The Importance of Being Earnest

by Oscar Wilde

First Act

Sixth Part

Scene. Morning-room in Algernon's flat in Half-Moon Street. The room is
luxuriously and artistically furnished. Jack is in argument with Lady
Bracknell, and would seem to be on the losing end.
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Lady Bracknell. Me, sir! What has it to do with me? You can hardly imagine
that I and Lord Bracknell would dream of allowing our only daughter--a girl
brought up with the utmost care--to marry into a cloakroom, and form an
alliance with a parcel? Good morning, Mr. Worthing!

(Lady Bracknell sweeps out in majestic indignation.)

Jack. Good morning! (Algernon, from the other room, strikes up the Wedding
March. Jack looks perfectly furious, and goes to the door.) For goodness'
sake don't play that ghastly tune, Algy! How idiotic you are!

(The music stops, and Algernon enters cheerily.)

Algernon. Didn't it go off all right, old boy? You don't mean to say
Gwendolen refused you? I know it is a way she has. She is always refusing
people. I think it is most ill-natured of her.

Jack. Oh, Gwendolen is as right as a trivet. As far as she is concerned, we
are engaged. Her mother is perfectly unbearable. Never met such a gorgon
... I don't really know what a gorgon is like, but I am quite sure that
Lady Bracknell is one. In any case, she is a monster, without being a myth,
which is rather unfair ... I beg your pardon, Algy, I suppose I shouldn't
talk about your own aunt in that way before you.

Algernon. My dear boy, I love hearing my relations abused. It is the only
thing that makes me put up with them at all. Relations are simply a tedious
pack of people who haven't got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor
the smallest instinct about when to die.

Jack. Oh, that is nonsense!

Algernon. It isn't!

Jack. Well, I won't argue about the matter. You always want to argue about
things.

Algernon. That is exactly what things were originally made for.

Jack. Upon my word, if I thought that, I'd shoot myself. ... (A pause.) You
don't think there is any chance of Gwendolen becoming like her mother in
about a hundred and fifty years, do you, Algy?

Algernon. All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No
man does. That's his.

Jack. Is that clever?

Algernon. It is perfectly phrased! and quite as true as any observation in
civilized life should be.

Jack. I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays. You
can't go anywhere without meeting clever people. The thing has become an
absolute public nuisance. I wish to goodness we had a few fools left.

Algernon. We have.

Jack. I should extremely like to meet them. What do they talk about?

Algernon. The fools! Oh! about the clever people, of course.

Jack. What fools!

Algernon. By the way, did you tell Gwendolen the truth about your being
Ernest in town, and Jack in the country?

Jack. (In a very patronizing manner.) My dear fellow, the truth isn't quite
the sort of thing one tells to a nice sweet refined girl. What
extraordinary ideas you have about the way to behave to a woman!

Algernon. The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her, if she
is pretty, and to someone else if she is plain.

Jack. Oh, that is nonsense.

Algeron. What about your brother? What about the profligate Ernest?

Jack. Oh, before the end of the week I shall have got rid of him. I'll say
he died in Paris of apoplexy. Lots of people die of apoplexy, quite
suddenly, don't they?

Algernon. Yes, but it's hereditary, my dear fellow. It's a sort of thing
that runs in families. You had much better say a severe chill.

Jack. You are sure that a severe chill isn't hereditary, or anything of
that kind?

Algernon. Of course it isn't!

Jack. Very well, then. My poor brother Ernest is carried off suddenly in
Paris, by a severe chill. That gets rid of him.

Algernon. But I thought you said that ... Miss Cardew was a little too much
interested in your poor brother Ernest? Won't she feel his loss a good
deal?

Jack. Oh, that is all right. Cecily is not a silly romantic girl, I am glad
to say. She has got a capital appetite, goes long walks, and pays no
attention at all to her lessons.

Algernon. I would rather like to see Cecily.

Jack. I will take very good care you never do. She is excessively pretty,
and she is only just eighteen.

Algernon. Have you told Gwendolen yet that you have an excessively pretty
ward who is only just eighteen?

Jack. Oh! one doesn't blurt these things out to people. Cecily and
Gwendolen are perfectly certain to be extremely great friends. I'll bet you
anything you like that half an hour after they have met, they will be
calling each other sister.

Algernon. Women only do that when they have called each other a lot of
other things first. Now, my dear boy, if we want to get a good table awt
Willis's, we really must go and dress. Do you know it is nearly seven?

Jack. (Irritably.) Oh! it always is nearly seven.

Algernon. Well, I'm hungry.

Jack. I never knew you when you weren't. ...

Algernon. What shall we do after dinner? Go to the theatre?

Jack. Oh no! I loathe listening.

Algernon. Well, let us go to the club?

Jack. Oh, no! I hate talking.

Algernon. Well, we might trot round to the Empire at ten?

Jack. Oh no! I can't bear looking at things. It is so silly.

Algernon. Well, what shall we do?

Jack. Nothing!

Algernon. It is awfully hard work doing nothing. However, I don't mind hard
work where there is no definite object of any kind.

(Enter Lane.)

Lane. Miss Fairfax.

   * Next: Act I, Part 7

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The Scenes of the Play

   * Act I: Algernon Moncrieff's Flat in Half-Moon Street, W.
        o Part 1
        o Part 2
        o Part 3
        o Part 4
        o Part 5
        o Part 7
   * Act II: The Garden at the Manor House, Woolton.
   * Act III: Drawing-Room at the Manor House, Woolton

Transcription and organization by Jerry Stratton, for FireBlade
Publications. If you have any comments or questions, please let us know!
Jerry
jerry@acusd.edu
