Oscar Wilde

“ Don’t spoil the one good thing I have done in my life by telling it to any one. Promise me that what passed last night will remain a secret between us. You must not bring misery into your husband’s life. Why spoil his love? You must not spoil it. Love is easily killed. Oh! how easily love is killed. Pledge me your word, Lady Windermere, that you will never tell him. I insist upon it.
Lady Windermere. [With bowed head.] It is your will, not mine.
Mrs. Erlynne. Yes, it is my will. And never forget your child—I like to think of you as a mother. I like you to think of yourself as one. ”

“ Lady Windermere. Arthur, Arthur, don’t talk so bitterly about any woman. I don’t think now that people can be divided into the good and the bad as though they were two separate races or creations. What are called good women may have terrible things in them, mad moods of recklessness, assertion, jealousy, sin. Bad women, as they are termed, may have in them sorrow, repentance, pity, sacrifice. And I don’t think Mrs. Erlynne a bad woman—I know she’s not.
Lord Windermere. My dear child, the woman’s impossible. No matter what harm she tries to do us, you must never see her again. ”

“ Lord Darlington. Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship. I love you—
Lady Windermere. No, no! [Rises.]
Lord Darlington. Yes, I love you! You are more to me than anything in the whole world. What does your husband give you? Nothing. Whatever is in him he gives to this wretched woman, whom he has thrust into your society, into your home, to shame you before every one. ”

“ My dear Arthur, I never talk scandal. I only talk gossip.
Lord Windermere. What is the difference between scandal and gossip?
Cecil Graham. Oh! gossip is charming! History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality. Now, I never moralise. A man who moralises is usually a hypocrite, and a woman who moralises is invariably plain. There is nothing in the whole world so unbecoming to a woman as a Nonconformist conscience. And most women know it, I’m glad to say.
Lord Augustus. Just my sentiments, dear boy, just my sentiments.
Cecil Graham. Sorry to hear it, Tuppy ”

“ Lord Windermere. How hard good women are!
Lady Windermere. How weak bad men are!
Lord Windermere. Margaret, none of us men may be good enough for the women we marry—that is quite true—but you don’t imagine I would ever—oh, the suggestion is monstrous!
Lady Windermere. Why should you be different from other men? I am told that there is hardly a husband in London who does not waste his life over some shameful passion. ”

“ You—why, you are a mere girl, you would be lost. You haven’t got the kind of brains that enables a woman to get back. You have neither the wit nor the courage. You couldn’t stand dishonour! No! Go back, Lady Windermere, to the husband who loves you, whom you love. You have a child, Lady Windermere. Go back to that child who even now, in pain or in joy, may be calling to you. [Lady Windermere rises.] God gave you that child. He will require from you that you make his life fine, that you watch over him. What answer will you make to God if his life is ruined through you? ”

“ All London will know why you did it; and who will blame you? No one. If they do, what matter? Wrong? What is wrong? It’s wrong for a man to abandon his wife for a shameless woman. It is wrong for a wife to remain with a man who so dishonours her. You said once you would make no compromise with things. Make none now. Be brave! Be yourself!
Lady Windermere. I am afraid of being myself. Let me think! Let me wait! My husband may return to me. [Sits down on sofa.]
Lord Darlington. And you would take him back! You are not what I thought you were. You are just the same as every other woman. ”

“ Cecil Graham. The only good woman you have ever met in your life?
Lord Darlington. Yes!
Cecil Graham. [Lighting a cigarette.] Well, you are a lucky fellow! Why, I have met hundreds of good women. I never seem to meet any but good women. The world is perfectly packed with good women. To know them is a middle-class education.
Lord Darlington. This woman has purity and innocence. She has everything we men have lost. ”

“ Lord Windermere. No, thanks, Cecil.
Dumby. [With a sigh.] Good heavens! how marriage ruins a man! It’s as demoralising as cigarettes, and far more expensive.
Cecil Graham. You’ll play, of course, Tuppy?
Lord Augustus. [Pouring himself out a brandy and soda at table.] Can’t, dear boy. Promised Mrs. Erlynne never to play or drink again.
Cecil Graham. Now, my dear Tuppy, don’t be led astray into the paths of virtue. Reformed, you would be perfectly tedious. That is the worst of women. They always want one to be good. And if we are good, when they meet us, they don’t love us at all. ”

“ Hopper. How do you do, Lady Windermere? How do you do, Duchess? [Bows to Lady Agatha.]
Duchess of Berwick. Dear Mr. Hopper, how nice of you to come so early. We all know how you are run after in London.
Hopper. Capital place, London! They are not nearly so exclusive in London as they are in Sydney.
Duchess of Berwick. Ah! we know your value, Mr. Hopper. We wish there were more like you. It would make life so much easier. Do you know, Mr. Hopper, dear Agatha and I are so much interested in Australia. It must be so pretty with all the dear little kangaroos flying about. ”

“ Lady Windermere. Yes. If it had been a girl, I would have called it after my mother. My mother had the same name as myself, Margaret.
Mrs. Erlynne. My name is Margaret too.
Lady Windermere. Indeed!
Mrs. Erlynne. Yes. [Pause.] You are devoted to your mother’s memory, Lady Windermere, your husband tells me.
Lady Windermere. We all have ideals in life. At least we all should have. Mine is my mother.
Mrs. Erlynne. Ideals are dangerous things. Realities are better. They wound, but they’re better.
Lady Windermere. [Shaking her head.] If I lost my ideals, I should lose everything. ”

“ Erlynne. A letter for Lord Windermere?
Parker. Yes, madam.
Mrs. Erlynne. Thank you.
[Exit Parker. The music in the ball-room stops.] Gone out of her house! A letter addressed to her husband! [Goes over to bureau and looks at letter. Takes it up and lays it down again with a shudder of fear.] No, no! It would be impossible! Life doesn’t repeat its tragedies like that! Oh, why does this horrible fancy come across me? Why do I remember now the one moment of my life I most wish to forget? Does life repeat its tragedies? ”

“ Dumby. We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars? Upon my word, you are very romantic to-night, Darlington.
Cecil Graham. Too romantic! You must be in love. Who is the girl?
Lord Darlington. The woman I love is not free, or thinks she isn’t. [Glances instinctively at Lord Windermere while he speaks.]
Cecil Graham. A married woman, then! Well, there’s nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It’s a thing no married man knows anything about.
Lord Darlington. Oh! she doesn’t love me. She is a good woman. ”

“ Good-bye, once more; come, Agatha.
[Exeunt Duchess and Lady Agatha C.]
Lady Windermere. How horrible! I understand now what Lord Darlington meant by the imaginary instance of the couple not two years married. Oh! it can’t be true—she spoke of enormous sums of money paid to this woman. I know where Arthur keeps his bank book—in one of the drawers of that desk. I might find out by that. I will find out. [Opens drawer.] No, it is some hideous mistake. [Rises and goes C.] Some silly scandal! He loves me! He loves me! But why should I not look? I am his wife, I have a right to look! ”

“ But rather than my wife should know—that the mother whom she was taught to consider as dead, the mother whom she has mourned as dead, is living—a divorced woman, going about under an assumed name, a bad woman preying upon life, as I know you now to be—rather than that, I was ready to supply you with money to pay bill after bill, extravagance after extravagance, to risk what occurred yesterday, the first quarrel I have ever had with my wife. ”

“ Lord Windermere. [Moves down with her.] Darling, why do you say that?
Lady Windermere. [Sits on sofa.] Because I, who had shut my eyes to life, came to the brink. And one who had separated us—
Lord Windermere. We were never separated.
Lady Windermere. We never must be again. O Arthur, don’t love me less, and I will trust you more. I will trust you absolutely. Let us go to Selby. In the Rose Garden at Selby the roses are white and red.
[Enter Lord Augustus C.]
Lord Augustus. Arthur, she has explained everything! ”

“ Duchess of Berwick. [On sofa L.] Of course it’s going to be select. But we know that, dear Margaret, about your house. It is really one of the few houses in London where I can take Agatha, and where I feel perfectly secure about dear Berwick. I don’t know what society is coming to. The most dreadful people seem to go everywhere. They certainly come to my parties—the men get quite furious if one doesn’t ask them. Really, some one should make a stand against it.
Lady Windermere. I will, Duchess. I will have no one in my house about whom there is any scandal. ”

“ Erlynne.
Lady Plymdale. That woman!
Dumby. Yes; that is what every one calls her.
Lady Plymdale. How very interesting! How intensely interesting! I really must have a good stare at her. [Goes to door of ball-room and looks in.] I have heard the most shocking things about her. They say she is ruining poor Windermere. And Lady Windermere, who goes in for being so proper, invites her! How extremely amusing! It takes a thoroughly good woman to do a thoroughly stupid thing. You are to lunch there on Friday!
Dumby. Why?
Lady Plymdale. Because I want you to take my husband with you. ”

“ Dumby. The youth of the present day are quite monstrous. They have absolutely no respect for dyed hair. [Lord Augustus looks round angrily.]
Cecil Graham. Mrs. Erlynne has a very great respect for dear Tuppy.
Dumby. Then Mrs. Erlynne sets an admirable example to the rest of her sex. It is perfectly brutal the way most women nowadays behave to men who are not their husbands.
Lord Windermere. Dumby, you are ridiculous, and Cecil, you let your tongue run away with you. You must leave Mrs. Erlynne alone. You don’t really know anything about her, and you’re always talking scandal against her. ”

“ Are all men bad?
Duchess of Berwick. Oh, all of them, my dear, all of them, without any exception. And they never grow any better. Men become old, but they never become good. ”

“ My dear nieces—you know the Saville girls, don’t you?—such nice domestic creatures—plain, dreadfully plain, but so good—well, they’re always at the window doing fancy work, and making ugly things for the poor, which I think so useful of them in these dreadful socialistic days, and this terrible woman has taken a house in Curzon Street, right opposite them—such a respectable street, too! I don’t know what we’re coming to! And they tell me that Windermere goes there four and five times a week—they see him. ”

“ But there are moments when one has to choose between living one’s own life, fully, entirely, completely—or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands. ”

“ Erlynne. [Rising.] I suppose, Windermere, you would like me to retire into a convent, or become a hospital nurse, or something of that kind, as people do in silly modern novels. That is stupid of you, Arthur; in real life we don’t do such things—not as long as we have any good looks left, at any rate. No—what consoles one nowadays is not repentance, but pleasure. Repentance is quite out of date. And besides, if a woman really repents, she has to go to a bad dressmaker, otherwise no one believes in her. ”

“ Erlynne. [Enters behind R.] Lord Windermere!
Lord Windermere. Mrs. Erlynne!
[Every one starts and turns round. Lady Windermere slips out from behind the curtain and glides from the room L.]
Mrs. Erlynne. I am afraid I took your wife’s fan in mistake for my own, when I was leaving your house to-night. I am so sorry. [Takes fan from him. Lord Windermere looks at her in contempt. Lord Darlington in mingled astonishment and anger. Lord Augustus turns away. The other men smile at each other.] ”

“ My life—my whole life. Take it, and do with it what you will. . . . I love you—love you as I have never loved any living thing. From the moment I met you I loved you, loved you blindly, adoringly, madly! You did not know it then—you know it now! ”

“ It’s most dangerous nowadays for a husband to pay any attention to his wife in public. It always makes people think that he beats her when they’re alone. The world has grown so suspicious of anything that looks like a happy married life. ”

“ Lady Windermere. That woman is not coming here to-night!
Lord Windermere. [R.C.] Mrs. Erlynne is coming here, and if you in any way annoy or wound her, you will bring shame and sorrow on us both. Remember that! Ah, Margaret! only trust me! A wife should trust her husband!
Lady Windermere. [C.] London is full of women who trust their husbands. One can always recognise them. They look so thoroughly unhappy. I am not going to be one of them. [Moves up.] Lord Darlington, will you give me back my fan, please? Thanks. . . . A useful thing a fan, isn’t it? ”