An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde Page B

CHILTERN. My wife! Never! She does not know what weakness or temptation is. I am of clay like other men. She stands apart as good women do—pitiless in her perfection—cold and stern and without mercy. But I love her, Arthur. We are childless, and I have no one else to love, no one else to love me. Perhaps if God had sent us children she might have been kinder to me. But God has given us a lonely house. And she has cut my heart in two. Don’t let us talk of it. I was brutal to her this evening. But I suppose when sinners talk to saints they are brutal always. I said to her things that were hideously true, on my side, from my stand-point, from the standpoint of men. But don’t let us talk of that.
    LORD GORING. Your wife will forgive you. Perhaps at this moment she is forgiving you. She loves you, Robert. Why should she not forgive?
    SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. God grant it! God grant it! [Buries his face in his hands.] But there is something more I have to tell you, Arthur.
    [Enter PHIPPS with drinks.]
    PHIPPS. [Hands hock and seltzer to SIR ROBERT CHILTERN.] Hock and seltzer, sir.
    SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Thank you.
    LORD GORING. Is your carriage here, Robert?
    SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. No; I walked from the club.
    LORD GORING. Sir Robert will take my cab, Phipps.
    PHIPPS. Yes, my lord. [Exit.]
    LORD GORING. Robert, you don’t mind my sending you away?
    SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Arthur, you must let me stay for five minutes. I have made up my mind what I am going to do to-night in the House. The debate on the Argentine Canal is to begin at eleven. [A chair falls in the drawing-room.] What is that?
    LORD GORING. Nothing.
    SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. I heard a chair fall in the next room. Some one has been listening.
    LORD GORING. No, no; there is no one there.
    SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. There is some one. There are lights in the room, and the door is ajar. Some one has been listening to every secret of my life. Arthur, what does this mean?
    LORD GORING. Robert, you are excited, unnerved. I tell you there is no one in that room. Sit down, Robert.
    SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Do you give me your word that there is no one there?
    LORD GORING. Yes.
    SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Your word of honour? [Sits down.]
    LORD GORING. Yes.
    SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [Rises.] Arthur, let me see for myself.
    LORD GORING. No, no.
    SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. If there is no one there why should I not look in that room? Arthur, you must let me go into that room and satisfy myself. Let me know that no eavesdropper has heard my life’s secret. Arthur, you don’t realise what I am going through.
    LORD GORING. Robert, this must stop. I have told you that there is no one in that room—that is enough.
    SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [Rushes to the door of the room.] It is not enough. I insist on going into this room. You have told me there is no one there, so what reason can you have for refusing me?
    LORD GORING. For God’s sake, don’t! There is some one there. Some one whom you must not see.
    SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Ah, I thought so!
    LORD GORING. I forbid you to enter that room.
    SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Stand back. My life is at stake. And I don’t care who is there. I will know who it is to whom I have told my secret and my shame. [Enters room.]
    LORD GORING. Great heavens! his own wife!
    [SIR ROBERT CHILTERN comes back, with a look of scorn and anger on his face.]
    SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. What explanation have you to give me for the presence of that woman here?
    LORD GORING. Robert, I swear to you on my honour that that lady is stainless and guiltless of all offence towards you.
    SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. She is a vile, an infamous thing!
    LORD GORING. Don’t say that, Robert! It was for your sake she came here. It was to try and save you she came here. She loves you and no one else.
    SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. You are mad. What have I to do with her intrigues with you? Let her remain your mistress! You are well suited to each other. She, corrupt and shameful—you, false as a