by Oscar Wilde
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 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 putting 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
ACT TWO
SCENE: Morning-room at Sir Robert Chiltern’s house.
LORD GORING, dressed in the height of fashion, is lounging in an arm-chair. 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 had 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 the day, and I acted on it. Private information is practically the source of every large modern fortune.
LORD GORING (tapping his boot with his cane): And public scandal invariably the result.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN (pacing up and down the room): Arthur, do you think that what I did nearly eighteen years ago should be brought up against me now? Do you think it fair that a man’s whole career should be ruined for a fault done in one’s boyhood almost? I was twenty-two at the time, and I had the double misfortune of being well-born and poor, two unforgivable things nowadays. Is it fair that the folly, the sin of one’s youth, if men choose to call it a sin, should wreck a life like mine, should place me in the pillory, should shatter all that I have worked for, all that I have built up? Is it fair, Arthur?
LORD GORING: Life is never fair, Robert. And perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Every man of ambition has to fight his century with its own weapons. Wha
t this century worships is wealth. The God of this century is wealth. To succeed one must have wealth. At all costs one must have wealth.
LORD GORING: You underrate yourself, Robert. Believe me, without your wealth you could have succeeded just as well.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: When I was old, perhaps. When I had lost my passion for power, or could not use it. When I was tired, worn out, disappointed. I wanted my success when I was young. Youth is the time for success. I couldn’t wait.
LORD GORING: Well, you certainly have had your success while you are still young. No one in our day has had such a brilliant success. Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs at the age of forty – that’s good enough for any one, I should think.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: And if it is all taken away from me now? If I lose everything over a horrible scandal? If I am hounded from public life?
LORD GORING: Robert, how could you have sold yourself for money?
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN (excitedly): I did not sell myself for money. I bought success at a great price. That is all.
LORD GORING (gravely): Yes; you certainly paid a great price for it. But what first made you think of doing such a thing?
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Baron Arnheim.
LORD GORING: Damned scoundrel!
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: No; he was a man of a most subtle and refined intellect. A man of culture, charm, and distinction. One of the most intellectual men I ever met.
LORD GORING: Ah! I prefer a gentlemanly fool any day. There is more to be said for stupidity than people imagine. Personally, I have a great admiration for stupidity. It is a sort of fellow-feeling, I suppose. But how did he do it? Tell me the whole thing.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN (throws himself into an arm-chair by the writing-table): One night after dinner at Lord Radley’s the Baron began talking about success in modern life as something that one could reduce to an absolutely definite science. With that wonderfully fascinating quiet voice of his he expounded to us the most terrible of all philosophies, the philosophy of power, preached to us the most marvellous of all gospels, the gospel of gold. I think he saw the effect he had produced on me, for some days afterwards he wrote and asked me to come and see him. He was living then in Park Lane, in the house Lord Woolcomb has now. I remember so well how, with a strange smile on his pale, curved lips, he led me through his wonderful picture gallery, showed me his tapestries, his enamels, his jewels, his carved ivories, made me wonder at the strange loveliness of the luxury in which he lived; and then told me that luxury was nothing but a background, a painted scene in a play, and that power, power over other men, power over the world, was the one thing worth having, the one supreme pleasure worth knowing, the one joy one never tired of, and that in our century only the rich possessed it.
LORD GORING (with great deliberation): A thoroughly shallow creed.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN (rising): I didn’t think so then. I don’t think so now. Wealth has given me enormous power. It gave me at the very outset of my life freedom, and freedom is everything. You have never been poor, and never known what ambition is. You cannot understand what a wonderful chance the Baron gave me. Such a chance as few men get.
LORD GORING: Fortunately for them, if one is to judge by results. But tell me definitely, how did the Baron finally persuade you to – well, to do what you did?
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: When I was going away he said to me that if I ever could give him any private information of real value he would make me a very rich man. I was dazed at the prospect he held out to me, and my ambition and my desire for power were at that time boundless. Six weeks later certain private documents passed through my hands.
LORD GORING (keeping his eyes steadily fixed on the carpet): State documents?
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Yes.
LORD GORING sighs, then passes his hand across his forehead and looks up.
LORD GORING: I had no idea that you, of all men in the world, could have been so weak, Robert, as to yield to such a temptation as Baron Arhneim held out to you.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Weak? Oh, I am sick of hearing that phrase. Sick of using it about others. Weak! Do you really think, Arthur, that it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations that it requires strength, strength and courage, to yield to. To stake all one’s life on a single moment, to risk everything on one throw, whether the stake be power or pleasure, I care not – there is no weakness in that. There is a horrible, a terrible courage. I had that courage. I sat down the same afternoon and wrote Baron Arnheim the letter this woman now holds. He made three-quarters of a million over the transaction.
LORD GORING: And you?
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: I received from the Baron £110,000.
LORD GORING: You were worth more, Robert.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: No; that money gave me exactly what I wanted, power over others. I went into the House immediately. The Baron advised me in finance from time to time. Before five years I had almost trebled my fortune. Since then everything that I have touched has turned out a success. In all things connected with money I have had a luck so extraordinary that sometimes it has made me almost afraid. I remember having read somewhere, in some strange book, that when the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers.
LORD GORING: But tell me, Robert, did you never suffer any regret for what you had done?
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: No. I felt that I had fought the century with its own weapons, and won.
LORD GORING (sadly): You thought you had won.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: I thought so. (After a long pause): Arthur, do you despise me for what I have told you?
LORD GORING (with deep feeling in his voice): I am very sorry for you, Robert, very sorry indeed.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: I don’t say that I suffered any remorse. I didn’t. Not remorse in the ordinary, rather silly sense of the word. But I have paid conscience money many times. I had a wild hope that I might disarm destiny. The sum Baron Arnheim gave me I have distributed twice over in public charities since then.
LORD GORING (looking up): In public charities? Dear me! What a lot of harm you must have done, Robert!
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Oh, don’t say that, Arthur; don’t talk like that!
LORD GORING: Never mind what I say, Robert! I am always saying what I shouldn’t say. In fact, I usually say what I really think. A great mistake nowadays. It makes one so liable to be understood. As regards this dreadful business, I will help you in whatever way I can. Of course you know that.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Thank you, Arthur, thank you. But what is to be done? What can be done?
LORD GORING (leaning back with his hands in his pockets): Well, the English can’t stand a man who is always saying he is in the right, but they are very fond of a man who admits that he has been in the wrong. It is one of the best things in them. However, in your case, Robert, a confession would not do. The money, if you will allow me to say so, is…awkward. Besides, if you did make a clean breast of the whole affair, you would never be able to talk morality again. And in England a man who can’t talk morality twice a week to a large, popular, immoral audience is quite over as a serious politician. There would be nothing left for him as a profession except Botany or the Church. A confession would be of no use. It would ruin you.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: It would ruin me. Arthur, the only thing for me to do now is to fight the thing out.
LORD GORING (rising from his chair): I was waiting for you to say that, Robert. It is the only thing to do now. And you must begin by telling your wife the whole story.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: That I will not do.
LORD GORING: Robert, believe me, you are wrong.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: I couldn’t do it. It would kill her love for me. And now about this woman, this Mrs. Cheveley. How can I defend myself against her? You knew her before, Arthur, apparently.
LORD GORING: Yes.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Did you know her well?
LORD GORING (arranging his necktie): So little
that I got engaged to be married to her once, when I was staying at the Tenbys’. The affair lasted for three days…nearly.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Why was it broken off?
LORD GORING (airily): Oh, I forget. At least, it makes no matter. By the way, have you tried her with money? She used to be confoundedly fond of money.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: I offered her any sum she wanted. She refused.
LORD GORING: Then the marvellous gospel of gold breaks down sometimes. The rich can’t do everything, after all.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Not everything. I suppose you are right. Arthur, I feel that public disgrace is in store for me. I feel certain of it. I never knew what terror was before. I know it now. It is as if a hand of ice were laid upon one’s heart. It is as if one’s heart were beating itself to death in some empty hollow.
LORD GORING (striking the table): Robert, you must fight her. You must fight her.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: But how?
LORD GORING: I can’t tell you how at present. I have not the smallest idea. But every one has some weak point. There is some flaw in each one of us. (Strolls over to the fireplace and looks at himself in the glass.) My father tells me that even I have faults. Perhaps I have. I don’t know.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: In defending myself against Mrs. Cheveley I have a right to use any weapon I can find, have I not?
LORD GORING (still looking in the glass): In your place I don’t think I should have the smallest scruple in doing so. She is thoroughly well able to take care of herself.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN (sits down at the table and takes a pen in his hand): Well, I shall send a cipher telegram to the Embassy at Vienna, to inquire if there is anything known against her. There may be some secret scandal she might be afraid of.
LORD GORING (settling his buttonhole): Oh, I should fancy Mrs. Cheveley is one of those very modern women of our time who find a new scandal as becoming as a new bonnet, and air them both in the Park every afternoon at five-thirty. I am sure she adores scandals, and that the sorrow of her life at present is that she can’t manage to have enough of them.