ACT I
SCENE.âMorning-room of LORD WINDERMEREâS house in Carlton House Terrace. Doors C. and R. Bureau with books and papers R. Sofa with small tea-table L. Window opening on to terrace L. Table R. (LADY WINDERMERE is at table R. Arranging roses in a blue bowl.)
PARKER. Is your ladyship at home this afternoon?
LADY WINDERMERE. Yesâwho has called?
PARKER. Lord Darlington, my lady.
LADY WINDERMERE (hesitates for a moment). Show him upâand Iâm at home to any one who calls.
PARKER. Yes, my lady. (Exit C.
LADY WINDERMERE. Itâs best for me to see him before to-night. Iâm glad heâs come.
PARKER. Lord Darlington.
Enter LORD DARLINGTON. Exit PARKER.
LORD DARLINGTON. How do you do, Lady Windermere?
LADY WINDERMERE. How do you do, Lord Darlington? No, I canât shake hands with you. My hands are all wet with these roses. Arenât they lovely? They came up from Selby this morning.
LORD DARLINGTON.. They are quite perfect. (Sees a fan lying on the table.) And what a wonderful fan! May I look at it?
LADY WINDERMERE. Do. Pretty, isnât it? Itâs got my name on it, and everything. I have only just seen it myself. Itâs my husbandâs birthday present to me. You know to-day is my birthday.
LORD DARLINGTON. No. Is it really?
LADY WINDERMERE. Yes; Iâm of age to-day. Quite an important day in my life, isnât it? That is why I am giving this party to-night. Do sit down. (Still arranging flowers.)
LORD DARLINGTON (sitting down). I wish I had known it was your birthday, Lady Windermere. I would have covered the whole street in front of your house with flowers for you to walk on. They are made for you. (A short pause.)
LADY WINDERMERE. Lord Darlingotn, you annoyed me last night at the Foreign Office. I am afraid you are going to annoy me again.
LORD DARLINCTON. I, Lady Windermere?
Enter PARKER and FOOTMAN C. with tray and tea-things.
LADY WINDERMERE.. Put it there, Parker. That will do. (Wipes her hands with her pocket-handkerchief, goes to tea-table L. and sits down.) Wonât you come over, Lord Darlington? (Exit PARKER C.
LORD DARLINGTON (takes chair and goes across L. C.). I am quite miserable, Lady Windermere. You must tell me what I did. (Sits down at table L.)
LADY WINDERMERE. Well, you kept paying me elaborate compliments the whole evening.
LORD DARLINGTON (smiling). Ah, now-a-days we are all of us so hard up, that the only pleasant things to pay are compliments. Theyâre the only things we can pay.
LADY WINDERMERE (shaking her head). No, I am talking very seriously. You mustnât laugh, I am quite serious. I donât like compliments, and I donât see why a man should think he is pleasing a woman enormously when he says to her a whole heap of things that he doesnât mean.
LORD DARLINGTON. Ah, but I did mean them. (Takes tea which she offers him.)
LADY WINDERMERE (gravely). I hope not. I should be sorry to have to quarrel with you, Lord Darlington. I like you very much, you know that. But I shouldnât like you at all if I thought you were what most other men are. Believe me, you are better than most other men, and I sometimes think you pretend to be worse.
LORD DARLINGTON. We all have our little vanities, Lady Windermere.
LADY WINDERMERE. Why do you make that your special one?
(Still seated at table L.)
LORD DARLINGTON (still seated L. C.) Oh, now-a-days so many conceited people go about society pretending to be good, that I think it shows rather a sweet and modest disposition to pretend to be bad. Besides, there is this to be said. If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesnât. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.
LADY WINDERMERE. Donât you want the world to take you seriously then, Lord Darlington?
LORD DARLINGTON. No, not the world. Who are the people the world takes seriously? All the dull people one can think of, from the Bishops down to the bores. I should like you to take me very seriously, Lady Windermere, you more than any one else in life.
LADY WINDERMERE. Whyâwhy me?
LORD DARLINGTON (after a slight hesitation). Because I think we might be great friends. Let us be great friends. You may want a friend some day.
LADY WINDERMERE. Why do you say that?
LORD DARLINGTON. Oh, we all want friends at times.
LADY WINDERMERE. I think weâre very good friends already, Lord Darlington. We can always remain so as long as you donâtâ
LORD DARLINGTON. Donât what?
LADY WINDERMERE. Donât spoil it by saying extravagant, silly things to me. You think I am a Puritan, I suppose? Well, I have something of the Puritan in me. I was brought up like that. I am glad of it. My mother died when I was a mere child. I lived always with Lady Julia, my fatherâs eldest sister, you know. She was stern to me, but she taught me, what the world is forgetting, the difference that there is between what is right and what is wrong. She allowed of no compromise. I allow of none.
LORD DARLINGTON. My dear Lady Windermere!
LADY WINDERMERE (leaning back on the sofa). You look on me as being behind the age.âWell, I am! I should be sorry to be on the same level as an age like this.
LORD DARLINGTON. You think the age very bad?
LADY WINDERMERE. Yes. Now-a-days people seem to look on life as a speculation. It is not a speculation. It is a sacrament. Its ideal is Love. Its purification is sacrifice.
LORD DARLINGTON (smiling). Oh, anything is better than being sacrificed!
LADY WINDERMERE (leaning forward). Donât say that.
LORD DARLINGTON. I do say it. I feel itâI know it.
PARKER. The men want to know if they are to put the carpets on the terrace for to-night, my lady?
LADY WINDERMERE. You donât think it will rain, Lord Darlington, do you?
LORD DARLINGTON.. I wonât hear of its raining on your birthday!
LADY WINDERMERE. Tell them to do it at once, Parker.
(Exit PARKER C.
LORD DARLINGTON (still seated). Do you think, thenâof course I am only putting an imaginary instanceâdo you think that, in the case of a young married couple, say about two years married, if the husband suddenly becomes the intimate friend of a woman ofâwell, more than doubtful character, is always calling upon her, lunching with her, and probably paying her billsâdo you think that the wife should not console herself?
LADY WINDERMERE (frowning). Console herself?
LORD DARLINGTON,. Yes, I think she shouldâI think she has the right.
LADY WINDERMERE. Because the husband is vileâshould the wife be vile also?
LORD DARLINGTON. Vileness is a terrible word, Lady Windermere.
LADY WINDERMERE. It is a terrible thing, Lord Darlington.
LORD DARLINGTON. Do you know I am afraid that good people do a great deal of harm in this world. Certainly the greatest harm they do is that they make badness of such extraordinary importance. It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious. I take the side of the charming, and you, Lady Windermere, canât help belonging to them.
LADY WINDERMERE. Now, Lord Darlington. (Rising and crossing R., front of him.) Donât stir, I am merely going to finish my flowers. (Goes to table R. C.)
LORD DARLINGTON (rising and moving chair). And I must say I think you are very hard on modern life, Lady Windermere. Of course there is much against it, I admit. Most women, for instance, now-a-days, are rather mercenary.
LADY WINDERMERE. Donât talk about such people.
LORD DARLINGTON. Well, then, setting mercenary people aside, who, of course, are dreadful, do you think seriously that women who have committed what the world calls a fault should never be forgiven?
LADY WINDERMERE (standing at table). I think they should never be forgiven.
LORD DARLINGTON. And men? Do you think that there should be the same laws for men as there are for women?
LADY WINDERMERE. Certainly!
LORD DARLINGTON. I think life too complex a thing to be settled by these hard and fast rules.
LADY WINDERMERE. If we had âthese hard and fast rules,â we should find life much more simple.
LORD DARLINGTON,. You allow of no exceptions?
LADY WINDERMERE. None!
LORD DARLINGTON. Ah, what a fascinating Puritan you are, Lady Windermere!
LADY WINDERMERE. The adjective was unnecessary, Lord Darlington.
LORD DARLINGTON. I couldnât help it. I can resist everything except temptation.
LADY WINDERMERE. You have the modern affectation of weakness.
LORD DARLINGTON (looking at her). Itâs only an affectation, Lady Windermere.
PARKER. The Duchess of Berwick and Lady Agatha Carlisle.
Enter the DUCHESS OF BERWICK and LADY AGATHA CARLISLE C. Exit PARKER C.
DUCHESS OF BERWICK (coming down C. and shaking hands). Dear Margaret, I am so pleased to see you. You remember Agatha, donât you? (Crossing L. C.) How do you do, Lord Darlington? I wonât let you know my daughter, you are far too wicked.
LORD DARLINGTON. Donât say that, Duchess. As a wicked man I am a complete failure. Why, there are lots of people who say I h...