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Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde - Free Ebook.LADY WINDERMERE’S FAN
Four stylii were used to transfer this record. They are 3. These were recorded flat and then also equalized with Turnover: The preferred versions suggested by an audio engineer at George Blood, L. Uploaded by jakej on December 17, Search icon An illustration of a magnifying glass. This student edition contains a fully annotated version of the playtext. The introduction includes an account of Wilde's life and a detailed analysis of Lady Windermere's Fan as well as its stage history. Advanced embedding details, examples, and help!
Publication date Usage Public Domain Mark 1. The play was first published in Like many of Wilde's comedies, it bitingly satirizes the morals of Victorian society, particularly marriage. The story concerns Lady Windermere, who discovers that her husband may be having an affair with another woman.
She confronts her husband but he instead invites the other woman, Mrs Erlynne, to his wife's birthday ball. Angered by her husband's unfaithfulness, Lady Windermere leaves her husband for another lover. May I look at it? I have only just seen it myself. You know to- day is my birthday? That is why I am giving this party to-night. Do sit down. I would have covered the whole street in front of your house with flowers for you to walk on. They are made for you.
Lord Darlington, you annoyed me last night at the Foreign Office. I am afraid you are going to annoy me again. Put it there, Parker. That will do. You must tell me what I did. I should be sorry to have to quarrel with you, Lord Darlington. I like you very much, you know that. Believe me, you are better than most other men, and I sometimes think you pretend to be worse. Besides, there is this to be said. If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.
No, not the world. Who are the people the world takes seriously? All the dull people one can think of, from the Bishops down to the bores.
I should like you to take me very seriously, Lady Windermere, you more than any one else in life. Let us be great friends. You may want a friend some day. You think I am a Puritan, I suppose? Well, I have something of the Puritan in me.
I was brought up like that. I am glad of it. My mother died when I was a mere child. She was stern to me, but. She allowed of no compromise.
I allow of none. I should be sorry to be on the same level as an age like this. Nowadays people seem to look on life as a speculation. It is not a speculation. It is a sacrament. Its ideal is Love. Its purification is sacrifice. The men want to know if they are to put the carpets on the terrace for to- night, my lady? Vileness is a terrible word, Lady Windermere. Do you know I am afraid that good people do a great deal of harm in this world. Certainly the greatest harm they do is that they make badness of such extraordinary importance.
It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious. Now, Lord Darlington. Of course there is much against it, I admit. Most women, for instance, nowadays, are rather mercenary. Well then, setting aside mercenary people, who, of course, are dreadful, do you think seriously that women who have committed what the world calls a fault should never be forgiven?
And men? Do you think that there should be the same laws for men as there are for women? I think life too complex a thing to be settled by these hard and fast rules. You have the modern affectation of weakness. As a wicked man I am a complete failure. Why, there are lots of people who say I have never really done anything wrong in the whole course of my life. Of course they only say it behind my back.
Agatha, this is Lord Darlington. Such bad tea, too. It was quite undrinkable. Her own son-in-law supplies it. Agatha is looking forward so much to your ball to-night, dear Margaret. It is only a dance in honour of my birthday. A small and early. But we know that, dear Margaret, about your house. It is really one of the few houses in London where I can take Agatha, and where I feel perfectly secure about dear Berwick.
The most dreadful people seem to go everywhere. Really, some one should make a stand against it. I will, Duchess. I will have no one in my house about whom there is any scandal. I should never be admitted! With women it is different. Some of us are, at least. But we are positively getting elbowed into the corner. Because I think that life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it.
What does he mean? Do, as a concession to my poor wits, Lord Darlington, just explain to me what you really mean. Nowadays to be intelligible is to be found out. Do let me come. But you are not to say foolish, insincere things to people. It is a dangerous thing to reform any one, Lady Windermere. I like him so much. Where do you get your gowns? And now I must tell you how sorry I am for. Dear girl! She is so fond of photographs of Switzerland. Such a pure taste, I think. But I really am so sorry for you, Margaret.
Oh, on account of that horrid woman. She dresses so well, too, which makes it much worse, sets such a dreadful example.
Augustus - you know my disreputable brother - such a trial to us all - well, Augustus is completely infatuated about her.
It is quite scandalous, for she is absolutely inadmissible into society. Many a woman has a past, but I am told that she has at least a dozen, and that they all fit.
I never heard of her, Duchess. And what has she to do with me? Sweet girl! So devoted to sunsets! Shows such refinement of feeling, does it not? After all, there is nothing like Nature, is there? My husband - what has he got to do with any woman of that kind?
Ah, what indeed, dear? That is the point. He goes to see her continually, and stops for hours at a time, and while he is there she is not at home to any one. Not that many ladies call on her, dear, but she has a great many disreputable men friends - my own brother particularly, as I told you - and that is what makes it so dreadful about Windermere.
We looked upon him as being such a model husband, but I am afraid there is no doubt about it. And they tell me that Windermere goes there four and five times a week - they see him. And the worst of it all is that I have been told that this woman has got a great deal of money out of somebody, for it seems that she came to London six months ago without anything at all to speak of, and now she has this charming house in Mayfair, drives her ponies in the Park every afternoon and all - well, all - since she has known poor dear Windermere.
The whole of London knows it. I assure you, my dear, that on several occasions after I was first married, I had to pretend to be very ill, and was obliged to drink the most unpleasant mineral waters, merely to get Berwick out of town. He was so extremely susceptible.
Though I am bound to say he never gave away any large sums of money to anybody. He is far too high-principled for that! Our child is but six months old. Ah, the dear pretty baby! How is the little darling? Is it a boy or a girl? Boys are so wicked. My boy is excessively immoral. Oh, all of them, my dear, all of them, without any exception. And they never grow any better. Men become old, but they never become good. Yes, we begin like that. In fact, before the honeymoon was over, I caught him winking at my maid, a most pretty, respectable girl.
I dismissed her at once without a character. But it did, though - it was most unfortunate. It is very kind of you, Duchess, to come and tell me all this.
Pretty child! I was like that once. Now I know that all men are monsters. A good cook does wonders, and that I know you have. My dear Margaret, you are not going to cry? Crying is the refuge of plain women but the ruin of pretty ones. Agatha, darling! Come and bid good-bye to Lady Windermere, and thank her for your charming visit. His father made a great fortune by selling some kind of food in circular tins - most palatable, I believe - I fancy it is the thing the servants always refuse to eat.
But the son is quite interesting. Good-bye, once more; come, Agatha. How horrible! I understand now what Lord Darlington meant by the imaginary instance of the couple not two years married. I know where Arthur keeps his bank book - in one of the drawers of that desk. I might find out by that. I will find out.
He loves me! But why should I not look? I am his wife, I have a right to look! As the does so, starts and takes out another book. Sees paper knife on bureau, and with it cuts cover from book. Begins to start at the first page. It is true! Well, dear, has the fan been sent home yet?
Sees book. You have no right to do such a thing! I did not spy on you. Some one who pitied me was kind enough to tell me what every one in London knows already - your daily visits to Curzon Street, your mad infatuation, the monstrous sums of money you squander on this infamous woman!
I wish you had been as jealous of mine. Your honour is untouched, Margaret. I think that you spend your money strangely. That is all. As far as I am concerned, you may squander everything we have.
But what I do mind is that you who have loved me, you who have taught me to love you, should pass from the love that is given to the love that is bought. I feel stained, utterly stained.
I never loved any one in the whole world but you. Erlynne, she has conducted herself well. If years ago -. I tell you simply this - Mrs. Erlynne was once honoured, loved, respected. She was well born, she had position - she lost everything - threw it away, if you like. That makes it all the more bitter. Misfortunes one can endure - they come from outside, they are accidents. It was twenty years ago, too.
She was little more than a girl then. She had been a wife for even less time than you have. I am not interested in her - and - you should not mention this woman and me in the same breath. It is an error of taste.
Margaret, you could save this woman. She wants to get back into society, and she wants you to help her. Margaret, I came to ask you a great favour, and I still ask it of you, though you have discovered what I had intended you should never have known that I have given Mrs.
Erlynne a large sum of money. I want you to send her an invitation for our party to-night. I entreat you. She has been to several houses - not to houses where you would go, I admit, but still to houses where women who are in what is called Society nowadays do go. That does not content her. She wants you to receive her once. No; but because she knows that you are a good woman - and that if she comes here once she will have a chance of a happier, a surer life than she has had.
She will make no further effort to know you. If a woman really repents, she never wishes to return to the society that has made or seen her ruin. I beg of you. Arthur [going to him C. You are wrong, I have friends, many friends. Erlynne to-night. Why should you be different from other men? I am told that there is hardly a husband in London who does not waste his life over some shameful passion. You are sure in your heart.
God knows the last few minutes have thrust us wide enough apart. Sit down and write the card. You are going to invite this woman? Have this note sent to Mrs. Erlynne at No. There is not a good woman in London who would not applaud me. We have been too lax. We must make an example. I propose to begin to- night. The dear Duchess! Just the type of girl I like! Cecil Graham with rest of guests. Lady Windermere watches , with a look of scorn and pain , Mrs.
Erlynne and her husband. They are unconscious of her presence. Oh, yes! He wanted to propose to-night. In fact he did. He kept on proposing. Poor Augustus, you know how he repeats himself. Such a bad habit!
Of course I am going to take him. And there is a great deal of good in Lord Augustus. Fortunately it is all on the surface. Just where good qualities should be. Of course you must help me in this matter. I am not called on to encourage Lord Augustus, I suppose?
Oh, no! I do the encouraging. Even business should have a picturesque background. Should it not, Windermere? With a proper background women can do anything. No; you see, to-morrow I am going to accept him. And I think it would be a good thing if I was able to tell him that I had—well, what shall I say?
You have a delightful opportunity now of paying me a compliment, Windermere. But you are not very clever at paying compliments. When men give up saying what is charming, they give up thinking what is charming.
In modern life margin is everything. Music strikes up in ball-room. To stay in this house any longer is impossible. To-night a man who loves me offered me his whole life. I refused it. It was foolish of me. I will offer him mine now. I will give him mine. I will go to him! Sits down at table and writes a letter , puts it into an envelope , and leaves it on table.
When he reads this, he will. He may do as he chooses now with his life. I have done with mine as I think best, as I think right. It is he who has broken the bond of marriage—not I. I only break its bondage.
Enter Mrs. No, madam. Her ladyship has just gone out of the house. Yes, madam—her ladyship told me she had left a letter for his lordship on the table. The music in the ball-room stops. A letter addressed to her husband! Takes it up and lays it down again with a shudder of fear. It would be impossible! Oh, why does this horrible fancy come across me? Why do I remember now the one moment of my life I most wish to forget? Does life repeat its tragedies?
The same words that twenty years ago I wrote to her father! No; my punishment, my real punishment is to-night, is now! Have you said good-night to my wife? She is very tired. She has gone to bed. She said she had a headache. I must go to her. Besides, there are people still in the supper-room. She wants you to make her apologies to them.
Oh yes, thank you, that is mine. Will you ask them to call my carriage, please? What can I do? I feel a passion awakening within me that I never felt before. What can it mean? The daughter must not be like the mother—that would be terrible. How can I save her? How can I save my child? A moment may ruin a life. Who knows that better than I? Windermere must be got out of the house; that is absolutely necessary.
It must be done somehow. Dear lady, I am in such suspense! May I not have an answer to my request? Lord Augustus, listen to me. You are to take Lord Windermere down to your club at once, and keep him there as long as possible. You understand? Do what I tell you. Your reward? If you do I will never forgive you. I will never speak to you again. Well, really, I might be her husband already. Positively I might. A large sofa is in front of fireplace R. At the back of the stage a curtain is drawn across the window.
Doors L. Table C. Table L. Lamps lit. This waiting is horrible. He should be here. Why is he not here, to wake by passionate words some fire within me?
I am cold—cold as a loveless thing. Arthur must have read my letter by this time. If he cared for me, he would have come after me, would have taken me back by force. If a woman wants to hold a man, she has merely to appeal to what is worst in him. We make gods of men and they leave us. Others make brutes of them and they fawn and are faithful. How hideous life is! What woman knows? What woman in the whole world? But will he love me always, this man to whom I am giving my life? What do I bring him?
Lips that have lost the note of joy, eyes that are blinded by tears, chill hands and icy heart. I bring him nothing. That fatal letter! Lord Darlington leaves England to-morrow.
I will go with him—I have no choice. Then starts up and puts on her cloak. I will go back, let Arthur do with me what he pleases. It has been madness my coming. I must go at once. As for Lord Darlington—Oh! What can I say to him? Will he let me go away at all? I have heard that men are brutal, horrible. Then recoils in contempt. There is not a second to be lost. Lord Darlington may return at any moment.
You are on the brink of ruin, you are on the brink of a hideous precipice. You must leave this place at once, my carriage is waiting at the corner of the street. You must come with me and drive straight home. Erlynne—if you had not come here, I would have gone back. But now that I see you, I feel that nothing in the whole world would induce me to live under the same roof as Lord Windermere.
You fill me with horror. There is something about you that stirs the wildest—rage within me. And I know why you are here. My husband sent you to lure me back that I might serve as a blind to whatever relations exist between you and him.
Go back to my husband, Mrs. He belongs to you and not to me. I suppose he is afraid of a scandal. Men are such cowards. But he had better prepare himself. He shall have a scandal. He shall have the worst scandal there has been in London for years. He shall see his name in every vile paper, mine on every hideous placard.
Had he come himself, I admit I would have gone back to the life of degradation you and he had prepared for me—I was going back—but to stay himself at home, and to send you as his messenger—oh! He thinks you are asleep in your own room. He never read the mad letter you wrote to him! How simple you think me! I am telling you the truth. Who told you I had left the house you were shameless enough to enter?
Who told you where I had gone to? My husband told you, and sent you to decoy me back. I—saw it, I opened it. I—read it. Here is the letter. Your husband has never read it. He never shall read it.
You seem to think the commonest device can take me in! What object do you think I have in coming here, except to save you from utter ruin, to save you from the consequence of a hideous mistake? That letter that is burnt now was your letter. I swear it to you! I cannot trust you. You, whose whole life is a lie, could you speak the truth about anything? He does not understand what love is. He understands it as little as you do—but I see what you want. It would be a great advantage for you to get me back.
Dear Heaven! Living at the mercy of a woman who has neither mercy nor pity in her, a woman whom it is an infamy to meet, a degradation to know, a vile woman, a woman who comes between husband and wife!
Listen, you must listen! Only go back to your husband, and I promise you never to communicate with him again on any pretext—never to see him—never to have anything to do with his life or yours. The money that he gave me, he gave me not through love, but through hatred, not in worship, but in contempt. The hold I have over him—. Yes, and I will tell you what it is. It is his love for you, Lady Windermere. You must believe it! It is true. It is his love for you that has made him submit to—oh!
But it is his love for you. His desire to spare you—shame, yes, shame and disgrace. What do you mean? You are insolent! What have I to do with you? I know it—but I tell you that your husband loves you—that you may never meet with such love again in your whole life—that such love you will never meet—and that if you throw it away, the day may come when you will starve for love and it will not be given to you, beg for love and it will be denied you—Oh!
Arthur loves you! And you tell me there is nothing between you? Lady Windermere, before Heaven your husband is guiltless of all offence towards you! And I—I tell you that had it ever occurred to me that such a monstrous suspicion would have entered your mind, I would have died rather than have crossed your life or his—oh!
You talk as if you had a heart. Women like you have no hearts. Heart is not in you. You are bought and sold. Then restrains herself , and comes over to where Lady Windermere is sitting. As she speaks , she stretches out her hands towards her , but does not dare to touch her. You must never know that. I may have wrecked my own life, but I will not let you wreck yours.
You—why, you are a mere girl, you would be lost. You have neither the wit nor the courage. Go back, Lady Windermere, to the husband who loves you, whom you love. You have a child, Lady Windermere. Go back to that child who even now, in pain or in joy, may be calling to you. He will require from you that you make his life fine, that you watch over him. What answer will you make to God if his life is ruined through you? Back to your house, Lady Windermere—your husband loves you! He has never swerved for a moment from the love he bears you.
But even if he had a thousand loves, you must stay with your child.
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