Complete Works of William Congreve

by William Congreve

  MIRA. What-d’ee-call-’ems! What are they, Witwoud?

  WIT. Empresses, my dear. By your what-d’ee-call-’ems he means Sultana Queens.

  PET. Ay, Roxolanas.

  MIRA. Cry you mercy.

  FAIN. Witwoud says they are —

  PET. What does he say th’are?

  WIT. I? Fine ladies, I say.

  PET. Pass on, Witwoud. Harkee, by this light, his relations — two co-heiresses his cousins, and an old aunt, who loves cater-wauling better than a conventicle.

  WIT. Ha, ha, ha! I had a mind to see how the rogue would come off. Ha, ha, ha! Gad, I can’t be angry with him, if he had said they were my mother and my sisters.

  MIRA. No?

  WIT. No; the rogue’s wit and readiness of invention charm me, dear Petulant.

  BET. They are gone, sir, in great anger.

  PET. Enough, let ’em trundle. Anger helps complexion, saves paint.

  FAIN. This continence is all dissembled; this is in order to have something to brag of the next time he makes court to Millamant, and swear he has abandoned the whole sex for her sake.

  MIRA. Have you not left off your impudent pretensions there yet? I shall cut your throat, sometime or other, Petulant, about that business.

  PET. Ay, ay, let that pass. There are other throats to be cut.

  MIRA. Meaning mine, sir?

  PET. Not I — I mean nobody — I know nothing. But there are uncles and nephews in the world — and they may be rivals. What then? All’s one for that.

  MIRA. How? Harkee, Petulant, come hither. Explain, or I shall call your interpreter.

  PET. Explain? I know nothing. Why, you have an uncle, have you not, lately come to town, and lodges by my Lady Wishfort’s?

  MIRA. True.

  PET. Why, that’s enough. You and he are not friends; and if he should marry and have a child, yon may be disinherited, ha!

  MIRA. Where hast thou stumbled upon all this truth?

  PET. All’s one for that; why, then, say I know something.

  MIRA. Come, thou art an honest fellow, Petulant, and shalt make love to my mistress, thou shalt, faith. What hast thou heard of my uncle?

  PET. I? Nothing, I. If throats are to be cut, let swords clash. Snug’s the word; I shrug and am silent.

  MIRA. Oh, raillery, raillery! Come, I know thou art in the women’s secrets. What, you’re a cabalist; I know you stayed at Millamant’s last night after I went. Was there any mention made of my uncle or me? Tell me; if thou hadst but good nature equal to thy wit, Petulant, Tony Witwoud, who is now thy competitor in fame, would show as dim by thee as a dead whiting’s eye by a pearl of orient; he would no more be seen by thee than Mercury is by the sun: come, I’m sure thou wo’t tell me.

  PET. If I do, will you grant me common sense, then, for the future?

  MIRA. Faith, I’ll do what I can for thee, and I’ll pray that heav’n may grant it thee in the meantime.

  PET. Well, harkee.

  FAIN. Petulant and you both will find Mirabell as warm a rival as a lover.

  WIT. Pshaw, pshaw, that she laughs at Petulant is plain. And for my part, but that it is almost a fashion to admire her, I should — harkee — to tell you a secret, but let it go no further between friends, I shall never break my heart for her.

  FAIN. How?

  WIT. She’s handsome; but she’s a sort of an uncertain woman.

  FAIN. I thought you had died for her.

  WIT. Umh — no —

  FAIN. She has wit.

  WIT. ’Tis what she will hardly allow anybody else. Now, demme, I should hate that, if she were as handsome as Cleopatra. Mirabell is not so sure of her as he thinks for.

  FAIN. Why do you think so?

  WIT. We stayed pretty late there last night, and heard something of an uncle to Mirabell, who is lately come to town, and is between him and the best part of his estate. Mirabell and he are at some distance, as my Lady Wishfort has been told; and you know she hates Mirabell worse than a quaker hates a parrot, or than a fishmonger hates a hard frost. Whether this uncle has seen Mrs. Millamant or not, I cannot say; but there were items of such a treaty being in embryo; and if it should come to life, poor Mirabell would be in some sort unfortunately fobbed, i’faith.

  FAIN. ’Tis impossible Millamant should hearken to it.

  WIT. Faith, my dear, I can’t tell; she’s a woman and a kind of a humorist.

  MIRA. And this is the sum of what you could collect last night?

  PET. The quintessence. Maybe Witwoud knows more; he stayed longer. Besides, they never mind him; they say anything before him.

  MIRA. I thought you had been the greatest favourite.

  PET. Ay, tête-à-tête; but not in public, because I make remarks.

  MIRA. You do?

  PET. Ay, ay, pox, I’m malicious, man. Now he’s soft, you know, they are not in awe of him. The fellow’s well bred, he’s what you call a — what d’ye-call-’em — a fine gentleman, but he’s silly withal.

  MIRA. I thank you, I know as much as my curiosity requires. Fainall, are you for the Mall?

  FAIN. Ay, I’ll take a turn before dinner.

  WIT. Ay, we’ll all walk in the park; the ladies talked of being there.

  MIRA. I thought you were obliged to watch for your brother Sir Wilfull’s arrival.

  WIT. No, no, he comes to his aunt’s, my Lady Wishfort; pox on him, I shall be troubled with him too; what shall I do with the fool?

  PET. Beg him for his estate, that I may beg you afterwards, and so have but one trouble with you both.

  WIT. O rare Petulant, thou art as quick as fire in a frosty morning; thou shalt to the Mall with us, and we’ll be very severe.

  PET. Enough; I’m in a humour to be severe.

  MIRA. Are you? Pray then walk by yourselves. Let not us be accessory to your putting the ladies out of countenance with your senseless ribaldry, which you roar out aloud as often as they pass by you, and when you have made a handsome woman blush, then you think you have been severe.

  PET. What, what? Then let ’em either show their innocence by not understanding what they hear, or else show their discretion by not hearing what they would not be thought to understand.

  MIRA. But hast not thou then sense enough to know that thou ought’st to be most ashamed thyself when thou hast put another out of countenance?

  PET. Not I, by this hand: I always take blushing either for a sign of guilt or ill-breeding.

  MIRA. I confess you ought to think so. You are in the right, that you may plead the error of your judgment in defence of your practice.

  Where modesty’s ill manners, ’tis but fit

  That impudence and malice pass for wit.

  ACT II. — SCENE I.

  St. James’s Park.

  Mrs. Fainall and Mrs. Marwood.

  MRS. FAIN. Ay, ay, dear Marwood, if we will be happy, we must find the means in ourselves, and among ourselves. Men are ever in extremes; either doting or averse. While they are lovers, if they have fire and sense, their jealousies are insupportable: and when they cease to love (we ought to think at least) they loathe, they look upon us with horror and distaste, they meet us like the ghosts of what we were, and as from such, fly from us.

  MRS. MAR. True, ’tis an unhappy circumstance of life that love should ever die before us, and that the man so often should outlive the lover. But say what you will, ’tis better to be left than never to have been loved. To pass our youth in dull indifference, to refuse the sweets of life because they once must leave us, is as preposterous as to wish to have been born old, because we one day must be old. For my part, my youth may wear and waste, but it shall never rust in my possession.

  MRS. FAIN. Then it seems you dissemble an aversion to mankind only in compliance to my mother’s humour.

  MRS. MAR. Certainly. To be free, I have no taste of those insipid dry discourses with which our sex of force must entertain themselves apart from men. We may affect endearments to each other, profess eternal friendships, and seem to
dote like lovers; but ’tis not in our natures long to persevere. Love will resume his empire in our breasts, and every heart, or soon or late, receive and readmit him as its lawful tyrant.

  MRS. FAIN. Bless me, how have I been deceived! Why, you profess a libertine.

  MRS. MAR. You see my friendship by my freedom. Come, be as sincere, acknowledge that your sentiments agree with mine.

  MRS. FAIN. Never.

  MRS. MAR. You hate mankind?

  MRS. FAIN. Heartily, inveterately.

  MRS. MAR. Your husband?

  MRS. FAIN. Most transcendently; ay, though I say it, meritoriously.

  MRS. MAR. Give me your hand upon it.

  MRS. FAIN. There.

  MRS. MAR. I join with you; what I have said has been to try you.

  MRS. FAIN. Is it possible? Dost thou hate those vipers, men?

  MRS. MAR. I have done hating ’em, and am now come to despise ’em; the next thing I have to do is eternally to forget ’em.

  MRS. FAIN. There spoke the spirit of an Amazon, a Penthesilea.

  MRS. MAR. And yet I am thinking sometimes to carry my aversion further.

  MRS. FAIN. How?

  MRS. MAR. Faith, by marrying; if I could but find one that loved me very well, and would be throughly sensible of ill usage, I think I should do myself the violence of undergoing the ceremony.

  MRS. FAIN. You would not make him a cuckold?

  MRS. MAR. No; but I’d make him believe I did, and that’s as bad.

  MRS. FAIN. Why had not you as good do it?

  MRS. MAR. Oh, if he should ever discover it, he would then know the worst, and be out of his pain; but I would have him ever to continue upon the rack of fear and jealousy.

  MRS. FAIN. Ingenious mischief! Would thou wert married to Mirabell.

  MRS. MAR. Would I were.

  MRS. FAIN. You change colour.

  MRS. MAR. Because I hate him.

  MRS. FAIN. So do I; but I can hear him named. But what reason have you to hate him in particular?

  MRS. MAR. I never loved him; he is, and always was, insufferably proud.

  MRS. FAIN. By the reason you give for your aversion, one would think it dissembled; for you have laid a fault to his charge, of which his enemies must acquit him.

  MRS. MAR. Oh, then it seems you are one of his favourable enemies. Methinks you look a little pale, and now you flush again.

  MRS. FAIN. Do I? I think I am a little sick o’ the sudden.

  MRS. MAR. What ails you?

  MRS. FAIN. My husband. Don’t you see him? He turned short upon me unawares, and has almost overcome me.

  SCENE II.

  [To them] Fainall and Mirabell.

  MRS. MAR. Ha, ha, ha! he comes opportunely for you.

  MRS. FAIN. For you, for he has brought Mirabell with him.

  FAIN. My dear.

  MRS. FAIN. My soul.

  FAIN. You don’t look well to-day, child.

  MRS. FAIN. D’ye think so?

  MIRA. He is the only man that does, madam.

  MRS. FAIN. The only man that would tell me so at least, and the only man from whom I could hear it without mortification.

  FAIN. Oh, my dear, I am satisfied of your tenderness; I know you cannot resent anything from me; especially what is an effect of my concern.

  MRS. FAIN. Mr. Mirabell, my mother interrupted you in a pleasant relation last night: I would fain hear it out.

  MIRA. The persons concerned in that affair have yet a tolerable reputation. I am afraid Mr. Fainall will be censorious.

  MRS. FAIN. He has a humour more prevailing than his curiosity, and will willingly dispense with the hearing of one scandalous story, to avoid giving an occasion to make another by being seen to walk with his wife. This way, Mr. Mirabell, and I dare promise you will oblige us both.

  SCENE III.

  Fainall, Mrs. Marwood.

  FAIN. Excellent creature! Well, sure, if I should live to be rid of my wife, I should be a miserable man.

  MRS. MAR. Ay?

  FAIN. For having only that one hope, the accomplishment of it of consequence must put an end to all my hopes, and what a wretch is he who must survive his hopes! Nothing remains when that day comes but to sit down and weep like Alexander when he wanted other worlds to conquer.

  MRS. MAR. Will you not follow ’em?

  FAIN. Faith, I think not,

  MRS. MAR. Pray let us; I have a reason.

  FAIN. You are not jealous?

  MRS. MAR. Of whom?

  FAIN. Of Mirabell.

  MRS. MAR. If I am, is it inconsistent with my love to you that I am tender of your honour?

  FAIN. You would intimate then, as if there were a fellow-feeling between my wife and him?

  MRS. MAR. I think she does not hate him to that degree she would be thought.

  FAIN. But he, I fear, is too insensible.

  MRS. MAR. It may be you are deceived.

  FAIN. It may be so. I do not now begin to apprehend it.

  MRS. MAR. What?

  FAIN. That I have been deceived, madam, and you are false.

  MRS. MAR. That I am false? What mean you?

  FAIN. To let you know I see through all your little arts. — Come, you both love him, and both have equally dissembled your aversion. Your mutual jealousies of one another have made you clash till you have both struck fire. I have seen the warm confession red’ning on your cheeks, and sparkling from your eyes.

  MRS. MAR. You do me wrong.

  FAIN. I do not. ’Twas for my ease to oversee and wilfully neglect the gross advances made him by my wife, that by permitting her to be engaged, I might continue unsuspected in my pleasures, and take you oftener to my arms in full security. But could you think, because the nodding husband would not wake, that e’er the watchful lover slept?

  MRS. MAR. And wherewithal can you reproach me?

  FAIN. With infidelity, with loving another, with love of Mirabell.

  MRS. MAR. ’Tis false. I challenge you to show an instance that can confirm your groundless accusation. I hate him.

  FAIN. And wherefore do you hate him? He is insensible, and your resentment follows his neglect. An instance? The injuries you have done him are a proof: your interposing in his love. What cause had you to make discoveries of his pretended passion? To undeceive the credulous aunt, and be the officious obstacle of his match with Millamant?

  MRS. MAR. My obligations to my lady urged me: I had professed a friendship to her, and could not see her easy nature so abused by that dissembler.

  FAIN. What, was it conscience then? Professed a friendship! Oh, the pious friendships of the female sex!

  MRS. MAR. More tender, more sincere, and more enduring, than all the vain and empty vows of men, whether professing love to us or mutual faith to one another.

  FAIN. Ha, ha, ha! you are my wife’s friend too.

  MRS. MAR. Shame and ingratitude! Do you reproach me? You, you upbraid me? Have I been false to her, through strict fidelity to you, and sacrificed my friendship to keep my love inviolate? And have you the baseness to charge me with the guilt, unmindful of the merit? To you it should be meritorious that I have been vicious. And do you reflect that guilt upon me which should lie buried in your bosom?

  FAIN. You misinterpret my reproof. I meant but to remind you of the slight account you once could make of strictest ties when set in competition with your love to me.

  MRS. MAR. ’Tis false, you urged it with deliberate malice. ’Twas spoke in scorn, and I never will forgive it.

  FAIN. Your guilt, not your resentment, begets your rage. If yet you loved, you could forgive a jealousy: but you are stung to find you are discovered.

  MRS. MAR. It shall be all discovered. You too shall be discovered; be sure you shall. I can but be exposed. If I do it myself I shall prevent your baseness.

  FAIN. Why, what will you do?

  MRS. MAR. Disclose it to your wife; own what has past between us.

  FAIN. Frenzy!