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

been prejudiced or misinformed, or something. Then I want you to say a few words to the effect that the Government is going to reconsider the question, and that you have reason to believe that the Canal, if completed, will be of great international value. You know the sort of things ministers say in cases of this kind. A few ordinary platitudes will do. In modern life nothing produces such an effect as a good platitude. It makes the whole world kin. Will you do that for me? Sir Robert Chiltern Mrs. Cheveley, you cannot be serious in making me such a proposition! Mrs. Cheveley I am quite serious. Sir Robert Chiltern Coldly. Pray allow me to believe that you are not. Mrs. Cheveley Speaking with great deliberation and emphasis. Ah! but I am. And if you do what I ask you, I⁠ ⁠… will pay you very handsomely! Sir Robert Chiltern Pay me! Mrs. Cheveley Yes. Sir Robert Chiltern I am afraid I don’t quite understand what you mean. Mrs. Cheveley Leaning back on the sofa and looking at him. How very disappointing! And I have come all the way from Vienna in order that you should thoroughly understand me. Sir Robert Chiltern I fear I don’t. Mrs. Cheveley In her most nonchalant manner. My dear Sir Robert, you are a man of the world, and you have your price, I suppose. Everybody has nowadays. The drawback is that most people are so dreadfully expensive. I know I am. I hope you will be more reasonable in your terms. Sir Robert Chiltern Rises indignantly. If you will allow me, I will call your carriage for you. You have lived so long abroad, Mrs. Cheveley, that you seem to be unable to realise that you are talking to an English gentleman. Mrs. Cheveley Detains him by touching his arm with her fan, and keeping it there while she is talking. I realise that I am talking to a man who laid the foundation of his fortune by selling to a Stock Exchange speculator a Cabinet secret. Sir Robert Chiltern Biting his lip. What do you mean? Mrs. Cheveley Rising and facing him. I mean that I know the real origin of your wealth and your career, and I have got your letter, too. Sir Robert Chiltern What letter? Mrs. Cheveley Contemptuously. The letter you wrote to Baron Arnheim, when you were Lord Radley’s secretary, telling the Baron to buy Suez Canal shares⁠—a letter written three days before the Government announced its own purchase. Sir Robert Chiltern Hoarsely. It is not true. Mrs. Cheveley You thought that letter had been destroyed. How foolish of you! It is in my possession. Sir Robert Chiltern The affair to which you allude was no more than a speculation. The House of Commons had not yet passed the bill; it might have been rejected. Mrs. Cheveley It was a swindle, Sir Robert. Let us call things by their proper names. It makes everything simpler. And now I am going to sell you that letter, and the price I ask for it is your public support of the Argentine scheme. You made your own fortune out of one canal. You must help me and my friends to make our fortunes out of another! Sir Robert Chiltern It is infamous, what you propose⁠—infamous! Mrs. Cheveley Oh, no! This is the game of life as we all have to play it, Sir Robert, sooner or later! Sir Robert Chiltern I cannot do what you ask me. Mrs. Cheveley You mean you cannot help doing it. You know you are standing on the edge of a precipice. And it is not for you to make terms. It is for you to accept them. Supposing you refuse⁠— Sir Robert Chiltern What then? Mrs. Cheveley My dear Sir Robert, what then? You are ruined, that is all! Remember to what a point your Puritanism in England has brought you. In old days nobody pretended to be a bit better than his neighbours. In fact, to be a bit better than one’s neighbour was considered excessively vulgar and middle-class. Nowadays, with our modern mania for morality, everyone has to pose as a paragon of purity, incorruptibility, and all the other seven deadly virtues⁠—and what is the result? You all go over like ninepins⁠—one after the other. Not a year passes in England without somebody disappearing. Scandals used to lend charm, or at least interest, to a man⁠—now they crush him. And yours is a very nasty scandal. You couldn’t survive it. If it were known that as a young man, secretary to a great and important minister, you sold a Cabinet secret for a large sum of money, and that that was the origin of your wealth and career, you would be hounded out of public life, you would disappear completely. And after all, Sir Robert, why should you sacrifice your entire future rather than deal diplomatically with your enemy? For the moment I am your enemy. I admit it! And I am much stronger than you are. The big battalions are on my side. You have a splendid position, but it is your splendid position that makes you so vulnerable. You can’t defend it! And I am in attack. Of course I have not talked morality to you. You must admit in fairness that I have spared you that. Years ago you did a clever, unscrupulous thing; it turned out a great success. You owe to it your fortune and position. And now you have got to pay for it. Sooner or later we have all to pay for what we do. You have to pay now. Before I leave you tonight, you have got to promise me to suppress your report, and to speak in the House in favour of this scheme. Sir Robert Chiltern What you ask is impossible. Mrs. Cheveley You must make it possible. You are going to make it possible. Sir Robert, you know what your English newspapers are like. Suppose that when I leave this house I drive down to some newspaper office, and give them this scandal and the proofs of it! Think of their loathsome joy, of the