Algernon Lines

Lane: Yes, sir.

A glass of sherry, Lane.

You don't think there is a chance of Gwendolen becoming like her mother in about a hundred and fifty years, do you, Algy?

All women become like their mothers. Thats their curse. No man does. That's his.

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?

Lane: Yes, sir.

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

Cecily? What on earth do you mean? I don't know anyone by the name of Cecily.

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

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

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

Yes, charming old lady. Lives at tunbridge wells. Just give it back to me Algy.

But why does she call herself little Cecily if she is your aunt and lives at Tunbridge Wells? From little Cecily with her fondest love.

What fools!

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

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

Certainly, Aunt Augusta.

Jack: Good Mornign! For goodness sake don't play that ghastly tune. How idiotic you are!

Didn't it go off alright, 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, neighbors, neighbors.

Got nice neighbors in your part of Shropshire?

Lane: Miss Fairfax

Gwendolen, upon my word!

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

Have you told Gwendolen you have an excessively pretty ward who is only just 18?

Well, produce me my cigarette case first.

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

Lane: Mr. Ernest Worthing.

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

Lane: I didn't think it polite to listen, sir.

I'm sorry for that, for your sake. I don't play accurately - anyone 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.

Bunburyist? What on earth do you mean by bunburyist?

Ill 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.

Nothing!

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

Oh, that is nonsense!

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

Is that clever?

It's perfectly phrased! and quite as true as any observation in civilized life should be.

It never is, sir.

Lane, you're a perfect pessimist.

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 ben 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.

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.

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

Nobody ever does.

And I strongly advise you do the same with Mr...with your invalid friend with the ridiculous 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.

You are sure a severe chill isn't hereditary, or anything?

Of course it isn't!

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

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

What extraordinary ideas you have about the way to behave 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.

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 is nonsense. If I marry a charming girl like Gwendolyn, 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 realize, that in married life three is company and two is none.

Yes, sir.

Tomorrow, Lane, I'm going to Bunburying

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.

I am sick to death of cleverness. The thing has become an absolute public nuisance. I wish to goodness we had a few fools left.

We have.

I was very nearly offering a large reward.

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

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.

And very good bread and butter it is too.

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

Oh, it is always nearly seven.

Well, I'm hungry.

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's almost seven?

Re-enter

holy dick

That's not quite the same thing. In fact the two rarely go together.

Dear me, you are smart!

Start of scene

Did you hear what i was playing, Lane?

Lane: 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 name brand.

Good heavens! Is marriage so demoralizing as that?

Gwendolen: Thanks, mamma, I'm quite comfortable where I am.

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

Perfectly horrid! Never speak to one of them.

How immensely you must amuse them! By the way, Shropshire is your county, is it not?

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 this afternoon.

Lady Bracknell: Good evening, dear Algernon, I hope you are behaving quite well.

I am feeling quite well, Aunt Augusta.

Thank you sir

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

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

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

Lane: ...That was in consequence of myself and a young person

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

You had better dine with your Aunt Augusta.

I haven't the smallest intention of doing anything of the kind. To begin with, I dined with her on Monday, and once a week is quite enough to dine with one's relations. In the second place, whenever I dine there, I am always treated as a member of the family, and sent to dinner with no women at all, or two. in the third place, I know perfectly well who she will place me next to tonight. 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 the sort of thing is enormously on the increase. The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. 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.

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.

Yes, sir.

I hope tomorrow is a fine day, Lane.

I haven't asked you to dine with me anywhere tonight.

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.

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

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

How utterly unromantic you are!

I really don't see anything romantic about 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 I ever get married, I'll certainly try to forget the fact.

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.

That is nothing to you, dear boy. You are not going to be invited...I may tell you 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?

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

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

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? That sounds like business.

Oh, that is alright. 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.

It is my last reception, and one wants something that will encourage conversation, particularly at the end of the season when everyone 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 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.

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. They seem to think I should be with him.

Oh, that is nonsense.

It isn't!

Thank you sir.

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? The seem, as a class, to have no sense of moral responsibility.

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 the remotest idea how to live, nor the smallest instinct about how to die.

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

My dear fellow, it isn't easy to be anything nowadays. There's such a lot of beastly competition about. Ah! that must be Aunt Augusta. Only relatives or creditors ring 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 tonight at Willis's?

May I ask why?

My dear fellow, the way you flirt with Gwendolyn is perfectly disgraceful! It's almost as bad as the way Gwendolyn flirts with you.

Lane: There were no cucumbers in the market this morning. I went down twice.

No cucumbers!

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 speculation on the subject. Divorces are made in Heaven. Pleas don't touch the cucumber sandwiches. They are ordered specially for Aunt Augusta.

Lane: Yes, sir. (second time)

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 being consumed.

Jack: What on earth are you so amused at?

Oh, I'm anxious about poor Bunbury, that is all.

Who is coming to tea?

Oh, merely Aunt Augusta and Gwendolen.

Gwen: 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.

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

That is exactly what things were originally made for.

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.

No sir. Not even for ready money.

That will do Lane, thank you.

Oh no! I loathe listening.

Well, let us go to the club?

My dear Algy, you talk exactly as if you were a dentist. It is very vulgar to talk like a dentist when one isnt 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 of you being a confirmed and secret Bunburyist, and I am quite sure of it now.

Oh no! I hate talking.

Well, we might trot round to the empire around ten?

Oh, no, I can't bear looking at things. Don't be silly.

Well, what shall we do?

Oh that is nonsense.

What about your brother? What about the profligate Ernest?

In the country.

What on earth do you do there?

I never knew you when you weren't.

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

...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?

Lane: Yes sir, eight bottles and a pint.

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

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 anyone of that name.

How perfectly delightful!

Yes that is all very well, but i am afraid aunt augusta won't quite approve of your being here.

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.

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 of a severe chill.

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 better have the thing out at once

You seem to think every aunt should be exactly like your aunt! That is absurd! 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 of any size should call her own nephew her uncle, I can't quite make out. Besides, your name isn't Jack at all. It's Ernest.

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.

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

Yes, poor Bunbury is a dreadful invalid.

It isn't Ernest. It's Jack.

You have always told me it was Ernest. I have introduced you to everybody as Ernest. You answer to the name of Ernest. You look like your name is Ernest. You are the most Ernest looking person I have ever seen in my life. It is perfectly absurd you saying your name isn't Ernest. It's on your cards. Here's one of them. Mr Ernest Worthing, B 4, The Albany. I'll keep this as proof that your name is Ernest if you ever attempt to deny it to me, or to Gwendolen, or to anyone else.

What on earth do you mean?

You have invented a very useful 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 Willy's tonight, for I have really been engaged to Aunt Augusta for more than a week.

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

Your aunt!

Scene 1

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Act 2

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