Full Act 1 Flashcards (EARNEST)

Flashcard deck for Algernon's line in Act 1 of the Importance of Being Earnest

Lane is arranging afternoon tea on the table, and after the music has ceased, Algernon enters.

Did you hear what I was playing, Lane?

I didn’t think it polite to listen, sir.

I’m sorry for that, for your sake. I don’t play accurately—any one can play accurately—but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life.

Yes, sir. (1)

And, speaking of the science of Life, have you got the cucumber sandwiches cut for Lady Bracknell?

Yes, sir. [Hands them on a salver.]

[Inspects them, takes two, and sits down on the sofa.] Oh! . . . by the way, Lane, I see from your book that on Thursday night, when Lord Shoreman and Mr. Worthing were dining with me, eight bottles of champagne are entered as having been consumed.

Yes, sir; eight bottles and a pint.

Why is it that at a bachelor’s establishment the servants invariably drink the champagne? I ask merely for information.

I attribute it to the superior quality of the wine, sir. I have often observed that in married households the champagne is rarely of a first-rate brand.

Good heavens! Is marriage so demoralising as that?

I believe it is a very pleasant state, sir. I have had very little experience of it myself up to the present. I have only been married once. That was in consequence of a misunderstanding between myself and a young person.

[Languidly.] I don’t know that I am much interested in your family life, Lane.

No, sir; it is not a very interesting subject. I never think of it myself.

Very natural, I am sure. That will do, Lane, thank you.

Thank you, sir. [Lane goes out.]

Lane’s views on marriage seem somewhat lax. Really, if the lower orders don’t set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them? They seem, as a class, to have absolutely no sense of moral responsibility.

LANE.

Mr. Ernest Worthing.

Enter Jack. Lane goes out.

How are you, my dear Ernest? What brings you up to town?

Oh, pleasure, pleasure! What else should bring one anywhere? Eating as usual, I see, Algy!

[Stiffly.] I believe it is customary in good society to take some slight refreshment at five o’clock. Where have you been since last Thursday?

[Sitting down on the sofa.] In the country.

What on earth do you do there?

[Pulling off his gloves.] When one is in town one amuses oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other people. It is excessively boring.

And who are the people you amuse?

[Airily.] Oh, neighbours, neighbours.

Got nice neighbours in your part of Shropshire?

Perfectly horrid! Never speak to one of them.

How immensely you must amuse them! [Goes over and takes sandwich.] By the way, Shropshire is your county, is it not?

Eh? Shropshire? Yes, of course. Hallo! Why all these cups? Why cucumber sandwiches? Why such reckless extravagance in one so young? Who is coming to tea?

Oh! merely Aunt Augusta and Gwendolen.

How perfectly delightful!

Yes, that is all very well; but I am afraid Aunt Augusta won’t quite approve of your being here.

May I ask why?

My dear fellow, the way you flirt with Gwendolen is perfectly disgraceful. It is almost as bad as the way Gwendolen flirts with you.

I am in love with Gwendolen. I have come up to town expressly to propose to her.

I thought you had come up for pleasure? . . . I call that business.

How utterly unromantic you are!

I really don’t see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. Why, one may be accepted. One usually is, I believe. Then the excitement is all over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty. If ever I get married, I’ll certainly try to forget the fact.

I have no doubt about that, dear Algy. The Divorce Court was specially invented for people whose memories are so curiously constituted.

Oh! there is no use speculating on that subject. Divorces are made in Heaven—[Jack puts out his hand to take a sandwich. Algernon at once interferes.] Please don’t touch the cucumber sandwiches. They are ordered specially for Aunt Augusta. [Takes one and eats it.]

Well, you have been eating them all the time.

That is quite a different matter. She is my aunt. [Takes plate from below.] Have some bread and butter. The bread and butter is for Gwendolen. Gwendolen is devoted to bread and butter.

[Advancing to table and helping himself.] And very good bread and butter it is too.

Well, my dear fellow, you need not eat as if you were going to eat it all. You behave as if you were married to her already. You are not married to her already, and I don’t think you ever will be.

Why on earth do you say that?

Well, in the first place girls never marry the men they flirt with. Girls don’t think it right.

Oh, that is nonsense!

It isn’t. It is a great truth. It accounts for the extraordinary number of bachelors that one sees all over the place. In the second place, I don’t give my consent.

Your consent!

My dear fellow, Gwendolen is my first cousin. And before I allow you to marry her, you will have to clear up the whole question of Cecily. [Rings bell.]

Cecily! What on earth do you mean? What do you mean, Algy, by Cecily! I don’t know any one of the name of Cecily.

Enter Lane.

Bring me that cigarette case Mr. Worthing left in the smoking-room the last time he dined here.

Do you mean to say you have had my cigarette case all this time? I wish to goodness you had let me know. I have been writing frantic letters to Scotland Yard about it. I was very nearly offering a large reward.

Well, I wish you would offer one. I happen to be more than usually hard up.

Enter Lane with the cigarette case on a salver. Algernon takes it at once. Lane goes out.

I think that is rather mean of you, Ernest, I must say. [Opens case and examines it.] However, it makes no matter, for, now that I look at the inscription inside, I find that the thing isn’t yours after all.

Of course it’s mine. [Moving to him.] You have seen me with it a hundred times, and you have no right whatsoever to read what is written inside. It is a very ungentlemanly thing to read a private cigarette case.

Oh! it is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn’t. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn’t read.

I am quite aware of the fact, and I don’t propose to discuss modern culture. It isn’t the sort of thing one should talk of in private. I simply want my cigarette case back.

Yes; but this isn’t your cigarette case. This cigarette case is a present from someone of the name of Cecily, and you said you didn’t know any one of that name.

Well, if you want to know, Cecily happens to be my aunt.

Your aunt!

Yes. Charming old lady she is, too. Lives at Tunbridge Wells. Just give it back to me, Algy.

[Retreating to back of sofa.] But why does she call herself little Cecily if she is your aunt and lives at Tunbridge Wells? [Reading.] ‘From little Cecily with her fondest love.’

[Moving to sofa and kneeling upon it.] My dear fellow, what on earth is there in that? Some aunts are tall, some aunts are not tall. That is a matter that surely an aunt may be allowed to decide for herself. You seem to think that every aunt should be exactly like your aunt! That is absurd! For Heaven’s sake give me back my cigarette case.

[Follows Algernon round the room.]

[Follows Algernon round the room.]

Yes. But why does your aunt call you her uncle? ‘From little Cecily, with her fondest love to her dear Uncle Jack.’ There is no objection, I admit, to an aunt being a small aunt, but why an aunt, no matter what her size may be, should call her own nephew her uncle, I can’t quite make out. Besides, your name isn’t Jack at all; it is Ernest.

It isn’t Ernest; it’s Jack.

You have always told me it was Ernest. I have introduced you to every one as Ernest. You answer to the name of Ernest. You look as if your name was Ernest. You are the most earnest-looking person I ever saw in my life. It is perfectly absurd your saying that your name isn’t Ernest. It’s on your cards. Here is one of them. [Taking it from case.] ‘Mr. Ernest Worthing, B. 4, The Albany.’ I’ll keep this as a proof that your name is Ernest if ever you attempt to deny it to me, or to Gwendolen, or to any one else. [Puts the card in his pocket.]

Well, my name is Ernest in town and Jack in the country, and the cigarette case was given to me in the country.

Yes, but that does not account for the fact that your small Aunt Cecily, who lives at Tunbridge Wells, calls you her dear uncle. Come, old boy, you had much better have the thing out at once.

My dear Algy, you talk exactly as if you were a dentist. It is very vulgar to talk like a dentist when one isn’t a dentist. It produces a false impression.

Well, that is exactly what dentists always do. Now, go on! Tell me the whole thing. I may mention that I have always suspected you of being a confirmed and secret Bunburyist; and I am quite sure of it now.

Bunburyist? What on earth do you mean by a Bunburyist?

I’ll reveal to you the meaning of that incomparable expression as soon as you are kind enough to inform me why you are Ernest in town and Jack in the country.

Well, produce my cigarette case first.

Here it is. [Hands cigarette case.] Now produce your explanation, and pray make it improbable. [Sits on sofa.]

My dear fellow, there is nothing improbable about my explanation at all. In fact it’s perfectly ordinary. Old Mr. Thomas Cardew, who adopted me when I was a little boy, made me in his will guardian to his grand-daughter, Miss Cecily Cardew. Cecily, who addresses me as her uncle from motives of respect that you could not possibly appreciate, lives at my place in the country under the charge of her admirable governess, Miss Prism.

Where is that place in the country, by the way?

That is nothing to you, dear boy. You are not going to be invited . . . I may tell you candidly that the place is not in Shropshire.

I suspected that, my dear fellow! I have Bunburyed all over Shropshire on two separate occasions. Now, go on. Why are you Ernest in town and Jack in the country?

My dear Algy, I don’t know whether you will be able to understand my real motives. You are hardly serious enough. When one is placed in the position of guardian, one has to adopt a very high moral tone on all subjects. It’s one’s duty to do so. And as a high moral tone can hardly be said to conduce very much to either one’s health or one’s happiness, in order to get up to town I have always pretended to have a younger brother of the name of Ernest, who lives in the Albany, and gets into the most dreadful scrapes. That, my dear Algy, is the whole truth pure and simple.

The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!

That wouldn’t be at all a bad thing.

Literary criticism is not your forte, my dear fellow. Don’t try it. You should leave that to people who haven’t been at a University. They do it so well in the daily papers. What you really are is a Bunburyist. I was quite right in saying you were a Bunburyist. You are one of the most advanced Bunburyists I know.

What on earth do you mean?

You have invented a very useful younger brother called Ernest, in order that you may be able to come up to town as often as you like. I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose. Bunbury is perfectly invaluable. If it wasn’t for Bunbury’s extraordinary bad health, for instance, I wouldn’t be able to dine with you at Willis’s to-night, for I have been really engaged to Aunt Augusta for more than a week.

I haven’t asked you to dine with me anywhere to-night.

I know. You are absurdly careless about sending out invitations. It is very foolish of you. Nothing annoys people so much as not receiving invitations.

You had much better dine with your Aunt Augusta.

I haven’t the smallest intention of doing anything of the kind. To begin with, I dined there on Monday, and once a week is quite enough to dine with one’s own relations. In the second place, whenever I do dine there I am always treated as a member of the family, and sent down with either no woman at all, or two. In the third place, I know perfectly well whom she will place me next to, to-night. She will place me next Mary Farquhar, who always flirts with her own husband across the dinner-table. That is not very pleasant. Indeed, it is not even decent . . . and that sort of thing is enormously on the increase. The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks so bad. It is simply washing one’s clean linen in public. Besides, now that I know you to be a confirmed Bunburyist I naturally want to talk to you about Bunburying. I want to tell you the rules.

I’m not a Bunburyist at all. If Gwendolen accepts me, I am going to kill my brother, indeed I think I’ll kill him in any case. Cecily is a little too much interested in him. It is rather a bore. So I am going to get rid of Ernest. And I strongly advise you to do the same with Mr. . . . with your invalid friend who has the absurd name.

Nothing will induce me to part with Bunbury, and if you ever get married, which seems to me extremely problematic, you will be very glad to know Bunbury. A man who marries without knowing Bunbury has a very tedious time of it.

That is nonsense. If I marry a charming girl like Gwendolen, and she is the only girl I ever saw in my life that I would marry, I certainly won’t want to know Bunbury.

Then your wife will. You don’t seem to realise, that in married life three is company and two is none.

[Sententiously.] That, my dear young friend, is the theory that the corrupt French Drama has been propounding for the last fifty years.

Yes; and that the happy English home has proved in half the time.

For heaven’s sake, don’t try to be cynical. It’s perfectly easy to be cynical.

My dear fellow, it isn’t easy to be anything nowadays. There’s such a lot of beastly competition about. [The sound of an electric bell is heard.] Ah! that must be Aunt Augusta. Only relatives, or creditors, ever ring in that Wagnerian manner. Now, if I get her out of the way for ten minutes, so that you can have an opportunity for proposing to Gwendolen, may I dine with you to-night at Willis’s?

I suppose so, if you want to.

Yes, but you must be serious about it. I hate people who are not serious about meals. It is so shallow of them.

Lady Bracknell and Miss Fairfax.

Algernon goes forward to meet them. Enter Lady Bracknell and Gwendolen.

Good afternoon, dear Algernon, I hope you are behaving very well.

I’m feeling very well, Aunt Augusta.

That’s not quite the same thing. In fact the two things rarely go together. [Sees Jack and bows to him with icy coldness.]

[To Gwendolen.] Dear me, you are smart!

I’m sorry if we are a little late, Algernon, but I was obliged to call on dear Lady Harbury. I hadn’t been there since her poor husband’s death. I never saw a woman so altered; she looks quite twenty years younger. And now I’ll have a cup of tea, and one of those nice cucumber sandwiches you promised me.

Certainly, Aunt Augusta. [Goes over to tea-table.]

Thanks, mamma, I’m quite comfortable where I am.

[Picking up empty plate in horror.] Good heavens! Lane! Why are there no cucumber sandwiches? I ordered them specially.

[Gravely.] There were no cucumbers in the market this morning, sir. I went down twice.

No cucumbers!

No, sir. Not even for ready money.

That will do, Lane, thank you.

Thank you, sir. [Goes out.]

I am greatly distressed, Aunt Augusta, about there being no cucumbers, not even for ready money.

It really makes no matter, Algernon. I had some crumpets with Lady Harbury, who seems to me to be living entirely for pleasure now.

I hear her hair has turned quite gold from grief.

It certainly has changed its colour. From what cause I, of course, cannot say. [Algernon crosses and hands tea.] Thank you. I’ve quite a treat for you to-night, Algernon. I am going to send you down with Mary Farquhar. She is such a nice woman, and so attentive to her husband. It’s delightful to watch them.

I am afraid, Aunt Augusta, I shall have to give up the pleasure of dining with you to-night after all.

[Frowning.] I hope not, Algernon. It would put my table completely out. Your uncle would have to dine upstairs. Fortunately he is accustomed to that.

It is a great bore, and, I need hardly say, a terrible disappointment to me, but the fact is I have just had a telegram to say that my poor friend Bunbury is very ill again. [Exchanges glances with Jack.] They seem to think I should be with him.

It is very strange. This Mr. Bunbury seems to suffer from curiously bad health.

Yes; poor Bunbury is a dreadful invalid.

Well, I must say, Algernon, that I think it is high time that Mr. Bunbury made up his mind whether he was going to live or to die. This shilly-shallying with the question is absurd. Nor do I in any way approve of the modern sympathy with invalids. I consider it morbid. Illness of any kind is hardly a thing to be encouraged in others. Health is the primary duty of life. I am always telling that to your poor uncle, but he never seems to take much notice . . . as far as any improvement in his ailment goes. I should be much obliged if you would ask Mr. Bunbury, from me, to be kind enough not to have a relapse on Saturday, for I rely on you to arrange my music for me. It is my last reception, and one wants something that will encourage conversation, particularly at the end of the season when every one has practically said whatever they had to say, which, in most cases, was probably not much.

I’ll speak to Bunbury, Aunt Augusta, if he is still conscious, and I think I can promise you he’ll be all right by Saturday. Of course the music is a great difficulty. You see, if one plays good music, people don’t listen, and if one plays bad music people don’t talk. But I’ll run over the programme I’ve drawn out, if you will kindly come into the next room for a moment.

Good morning!

[Algernon, from the other room, strikes up the Wedding March. Jack looks perfectly furious, and goes to the door.]

For goodness’ sake don’t play that ghastly tune, Algy. How idiotic you are!

Didn’t it go off all right, old boy? You don’t mean to say Gwendolen refused you? I know it is a way she has. She is always refusing people. I think it is most ill-natured of her.

Oh, Gwendolen is as right as a trivet. As far as she is concerned, we are engaged. Her mother is perfectly unbearable. Never met such a Gorgon . . . I don’t really know what a Gorgon is like, but I am quite sure that Lady Bracknell is one. In any case, she is a monster, without being a myth, which is rather unfair . . . I beg your pardon, Algy, I suppose I shouldn’t talk about your own aunt in that way before you.

My dear boy, I love hearing my relations abused. It is the only thing that makes me put up with them at all. Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven’t got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die.

Oh, that is nonsense!

It isn’t!

Well, I won’t argue about the matter. You always want to argue about things.

That is exactly what things were originally made for.

[A pause.] You don’t think there is any chance of Gwendolen becoming like her mother in about a hundred and fifty years, do you, Algy?

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.

Is that clever?

It is perfectly phrased! and quite as true as any observation in civilised life should be.

I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays. You can’t go anywhere without meeting clever people. The thing has become an absolute public nuisance. I wish to goodness we had a few fools left.

We have.

I should extremely like to meet them. What do they talk about?

The fools? Oh! about the clever people, of course.

What fools!

By the way, did you tell Gwendolen the truth about your being Ernest in town, and Jack in the country?

[In a very patronising manner.] My dear fellow, the truth isn’t quite the sort of thing one tells to a nice, sweet, refined girl. What extraordinary ideas you have about the way to behave to a woman!

The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her, if she is pretty, and to some one else, if she is plain.

Oh, that is nonsense.

What about your brother? What about the profligate Ernest?

Oh, before the end of the week I shall have got rid of him. I’ll say he died in Paris of apoplexy. Lots of people die of apoplexy, quite suddenly, don’t they?

Yes, but it’s hereditary, my dear fellow. It’s a sort of thing that runs in families. You had much better say a severe chill.

You are sure a severe chill isn’t hereditary, or anything of that kind?

Of course it isn’t!

Very well, then. My poor brother Ernest is carried off suddenly, in Paris, by a severe chill. That gets rid of him.

But I thought you said that . . . Miss Cardew was a little too much interested in your poor brother Ernest? Won’t she feel his loss a good deal?

Oh, that is all right. Cecily is not a silly romantic girl, I am glad to say. She has got a capital appetite, goes long walks, and pays no attention at all to her lessons.

I would rather like to see Cecily.

I will take very good care you never do. She is excessively pretty, and she is only just eighteen.

Have you told Gwendolen yet that you have an excessively pretty ward who is only just eighteen?

Oh! one doesn’t blurt these things out to people. Cecily and Gwendolen are perfectly certain to be extremely great friends. I’ll bet you anything you like that half an hour after they have met, they will be calling each other sister.

Women only do that when they have called each other a lot of other things first. Now, my dear boy, if we want to get a good table at Willis’s, we really must go and dress. Do you know it is nearly seven?

[Irritably.] Oh! It always is nearly seven.

Well, I’m hungry.

I never knew you when you weren’t . . .

What shall we do after dinner? Go to a theatre?

Oh no! I loathe listening.

Well, let us go to the Club?

Oh, no! I hate talking.

Well, we might trot round to the Empire at ten?

Oh, no! I can’t bear looking at things. It is so silly.

Well, what shall we do?

Nothing!

It is awfully hard work doing nothing. However, I don’t mind hard work where there is no definite object of any kind.

LANE.

Miss Fairfax.

Enter Gwendolen. Lane goes out.

Gwendolen, upon my word!

Algy, kindly turn your back. I have something very particular to say to Mr. Worthing.

Really, Gwendolen, I don’t think I can allow this at all.

Algy, you always adopt a strictly immoral attitude towards life. You are not quite old enough to do that.

[Algernon retires to the fireplace.]

The story of your romantic origin, as related to me by mamma, with unpleasing comments, has naturally stirred the deeper fibres of my nature. Your Christian name has an irresistible fascination. The simplicity of your character makes you exquisitely incomprehensible to me. Your town address at the Albany I have. What is your address in the country?

[Turn Around]

The Manor House, Woolton, Hertfordshire.

Algernon, who has been carefully listening, smiles to himself, and writes the address on his shirt-cuff. Then picks up the Railway Guide.

Good! Algy, you may turn round now.

Thanks, I’ve turned round already.

You may also ring the bell.

[Ring the bell]

Lane presents several letters on a salver to Algernon. It is to be surmised that they are bills, as Algernon, after looking at the envelopes, tears them up.

A glass of sherry, Lane.

Yes, sir.

To-morrow, Lane, I’m going Bunburying.

Yes, sir.

I shall probably not be back till Monday. You can put up my dress clothes, my smoking jacket, and all the Bunbury suits . . .

Yes, sir. [Handing sherry.]

I hope to-morrow will be a fine day, Lane.