Algernon - The Importance of Being Earnest

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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 dont’ play accurately—any one can play accurately—but I play with wonderful expression.

Yes, sir.

Have you got the cucumber sandwiches cut for Lady Bracknell?

Yes, sir.

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 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 have only been married once.

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

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.

Mr. Ernest Worthing.

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

What else should bring one anywhere?

Where have you been since last Thursday?

In the country.

What on earth do you do there?

It is excessively boring.

And who are the people you amuse?

Oh, neighbours, neighbours.

Got nice neighbours in your part of Shropshire?

Never speak to one of them.

How immensely you must amuse them!

Who is coming to tea?

Oh! merely Aunt August 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 verry 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.

Please don’t touch the cucumber sandwiches. They are ordered specially for Aunt Augusta.

Well, you have been eating them all the time.

That is quite a different matter. She is my aunt. Have some bread and butter. The bread and butter is for Gwendolen. Gwendolen is devoted to bread and butter.

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?

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.

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

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

I was very nearly offering a large reward.

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

There is no good offering a large reward now that the things is found.

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

It is a very ungentlemanly thing to read a private cigarette case.

Yes; but this isn’t your cigarette case. This cigarette case is a present from some 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. Just give it back to me, Algy.

But why does she call herself little Cecily if she is your aunt? ‘From little Cecily with her fondest love.’

For Heaven’s sake give me back my cigarette case.

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 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.

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 calls you her dear uncle. 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.

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. Now produce your explanation, and pray make it improbable.

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?

You are not going to be invited.

I suspected that, my dear fellow! Now, go on. Why are you Ernest in town and Jack in the country?

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. 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, 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. The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. 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.

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.

I certainly won’t want to know Bunbury.

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

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

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 any 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.

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.

Dear me, you are smart!

And now I’ll have a cup of tea, and one of those nice cucumber sandwiches you promised me.

Certainly, Aunt Augusta.

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

Good heavens! Lane! Why are there no cucumber sandwiches? I ordered them specially.

I went down tice.

No cucumbers!

Not even for ready money.

That will do, Lane, thank you.

Thank you sir.

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

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’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.

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. 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.

I rely on you to arrange my music for me.

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.

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?

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.

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

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 someone else if she is plain.

Oh, that is nonsense.

What about your brother? What about the profligate Ernest?

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!

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?

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?

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?

It is always 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, what shall we do?

Nothing!

It is awfully hard work doing nothing.

Miss Fairfax.

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.

Good! Algy, you may turn round now.

Thanks, I’ve turned round already.

Yes, sir.

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.

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

It never is, sir.

Lane, you’re a perfect pessimist.

What on earth are you so amused at?

Oh, I’m a little anxious about poor Bunbury, that is all.

If you don’t take care, your friend Bunbury will get you into a serious scrape some day.

I love scrapes. They are the only things that are never serious.

Oh, that’s nonsense, Algy. You never talk anything but nonsense.

Nobody ever does.

He does!

You are my little cousin Cecily, I’m sure.

You, I see from your card, are Uncle Jack’s brother, my cousin Ernest, my wicked cousin Ernest.

Oh! I am not really wicked at all, cousin Cecily. You mustn’t think that I am wicked.

That would be hypocrisy.

Oh! Of course I have been rather reckless.

I am glad to hear it.

In fact, now you mention the subject, I have been very bad in my own small way.

I don’t think you should be so proud of that, though I am sure it must have been very pleasant.

It is much pleasanter being here with you. That is why I want you to reform me. You might make that your mission, if you don’t mind, cousin Cecily.

I’m afraid I’ve no time, this afternoon.

Well, would you mind my reforming myself this afternoon?

But I think you should try.

I will. I feel better already.

You are looking a little worse.

That is because I am hungry.

Won’t you come in?

Thank you. Might I have a buttonhole first? I never have any appetite unless I have a buttonhole first.

A Marechal Niel?

No, I’d sooner have a pink rose.

Why?

Because you are like a pink rose, Cousin Cecily.

Miss Prism never says such things to me.

Then Miss Prism is a short-sighted old lady. You are the prettiest girl I ever saw.

Miss Prism says that all good looks are a snare.

They are a snare that every sensible man would like to be caught in.

Good heavens!

Brother John, I have come down from town to tell you that I am very sorry for all the trouble I have given you, and that I intend to lead a better life in the future.

Well, I won’t have him talk to you about Bunbury or about anything else.

I must say that I think that Brother John’s coldness to me is peculiarly painful. I expected a more enthusiastic welcome, especially considering it is the first time I have come here.