who has the absurd name.
ALGERNON
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.
JACK
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.
ALGERNON
Then your wife will. You don't seem to realize, that in married life three is company and two is none. JACK [Sententiously.] That, my dear young friend, is the theory that the corrupt French Drama has been propounding for the last fifty years.2
ALGERNON
Yes; and that the happy English home has proved in half the time.
JACK
For heaven's sake, don't try to be cynical. It's perfectly easy to be cynical.
ALGERNON
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.3 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 tonight at Willis's?
JACK
I suppose so, if you want to.
ALGERNON
Yes, but you must be serious about it. I hate people who are not
serious about meals. It is so shallow of them.
[Enter LANE.]
LANE
Lady Bracknell and Miss Fairfax.
[ALGERNON goes forward to meet them. Enter LADY BRACKNELL and
GWENDOLEN.]
LADY BRACKNELL
Good afternoon, dear Algernon, I hope you are behaving
very well.
ALGERNON
I'm feeling very well, Aunt Augusta.
LADY BRACKNELL
That's not quite the same thing. In fact the two things rarely
go together. [Sees JACK and bows to him with icy coldness.] ALGERNON [To GWENDOLEN.] Dear me, you are smart!4 GWENDOLEN
I am always smart! Aren't I, Mr. Worthing?
JACK
You're quite perfect, Miss Fairfax.
GWENDOLEN
Oh! I hope I am not that. It would leave no room for develop
2. Almost all the plays by the leading French play-'almost universal' in the French theater. wrights of the second half of the 19th century 3. Insistently loud, like some of the music in the (Alexandre Dumasfils, Emile Augier, andVictorien large-scale operas of Richard Wagner (1813? Sardou) focus on marital infidelity. As Brander 1883). Matthews, an American critic, noted in 1882, 'the 4. Elegantly fashionable. trio?husband, wife, and lover' had become
