce­cily

Oh no.

Puts her hand over it.

You see, it is simply a very young girl’s re­cord of her own thoughts and im­pres­sions, and con­sequently meant for pub­lic­a­tion. When it ap­pears in volume form I hope you will or­der a copy. But pray, Ern­est, don’t stop. I de­light in tak­ing down from dic­ta­tion. I have reached “ab­so­lute per­fec­tion.” You can go on. I am quite ready for more.

Al­gernon

Some­what taken aback.

Ahem! Ahem!

Ce­cily

Oh, don’t cough, Ern­est. When one is dic­tat­ing one should speak flu­ently and not cough. Besides, I don’t know how to spell a cough.

Writes as Al­gernon speaks.

Al­gernon

Speak­ing very rap­idly.

Ce­cily, ever since I first looked upon your won­der­ful and in­com­par­able beauty, I have dared to love you wildly, pas­sion­ately, de­votedly, hope­lessly.

Ce­cily

I don’t think that you should tell me that you love me wildly, pas­sion­ately, de­votedly, hope­lessly. Hope­lessly doesn’t seem to make much sense, does it?

Al­gernon

Ce­cily!

Enter Mer­ri­man.

Mer­ri­man

The dog­cart is wait­ing, sir.

Al­gernon

Tell it to come round next week, at the same hour.

Mer­ri­man

Looks at Ce­cily, who makes no sign.

Yes, sir.

Mer­ri­man re­tires.

Ce­cily

Uncle Jack would be very much an­noyed if he knew you were stay­ing on till next week, at the same hour.

Al­gernon

Oh, I don’t care about Jack. I don’t care for any­body in the whole world but you. I love you, Ce­cily. You will marry me, won’t you?

Ce­cily

You silly boy! Of course. Why, we have been en­gaged for the last three months.

Al­gernon

For the last three months?

Ce­cily

Yes, it will be ex­actly three months on Thursday.

Al­gernon

But how did we be­come en­gaged?

Ce­cily

Well, ever since dear Uncle Jack first con­fessed to us that he had a younger brother who was very wicked and bad, you of course have formed the chief topic of con­ver­sa­tion between my­self and Miss Prism. And of course a man who is much talked about is al­ways very at­tract­ive. One feels there must be some­thing in him, after all. I daresay it was fool­ish of me, but I fell in love with you, Ern­est.

Al­gernon

Darling! And when was the en­gage­ment ac­tu­ally settled?

Ce­cily

On the 14th of Febru­ary last. Worn out by your en­tire ig­nor­ance of my ex­ist­ence, I de­term­ined to end the mat­ter one way or the other, and after a long struggle with my­self I ac­cep­ted you un­der this dear old tree here. The next day I bought this little ring in your name, and this is the little bangle with the true lover’s knot I prom­ised you al­ways to wear.

Al­gernon

Did I give you this? It’s very pretty, isn’t it?

Ce­cily

Yes, you’ve won­der­fully good taste, Ern­est. It’s the ex­cuse I’ve al­ways given for your lead­ing such a bad life. And this is the box in which I keep all your dear let­ters.

Kneels at table, opens box, and pro­duces let­ters tied up with blue rib­bon.

Al­gernon

My let­ters! But, my own sweet Ce­cily, I have never writ­ten you any let­ters.

Ce­cily

You need hardly re­mind me of that, Ern­est. I re­mem­ber only too well that I was forced to write your let­ters for you. I wrote al­ways three times a week, and some­times of­tener.

Al­gernon

Oh, do let me read them, Ce­cily?

Ce­cily

Oh, I couldn’t pos­sibly. They would make you far too con­ceited.

Re­places box.

The three you wrote me after I had broken off the en­gage­ment are so beau­ti­ful, and so badly spelled, that even now I can hardly read them without cry­ing a little.

Al­gernon

But was our en­gage­ment ever broken off?

Ce­cily

Of course it was. On the 22nd of last March. You can see the entry if you like.

Shows di­ary.

“Today I broke off my en­gage­ment with Ern­est. I feel it is bet­ter to do so. The weather still con­tin­ues charm­ing.”

Al­gernon

But why on earth did you break it off? What had I done? I had done noth­ing at all. Ce­cily, I am very much hurt in­deed to hear you broke it off. Par­tic­u­larly when the weather was so charm­ing.

Ce­cily

It would hardly have been a really ser­i­ous en­gage­ment if it hadn’t been broken off at least once. But I for­gave you be­fore the week was out.

Al­gernon

Cross­ing to her, and kneel­ing.

What a per­fect an­gel you are, Ce­cily.

Ce­cily

You dear ro­mantic boy.

He kisses her, she puts her fin­gers through his hair.

I hope your hair curls nat­ur­ally, does it?

Al­gernon

Yes, darling, with a little help from oth­ers.

Ce­cily

I am so glad.

Al­gernon

You’ll never break off our en­gage­ment again, Ce­cily?

Ce­cily

I don’t think I could break it off now that I have ac­tu­ally met you. Besides, of course, there is the ques­tion of your name.

Al­gernon

Yes, of course.

Ner­vously.

Ce­cily

You must not laugh at me, darling, but it had al­ways been a girl­ish dream of mine to love someone whose name was Ern­est.

Al­gernon rises, Ce­cily also.

There is some­thing in that name that seems to in­spire ab­so­lute con­fid­ence. I pity any poor mar­ried wo­man whose hus­band is not called Ern­est.

Al­gernon

But, my dear child, do you mean to say you could not love me if I had some other name?

Ce­cily

But what name?

Al­gernon

Oh, any name you like—Al­gernon—for in­stance …

Ce­cily

But I don’t like the name of Al­gernon.

Al­gernon

Well, my own dear, sweet, lov­ing little darling, I really can’t see why you should ob­ject to the name of Al­gernon. It is not at all a bad name. In fact, it is rather an ar­is­to­cratic name. Half of the chaps who get into the Bank­ruptcy Court are called Al­gernon. But ser­i­ously, Ce­cily …

Mov­ing to her

… if my name was Algy, couldn’t you love me?

Ce­cily

Rising.

I might re­spect you, Ern­est, I might ad­mire your char­ac­ter, but I fear that I should not be able to give you my un­di­vided at­ten­tion.

Al­gernon

Ahem! Ce­cily!

Pick­ing up hat.

Your Rector here is, I sup­pose, thor­oughly ex­per­i­enced in the prac­tice of all the rites and ce­re­mo­ni­als of the Church?

Ce­cily

Oh, yes. Dr. Chas­uble is a most learned man. He has never writ­ten a single book, so you can ima­gine how much he knows.

Al­gernon

I must see him at once on a most im­port­ant christen­ing—I mean on most im­port­ant busi­ness.

Ce­cily

Oh!

Al­gernon

I shan’t be away more than half an hour.

Ce­cily

Con­sid­er­ing that we have been en­gaged since Febru­ary the 14th, and that I only met you today for the first time, I think it is rather hard that you should leave me for so long a period as half an hour. Couldn’t you make it twenty minutes?

Al­gernon

I’ll be back in no time.

Kisses her and rushes down the garden.

Ce­cily

What an im­petu­ous boy he is! I like his hair so much. I must enter his pro­posal in my di­ary.

Enter Mer­ri­man.

Mer­ri­man

A Miss Fair­fax has just called to see Mr. Wor­th­ing. On very im­port­ant busi­ness, Miss Fair­fax states.

Ce­cily

Isn’t Mr. Wor­th­ing in his lib­rary?

Mer­ri­man

Mr. Wor­th­ing went over in the dir­ec­tion of the Rect­ory some time ago.

Ce­cily

Pray ask the lady to come out here; Mr. Wor­th­ing is sure to be back soon. And you can bring tea.

Mer­ri­man

Yes, Miss.

Goes out.

Ce­cily

Miss Fair­fax! I sup­pose one of the many good eld­erly wo­men who are as­so­ci­ated with Uncle Jack in some of his phil­an­thropic work in Lon­don. I don’t quite like wo­men who are in­ter­ested in phil­an­thropic work. I think it is so for­ward of them.

Enter Mer­ri­man.

Mer­ri­man

Miss Fair­fax.

Enter Gwen­dolen. Exit Mer­ri­man.

Ce­cily

Ad­van­cing to meet her.

Pray let me in­tro­duce my­self to you. My name is Ce­cily Cardew.

Gwen­dolen

Ce­cily Cardew?

Mov­ing to her and shak­ing hands.

What a very sweet name! So­mething tells me that we are go­ing to be great friends. I like you already more than I can say. My first im­pres­sions of people are never wrong.

Ce­cily

How nice of you to like me so much after we have known each other such a com­par­at­ively short time. Pray sit down.

Gwen­dolen

Still stand­ing up.

I may call you Ce­cily, may I not?

Ce­cily

With pleas­ure!

Gwen­dolen

And you will al­ways call me Gwen­dolen, won’t you?

Ce­cily

If you wish.

Gwen­dolen

Then that is all quite settled, is it not?

Ce­cily

I hope so.

A pause. They both sit down to­gether.

Gwen­dolen

Per­haps this might be a fa­vour­able op­por­tun­ity for my men­tion­ing who I am. My father is Lord Brack­nell. You have never heard of papa, I sup­pose?

Ce­cily

I don’t think so.

Gwen­dolen

Out­side the fam­ily circle, papa, I am glad to say, is en­tirely un­known. I think that is quite as it should be. The home seems to me to be the proper sphere for the man. And cer­tainly once a man be­gins to neg­lect his do­mestic du­ties he be­comes pain­fully ef­fem­in­ate, does he not? And I don’t like that. It makes men so very at­tract­ive. Ce­cily, mamma, whose views on edu­ca­tion are re­mark­ably strict, has brought me up to be ex­tremely short­sighted; it is part of her sys­tem; so do you mind my look­ing at you through my glasses?

Ce­cily

Oh! not at all, Gwen­dolen. I am very fond of be­ing looked at.

Gwen­dolen

After ex­amin­ing Ce­cily care­fully through a lor­gnette.

You are here on a short visit, I sup­pose.

Ce­cily

Oh no! I live here.

Gwen­dolen

Severely.

Really? Your mother, no doubt, or some fe­male re­l­at­ive of ad­vanced years, resides here also?

Ce­cily

Oh no! I have no mother, nor, in fact, any re­la­tions.

Gwen­dolen

Indeed?

Ce­cily

My dear guard­ian, with the as­sist­ance of Miss Prism, has the ar­du­ous task of look­ing after me.

Gwen­dolen

Your guard­ian?

Ce­cily

Yes, I am Mr. Wor­th­ing’s ward.

Gwen­dolen

Oh! It is strange he never men­tioned to me that he had a ward. How se­cret­ive of him! He grows more in­ter­est­ing hourly. I am not sure, how­ever, that the news in­spires me with feel­ings of un­mixed de­light.

Rising and go­ing to her.

I am very fond of you, Ce­cily; I have liked you ever since I met you! But I am bound to state that now that I know that you are Mr. Wor­th­ing’s ward, I can­not help ex­press­ing a wish you were—well, just a little older than you seem to be—and not quite so very al­lur­ing in ap­pear­ance. In fact, if I may speak can­didly—

Ce­cily

Pray do! I think that whenever one has any­thing un­pleas­ant to say, one should al­ways be quite can­did.

Gwen­dolen

Well, to speak with per­fect cand­our, Ce­cily, I wish that you were fully forty-two, and more than usu­ally plain for your age. Ern­est has a strong up­right nature. He is the very soul of truth and hon­our. Dis­loy­alty would be as im­possible to him as de­cep­tion. But even men of the noblest pos­sible moral char­ac­ter are ex­tremely sus­cept­ible to the in­flu­ence of the phys­ical charms of oth­ers. Modern, no less than An­cient His­tory, sup­plies us with many most pain­ful ex­amples of what I refer to. If it were not so, in­deed, His­tory would be quite un­read­able.

Ce­cily

I beg your par­don, Gwen­dolen, did you say Ern­est?

Gwen­dolen

Yes.

Ce­cily

Oh, but it is not Mr. Ern­est Wor­th­ing who is my guard­ian. It is his brother—his elder brother.

Gwen­dolen

Sit­ting down again.

Ern­est never men­tioned to me that he had a brother.

Ce­cily

I am sorry to say they have not been on good terms for a long time.

Gwen­dolen

Ah! that ac­counts for it. And now that I think of it I have never heard any man men­tion his brother. The sub­ject seems dis­taste­ful to most men. Ce­cily, you have lif­ted a load from my mind. I was grow­ing al­most anxious. It would have been ter­rible if any cloud had come across a friend­ship like ours, would it not? Of course you are quite, quite sure that it is not Mr. Ern­est Wor­th­ing who is your guard­ian?

Ce­cily

Quite sure.

A pause.

In fact, I am go­ing to be his.

Gwen­dolen

In­quir­ingly.

I beg your par­don?

Ce­cily

Rather shy and con­fid­ingly.

Dearest Gwen­dolen, there is no reason why I should make a secret of it to you. Our little county news­pa­per is sure to chron­icle the fact next week. Mr. Ern­est Wor­th­ing and I are en­gaged to be mar­ried.

Gwen­dolen

Quite po­litely, rising.

My darling Ce­cily, I think there must be some slight er­ror. Mr. Ern­est Wor­th­ing is en­gaged to me. The an­nounce­ment will ap­pear in the

Morn­ing Post

on Saturday at the latest.

Ce­cily

Very po­litely, rising.

I am afraid you must be un­der some mis­con­cep­tion. Ern­est pro­posed to me ex­actly ten minutes ago.

Shows di­ary.

Gwen­dolen

Ex­am­ines di­ary through her lor­gnette care­fully.

It is cer­tainly very curi­ous, for he asked me to be his wife yes­ter­day af­ter­noon at 5.30. If you would care to verify the in­cid­ent, pray do so.

Pro­duces di­ary of her own.

I never travel without my di­ary. One should al­ways have some­thing sen­sa­tional to read in the train. I am so sorry, dear Ce­cily, if it is any dis­ap­point­ment to you, but I am afraid I have the prior claim.

Ce­cily

It would dis­tress me more than I can tell you, dear Gwen­dolen, if it caused you any men­tal or phys­ical an­guish, but I feel bound to point out that since Ern­est pro­posed to you he clearly has changed his mind.

Gwen­dolen

Med­it­at­ively.

If the poor fel­low has been en­trapped into any fool­ish prom­ise I shall con­sider it my duty to res­cue him at once, and with a firm hand.

Ce­cily

Thought­fully and sadly.

Whatever un­for­tu­nate en­tan­gle­ment my dear boy may have got into, I will never re­proach him with it after we are mar­ried.

Gwen­dolen

Do you al­lude to me, Miss Cardew, as an en­tan­gle­ment? You are pre­sump­tu­ous. On an oc­ca­sion of this kind it be­comes more than a moral duty to speak one’s mind. It be­comes a pleas­ure.

Ce­cily

Do you sug­gest, Miss Fair­fax, that I en­trapped Ern­est into an en­gage­ment? How dare you? This is no time for wear­ing the shal­low mask of man­ners. When I see a spade I call it a spade.

Gwen­dolen

Satir­ic­ally.

I am glad to say that I have never seen a spade. It is ob­vi­ous that our so­cial spheres have been widely dif­fer­ent.

Enter Mer­ri­man, fol­lowed by the foot­man. He car­ries a sal­ver, table cloth, and plate stand. Ce­cily is about to re­tort. The pres­ence of the ser­vants ex­er­cises a re­strain­ing in­flu­ence, un­der which both girls chafe.

Mer­ri­man

Shall I lay tea here as usual, Miss?

Ce­cily

Sternly, in a calm voice.

Yes, as usual.

Mer­ri­man be­gins to clear table and lay cloth. A long pause. Ce­cily and Gwen­dolen glare at each other.

Gwen­dolen

Are there many in­ter­est­ing walks in the vi­cin­ity, Miss Cardew?

Ce­cily

Oh! yes! a great many. From the top of one of the hills quite close one can see five counties.

Gwen­dolen

Five counties! I don’t think I should like that; I hate crowds.

Ce­cily

Sweetly.

I sup­pose that is why you live in town?

Gwen­dolen bites her lip, and beats her foot nervously with her para­sol.

Gwen­dolen

Look­ing round.

Quite a well-kept garden this is, Miss Cardew.

Ce­cily

So glad you like it, Miss Fair­fax.

Gwen­dolen

I had no idea there were any flowers in the coun­try.

Ce­cily

Oh, flowers are as com­mon here, Miss Fair­fax, as people are in Lon­don.

Gwen­dolen

Per­son­ally I can­not un­der­stand how any­body man­ages to ex­ist in the coun­try, if any­body who is any­body does. The coun­try al­ways bores me to death.

Ce­cily

Ah! This is what the news­pa­pers call ag­ri­cul­tural de­pres­sion, is it not? I be­lieve the ar­is­to­cracy are suf­fer­ing very much from it just at present. It is al­most an epi­demic amongst them, I have been told. May I of­fer you some tea, Miss Fair­fax?

Gwen­dolen

With elab­or­ate po­lite­ness.

Thank you.

Aside.

Detest­able girl! But I re­quire tea!

Ce­cily

Sweetly.

Sugar?

Gwen­dolen

Su­per­cili­ously.

No, thank you. Sugar is not fash­ion­able any more.

Ce­cily looks an­grily at her, takes up the tongs and puts four lumps of sugar into the cup.

Ce­cily

Severely.

Cake or bread and but­ter?

Gwen­dolen

In a bored man­ner.

Bread and but­ter, please. Cake is rarely seen at the best houses nowadays.

Ce­cily

Cuts a very large slice of cake, and puts it on the tray.

Hand that to Miss Fair­fax.

Mer­ri­man does so, and goes out with foot­man. Gwen­dolen drinks the tea and makes a grim­ace. Puts down cup at once, reaches out her hand to the bread and but­ter, looks at it, and finds it is cake. Rises in in­dig­na­tion.

Gwen­dolen

You have filled my tea with lumps of sugar, and though I asked most dis­tinctly for bread and but­ter, you have given me cake. I am known for the gen­tle­ness of my dis­pos­i­tion, and the ex­traordin­ary sweet­ness of my nature, but I warn you, Miss Cardew, you may go too far.

Ce­cily

Rising.

To save my poor, in­no­cent, trust­ing boy from the mach­in­a­tions of any other girl there are no lengths to which I would not go.

Gwen­dolen

From the mo­ment I saw you I dis­trus­ted you. I felt that you were false and de­ceit­ful. I am never de­ceived in such mat­ters. My first im­pres­sions of people are in­vari­ably right.

Ce­cily

It seems to me, Miss Fair­fax, that I am tres­passing on your valu­able time. No doubt you have many other calls of a sim­ilar char­ac­ter to make in the neigh­bour­hood.

Enter Jack.

Gwen­dolen

Catch­ing sight of him.

Ern­est! My own Ern­est!

Jack

Gwen­dolen! Darling!

Of­fers to kiss her.

Gwen­dolen

Draws back.

A mo­ment! May I ask if you are en­gaged to be mar­ried to this young lady?

Points to Ce­cily.

Jack

Laugh­ing.

To dear little Ce­cily! Of course not! What could have put such an idea into your pretty little head?

Gwen­dolen

Thank you. You may!

Of­fers her cheek.

Ce­cily

Very sweetly.

I knew there must be some mis­un­der­stand­ing, Miss Fair­fax. The gen­tle­man whose arm is at present round your waist is my guard­ian, Mr. John Wor­th­ing.

Gwen­dolen

I beg your par­don?

Ce­cily

This is Uncle Jack.

Gwen­dolen

Re­ced­ing.

Jack! Oh!

Enter Al­gernon.

Ce­cily

Here is Ern­est.

Al­gernon

Goes straight over to Ce­cily without no­ti­cing any­one else.

My own love!

Of­fers to kiss her.

Ce­cily

Draw­ing back.

A mo­ment, Ern­est! May I ask you—are you en­gaged to be mar­ried to this young lady?

Al­gernon

Look­ing round.

To what young lady? Good heav­ens! Gwen­dolen!

Ce­cily

Yes! to good heav­ens, Gwen­dolen, I mean to Gwen­dolen.

Al­gernon

Laugh­ing.

Of course not! What could have put such an idea into your pretty little head?

Ce­cily

Thank you.

Present­ing her cheek to be kissed.

You may.

Al­gernon kisses her.

Gwen­dolen

I felt there was some slight er­ror, Miss Cardew. The gen­tle­man who is now em­bra­cing you is my cousin, Mr. Al­gernon Mon­crieff.

Ce­cily

Break­ing away from Al­gernon.

Al­gernon Mon­crieff! Oh!

The two girls move to­wards each other and put their arms round each other’s waists as if for pro­tec­tion.

Ce­cily

Are you called Al­gernon?

Al­gernon

I can­not deny it.

Ce­cily

Oh!

Gwen­dolen

Is your name really John?

Jack

Stand­ing rather proudly.

I could deny it if I liked. I could deny any­thing if I liked. But my name cer­tainly is John. It has been John for years.

Ce­cily

To Gwen­dolen.

A gross de­cep­tion has been prac­tised on both of us.

Gwen­dolen

My poor wounded Ce­cily!

Ce­cily

My sweet wronged Gwen­dolen!

Gwen­dolen

Slowly and ser­i­ously.

You will call me sis­ter, will you not?

They em­brace. Jack and Al­gernon groan and walk up and down.

Ce­cily

Rather brightly.

There is just one ques­tion I would like to be al­lowed to ask my guard­ian.

Gwen­dolen

An ad­mir­able idea! Mr. Wor­th­ing, there is just one ques­tion I would like to be per­mit­ted to put to you. Where is your brother Ern­est? We are both en­gaged to be mar­ried to your brother Ern­est, so it is a mat­ter of some im­port­ance to us to know where your brother Ern­est is at present.

Jack

Slowly and hes­it­at­ingly.

Gwen­dolen—Ce­cily—it is very pain­ful for me to be forced to speak the truth. It is the first time in my life that I have ever been re­duced to such a pain­ful po­s­i­tion, and I am really quite in­ex­per­i­enced in do­ing any­thing of the kind. However, I will tell you quite frankly that I have no brother Ern­est. I have no brother at all. I never had a brother in my life, and I cer­tainly have not the smal­lest in­ten­tion of ever hav­ing one in the fu­ture.

Ce­cily

Sur­prised.

No brother at all?

Jack

Cheer­ily.

None!

Gwen­dolen

Severely.

Had you never a brother of any kind?

Jack

Pleas­antly.

Never. Not even of an kind.

Gwen­dolen

I am afraid it is quite clear, Ce­cily, that neither of us is en­gaged to be mar­ried to any­one.

Ce­cily

It is not a very pleas­ant po­s­i­tion for a young girl sud­denly to find her­self in. Is it?

Gwen­dolen

Let us go into the house. They will hardly ven­ture to come after us there.

Ce­cily

No, men are so cow­ardly, aren’t they?

They re­tire into the house with scorn­ful looks.

Jack

This ghastly state of things is what you call Bun­bury­ing, I sup­pose?

Al­gernon

Yes, and a per­fectly won­der­ful Bun­bury it is. The most won­der­ful Bun­bury I have ever had in my life.

Jack

Well, you’ve no right what­so­ever to Bun­bury here.

Al­gernon

That is ab­surd. One has a right to Bun­bury any­where one chooses. Every ser­i­ous Bun­bury­ist knows that.

Jack

Ser­i­ous Bun­bury­ist! Good heav­ens!

Al­gernon

Well, one must be ser­i­ous about some­thing, if one wants to have any amuse­ment in life. I hap­pen to be ser­i­ous about Bun­bury­ing. What on earth you are ser­i­ous about I haven’t got the re­motest idea. About everything, I should fancy. You have such an ab­so­lutely trivial nature.

Jack

Well, the only small sat­is­fac­tion I have in the whole of this wretched busi­ness is that your friend Bun­bury is quite ex­ploded. You won’t be able to run down to the coun­try quite so of­ten as you used to do, dear Algy. And a very good thing too.

Al­gernon

Your brother is a little off col­our, isn’t he, dear Jack? You won’t be able to dis­ap­pear to Lon­don quite so fre­quently as your wicked cus­tom was. And not a bad thing either.

Jack

As for your con­duct to­wards Miss Cardew, I must say that your tak­ing in a sweet, simple, in­no­cent girl like that is quite in­ex­cus­able. To say noth­ing of the fact that she is my ward.

Al­gernon

I can see no pos­sible de­fence at all for your de­ceiv­ing a bril­liant, clever, thor­oughly ex­per­i­enced young lady like Miss Fair­fax. To say noth­ing of the fact that she is my cousin.

Jack

I wanted to be en­gaged to Gwen­dolen, that is all. I love her.

Al­gernon

Well, I simply wanted to be en­gaged to Ce­cily. I ad­ore her.

Jack

There is cer­tainly no chance of your mar­ry­ing Miss Cardew.

Al­gernon

I don’t think there is much like­li­hood, Jack, of you and Miss Fair­fax be­ing united.

Jack

Well, that is no busi­ness of yours.

Al­gernon

If it was my busi­ness, I wouldn’t talk about it.

Be­gins to eat muffins.

It is very vul­gar to talk about one’s busi­ness. Only people like stock­brokers do that, and then merely at din­ner parties.

Jack

How can you sit there, calmly eat­ing muffins when we are in this hor­rible trouble, I can’t make out. You seem to me to be per­fectly heart­less.

Al­gernon

Well, I can’t eat muffins in an agit­ated man­ner. The but­ter would prob­ably get on my cuffs. One should al­ways eat muffins quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them.

Jack

I say it’s per­fectly heart­less your eat­ing muffins at all, un­der the cir­cum­stances.

Al­gernon

When I am in trouble, eat­ing is the only thing that con­soles me. Indeed, when I am in really great trouble, as any­one who knows me in­tim­ately will tell you, I re­fuse everything ex­cept food and drink. At the present mo­ment I am eat­ing muffins be­cause I am un­happy. Besides, I am par­tic­u­larly fond of muffins.

Rising.

Jack

Rising.

Well, that is no reason why you should eat them all in that greedy way.

Takes muffins from Al­gernon.

Al­gernon

Of­fer­ing tea­cake.

I wish you would have tea­cake in­stead. I don’t like tea­cake.

Jack

Good heav­ens! I sup­pose a man may eat his own muffins in his own garden.

Al­gernon

But you have just said it was per­fectly heart­less to eat muffins.

Jack

I said it was per­fectly heart­less of you, un­der the cir­cum­stances. That is a very dif­fer­ent thing.

Al­gernon

That may be. But the muffins are the same.

He seizes the muffin-dish from Jack.

Jack

Algy, I wish to good­ness you would go.

Al­gernon

You can’t pos­sibly ask me to go without hav­ing some din­ner. It’s ab­surd. I never go without my din­ner. No one ever does, ex­cept ve­get­ari­ans and people like that. Besides I have just made ar­range­ments with Dr. Chas­uble to be christened at a quarter to six un­der the name of Ern­est.

Jack

My dear fel­low, the sooner you give up that non­sense the bet­ter. I made ar­range­ments this morn­ing with Dr. Chas­uble to be christened my­self at 5.30, and I nat­ur­ally will take the name of Ern­est. Gwen­dolen would wish it. We can’t both be christened Ern­est. It’s ab­surd. Besides, I have a per­fect right to be christened if I like. There is no evid­ence at all that I have ever been christened by any­body. I should think it ex­tremely prob­able I never was, and so does Dr. Chas­uble. It is en­tirely dif­fer­ent in your case. You have been christened already.

Al­gernon

Yes, but I have not been christened for years.

Jack

Yes, but you have been christened. That is the im­port­ant thing.

Al­gernon

Quite so. So I know my con­sti­tu­tion can stand it. If you are not quite sure about your ever hav­ing been christened, I must say I think it rather dan­ger­ous your ven­tur­ing on it now. It might make you very un­well. You can hardly have for­got­ten that someone very closely con­nec­ted with you was very nearly car­ried off this week in Paris by a severe chill.

Jack

Yes, but you said your­self that a severe chill was not hered­it­ary.

Al­gernon

It usen’t to be, I know—but I daresay it is now. Science is al­ways mak­ing won­der­ful im­prove­ments in things.

Jack

Pick­ing up the muffin-dish.

Oh, that is non­sense; you are al­ways talk­ing non­sense.

Al­gernon

Jack, you are at the muffins again! I wish you wouldn’t. There are only two left.

Takes them.

I told you I was par­tic­u­larly fond of muffins.

Jack

But I hate tea­cake.

Al­gernon

Why on earth then do you al­low tea­cake to be served up for your guests? What ideas you have of hos­pit­al­ity!

Jack

Al­gernon! I have already told you to go. I don’t want you here. Why don’t you go!

Al­gernon

I haven’t quite fin­ished my tea yet! and there is still one muffin left.

Jack groans, and sinks into a chair. Al­gernon still con­tin­ues eat­ing.

Act Drop

Act III

Scene: Morn­ing-room at the Manor House.

Gwen­dolen and Ce­cily are at the win­dow, look­ing out into the garden.

Gwen­dolen

The fact that they did not fol­low us at once into the house, as any­one else would have done, seems to me to show that they have some sense of shame left.

Ce­cily

They have been eat­ing muffins. That looks like re­pent­ance.

Gwen­dolen

After a pause.

They don’t seem to no­tice us at all. Couldn’t you cough?

Ce­cily

But I haven’t got a cough.

Gwen­dolen

They’re look­ing at us. What ef­frontery!

Ce­cily

They’re ap­proach­ing. That’s very for­ward of them.

Gwen­dolen

Let us pre­serve a dig­ni­fied si­lence.

Ce­cily

Cer­tainly. It’s the only thing to do now.

Enter Jack fol­lowed by Al­gernon. They whistle some dread­ful pop­u­lar air from a Brit­ish Opera.

Gwen­dolen

This dig­ni­fied si­lence seems to pro­duce an un­pleas­ant ef­fect.

Ce­cily

A most dis­taste­ful one.

Gwen­dolen

But we will not be the first to speak.

Ce­cily

Cer­tainly not.

Gwen­dolen

Mr. Wor­th­ing, I have some­thing very par­tic­u­lar to ask you. Much de­pends on your reply.

Ce­cily

Gwen­dolen, your com­mon sense is in­valu­able. Mr. Mon­crieff, kindly an­swer me the fol­low­ing ques­tion. Why did you pre­tend to be my guard­ian’s brother?

Al­gernon

In or­der that I might have an op­por­tun­ity of meet­ing you.

Ce­cily

To Gwen­dolen.

That cer­tainly seems a sat­is­fact­ory ex­plan­a­tion, does it not?

Gwen­dolen

Yes, dear, if you can be­lieve him.

Ce­cily

I don’t. But that does not af­fect the won­der­ful beauty of his an­swer.

Gwen­dolen

True. In mat­ters of grave im­port­ance, style, not sin­cer­ity is the vi­tal thing. Mr. Wor­th­ing, what ex­plan­a­tion can you of­fer to me for pre­tend­ing to have a brother? Was it in or­der that you might have an op­por­tun­ity of com­ing up to town to see me as of­ten as pos­sible?

Jack

Can you doubt it, Miss Fair­fax?

Gwen­dolen

I have the gravest doubts upon the sub­ject. But I in­tend to crush them. This is not the mo­ment for Ger­man scep­ti­cism.

Mov­ing to Ce­cily.

Their ex­plan­a­tions ap­pear to be quite sat­is­fact­ory, es­pe­cially Mr. Wor­th­ing’s. That seems to me to have the stamp of truth upon it.

Ce­cily

I am more than con­tent with what Mr. Mon­crieff said. His voice alone in­spires one with ab­so­lute credu­lity.

Gwen­dolen

Then you think we should for­give them?

Ce­cily

Yes. I mean no.

Gwen­dolen

True! I had for­got­ten. There are prin­ciples at stake that one can­not sur­render. Which of us should tell them? The task is not a pleas­ant one.

Ce­cily

Could we not both speak at the same time?

Gwen­dolen

An ex­cel­lent idea! I nearly al­ways speak at the same time as other people. Will you take the time from me?

Ce­cily

Cer­tainly.

Gwen­dolen beats time with up­lif­ted fin­ger.

Gwen­dolen and Ce­cily

Speak­ing to­gether.

Your Chris­tian names are still an in­su­per­able bar­rier. That is all!

Jack and Al­gernon

Speak­ing to­gether.

Our Chris­tian names! Is that all? But we are go­ing to be christened this af­ter­noon.

Gwen­dolen

To Jack.

For my sake you are pre­pared to do this ter­rible thing?

Jack

I am.

Ce­cily

To Al­gernon.

To please me you are ready to face this fear­ful or­deal?

Al­gernon

I am!

Gwen­dolen

How ab­surd to talk of the equal­ity of the sexes! Where ques­tions of self-sac­ri­fice are con­cerned, men are in­fin­itely bey­ond us.

Jack

We are.

Clasps hands with Al­gernon.

Ce­cily

They have mo­ments of phys­ical cour­age of which we wo­men know ab­so­lutely noth­ing.

Gwen­dolen

To Jack.

Darling!

Al­gernon

To Ce­cily.

Darling!

They fall into each other’s arms. Enter Mer­ri­man. When he enters he coughs loudly, see­ing the situ­ation.

Mer­ri­man

Ahem! Ahem! Lady Brack­nell!

Jack

Good heav­ens!

Enter Lady Brack­nell. The couples sep­ar­ate in alarm. Exit Mer­ri­man.

Lady Brack­nell

Gwen­dolen! What does this mean?

Gwen­dolen

Merely that I am en­gaged to be mar­ried to Mr. Wor­th­ing, mamma.

Lady Brack­nell

Come here. Sit down. Sit down im­me­di­ately. Hes­it­a­tion of any kind is a sign of men­tal de­cay in the young, of phys­ical weak­ness in the old.

Turns to Jack.

Ap­prised, sir, of my daugh­ter’s sud­den flight by her trusty maid, whose con­fid­ence I pur­chased by means of a small coin, I fol­lowed her at once by a lug­gage train. Her un­happy father is, I am glad to say, un­der the im­pres­sion that she is at­tend­ing a more than usu­ally lengthy lec­ture by the University Ex­ten­sion Scheme on the In­flu­ence of a per­man­ent in­come on Thought. I do not pro­pose to un­de­ceive him. Indeed I have never un­de­ceived him on any ques­tion. I would con­sider it wrong. But of course, you will clearly un­der­stand that all com­mu­nic­a­tion between your­self and my daugh­ter must cease im­me­di­ately from this mo­ment. On this point, as in­deed on all points, I am firm.

Jack

I am en­gaged to be mar­ried to Gwen­dolen Lady Brack­nell!

Lady Brack­nell

You are noth­ing of the kind, sir. And now, as re­gards Al­gernon! … Al­gernon!

Al­gernon

Yes, Aunt Augusta.

Lady Brack­nell

May I ask if it is in this house that your in­valid friend Mr. Bun­bury resides?

Al­gernon

Stam­mer­ing.

Oh! No! Bun­bury doesn’t live here. Bun­bury is some­where else at present. In fact, Bun­bury is dead.

Lady Brack­nell

Dead! When did Mr. Bun­bury die? His death must have been ex­tremely sud­den.

Al­gernon

Air­ily.

Oh! I killed Bun­bury this af­ter­noon. I mean poor Bun­bury died this af­ter­noon.

Lady Brack­nell

What did he die of?

Al­gernon

Bun­bury? Oh, he was quite ex­ploded.

Lady Brack­nell

Ex­ploded! Was he the vic­tim of a re­volu­tion­ary out­rage? I was not aware that Mr. Bun­bury was in­ter­ested in so­cial le­gis­la­tion. If so, he is well pun­ished for his mor­bid­ity.

Al­gernon

My dear Aunt Augusta, I mean he was found out! The doc­tors found out that Bun­bury could not live, that is what I mean—so Bun­bury died.

Lady Brack­nell

He seems to have had great con­fid­ence in the opin­ion of his phys­i­cians. I am glad, how­ever, that he made up his mind at the last to some def­in­ite course of ac­tion, and ac­ted un­der proper med­ical ad­vice. And now that we have fi­nally got rid of this Mr. Bun­bury, may I ask, Mr. Wor­th­ing, who is that young per­son whose hand my nephew Al­gernon is now hold­ing in what seems to me a pe­cu­li­arly un­ne­ces­sary man­ner?

Jack

That lady is Miss Ce­cily Cardew, my ward.

Lady Brack­nell bows coldly to Ce­cily.

Al­gernon

I am en­gaged to be mar­ried to Ce­cily, Aunt Augusta.

Lady Brack­nell

I beg your par­don?

Ce­cily

Mr. Mon­crieff and I are en­gaged to be mar­ried, Lady Brack­nell.

Lady Brack­nell

With a shiver, cross­ing to the sofa and sit­ting down.

I do not know whether there is any­thing pe­cu­li­arly ex­cit­ing in the air of this par­tic­u­lar part of Hert­ford­shire, but the num­ber of en­gage­ments that go on seems to me con­sid­er­ably above the proper av­er­age that stat­ist­ics have laid down for our guid­ance. I think some pre­lim­in­ary in­quiry on my part would not be out of place. Mr. Wor­th­ing, is Miss Cardew at all con­nec­ted with any of the lar­ger rail­way sta­tions in Lon­don? I merely de­sire in­form­a­tion. Until yes­ter­day I had no idea that there were any fam­il­ies or per­sons whose ori­gin was a Ter­minus.

Jack looks per­fectly furi­ous, but re­strains him­self.

Jack

In a clear, cold voice.

Miss Cardew is the grand­daugh­ter of the late Mr. Tho­mas Cardew of 149 Bel­grave Square, S. W.; Gervase Park, Dork­ing, Sur­rey; and the Spor­ran, Fife­shire, N. B.

Lady Brack­nell

That sounds not un­sat­is­fact­ory. Three ad­dresses al­ways in­spire con­fid­ence, even in trades­men. But what proof have I of their au­then­ti­city?

Jack

I have care­fully pre­served the Court Guides of the period. They are open to your in­spec­tion, Lady Brack­nell.

Lady Brack­nell

Grimly.

I have known strange er­rors in that pub­lic­a­tion.

Jack

Miss Cardew’s fam­ily so­li­cit­ors are Messrs. Markby, Markby, and Markby.

Lady Brack­nell

Markby, Markby, and Markby? A firm of the very highest po­s­i­tion in their pro­fes­sion. Indeed I am told that one of the Mr. Markby’s is oc­ca­sion­ally to be seen at din­ner parties. So far I am sat­is­fied.

Jack

Very ir­rit­ably.

How ex­tremely kind of you, Lady Brack­nell! I have also in my pos­ses­sion, you will be pleased to hear, cer­ti­fic­ates of Miss Cardew’s birth, bap­tism, whoop­ing cough, re­gis­tra­tion, vac­cin­a­tion, con­firm­a­tion, and the measles; both the Ger­man and the Eng­lish vari­ety.

Lady Brack­nell

Ah! A life crowded with in­cid­ent, I see; though per­haps some­what too ex­cit­ing for a young girl. I am not my­self in fa­vour of pre­ma­ture ex­per­i­ences.

Rises, looks at her watch.

Gwen­dolen! the time ap­proaches for our de­par­ture. We have not a mo­ment to lose. As a mat­ter of form, Mr. Wor­th­ing, I had bet­ter ask you if Miss Cardew has any little for­tune?

Jack

Oh! about a hun­dred and thirty thou­sand pounds in the Funds. That is all. Good­bye, Lady Brack­nell. So pleased to have seen you.

Lady Brack­nell

Sit­ting down again.

A mo­ment, Mr. Wor­th­ing. A hun­dred and thirty thou­sand pounds! And in the Funds! Miss Cardew seems to me a most at­tract­ive young lady, now that I look at her. Few girls of the present day have any really solid qual­it­ies, any of the qual­it­ies that last, and im­prove with time. We live, I re­gret to say, in an age of sur­faces.

To Ce­cily.

Come over here, dear.

Ce­cily goes across.

Pretty child! your dress is sadly simple, and your hair seems al­most as Nature might have left it. But we can soon al­ter all that. A thor­oughly ex­per­i­enced French maid pro­duces a really mar­vel­lous res­ult in a very brief space of time. I re­mem­ber re­com­mend­ing one to young Lady Lan­cing, and after three months her own hus­band did not know her.

Jack

And after six months nobody knew her.

Lady Brack­nell

Glares at Jack for a few mo­ments. Then bends, with a prac­tised smile, to Ce­cily.

Kindly turn round, sweet child.

Ce­cily turns com­pletely round.

No, the side view is what I want.

Ce­cily presents her pro­file.

Yes, quite as I ex­pec­ted. There are dis­tinct so­cial pos­sib­il­it­ies in your pro­file. The two weak points in our age are its want of prin­ciple and its want of pro­file. The chin a little higher, dear. Style largely de­pends on the way the chin is worn. They are worn very high, just at present. Al­gernon!

Al­gernon

Yes, Aunt Augusta!

Lady Brack­nell

There are dis­tinct so­cial pos­sib­il­it­ies in Miss Cardew’s pro­file.

Al­gernon

Ce­cily is the sweetest, dearest, pret­ti­est girl in the whole world. And I don’t care two­pence about so­cial pos­sib­il­it­ies.

Lady Brack­nell

Never speak dis­respect­fully of So­ci­ety, Al­gernon. Only people who can’t get into it do that.

To Ce­cily.

Dear child, of course you know that Al­gernon has noth­ing but his debts to de­pend upon. But I do not ap­prove of mer­cen­ary mar­riages. When I mar­ried Lord Brack­nell I had no for­tune of any kind. But I never dreamed for a mo­ment of al­low­ing that to stand in my way. Well, I sup­pose I must give my con­sent.

Al­gernon

Thank you, Aunt Augusta.

Lady Brack­nell

Ce­cily, you may kiss me!

Ce­cily

Kisses her.

Thank you, Lady Brack­nell.

Lady Brack­nell

You may also ad­dress me as Aunt Augusta for the fu­ture.

Ce­cily

Thank you, Aunt Augusta.

Lady Brack­nell

The mar­riage, I think, had bet­ter take place quite soon.

Al­gernon

Thank you, Aunt Augusta.

Ce­cily

Thank you, Aunt Augusta.

Lady Brack­nell

To speak frankly, I am not in fa­vour of long en­gage­ments. They give people the op­por­tun­ity of find­ing out each other’s char­ac­ter be­fore mar­riage, which I think is never ad­vis­able.

Jack

I beg your par­don for in­ter­rupt­ing you, Lady Brack­nell, but this en­gage­ment is quite out of the ques­tion. I am Miss Cardew’s guard­ian, and she can­not marry without my con­sent un­til she comes of age. That con­sent I ab­so­lutely de­cline to give.

Lady Brack­nell

Upon what grounds may I ask? Al­gernon is an ex­tremely, I may al­most say an os­ten­ta­tiously, eli­gible young man. He has noth­ing, but he looks everything. What more can one de­sire?

Jack

It pains me very much to have to speak frankly to you, Lady Brack­nell, about your nephew, but the fact is that I do not ap­prove at all of his moral char­ac­ter. I sus­pect him of be­ing un­truth­ful.

Al­gernon and Ce­cily look at him in in­dig­nant amazement.

Lady Brack­nell

Un­truth­ful! My nephew Al­gernon? Im­possible! He is an Oxonian.

Jack

I fear there can be no pos­sible doubt about the mat­ter. This af­ter­noon dur­ing my tem­por­ary ab­sence in Lon­don on an im­port­ant ques­tion of ro­mance, he ob­tained ad­mis­sion to my house by means of the false pre­tence of be­ing my brother. Under an as­sumed name he drank, I’ve just been in­formed by my but­ler, an en­tire pint bottle of my Per­rier-Jouet, Brut, ’89; wine I was spe­cially re­serving for my­self. Continu­ing his dis­grace­ful de­cep­tion, he suc­ceeded in the course of the af­ter­noon in ali­en­at­ing the af­fec­tions of my only ward. He sub­sequently stayed to tea, and de­voured every single muffin. And what makes his con­duct all the more heart­less is, that he was per­fectly well aware from the first that I have no brother, that I never had a brother, and that I don’t in­tend to have a brother, not even of any kind. I dis­tinctly told him so my­self yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

Lady Brack­nell

Ahem! Mr. Wor­th­ing, after care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion I have de­cided en­tirely to over­look my nephew’s con­duct to you.

Jack

That is very gen­er­ous of you, Lady Brack­nell. My own de­cision, how­ever, is un­al­ter­able. I de­cline to give my con­sent.

Lady Brack­nell

To Ce­cily.

Come here, sweet child.

Ce­cily goes over.

How old are you, dear?

Ce­cily

Well, I am really only eight­een, but I al­ways ad­mit to twenty when I go to even­ing parties.

Lady Brack­nell

You are per­fectly right in mak­ing some slight al­ter­a­tion. Indeed, no wo­man should ever be quite ac­cur­ate about her age. It looks so cal­cu­lat­ing …

In a med­it­at­ive man­ner.

Eight­een, but ad­mit­ting to twenty at even­ing parties. Well, it will not be very long be­fore you are of age and free from the re­straints of tu­tel­age. So I don’t think your guard­ian’s con­sent is, after all, a mat­ter of any im­port­ance.

Jack

Pray ex­cuse me, Lady Brack­nell, for in­ter­rupt­ing you again, but it is only fair to tell you that ac­cord­ing to the terms of her grand­father’s will Miss Cardew does not come leg­ally of age till she is thirty-five.

Lady Brack­nell

That does not seem to me to be a grave ob­jec­tion. Thirty-five is a very at­tract­ive age. Lon­don so­ci­ety is full of wo­men of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, re­mained thirty-five for years. Lady Dumb­leton is an in­stance in point. To my own know­ledge she has been thirty-five ever since she ar­rived at the age of forty, which was many years ago now. I see no reason why our dear Ce­cily should not be even still more at­tract­ive at the age you men­tion than she is at present. There will be a large ac­cu­mu­la­tion of prop­erty.

Ce­cily

Algy, could you wait for me till I was thirty-five?

Al­gernon

Of course I could, Ce­cily. You know I could.

Ce­cily

Yes, I felt it in­stinct­ively, but I couldn’t wait all that time. I hate wait­ing even five minutes for any­body. It al­ways makes me rather cross. I am not punc­tual my­self, I know, but I do like punc­tu­al­ity in oth­ers, and wait­ing, even to be mar­ried, is quite out of the ques­tion.

Al­gernon

Then what is to be done, Ce­cily?

Ce­cily

I don’t know, Mr. Mon­crieff.

Lady Brack­nell

My dear Mr. Wor­th­ing, as Miss Cardew states pos­it­ively that she can­not wait till she is thirty-five—a re­mark which I am bound to say seems to me to show a some­what im­pa­tient nature—I would beg of you to re­con­sider your de­cision.

Jack

But my dear Lady Brack­nell, the mat­ter is en­tirely in your own hands. The mo­ment you con­sent to my mar­riage with Gwen­dolen, I will most gladly al­low your nephew to form an al­li­ance with my ward.

Lady Brack­nell

Rising and draw­ing her­self up.

You must be quite aware that what you pro­pose is out of the ques­tion.

Jack

Then a pas­sion­ate cel­ib­acy is all that any of us can look for­ward to.

Lady Brack­nell

That is not the des­tiny I pro­pose for Gwen­dolen. Al­gernon, of course, can choose for him­self.

Pulls out her watch.

Come, dear,

Gwen­dolen rises

we have already missed five, if not six, trains. To miss any more might ex­pose us to com­ment on the plat­form.

Enter Dr. Chas­uble.

Chas­uble

Everything is quite ready for the christen­ings.

Lady Brack­nell

The christen­ings, sir! Is not that some­what pre­ma­ture?

Chas­uble

Look­ing rather puzzled, and point­ing to Jack and Al­gernon.

Both these gen­tle­men have ex­pressed a de­sire for im­me­di­ate bap­tism.

Lady Brack­nell

At their age? The idea is grot­esque and ir­re­li­gious! Al­gernon, I for­bid you to be bap­tized. I will not hear of such ex­cesses. Lord Brack­nell would be highly dis­pleased if he learned that that was the way in which you wasted your time and money.

Chas­uble

Am I to un­der­stand then that there are to be no christen­ings at all this af­ter­noon?

Jack

I don’t think that, as things are now, it would be of much prac­tical value to either of us, Dr. Chas­uble.

Chas­uble

I am grieved to hear such sen­ti­ments from you, Mr. Wor­th­ing. They sa­vour of the heretical views of the Anabaptists, views that I have com­pletely re­futed in four of my un­pub­lished ser­mons. However, as your present mood seems to be one pe­cu­li­arly sec­u­lar, I will re­turn to the church at once. Indeed, I have just been in­formed by the pew-opener that for the last hour and a half Miss Prism has been wait­ing for me in the vestry.

Lady Brack­nell

Start­ing.

Miss Prism! Did I hear you men­tion a Miss Prism?

Chas­uble

Yes, Lady Brack­nell. I am on my way to join her.

Lady Brack­nell

Pray al­low me to de­tain you for a mo­ment. This mat­ter may prove to be one of vi­tal im­port­ance to Lord Brack­nell and my­self. Is this Miss Prism a fe­male of re­pel­lent as­pect, re­motely con­nec­ted with edu­ca­tion?

Chas­uble

Some­what in­dig­nantly.

She is the most cul­tiv­ated of ladies, and the very pic­ture of re­spect­ab­il­ity.

Lady Brack­nell

It is ob­vi­ously the same per­son. May I ask what po­s­i­tion she holds in your house­hold?

Chas­uble

Severely.

I am a cel­ib­ate, madam.

Jack

In­ter­pos­ing.

Miss Prism, Lady Brack­nell, has been for the last three years Miss Cardew’s es­teemed gov­erness and val­ued com­pan­ion.

Lady Brack­nell

In spite of what I hear of her, I must see her at once. Let her be sent for.

Chas­uble

Look­ing off.

She ap­proaches; she is nigh.

Enter Miss Prism hur­riedly.

Miss Prism

I was told you ex­pec­ted me in the vestry, dear Canon. I have been wait­ing for you there for an hour and three-quar­ters.

Catches sight of Lady Brack­nell, who has fixed her with a stony glare. Miss Prism grows pale and quails. She looks anxiously round as if de­sirous to es­cape.

Lady Brack­nell

In a severe, ju­di­cial voice.

Prism!

Miss Prism bows her head in shame.

Come here, Prism!

Miss Prism ap­proaches in a humble man­ner.

Prism! Where is that baby?

Gen­eral con­sterna­tion. The Canon starts back in hor­ror. Al­gernon and Jack pre­tend to be anxious to shield Ce­cily and Gwen­dolen from hear­ing the de­tails of a ter­rible pub­lic scan­dal.

Twenty-eight years ago, Prism, you left Lord Brack­nell’s house, Num­ber 104, Up­per Gros­venor Street, in charge of a per­am­bu­lator that con­tained a baby of the male sex. You never re­turned. A few weeks later, through the elab­or­ate in­vest­ig­a­tions of the Met­ro­pol­itan po­lice, the per­am­bu­lator was dis­covered at mid­night, stand­ing by it­self in a re­mote corner of Bayswa­ter. It con­tained the ma­nu­script of a three-volume novel of more than usu­ally re­volt­ing sen­ti­ment­al­ity.

Miss Prism starts in in­vol­un­tary in­dig­na­tion.

But the baby was not there!

Every­one looks at Miss Prism.

Prism! Where is that baby?

A pause.

Miss Prism

Lady Brack­nell, I ad­mit with shame that I do not know. I only wish I did. The plain facts of the case are these. On the morn­ing of the day you men­tion, a day that is forever branded on my memory, I pre­pared as usual to take the baby out in its per­am­bu­lator. I had also with me a some­what old, but ca­pa­cious hand­bag in which I had in­ten­ded to place the ma­nu­script of a work of fic­tion that I had writ­ten dur­ing my few un­oc­cu­pied hours. In a mo­ment of men­tal ab­strac­tion, for which I never can for­give my­self, I de­pos­ited the ma­nu­script in the basin­ette, and placed the baby in the hand­bag.

Jack

Who has been listen­ing at­tent­ively.

But where did you de­posit the hand­bag?

Miss Prism

Do not ask me, Mr. Wor­th­ing.

Jack

Miss Prism, this is a mat­ter of no small im­port­ance to me. I in­sist on know­ing where you de­pos­ited the hand­bag that con­tained that in­fant.

Miss Prism

I left it in the cloak­room of one of the lar­ger rail­way sta­tions in Lon­don.

Jack

What rail­way sta­tion?

Miss Prism

Quite crushed.

Vict­oria. The Brighton line.

Sinks into a chair.

Jack

I must re­tire to my room for a mo­ment. Gwen­dolen, wait here for me.

Gwen­dolen

If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.

Exit Jack in great ex­cite­ment.

Chas­uble

What do you think this means, Lady Brack­nell?

Lady Brack­nell

I dare not even sus­pect, Dr. Chas­uble. I need hardly tell you that in fam­il­ies of high po­s­i­tion strange co­in­cid­ences are not sup­posed to oc­cur. They are hardly con­sidered the thing.

Noises heard over­head as if someone was throw­ing trunks about. Every­one looks up.

Ce­cily

Uncle Jack seems strangely agit­ated.

Chas­uble

Your guard­ian has a very emo­tional nature.

Lady Brack­nell

This noise is ex­tremely un­pleas­ant. It sounds as if he was hav­ing an ar­gu­ment. I dis­like ar­gu­ments of any kind. They are al­ways vul­gar, and of­ten con­vin­cing.

Chas­uble

Look­ing up.

It has stopped now.

The noise is re­doubled.

Lady Brack­nell

I wish he would ar­rive at some con­clu­sion.

Gwen­dolen

This sus­pense is ter­rible. I hope it will last.

Enter Jack with a hand­bag of black leather in his hand.

Jack

Rush­ing over to Miss Prism.

Is this the hand­bag, Miss Prism? Ex­am­ine it care­fully be­fore you speak. The hap­pi­ness of more than one life de­pends on your an­swer.

Miss Prism

Calmly.

It seems to be mine. Yes, here is the in­jury it re­ceived through the up­set­ting of a Gower Street om­ni­bus in younger and hap­pier days. Here is the stain on the lin­ing caused by the ex­plo­sion of a tem­per­ance bever­age, an in­cid­ent that oc­curred at Leam­ing­ton. And here, on the lock, are my ini­tials. I had for­got­ten that in an ex­tra­vag­ant mood I had had them placed there. The bag is un­doubtedly mine. I am de­lighted to have it so un­ex­pec­tedly re­stored to me. It has been a great in­con­veni­ence be­ing without it all these years.

Jack

In a pathetic voice.

Miss Prism, more is re­stored to you than this hand­bag. I was the baby you placed in it.

Miss Prism

Amazed.

You?

Jack

Em­bra­cing her.

Yes … mother!

Miss Prism

Re­coil­ing in in­dig­nant as­ton­ish­ment.

Mr. Wor­th­ing! I am un­mar­ried!

Jack

Un­mar­ried! I do not deny that is a ser­i­ous blow. But after all, who has the right to cast a stone against one who has suffered? Can­not re­pent­ance wipe out an act of folly? Why should there be one law for men, and an­other for wo­men? Mother, I for­give you.

Tries to em­brace her again.

Miss Prism

Still more in­dig­nant.

Mr. Wor­th­ing, there is some er­ror.

Point­ing to Lady Brack­nell.

There is the lady who can tell you who you really are.

Jack

After a pause.

Lady Brack­nell, I hate to seem in­quis­it­ive, but would you kindly in­form me who I am?

Lady Brack­nell

I am afraid that the news I have to give you will not al­to­gether please you. You are the son of my poor sis­ter, Mrs. Mon­crieff, and con­sequently Al­gernon’s elder brother.

Jack

Algy’s elder brother! Then I have a brother after all. I knew I had a brother! I al­ways said I had a brother! Ce­cily—how could you have ever doubted that I had a brother?

Seizes hold of Al­gernon.

Dr. Chas­uble, my un­for­tu­nate brother. Miss Prism, my un­for­tu­nate brother. Gwen­dolen, my un­for­tu­nate brother. Algy, you young scoun­drel, you will have to treat me with more re­spect in the fu­ture. You have never be­haved to me like a brother in all your life.

Al­gernon

Well, not till today, old boy, I ad­mit. I did my best, how­ever, though I was out of prac­tice.

Shakes hands.

Gwen­dolen

To Jack.

My own! But what own are you? What is your Chris­tian name, now that you have be­come someone else?

Jack

Good heav­ens! … I had quite for­got­ten that point. Your de­cision on the sub­ject of my name is ir­re­voc­able, I sup­pose?

Gwen­dolen

I never change, ex­cept in my af­fec­tions.

Ce­cily

What a noble nature you have, Gwen­dolen!

Jack

Then the ques­tion had bet­ter be cleared up at once. Aunt Augusta, a mo­ment. At the time when Miss Prism left me in the hand­bag, had I been christened already?

Lady Brack­nell

Every lux­ury that money could buy, in­clud­ing christen­ing, had been lav­ished on you by your fond and dot­ing par­ents.

Jack

Then I was christened! That is settled. Now, what name was I given? Let me know the worst.

Lady Brack­nell

Be­ing the eld­est son you were nat­ur­ally christened after your father.

Jack

Ir­rit­ably.

Yes, but what was my father’s Chris­tian name?

Lady Brack­nell

Med­it­at­ively.

I can­not at the present mo­ment re­call what the Gen­eral’s Chris­tian name was. But I have no doubt he had one. He was ec­cent­ric, I ad­mit. But only in later years. And that was the res­ult of the In­dian cli­mate, and mar­riage, and in­di­ges­tion, and other things of that kind.

Jack

Algy! Can’t you re­col­lect what our father’s Chris­tian name was?

Al­gernon

My dear boy, we were never even on speak­ing terms. He died be­fore I was a year old.

Jack

His name would ap­pear in the Army Lists of the period, I sup­pose, Aunt Augusta?

Lady Brack­nell

The Gen­eral was es­sen­tially a man of peace, ex­cept in his do­mestic life. But I have no doubt his name would ap­pear in any mil­it­ary dir­ect­ory.

Jack

The Army Lists of the last forty years are here. These de­light­ful re­cords should have been my con­stant study.

Rushes to book­case and tears the books out.

M. Gen­er­als … Mal­lam, Maxbohm, Magley, what ghastly names they have—Markby, Migsby, Mobbs, Mon­crieff! Lieu­ten­ant 1840, Cap­tain, Lieu­ten­ant-Co­l­onel, Co­l­onel, Gen­eral 1869, Chris­tian names, Ern­est John.

Puts book very quietly down and speaks quite calmly.

I al­ways told you, Gwen­dolen, my name was Ern­est, didn’t I? Well, it is Ern­est after all. I mean it nat­ur­ally is Ern­est.

Lady Brack­nell

Yes, I re­mem­ber now that the Gen­eral was called Ern­est, I knew I had some par­tic­u­lar reason for dis­lik­ing the name.

Gwen­dolen

Ern­est! My own Ern­est! I felt from the first that you could have no other name!

Jack

Gwen­dolen, it is a ter­rible thing for a man to find out sud­denly that all his life he has been speak­ing noth­ing but the truth. Can you for­give me?

Gwen­dolen

I can. For I feel that you are sure to change.

Jack

My own one!

Chas­uble

To Miss Prism.

Læti­tia!

Em­braces her

Miss Prism

Enthu­si­ast­ic­ally.

Fre­d­er­ick! At last!

Al­gernon

Ce­cily!

Em­braces her.

At last!

Jack

Gwen­dolen!

Em­braces her.

At last!

Lady Brack­nell

My nephew, you seem to be dis­play­ing signs of tri­vi­al­ity.

Jack

On the con­trary, Aunt Augusta, I’ve now real­ised for the first time in my life the vi­tal Im­port­ance of Be­ing Earn­est.

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