The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: 150+ Titles in One Edition. Oscar Wilde
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Название: The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: 150+ Titles in One Edition
Автор: Oscar Wilde
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Языкознание
isbn: 9788027237197
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SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [Rushing towards her.] Gertrude! Gertrude!
LADY CHILTERN. [Thrusting him back with outstretched hands.] No, don’t speak! Say nothing! Your voice wakes terrible memories — memories of things that made me love you — memories of words that made me love you — memories that now are horrible to me. And how I worshipped you! You were to me something apart from common life, a thing pure, noble, honest, without stain. The world seemed to me finer because you were in it, and goodness more real because you lived. And now — oh, when I think that I made of a man like you my ideal! the ideal of my life!
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. There was your mistake. There was your error. The error all women commit. Why can’t you women love us, faults and all? Why do you place us on monstrous pedestals? We have all feet of clay, women as well as men; but when we men love women, we love them knowing their weaknesses, their follies, their imperfections, love them all the more, it may be, for that reason. It is not the perfect, but the imperfect, who have need of love. It is when we are wounded by our own hands, or by the hands of others, that love should come to cure us — else what use is love at all? All sins, except a sin against itself, Love should forgive. All lives, save loveless lives, true Love should pardon. A man’s love is like that. It is wider, larger, more human than a woman’s. Women think that they are making ideals of men. What they are making of us are false idols merely. You made your false idol of me, and I had not the courage to come down, show you my wounds, tell you my weaknesses. I was afraid that I might lose your love, as I have lost it now. And so, last night you ruined my life for me — yes, ruined it! What this woman asked of me was nothing compared to what she offered to me. She offered security, peace, stability. The sin of my youth, that I had thought was buried, rose up in front of me, hideous, horrible, with its hands at my throat. I could have killed it for ever, sent it back into its tomb, destroyed its record, burned the one witness against me. You prevented me. No one but you, you know it. And now what is there before me but public disgrace, ruin, terrible shame, the mockery of the world, a lonely dishonoured life, a lonely dishonoured death, it may be, some day? Let women make no more ideals of men! let them not put them on alters and bow before them, or they may ruin other lives as completely as you — you whom I have so wildly loved — have ruined mine!
[He passes from the room. LADY CHILTERN rushes towards him, but the door is closed when she reaches it. Pale with anguish, bewildered, helpless, she sways like a plant in the water. Her hands, outstretched, seem to tremble in the air like blossoms in the mind. Then she flings herself down beside a sofa and buries her face. Her sobs are like the sobs of a child.]
THIRD ACT
The Library in Lord Goring’s house . An Adam room. On the right is the door leading into the hall. On the left, the door of the smoking-room. A pair of folding doors at the back open into the drawing-room. The fire is lit. Phipps, the butler, is arranging some newspapers on the writing-table. The distinction of Phipps is his impassivity. He has been termed by enthusiasts the Ideal Butler. The Sphinx is not so incommunicable. He is a mask with a manner. Of his intellectual or emotional life, history knows nothing. He represents the dominance of form.
[Enter LORD GORING in evening dress with a buttonhole. He is wearing a silk hat and Inverness cape. White-gloved, he carries a Louis Seize cane. His are all the delicate fopperies of Fashion. One sees that he stands in immediate relation to modern life, makes it indeed, and so masters it. He is the first well-dressed philosopher in the history of thought.]
LORD GORING. Got my second buttonhole for me, Phipps?
PHIPPS. Yes, my lord. [Takes his hat, cane, and cape, and presents new buttonhole on salver.]
LORD GORING. Rather distinguished thing, Phipps. I am the only person of the smallest importance in London at present who wears a buttonhole.
PHIPPS. Yes, my lord. I have observed that,
LORD GORING. [Taking out old buttonhole.] You see, Phipps, Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear.
PHIPPS. Yes, my lord.
LORD GORING. Just as vulgarity is simply the conduct of other people.
PHIPPS. Yes, my lord.
LORD GORING. [Putting in a new buttonhole.] And falsehoods the truths of other people.
PHIPPS. Yes, my lord.
LORD GORING. Other people are quite dreadful. The only possible society is oneself.
PHIPPS. Yes, my lord.
LORD GORING. To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance, Phipps.
PHIPPS. Yes, my lord.
LORD GORING. [Looking at himself in the glass.] Don’t think I quite like this buttonhole, Phipps. Makes me look a little too old. Makes me almost in the prime of life, eh, Phipps?
PHIPPS. I don’t observe any alteration in your lordship’s appearance.
LORD GORING. You don’t, Phipps?
PHIPPS. No, my lord.
LORD GORING. I am not quite sure. For the future a more trivial buttonhole, Phipps, on Thursday evenings.
PHIPPS. I will speak to the florist, my lord. She has had a loss in her family lately, which perhaps accounts for the lack of triviality your lordship complains of in the buttonhole.
LORD GORING. Extraordinary thing about the lower classes in England — they are always losing their relations.
PHIPPS. Yes, my lord! They are extremely fortunate in that respect.
LORD GORING. [Turns round and looks at him. PHIPPS remains impassive.] Hum! Any letters, Phipps?
PHIPPS. Three, my lord. [Hands letters on a salver.]
LORD GORING. [Takes letters.] Want my cab round in twenty minutes.
PHIPPS. Yes, my lord. [Goes towards door.]
LORD GORING. [Holds up letter in pink envelope.] Ahem! Phipps, when did this letter arrive?
PHIPPS. It was brought by hand just after your lordship went to the club.
LORD GORING. That will do. [Exit PHIPPS.] Lady Chiltern’s handwriting on Lady Chiltern’s pink notepaper. That is rather curious. I thought Robert was to write. Wonder what Lady Chiltern has got to say to me? [Sits at bureau and opens letter, and reads it.] ‘I want you. I trust you. I am coming to you. Gertrude.’ [Puts down the letter with a puzzled look. Then takes it up, and reads it again slowly.] ‘I want you. I trust you. I am coming to you.’ So she has found out everything! Poor woman! Poor woman! [ Pulls out watch and looks at it.] But what an hour to call! Ten o’clock! I shall have to give up going to the Berkshires. However, it is always nice to be expected, and not to arrive. I am not expected at the Bachelors’, so I shall certainly go there. Well, I will make her stand by her husband. That is the only thing for her to do. That is the only thing for any woman to do. It is the growth of the moral sense in women that makes СКАЧАТЬ