An ideal husband
LORD GORING. Yes. I should fancy she came to grief if she tried to get
Robert into her toils. It is extraordinary what astounding mistakes
clever women make.
LADY CHILTERN. I don’t call women of that kind clever. I call them
stupid!
LORD GORING. Same thing often. Good-night, Lady Chiltern!
LADY CHILTERN. Good-night!
[_Enter_ SIR ROBERT CHILTERN.]
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. My dear Arthur, you are not going? Do stop a
little!
LORD GORING. Afraid I can’t, thanks. I have promised to look in at the
Hartlocks’. I believe they have got a mauve Hungarian band that plays
mauve Hungarian music. See you soon. Good-bye!
[_Exit_]
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. How beautiful you look to-night, Gertrude!
LADY CHILTERN. Robert, it is not true, is it? You are not going to lend
your support to this Argentine speculation? You couldn’t!
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [_Starting_.] Who told you I intended to do so?
LADY CHILTERN. That woman who has just gone out, Mrs. Cheveley, as she
calls herself now. She seemed to taunt me with it. Robert, I know this
woman. You don’t. We were at school together. She was untruthful,
dishonest, an evil influence on every one whose trust or friendship she
could win. I hated, I despised her. She stole things, she was a thief.
She was sent away for being a thief. Why do you let her influence you?
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Gertrude, what you tell me may be true, but it
happened many years ago. It is best forgotten! Mrs. Cheveley may have
changed since then. No one should be entirely judged by their past.
LADY CHILTERN. [_Sadly_.] One’s past is what one is. It is the only
way by which people should be judged.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. That is a hard saying, Gertrude!
LADY CHILTERN. It is a true saying, Robert. And what did she mean by
boasting that she had got you to lend your support, your name, to a thing
I have heard you describe as the most dishonest and fraudulent scheme
there has ever been in political life?
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [_Biting his lip_.] I was mistaken in the view I
took. We all may make mistakes.
LADY CHILTERN. But you told me yesterday that you had received the
report from the Commission, and that it entirely condemned the whole
thing.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [_Walking up and down_.] I have reasons now to
believe that the Commission was prejudiced, or, at any rate, misinformed.
Besides, Gertrude, public and private life are different things. They
have different laws, and move on different lines.
LADY CHILTERN. They should both represent man at his highest. I see no
difference between them.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [_Stopping_.] In the present case, on a matter of
practical politics, I have changed my mind. That is all.
LADY CHILTERN. All!
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [_Sternly_.] Yes!
LADY CHILTERN. Robert! Oh! it is horrible that I should have to ask you
such a question—Robert, are you telling me the whole truth?
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Why do you ask me such a question?
LADY CHILTERN. [_After a pause_.] Why do you not answer it?
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [_Sitting down_.] Gertrude, truth is a very
complex thing, and politics is a very complex business. There are wheels
within wheels. One may be under certain obligations to people that one
must pay. Sooner or later in political life one has to compromise.
Every one does.
LADY CHILTERN. Compromise? Robert, why do you talk so differently
to-night from the way I have always heard you talk? Why are you changed?
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. I am not changed. But circumstances alter things.
LADY CHILTERN. Circumstances should never alter principles!
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. But if I told you—
LADY CHILTERN. What?
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. That it was necessary, vitally necessary?
LADY CHILTERN. It can never be necessary to do what is not honourable.
Or if it be necessary, then what is it that I have loved! But it is not,
Robert; tell me it is not. Why should it be? What gain would you get?
Money? We have no need of that! And money that comes from a tainted
source is a degradation. Power? But power is nothing in itself. It is
power to do good that is fine—that, and that only. What is it, then?
Robert, tell me why you are going to do this dishonourable thing!
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Gertrude, you have no right to use that word. I
told you it was a question of rational compromise. It is no more than
that.
LADY CHILTERN. Robert, that is all very well for other men, for men who
treat life simply as a sordid speculation; but not for you, Robert, not
for you. You are different. All your life you have stood apart from
others. You have never let the world soil you. To the world, as to
myself, you have been an ideal always. Oh! be that ideal still. That
great inheritance throw not away—that tower of ivory do not destroy.
Robert, men can love what is beneath them—things unworthy, stained,
dishonoured. We women worship when we love; and when we lose our
worship, we lose everything. Oh! don’t kill my love for you, don’t kill
that!
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Gertrude!
LADY CHILTERN. I know that there are men with horrible secrets in their
lives—men who have done some shameful thing, and who in some critical
moment have to pay for it, by doing some other act of shame—oh! don’t
tell me you are such as they are! Robert, is there in your life any
secret dishonour or disgrace? Tell me, tell me at once, that—
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. That what?
LADY CHILTERN. [_Speaking very slowly_.] That our lives may drift
apart.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Drift apart?
LADY CHILTERN. That they may be entirely separate. It would be better
for us both.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Gertrude, there is nothing in my past life that you
might not know.
LADY CHILTERN. I was sure of it, Robert, I was sure of it. But why did
you say those dreadful things, things so unlike your real self? Don’t
let us ever talk about the subject again. You will write, won’t you, to
Mrs. Cheveley, and tell her that you cannot support this scandalous
scheme of hers? If you have given her any promise you must take it back,
that is all!
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Must I write and tell her that?
LADY CHILTERN. Surely, Robert! What else is there to do?
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. I might see her personally. It would be better.
LADY CHILTERN. You must never see her again, Robert. She is not a woman
you should ever speak to. She is not worthy to talk to a man like you.
No; you must write to her at once, now, this moment, and let your letter
show her that your decision is quite irrevocable!
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Write this moment!
LADY CHILTERN. Yes.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. But it is so late. It is close on twelve.
LADY CHILTERN. That makes no matter. She must know at once that she has
been mistaken in you—and that you are not a man to do anything base or
underhand or dishonourable. Write here, Robert. Write that you decline
to support this scheme of hers, as you hold it to be a dishonest scheme.
Yes—write the word dishonest. She knows what that word means. [SIR
ROBERT CHILTERN _sits down and writes a letter_. _His wife takes it up
and reads it_.] Yes; that will do. [_Rings bell_.] And now the
envelope. [_He writes the envelope slowly_. _Enter_ MASON.] Have this
letter sent at once to Claridge’s Hotel. There is no answer. [_Exit_
MASON. LADY CHILTERN _kneels down beside her husband_, _and puts her
arms around him_.] Robert, love gives one an instinct to things. I feel
to-night that I have saved you from something that might have been a
danger to you, from something that might have made men honour you less
than they do. I don’t think you realise sufficiently, Robert, that you
have brought into the political life of our time a nobler atmosphere, a
finer attitude towards life, a freer air of purer aims and higher
ideals—I know it, and for that I love you, Robert.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Oh, love me always, Gertrude, love me always!
LADY CHILTERN. I will love you always, because you will always be worthy
of love. We needs must love the highest when we see it! [_Kisses him
and rises and goes out_.]
[SIR ROBERT CHILTERN _walks up and down for a moment_; _then sits down
and buries his face in his hands_. _The Servant enters and begins
pulling out the lights_. SIR ROBERT CHILTERN _looks up_.]
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Put out the lights, Mason, put out the lights!
[_The Servant puts out the lights_. _The room becomes almost dark_.
_The only light there is comes from the great chandelier that hangs over
the staircase and illumines the tapestry of the Triumph of Love_.]
ACT DROP.
SECOND ACT
SCENE
_Morning-room at Sir Robert Chiltern’s house_.
[LORD GORING, _dressed in the height of fashion_, _is lounging in an
armchair_. SIR ROBERT CHILTERN _is standing in front of the fireplace_.
_He is evidently in a state of great mental excitement and distress_.
_As the scene progresses he paces nervously up and down the room_.]
LORD GORING. My dear Robert, it’s a very awkward business, very awkward
indeed. You should have told your wife the whole thing. Secrets from
other people’s wives are a necessary luxury in modern life. So, at
least, I am always told at the club by people who are bald enough to know
better. But no man should have a secret from his own wife. She
invariably finds it out. Women have a wonderful instinct about things.
They can discover everything except the obvious.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Arthur, I couldn’t tell my wife. When could I have
told her? Not last night. It would have made a life-long separation
between us, and I would have lost the love of the one woman in the world
I worship, of the only woman who has ever stirred love within me. Last
night it would have been quite impossible. She would have turned from me
in horror . . . in horror and in contempt.
LORD GORING. Is Lady Chiltern as perfect as all that?
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Yes; my wife is as perfect as all that.
LORD GORING. [_Taking off his left-hand glove_.] What a pity! I beg
your pardon, my dear fellow, I didn’t quite mean that. But if what you
tell me is true, I should like to have a serious talk about life with
Lady Chiltern.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. It would be quite useless.
LORD GORING. May I try?
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Yes; but nothing could make her alter her views.
LORD GORING. Well, at the worst it would simply be a psychological
experiment.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. All such experiments are terribly dangerous.
LORD GORING. Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn’t so,
life wouldn’t be worth living. . . . Well, I am bound to say that I think
you should have told her years ago.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. When? When we were engaged? Do you think she
would have married me if she had known that the origin of my fortune is
such as it is, the basis of my career such as it is, and that I had done
a thing that I suppose most men would call shameful and dishonourable?
LORD GORING. [_Slowly_.] Yes; most men would call it ugly names. There
is no doubt of that.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [_Bitterly_.] Men who every day do something of
the same kind themselves. Men who, each one of them, have worse secrets
in their own lives.
LORD GORING. That is the reason they are so pleased to find out other
people’s secrets. It distracts public attention from their own.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. And, after all, whom did I wrong by what I did? No
one.
LORD GORING. [_Looking at him steadily_.] Except yourself, Robert.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [_After a pause_.] Of course I had private
information about a certain transaction contemplated by the Government of