Lady Windermere’s Fan

epub:type="z3998:stage-direction">Goes to door of ballroom and looks in. I have heard the most shocking things about her. They say she is ruining poor Windermere. And Lady Windermere, who goes in for being so proper, invites her! How extremely amusing! It takes a thoroughly good woman to do a thoroughly stupid thing. You are to lunch there on Friday! Dumby Why? Lady Plymdale Because I want you to take my husband with you. He has been so attentive lately, that he has become a perfect nuisance. Now, this woman is just the thing for him. He’ll dance attendance upon her as long as she lets him, and won’t bother me. I assure you, women of that kind are most useful. They form the basis of other people’s marriages. Dumby What a mystery you are! Lady Plymdale Looking at him. I wish you were! Dumby I am⁠—to myself. I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly; but I don’t see any chance of it just at present. They pass into the ballroom, and Lady Windermere and Lord Darlington enter from the terrace. Lady Windermere Yes. Her coming here is monstrous, unbearable. I know now what you meant today at teatime. Why didn’t you tell me right out? You should have! Lord Darlington I couldn’t! A man can’t tell these things about another man! But if I had known he was going to make you ask her here tonight, I think I would have told you. That insult, at any rate, you would have been spared. Lady Windermere I did not ask her. He insisted on her coming⁠—against my entreaties⁠—against my commands. Oh! the house is tainted for me! I feel that every woman here sneers at me as she dances by with my husband. What have I done to deserve this? I gave him all my life. He took it⁠—used it⁠—spoiled it! I am degraded in my own eyes; and I lack courage⁠—I am a coward! Sits down on sofa. Lord Darlington If I know you at all, I know that you can’t live with a man who treats you like this! What sort of life would you have with him? You would feel that he was lying to you every moment of the day. You would feel that the look in his eyes was false, his voice false, his touch false, his passion false. He would come to you when he was weary of others; you would have to comfort him. He would come to you when he was devoted to others; you would have to charm him. You would have to be to him the mask of his real life, the cloak to hide his secret. Lady Windermere You are right⁠—you are terribly right. But where am I to turn? You said you would be my friend, Lord Darlington.⁠—Tell me, what am I to do? Be my friend now. Lord Darlington Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship. I love you⁠— Lady Windermere No, no! Rises. Lord Darlington Yes, I love you! You are more to me than anything in the whole world. What does your husband give you? Nothing. Whatever is in him he gives to this wretched woman, whom he has thrust into your society, into your home, to shame you before everyone. I offer you my life⁠— Lady Windermere Lord Darlington! Lord Darlington My life⁠—my whole life. Take it, and do with it what you will.⁠ ⁠… I love you⁠—love you as I have never loved any living thing. From the moment I met you I loved you, loved you blindly, adoringly, madly! You did not know it then⁠—you know it now! Leave this house tonight. I won’t tell you that the world matters nothing, or the world’s voice, or the voice of society. They matter a great deal. They matter far too much. But there are moments when one has to choose between living one’s own life, fully, entirely, completely⁠—or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands. You have that moment now. Choose! Oh, my love, choose. Lady Windermere Moving slowly away from him, and looking at him with startled eyes. I have not the courage. Lord Darlington Following her. Yes; you have the courage. There may be six months of pain, of disgrace even, but when you no longer bear his name, when you bear mine, all will be well. Margaret, my love, my wife that shall be some day⁠—yes, my wife! You know it! What are you now? This woman has the place that belongs by right to you. Oh! go⁠—go out of this house, with head erect, with a smile upon your lips, with courage in your eyes. All London will know why you did it; and who will blame you? No one. If they do, what matter? Wrong? What is wrong? It’s wrong for a man to abandon his wife for a shameless woman. It is wrong for a wife to remain with a man who so dishonours her. You said once you would make no compromise with things. Make none now. Be brave! Be yourself! Lady Windermere I am afraid of being myself. Let me think! Let me wait! My husband may return to me. Sits down on sofa. Lord Darlington And you would take him back! You are not what I thought you were. You are just the same as every other woman. You would stand anything rather than face the censure of a world, whose praise you would despise. In a week you will be driving with this woman in the Park. She will be your constant guest⁠—your dearest friend. You would endure anything rather than break with one blow this monstrous tie. You are right. You have no courage; none! Lady Windermere Ah, give me time to think. I cannot answer you now. Passes her hand nervously over her brow. Lord Darlington It must be now or not at all. Lady Windermere Rising from the sofa. Then,