The Importance of Being Earnest (Jacks part) Act I

Gwen: My own Ernest!

Jack: But you really don't mean to say you couldn't love me if my name wasn't Ernest, do you?

Lady B: In what locality did this Mr James, or Thomas, Cardew come across this ordinary handbag?

Jack: In the cloak room at Victoria Station. It was given to him in mistake for his own.

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

Jack: Oh no, I hate listening

Algy: And who are the people you amuse?

Jack: Oh, neighbors, neighbors

Gwen: Yes mama Lady Bracknell: You can take a seat, Mr. Worthing

Jack: Thank you, Lady Bracknell, I prefer standing.

Algy: Where is that place in the country, by the way?

Jack: That is nothing to you dear boy, you are not going to be invited. I may tell you candidly that the place is not in Shropshire.

Lady B: Both, if necessary, I presume. What are your politics?

Jack: Well, I am afraid I really have none. I am a liberal unionist.

Lady Bracknell: ...What is your income?

Jack: Between 7 and 8 thousand a year

Algy: Oh, merely Aunt Augusta and Gwendolen

Jack: How perfectly delightful

Gwen: Pray, don't talk to me about the weather...and that makes me so nervous.

Jack: I do mean something else.

Algy: Women only do that when they have called each other a lot of other things fist....Do you know it is nearly seven?

Jack: Oh it is always nearly seven

Algy: The truth is rarely pure and never simply. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility.

Jack: That wouldn't be at all a bad thing.

Algy: The fools? Oh, about the clever people of course

Jack: What fools

Lady B: A handbag?

Jack: Yes Lady Bracknell, a somewhat large, floral, green handbag with brown leather handles.

Algy: Your aunt!

Jack: Yes. Charming old lady she is, lives at Tunbridge Wells. Just give it back to me Algy!

Gwen: Married, Mr Worthing?

Jack: Well, surely you know that I love you and you led me to believe that you were not absolutely indifferent towards me..

Lady B: ...What number in Belgrave Square?

Jack: 149

Lady Bracknell: ...How old are you?

Jack: 29

Gwen: I thought so, in fact, I am never wrong.

Jack: And I would like to take advantage of Lady Bracknell's temporary absence.

Algy: That is quite a different matter. ....Have some bread and butter. The bread and butter is for Gwendolyn. Gwendolyn is devoted to bread and butter.

Jack: And very good bread and butter it is too.

Algy: Well that is exactly what dentists always do...I have always suspected you of being a confirmed and secret Bunburyist; and I am quite sure of it now.

Jack: Bunburyist? What on Earth do you mean by Bunburyist?

Algy:My dear fellow, Gwednolyn is my first cousin. And before I allow you to marry her, you will have to clear up the whole question of Cecily.

Jack: Cecily! What on Earth do you mean? I don't know anyone by the name of Cecily!

[Conversation continues] Gwen: Certainly, mama

Jack: Charming day it's been, ms. Fairfax

Gwen: Pasisonately

Jack: Darling, you don't know how happy you've made me!

Lady B: The unfashionable side. I thought there was something...[move towards her] However, that could easily be altered

Jack: Do you mean the fashion, or the side?

Algy: Bring me that cigarette case Mr. Worthing left in the smoking room the last time he dined here. Lane: Yes Sir

Jack: Do you mean to say you have had my cigarette case all this time? I wish to goodness you had let me know, I ave been writing frantic letters to Scotland Yard about it. I was very nearly offering a large reward.

Algy: How immensely you must amuse them, by the way Shropshire is your county, is it not?

Jack: Eh? Shropshire? Yes, of course. Hallo! Why so so many cups, why cucumber sandwiches? Why such reckless extravagance in one so young?

Algy: Yes, and the happy English home has proven in half the time.

Jack: For Heaven's sake don't try to be cynical, It's perfectly easy to be cynical.

Gwen: I think it would be an admirable opportunity...I am fully determined to accept you.

Jack: Gwendolen!

Gwen: Jack? No, there is very little.....the only really safe name is Ernest

Jack: Gwendolyn, I must get christened at once - i mean we must get married at once! There is no time to be lost.

Gwen: Yes, but you don't say it

Jack: Gwendolyn, will you marry me!

Algy: I thought you had come up for pleasure?...I call that business

Jack: How utterly unromantic you are!

Lady B: To lose one...or did he rise from the ranks of the aristocracy?

Jack: I am afraid I really do not know. The fact is, Lady Bracknell, I said I had lost my parents. It would be closer to the truth to say that my parents seem to have lost me...you see, I was found.

Algy: My dear fellow, the way you flirt with Gwendolyn is perfectly disgraceful. It is almost as bad as the Gwendolyn flirts with your.

Jack: I am in love with Gwendolyn. I have come up to town expressly to propose to her.

Algy: I haven't the smallest intention of doing anything of the kind....I naturally want to talk to yo about Bunburying. I want to tell you the rules.

Jack: I am not a Bunburyist at all. If Gwendolyn accepts me I am going to kill my brother, indeed I think I'll kill him in any case. Cecily is a little too much interested in him. It is rather a bore. So I am going to get rid of Ernest. And I strongly advise you to do the same with Mr...with your invalid friend who has the absurd name.

Algy: Oh, it is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and shouldn't read. More than half of modern culture depends on what on shouldn't read.

Jack: I am quite aware of the fact, and I don't propose to discuss modern culture with you. It isn't the thing one should talk of in private. I simply want my cigarette case back.

Algy: It is perfectly phrased! and quite as true as any observation in civilizes life should be.

Jack: I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever now a days. I wish to goodness we had some fools left.

Lady B: Oh they count as Tories...now to minor matters, are your parents living?

Jack: I have lost both my parents

Algy: I really don't see anything romantic in proposing....If I ever get married, I'll certainly try to forget the fact.

Jack: I have no doubt about that, dear Algy. The Divorce Court was specially invented for people whose memories are so curiously constituted.

Algy: You have invented a very useful younger brother called Earnest...I wouldn't be able to dine with you at Willi's tonight, for I have been really engaged to Aunt August for more than a week.

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

Algy: We have

Jack: I should extremely like to meet them, what do they talk about?

Lady B: That is satisfactory...that's all that can be said about land

Jack: I should mention I have a country house with some land attached to it of course. But I don't depend on that for my real income, as far as I know the poachers are the only ones who make anything of it.

Algy: My dear fellow it isn't easy to be anything now a days...No if I get her out of the way for ten minutes so that you can have an opportunity to proposing to Gwendolyn, may I dine with you at Willi's tonight?

Jack: I suppose so, if you want to.

Algy: I would rather like to meet Cecily

Jack: I will take very good care that you never do. She is excessively pretty, and only just 18.

Algy: Well, Im hungry

Jack: I've never knew you when you weren't

Lady B: Where did the charitable gentleman who had a first class ticket for this seaside resort find you?

Jack: In a handbag

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

Jack: In the country

Lady B: In land, or investments?

Jack: Investments, chiefly

Algy: All women become like their mothers, that is their tragedy. No man does, that is his.

Jack: Is that clever?

Algy: Yes, but why does your aunt call you her uncle?....Besides your name isn't Jack at all, it is Ernest!

Jack: It isn't Ernest, it's Jack.

Lady B: The line is immaterial..but it could hardly be regarded as an assured basis for a recognized position in good society

Jack: May I ask what you would advise me to do? I need hardly say I would do anything to ensure Gwendolyn's happiness

Algy: Yes, that is all very well; but I am afraid Aunt August won't quite approve of your being here.

Jack: May I ask why?

Algy: 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.

Jack: My dear Algy, I don't know whether you will be able to understand my real motives. You are hardly serious enough. When once is place in the position of guardian, one has to adopt a very high moral tone on all subjects. In order to get up to town I have always pretended to have a younger brother of the name Ernest, who lives in the Albany and gets into the most dreadful scrapes. That, my dear Algy, is the whole truth pure and simply.

Algy: Yes, but that does not account for the fact that your small aunt cecily who lives and Tunbridge Wells calls you her dear uncle. Come old boy you had much better have the thing out at once.

Jack: My dear Algy, you talk exactly as if you were a dentist. It is very vulgar to talk like a dentist when one isn't a dentist. It produces false impressions.

Algy: Here it is. Now produce your explanations, and pray, make it improbable.

Jack: My dear boy, there is nothing improbably about my explanation at all. In fact, it's perfectly ordinary. The late Mr. Thomas Cardew, who adopted me when I was a young boy, made me in his will guardian to his granddaughter, miss Cecily Cardew. Cecily, who address me as her uncle out of motives of respect that you could not possible understand, lives at my place in the country under the charge of her admirable governess, miss prism.

Algy: But what does she call herself little Cecily if she is your aunt and lives at Tunbridge wells? "From little Cecily with her fondest love"

Jack: My dear boy, what on Earth is there in that? Some aunts are tall, some aunts are not tall. That is a matter that surely an aunt may be allowed to decide for herself. You seem to think that every aunt should be exactly like your aunt! That is absurd! For Heaven's sake just give me back my cigarette case!

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

Jack: 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.

Gwen: Of course I will darling, how long ave you been about it. I am afraid you have had very little experience in how to propose.

Jack: My own one, I have never loved anyone in the world but you!

Algy: Have you told Gwendolyn yet that you have an excessively pretty ward who is only just 18?

Jack: OH! One doesn't just blurt these things out to people. Cecily and Gwendolyn 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.

[Lane comes with cigarette case] Algy: I think that is rather mean of you, Ernest, I must say. However....I find that the thing isn't yours at all.

Jack: Of course it's mine. You have seen me wit it a hundred times, and you have no right whatsoever to read what is written inside a private cigarette case.

Lane: Mr. Ernest Worthing Algernon: How are you, my dear Ernest? What brings you up to town?

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

Algy: Didn't it go off alright, old boy? ...she is always refusing to people, I think it is most ill natured of her

Jack: Oh, Gwednolyn 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 shouldn't speak of your own aunt in that way before you.

Algy: 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, quiet suddenly, don't they?

Lady B: Lady Bloxham, I do not know her

Jack: Oh, she is considerably advanced in years, she doesn't go out much.

Algy: But I thought you said that Ms. Cardew was a little too much interest in him, won't she feel his loss a good deal?

Jack: Oh, that is alright. Cecily is not a silly romantic girl. She has a capital appetite, goes long walks on the beach, and pays no attention to any of her lessons.

Algy: 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.

Algy: Well, in the first place girls never marry the men they flirt with. Girls don't think it right.

Jack: Oh, that's nonsense

Algy: Got nice neighbors in your part of Shropshire?

Jack: Perfectly horrid, never speak to one of them

Gwen: Ah. That is clearly a metapyhsical speculation and like most metaphysical speculations has very little reference at all to the actual facts of real life as we know them

Jack: Personally, darling, to speak quite candidly, I don't much care for the name Ernest...I don't think the name suits me at all.

Algy: Nothing will induce me to part with 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 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.

Algy: Then your wife will. You don't seem to realize that in married life three is company and two is none.

Jack: That, my dear young friend, is the theory that the corrupt French drama has been propounding for the last fifty years.

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

Jack: There is no good offering a large reward now that the thing has been found.

Algy: That is exactly what things were originally made fore.

Jack: Upon my word, if I thought that I'd shoot myself....you don't think there is a chance of Gwendolyn becoming like her mother in about a hundred and fifty years, do you, Algy?

Algy: Yes, but it is hereditary, my dear fellow. It's the sort of thing that runs in families. You had much better say a severe chill.

Jack: Very well then, my poor brother Ernest is carried off suddenly in Paris by a sever chill. That gets rid of him.

Lady B: I would strongly advise you...of either sex, before the season is quite over

Jack: Well I don't see how I could possibly do that, I can produce the hand bag at any moment. It is in my dressing room at home I really think that should satisfy you, Lady Bracknell.

Lady B: A country house! ...A girl with a simple, unspoiled nature like Gwendolyn could hardly be expected to reside in the country.

Jack: Well I own a townhouse in Belgrave Square that I let to the year to Lady Block-ham, of course I can get it back whenever I like, provided I give six months notice.

Algy: You have always told me it was Ernest....I'll keep this as proof your name is Ernest if you ever attempt to deny it to me or to Gwendolyn or to anyone else!

Jack: Well my name is Ernest in town, and Jack in the country, and the cigarette case was given to me in the country.

Lady Bracknell: ...However, I am quiet ready to enter your name should your answers be what a really affectionate mother requires. Do you smoke?

Jack: Well yes Lady Bracknell, I must admit I do smoke.

Algy: Oh, there is no use speculating on that subject. Divorces are made in Heaven ------ Please don't touch the cucumber sandwiches. They are ordered specially for Aunt Augusta.

Jack: Well you have been eating them all the time

Algy: It isn't!

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

Algy: 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 known anyone of that name.

Jack: Well, if you must know, Cecily happens to be my aunt.

Gwen: I adore you...the subject hasn't even been touched on.

Jack: Well, may I propose to you now?

Algy: I'll reveal to you the meaning of that incomparable expression as soon as you are kind enough to inform me why you are Earnest in town and Jack in the country.

Jack: Well, produce my cigarette case first.

Gwen: It suits you perfectly. It is a divine name. I that music to its own, it produces vibrations.

Jack: Well, really Gwendolyn, I must say that I think there are lots of other much nicer names. I think Jack, for instance, is a charming name,

Algy: Literary criticism is not your forte...I was quite right in saying you were a Bunburyist.... You are one of the most advanced bunburyist I know.

Jack: What on Earth do you mean?

Algy: What on Earth do you do there?

Jack: When one is n town one amuse oneself, when one is in the country one amuses other people. It is excessively boring.

Algy: Well, my dear fellow....You are not married to her and I don't think you ever will be.

Jack: Why on Earth do you say that?

Gwen: But your name is Ernest

Jack: Yes, I know it is, but suppose it was something else. Do you mean to say you couldn't love me then?

Lady B: The cloak room at Victoria Station?

Jack: Yes, the Brighton Line

Lady B: Found?!

Jack: Yes, the late Mr. Thomas Cardew, an old gentlemen or a very charitable and kindly disposition, found me, and gave me the name of Worthing because he happened to have a first class ticket for Worthing in his pocket at the time. Worthing is a place in Sussex, a seaside resort.

Algy: Dear me, you are smart! Gwen: I am always smart, aren't I Mr. Worthing?

Jack: You are quite perfect, miss Fairfax.

Algy: I know, you are absurdly careless about sending out invitations. IT is very foolish of you. Nothing annoys people so much as not receiving applications.

Jack: You had much better dine with your Aunt August

Gwen: Yes, Mr worthing? what have you got to say to me?

Jack: You know what I have got to say to you.

Gwen: Yes, I am quite aware of the fact....The moment Algernon first mentioned he had a friend called Ernest, I knew I was destined to love you.

Jack: You really love me Gwendolyn?

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

Jack: Your consent!

Lady Bracknell: ...I have always been of opinion that a man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing, which you do know?

Jack: [hesitation] I..I know nothing, Lady Bracknell

Gwen: I would certainly advise you to do so. Mamma has a way of coming back into a room that I have often had to speak to her about

Jack: [nervous] Mss Fairfax, ever since I met you, I have admired you more than any girl...I have ever met...since...since I met you.

Lady B: Mr, Sir!...Good morning, Mr Worthing! --- Algy playing the wedding march tune

Jack: [sadly] Good morning! ---- Jack: For Heaven's sake Algy, don't play that ghastly tune!

Algy: Mu dear boy....who haven't got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die.

JackL Oh, that is nonsense.

Gwen: Ys, but men often propose for practice. I know my brother Gerald does. All my girlfriends tell me so, what wonderfully brown eyes [Jack: They're...they're brown..] they are quite quite brown...

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