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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. She is the only good woman I have ever met in my life.
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.
CECIL GRAHAM: My dear fellow, what on earth should we men do going about with purity and innocence? A carefully thought-out buttonhole is much more effective.
DUMBY: She doesn’t really love you then?
LORD DARLINGTON: No, she does not!
DUMBY: I congratulate you, my dear fellow. In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. The last is much the worst; the last is a real tragedy! But I am interested to hear she does not love you. How long could you love a woman who didn’t love you, Cecil?
CECIL GRAHAM: A woman who didn’t love me? Oh, all my life!
DUMBY: So could I. But it’s so difficult to meet one.
LORD DARLINGTON: How can you be so conceited, Dumby?
DUMBY: I didn’t say it as a matter of conceit. I said it as a matter of regret. I have been wildly, madly adored. I am sorry I have. It has been an immense nuisance. I should like to be allowed a little time to myself now and then.
LORD AUGUSTUS (looking round): Time to educate yourself, I suppose.
DUMBY: No, time to forget all I have learned. That is much more important, dear Tuppy.
LORD AUGUSTUS moves uneasily in his chair.
LORD DARLINGTON: What cynics you fellows are!
CECIL GRAHAM: What is a cynic? (Sitting on the back of the sofa.)
LORD DARLINGTON: A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
CECIL GRAHAM: And a sentimentalist, my dear Darlington, is a man who sees an absurd value in everything, and doesn’t know the market price of any single thing.
LORD DARLINGTON: You always amuse me, Cecil. You talk as if you were a man of experience.
CECIL GRAHAM: I am. (Moves up to front of fireplace.)
LORD DARLINGTON: You are far too young!
CECIL GRAHAM: That is a great error. Experience is a question of instinct about life. I have got it. Tuppy hasn’t. Experience is the name Tuppy gives to his mistakes. That is all.
LORD AUGUSTUS looks round indignantly.
DUMBY: Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes.
CECIL GRAHAM (standing with his back to the fireplace): One shouldn’t commit any. (Sees LADY WINDERMERE’S fan on sofa.)
DUMBY: Life would be very dull without them.
CECIL GRAHAM: Of course you are quite faithful to this woman you are in love with, Darlington, to this good woman?
LORD DARLINGTON: Cecil, if one really loves a woman, all other women in the world become absolutely meaningless to one. Love changes one – I am changed.
CECIL GRAHAM: Dear me! How very interesting! Tuppy, I want to talk to you.
LORD AUGUSTUS takes no notice.
DUMBY: It’s no use talking to Tuppy. You might just as well talk to a brick wall.
CECIL GRAHAM: But I like talking to a brick wall – it’s the only thing in the world that never contradicts me! Tuppy!
LORD AUGUSTUS: Well, what is it? What is it? (Rising and going over to CECIL GRAHAM.)
CECIL GRAHAM: Come over here. I want you particularly. (Aside.) Darlington has been moralising and talking about the purity of love, and that sort of thing, and he has got some woman in his rooms all the time.
LORD AUGUSTUS: No, really! Really!
CECIL GRAHAM (in a low voice): Yes, here is her fan. (Points to the fan.)
LORD AUGUSTUS (chuckling): By Jove! By Jove!
LORD WINDERMERE (up by door): I am really off now, Lord Darlington. I am sorry you are leaving England so soon. Pray call on us when you come back! My wife and I will be charmed to see you!
LORD DARLINGTON (up stage with LORD WINDERMERE): I am afraid I shall be away for many years. Good-night!
CECIL GRAHAM: Arthur!
LORD WINDERMERE: What?
CECIL GRAHAM: I want to speak to you for a moment. No, do come!
LORD WINDERMERE (putting on his coat): I can’t – I’m off.
CECIL GRAHAM: It is something very particular. It will interest you enormously.
LORD WINDERMERE (smiling): It is some of your nonsense, Cecil.
CECIL GRAHAM: It isn’t! It isn’t really.
LORD AUGUSTUS (going to him): My dear fellow, you mustn’t go yet. I have a lot to talk to you about. And Cecil has something to show you.
LORD WINDERMERE (walking over): Well, what is it?
CECIL GRAHAM: Darlington has got a woman here in his rooms.
Here is her fan. Amusing, isn’t it? (A pause.)
LORD WINDERMERE: Good God! (Seizes the fan – DUMBY rises)
CECIL GRAHAM: What is the matter?
LORD WINDERMERE: Lord Darlington!
LORD DARLINGTON (turning round): Yes!
LORD WINDERMERE: What is my wife’s fan doing here in your rooms? Hands off, Cecil. Don’t touch me.
LORD DARLINGTON: Your wife’s fan?
LORD WINDERMERE: Yes, here it is?
LORD DARLINGTON (walking towards him): I don’t know!
LORD WINDERMERE: You must know. I demand an explanation.
Don’t hold me, you fool. (To CECIL GRAHAM.)
LORD DARLINGTON (aside): She is here after all!
LORD WINDERMERE: Speak, sir! Why is my wife’s fan here? Answer me! By God! I’ll search your rooms, and if my wife’s here, I’ll – (Moves.)
LORD DARLINGTON: You shall not search my rooms. You have no right to do so. I forbid you!
LORD WINDERMERE: You scoundrel! I’ll not leave your room till I have searched every corner of it! What moves behind that curtain? (Rushes forward towards the curtain C.)
MRS. 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)
ACT DROP
ACT FOUR
SCENE: Same as in Act One.
LADY WINDERMERE (lying on sofa): How can I tell him? I can’t tell him. It would kill me. I wonder what happened after I escaped from that horrible room. Perhaps she told them the true reason of her being there, and the real meaning of that – fatal fan of mine. Oh, if he knows – how can I look him in the face again? He would never forgive me. (Touches bell.) How securely one thinks one lives – out of reach of temptation, sin, folly. And then suddenly – Oh! Life is terrible. It rules us, we do not rule it.
Enter ROSALIE R.
ROSALIE: Did your ladyship ring for me?
LADY WINDERMERE: Yes. Have you found out at what time Lord Windermere came in last night?
ROSALIE: His lordship did not come in till five o’clock.
LADY WINDERMERE: Five o’clock? He knocked at my door this morning, didn’t he?
ROSALIE: Yes, my lady – at half-past nine. I told him your ladyship was not awake yet.
LADY WINDERMERE: Did he say anything?
ROSALIE: Something about your ladyship’s fan. I didn’t quite catch what his lordship said. Has the fan been lost, my lady? I can’t find it, and Parker says it was not left in any of the rooms. He has looked in all of them and on the terrace as well.
LADY WINDERMERE: It doesn’t matter. Tell Parker not to trouble. That will do.
Exit ROSALIE.
LADY WINDERMERE (rising): She is sure to tell him. I can fancy a person doing a wonderful act of self-sacrifice, doing it spontaneously, recklessly, nobly and afterwards finding out that it costs too much. Why should she hesitate between her ruin and mine? … How strange! I would have publicly disgraced her in my own house. She accepts public disgrace in the house of another to save me … There is a bitter irony in things, a bitter irony in the way we talk of good and bad women … oh, what a lesson! And what a pity that in life we only get our lessons when they are of no use to us! For even if she doesn’t tell, I must. Oh! The shame of it, the shame of it. To tell it is to live through it all again. Actions are the first tragedy in life, words are the second. Words are perhaps the worst. Words are merciless … Oh! (Starts as LORD WINDERMERE enters.)
LORD WINDERMERE (kisses her): Margaret – how pale you look!
LADY WINDERMERE: I slept very badly.
LORD WINDERMERE (sitting on sofa with her): I am so sorry. I came in dreadfully late, and didn’t like to wake you. You are crying, dear.
LADY WINDERMERE: Yes, I am crying, for I have something to tell you, Arthur.
LORD WINDERMERE: My dear child, you are not well. You’ve been doing too much. Let us go away to the country. You’ll be all right at Selby. The season is almost over. There is no use staying on. Poor darling! We’ll go away to-day, if you like. (Rises.) We can easily catch the 3.40. I’ll send a wire to Fannen. (Crosses and sits down at table to write a telegram.)
LADY WINDERMERE: Yes; let us go away to-day. No; I can’t go to-day, Arthur. There is some one I must see before I leave town – some one who has been kind to me.
LORD WINDERMERE (rising and leaning over sofa): Kind to you?
LADY WINDERMERE: Far more than that. (Rises and goes to him.) I will tell you, Arthur, but only love me, love me as you used to love me.
LORD WINDERMERE: Used to? You are not thinking of that wretched woman who came here last night? (Coming round and sitting R. of her.): You don’t still imagine – no, you couldn’t.
LADY WINDERMERE: I don’t. I know now I was wrong and foolish.
LORD WINDERMERE: It was very good of you to receive her last night – but you are never to see her again.
LADY WINDERMERE: Why do you say that? (A pause.)
