An Ideal Husband - Oscar Wilde (unputdownable books .txt) 📗

language about them both. Well, you were silly, Arthur. Why, Lord Mortlake was never anything more to me than an amusement. One of those utterly tedious amusements one only finds at an English country house on an English country Sunday. I don’t think anyone at all morally responsible for what he or she does at an English country house. Lord Goring Yes. I know lots of people think that. Mrs. Cheveley I loved you, Arthur. Lord Goring My dear Mrs. Cheveley, you have always been far too clever to know anything about love. Mrs. Cheveley I did love you. And you loved me. You know you loved me; and love is a very wonderful thing. I suppose that when a man has once loved a woman, he will do anything for her, except continue to love her? Puts her hand on his. Lord Goring Taking his hand away quietly. Yes: except that. Mrs. Cheveley After a pause. I am tired of living abroad. I want to come back to London. I want to have a charming house here. I want to have a salon. If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilised. Besides, I have arrived at the romantic stage. When I saw you last night at the Chilterns’, I knew you were the only person I had ever cared for, if I ever have cared for anybody, Arthur. And so, on the morning of the day you marry me, I will give you Robert Chiltern’s letter. That is my offer. I will give it to you now, if you promise to marry me. Lord Goring Now? Mrs. Cheveley Smiling. Tomorrow. Lord Goring Are you really serious? Mrs. Cheveley Yes, quite serious. Lord Goring I should make you a very bad husband. Mrs. Cheveley I don’t mind bad husbands. I have had two. They amused me immensely. Lord Goring You mean that you amused yourself immensely, don’t you? Mrs. Cheveley What do you know about my married life? Lord Goring Nothing: but I can read it like a book. Mrs. Cheveley What book? Lord Goring Rising. The Book of Numbers. Mrs. Cheveley Do you think it is quite charming of you to be so rude to a woman in your own house? Lord Goring In the case of very fascinating women, sex is a challenge, not a defence. Mrs. Cheveley I suppose that is meant for a compliment. My dear Arthur, women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are. That is the difference between the two sexes. Lord Goring Women are never disarmed by anything, as far as I know them. Mrs. Cheveley After a pause. Then you are going to allow your greatest friend, Robert Chiltern, to be ruined, rather than marry someone who really has considerable attractions left. I thought you would have risen to some great height of self-sacrifice, Arthur. I think you should. And the rest of your life you could spend in contemplating your own perfections. Lord Goring Oh! I do that as it is. And self-sacrifice is a thing that should be put down by law. It is so demoralising to the people for whom one sacrifices oneself. They always go to the bad. Mrs. Cheveley As if anything could demoralise Robert Chiltern! You seem to forget that I know his real character. Lord Goring What you know about him is not his real character. It was an act of folly done in his youth, dishonourable, I admit, shameful, I admit, unworthy of him, I admit, and therefore⁠ ⁠… not his true character. Mrs. Cheveley How you men stand up for each other! Lord Goring How you women war against each other! Mrs. Cheveley Bitterly. I only war against one woman, against Gertrude Chiltern. I hate her. I hate her now more than ever. Lord Goring Because you have brought a real tragedy into her life, I suppose. Mrs. Cheveley With a sneer. Oh, there is only one real tragedy in a woman’s life. The fact that her past is always her lover, and her future invariably her husband. Lord Goring Lady Chiltern knows nothing of the kind of life to which you are alluding. Mrs. Cheveley A woman whose size in gloves is seven and three-quarters never knows much about anything. You know Gertrude has always worn seven and three-quarters? That is one of the reasons why there was never any moral sympathy between us.⁠ ⁠… Well, Arthur, I suppose this romantic interview may be regarded as at an end. You admit it was romantic, don’t you? For the privilege of being your wife I was ready to surrender a great prize, the climax of my diplomatic career. You decline. Very well. If Sir Robert doesn’t uphold my Argentine scheme, I expose him. Voilà tout. Lord Goring You mustn’t do that. It would be vile, horrible, infamous. Mrs. Cheveley Shrugging her shoulders. Oh! don’t use big words. They mean so little. It is a commercial transaction. That is all. There is no good mixing up sentimentality in it. I offered to sell Robert Chiltern a certain thing. If he won’t pay me my price, he will have to pay the world a greater price. There is no more to be said. I must go. Goodbye. Won’t you shake hands? Lord Goring With you? No. Your transaction with Robert Chiltern may pass as a loathsome commercial transaction of a loathsome commercial age; but you seem to have forgotten that you came here tonight to talk of love, you whose lips desecrated the word love, you to whom the thing is a book closely sealed, went this afternoon to the house of one of the most noble and gentle women in the world to degrade her husband in her eyes, to try and kill her love for him, to put poison in her heart, and bitterness in her life, to break her idol, and, it may be, spoil her soul. That I cannot forgive you. That was horrible. For that there can be no forgiveness. Mrs. Cheveley Arthur, you are unjust to me. Believe me, you are quite unjust to me. I didn’t go to taunt Gertrude at all. I had no idea of doing