it.
[Sir Robert Chiltern enters from behind. He hears his wife’s last words, and sees to whom they are addressed. He grows deadly pale.]
mrs. cheveley
Your house! A house bought with the price of dishonour. A house, everything in which has been paid for by fraud. [Turns round and sees Sir Robert Chiltern.] Ask him what the origin of his fortune is! Get him to tell you how he sold to a stockbroker a Cabinet secret. Learn from him to what you owe your position.
lady chiltern
It is not true! Robert! It is not true!
·115· mrs. cheveley
[Pointing at him with outstretched finger.] Look at him! Can he deny it? Does he dare to?
sir robert chiltern
Go! Go at once. You have done your worst now.
mrs. cheveley
My worst? I have not yet finished with you, with either of you. I give you both till to-morrow at noon. If by then you don’t do what I bid you to do, the whole world shall know the origin of Robert Chiltern.
[Sir Robert Chiltern strikes the bell. Enter Mason.]
sir robert chiltern
Show Mrs. Cheveley out.
[Mrs. Cheveley starts; then bows with somewhat exaggerated politeness to Lady Chiltern, who makes no sign of response. As she passes by Sir Robert Chiltern, who is standing close to the door, she pauses for a moment and looks him straight in the face. She then goes out, followed by the servant, who closes the door after him. The husband and wife are left alone. Lady Chiltern stands like some one in a dreadful dream. Then she turns round and looks at her husband. She looks at him with strange eyes, as though she was seeing him for the first time.]
·116· lady chiltern
You sold a Cabinet secret for money! You began your life with fraud! You built up your career on dishonour! Oh, tell me it is not true! Lie to me! Lie to me! Tell me it is not true!
sir robert chiltern
What this woman said is quite true. But, Gertrude, listen to me. You don’t realize how I was tempted. Let me tell you the whole thing. [Goes towards her.]
lady chiltern
Don’t come near me. Don’t touch me. I feel as if you had soiled me for ever. Oh! what a mask you have been wearing all these years! A horrible painted mask! You sold yourself for money. Oh! a common thief were better. You put yourself up to sale to the highest bidder! You were bought in the market. You lied to the whole world. And yet you will not lie to me.
sir robert chiltern
[Rushing towards her.] Gertrude! Gertrude!
lady chiltern
[Thrusting him back with outstretched hands.] No, don’t speak! Say nothing! Your voice wakes terrible memories—memories of things that made me love you—memories of words that made me ·117· love you—memories that now are horrible to me. And how I worshipped you! You were to me something apart from common life, a thing pure, noble, honest, without stain. The world seemed to me finer because you were in it, and goodness more real because you lived. And now—oh, when I think that I made of a man like you my ideal! the ideal of my life!
sir robert chiltern
There was your mistake. There was your error. The error all women commit. Why can’t you women love us, faults and all? Why do you place us on monstrous pedestals? We have all feet of clay, women as well as men; but when we men love women, we love them knowing their weaknesses, their follies, their imperfections, love them all the more, it may be, for that reason. It is not the perfect, but the imperfect, who have need of love. It is when we are wounded by our own hands, or by the hands of others, that love should come to cure us—else what use is love at all? All sins, except a sin against itself, Love should forgive. All lives, save loveless lives, true Love should pardon. A man’s love is like that. It is wider, larger, more human than a woman’s. Women think that they are making ideals of men. What they are making of us are false idols merely. You made your false idol of me, and I had not the courage to come down, show you my wounds, tell you my weaknesses. I was afraid that I might lose your love, as I have lost it now. And so, last night you ruined my life ·118· for me—yes, ruined it! What this woman asked of me was nothing compared to what she offered to me. She offered security, peace, stability. The sin of my youth, that I had thought was buried, rose up in front of me, hideous, horrible, with its hands at my throat. I could have killed it for ever, sent it back into its tomb, destroyed its record, burned the one witness against me. You prevented me. No one but you, you know it. And now what is there before me but public disgrace, ruin, terrible shame, the mockery of the world, a lonely dishonoured life, a lonely dishonoured death, it may be, some day? Let women make no more ideals of men! let them not put them on altars and bow before them, or they may ruin other lives as completely as you—you whom I have so wildly loved—have ruined mine!
[He passes from the room. Lady Chiltern rushes towards him, but the door is closed when she reaches it. Pale with anguish, bewildered, helpless, she sways like a plant in the water. Her hands, outstretched, seem to tremble in the air like blossoms in the wind. Then she flings herself down beside a sofa and buries her face. Her sobs are like the sobs of a child.]
Act-drop.
·119· Third Act.
·121· SCENE—The Library in Lord Goring’s house. An Adams room. On the right is the door leading into the hall. On the left, the door of the smoking-room. A pair of folding doors at the back open into the drawing-room. The fire is lit. Phipps, the butler, is arranging some newspapers on the writing-table. The distinction of Phipps is his impassivity. He has been termed by enthusiasts the Ideal Butler. The Sphinx is not so incommunicable. He is a mask with a manner. Of his intellectual or emotional life history knows nothing. He represents the dominance of form.
[Enter Lord Goring in evening dress with a buttonhole. He is wearing a silk hat and Inverness cape. White-gloved, he carries a Louis Seize cane. His are all the delicate fopperies of Fashion. One sees that he stands in immediate relation to modern life, makes it indeed, and so masters it. He is the first well-dressed philosopher in the history of thought.]
lord goring
Got my second buttonhole for me, Phipps?
·122· phipps
Yes, my lord. [Takes his hat, cane and cape, and presents new buttonhole on salver.]
lord goring
Rather distinguished thing, Phipps. I am the only person of the smallest importance in London at present who wears a buttonhole.
phipps
Yes, my lord. I have observed that.
lord goring
[Taking out old buttonhole.] You see, Phipps, Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear.
