The Importance of Being Earnest

sake don’t play that ghastly tune, Algy. How idiotic you are! The music stops and Algernon enters cheerily. Algernon 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. Jack 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. Algernon 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. Jack Oh, that is nonsense! Algernon It isn’t! Jack Well, I won’t argue about the matter. You always want to argue about things. Algernon That is exactly what things were originally made for. Jack Upon my word, if I thought that, I’d shoot myself⁠ ⁠… 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? Algernon All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his. Jack Is that clever? Algernon It is perfectly phrased! and quite as true as any observation in civilised life should be. Jack 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. Algernon We have. Jack I should extremely like to meet them. What do they talk about? Algernon The fools? Oh! about the clever people, of course. Jack What fools! Algernon By the way, did you tell Gwendolen the truth about your being Ernest in town, and Jack in the country? Jack 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! Algernon 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. Jack Oh, that is nonsense. Algernon What about your brother? What about the profligate Ernest? Jack 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? Algernon 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. Jack You are sure a severe chill isn’t hereditary, or anything of that kind? Algernon Of course it isn’t! Jack Very well, then. My poor brother Ernest to carried off suddenly, in Paris, by a severe chill. That gets rid of him. Algernon 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? Jack 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. Algernon I would rather like to see Cecily. Jack I will take very good care you never do. She is excessively pretty, and she is only just eighteen. Algernon Have you told Gwendolen yet that you have an excessively pretty ward who is only just eighteen? Jack 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. Algernon 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? Jack Irritably. Oh! It always is nearly seven. Algernon Well, I’m hungry. Jack I never knew you when you weren’t⁠ ⁠… Algernon What shall we do after dinner? Go to a theatre? Jack Oh no! I loathe listening. Algernon Well, let us go to the Club? Jack Oh, no! I hate talking. Algernon Well, we might trot round to the Empire at ten? Jack Oh, no! I can’t bear looking at things. It is so silly. Algernon Well, what shall we do? Jack Nothing! Algernon It is awfully hard work doing nothing. However, I don’t mind hard work where there is no definite object of any kind. Enter Lane. Lane Miss Fairfax. Enter Gwendolen. Lane goes out. Algernon Gwendolen, upon my word! Gwendolen Algy, kindly turn your back. I have something very particular to say to Mr. Worthing. Algernon Really, Gwendolen, I don’t think I can allow this at all. Gwendolen Algy, you always adopt a strictly immoral attitude towards life. You are not quite old enough to do that. Algernon retires to the fireplace. Jack My own darling! Gwendolen Ernest, we may never be married. From the expression on mamma’s face I fear we never shall. Few parents nowadays pay any regard to what their children say to them. The old-fashioned respect for the young is fast dying out. Whatever influence I ever had over mamma, I lost at the age of three. But although she may prevent us from becoming man and wife, and I may marry someone else, and marry often, nothing that she can possibly do can alter my eternal devotion to you. Jack Dear Gwendolen! Gwendolen The story of your romantic origin, as related to me by mamma, with unpleasing comments, has naturally stirred the