The Way of the World - William Congreve (free ereaders txt) 📗

the injuries you have done me, both in my fame and fortune: with both I trusted you, you bankrupt in honour, as indigent of wealth. Fainall Your fame I have preserved. Your fortune has been bestowed as the prodigality of your love would have it, in pleasures which we both have shared. Yet, had not you been false I had e’er this repaid it.⁠—’tis true⁠—had you permitted Mirabell with Millamant to have stolen their marriage, my lady had been incensed beyond all means of reconcilement: Millamant had forfeited the moiety of her fortune, which then would have descended to my wife. And wherefore did I marry but to make lawful prize of a rich widow’s wealth, and squander it on love and you? Mrs. Marwood Deceit and frivolous pretence! Fainall Death, am I not married? What’s pretence? Am I not imprisoned, fettered? Have I not a wife? Nay, a wife that was a widow, a young widow, a handsome widow, and would be again a widow, but that I have a heart of proof, and something of a constitution to bustle through the ways of wedlock and this world. Will you yet be reconciled to truth and me? Mrs. Marwood Impossible. Truth and you are inconsistent.⁠—I hate you, and shall for ever. Fainall For loving you? Mrs. Marwood I loathe the name of love after such usage; and next to the guilt with which you would asperse me, I scorn you most. Farewell. Fainall Nay, we must not part thus. Mrs. Marwood Let me go. Fainall Come, I’m sorry. Mrs. Marwood I care not. Let me go. Break my hands, do⁠—I’d leave ’em to get loose. Fainall I would not hurt you for the world. Have I no other hold to keep you here? Mrs. Marwood Well, I have deserved it all. Fainall You know I love you. Mrs. Marwood Poor dissembling! Oh, that⁠—well, it is not yet⁠— Fainall What? What is it not? What is it not yet? It is not yet too late⁠— Mrs. Marwood No, it is not yet too late⁠—I have that comfort. Fainall It is, to love another. Mrs. Marwood But not to loathe, detest, abhor mankind, myself, and the whole treacherous world. Fainall Nay, this is extravagance. Come, I ask your pardon. No tears⁠—I was to blame, I could not love you and be easy in my doubts. Pray forbear⁠—I believe you; I’m convinced I’ve done you wrong; and any way, every way will make amends: I’ll hate my wife yet more, damn her, I’ll part with her, rob her of all she’s worth, and we’ll retire somewhere, anywhere, to another world; I’ll marry thee⁠—be pacified.⁠—’Sdeath, they come: hide your face, your tears. You have a mask,26 wear it a moment. This way, this way: be persuaded. Exeunt. Scene II

The same.

Mirabell and Mrs. Fainall. Mrs. Fainall They are here yet. Mirabell They are turning into the other walk. Mrs. Fainall While I only hated my husband, I could bear to see him; but since I have despised him, he’s too offensive. Mirabell Oh, you should hate with prudence. Mrs. Fainall Yes, for I have loved with indiscretion. Mirabell You should have just so much disgust for your husband as may be sufficient to make you relish your lover. Mrs. Fainall You have been the cause that I have loved without bounds, and would you set limits to that aversion of which you have been the occasion? Why did you make me marry this man? Mirabell Why do we daily commit disagreeable and dangerous actions? To save that idol, reputation. If the familiarities of our loves had produced that consequence of which you were apprehensive, where could you have fixed a father’s name with credit but on a husband? I knew Fainall to be a man lavish of his morals, an interested and professing friend, a false and a designing lover, yet one whose wit and outward fair behaviour have gained a reputation with the town, enough to make that woman stand excused who has suffered herself to be won by his addresses. A better man ought not to have been sacrificed to the occasion; a worse had not answered to the purpose. When you are weary of him you know your remedy. Mrs. Fainall I ought to stand in some degree of credit with you, Mirabell. Mirabell In justice to you, I have made you privy to my whole design, and put it in your power to ruin or advance my fortune. Mrs. Fainall Whom have you instructed to represent your pretended uncle? Mirabell Waitwell, my servant. Mrs. Fainall He is an humble servant to Foible, my mother’s woman, and may win her to your interest. Mirabell Care is taken for that⁠—she is won and worn by this time. They were married this morning. Mrs. Fainall Who? Mirabell Waitwell and Foible. I would not tempt my servant to betray me by trusting him too far. If your mother, in hopes to ruin me, should consent to marry my pretended uncle, he might, like Mosca in The Fox, stand upon terms;27 so I made him sure beforehand. Mrs. Fainall So, if my poor mother is caught in a contract, you will discover the imposture betimes, and release her by producing a certificate of her gallant’s former marriage. Mirabell Yes, upon condition that she consent to my marriage with her niece, and surrender the moiety of her fortune in her possession. Mrs. Fainall She talked last night of endeavouring at a match between Millamant and your uncle. Mirabell That was by Foible’s direction and my instruction, that she might seem to carry it more privately. Mrs. Fainall Well, I have an opinion of your success, for I believe my lady will do anything to get an husband; and when she has this, which you have provided for her, I suppose she will submit to anything to get rid of him. Mirabell Yes, I think the good lady would marry anything that resembled a man, though ’twere no more than what a butler could pinch out of a napkin. Mrs. Fainall Female frailty! We must all come to it, if we live to be old, and feel the craving of a false appetite when the true is decayed. Mirabell An old woman’s appetite is depraved like that of