Oscar Wilde: The Complete Works. Knowledge house
is a true saying, Robert. And what did she mean by boasting that she had got you to lend your support, your name to a thing I have heard you describe as the most dishonest and fraudulent scheme there has ever been in political life?
·55· sir robert chiltern
[Biting his lip.] I was mistaken in the view I took. We all may make mistakes.
lady chiltern
But you told me yesterday that you had received the report from the Commission, and that it entirely condemned the whole thing.
sir robert chiltern
[Walking up and down.] I have reasons now to believe that the Commission was prejudiced, or, at any rate, misinformed. Besides, Gertrude, public and private life are different things. They have different laws, and move on different lines.
lady chiltern
They should both represent man at his highest. I see no difference between them.
sir robert chiltern
[Stopping.] In the present case, on a matter of practical politics, I have changed my mind. That is all.
lady chiltern
All!
sir robert chiltern
[Sternly.] Yes!
·56· lady chiltern
Robert! Oh! it is horrible that I should have to ask you such a question—Robert, are you telling me the whole truth?
sir robert chiltern
Why do you ask me such a question?
lady chiltern
[After a pause.] Why do you not answer it?
sir robert chiltern
[Sitting down.] Gertrude, truth is a very complex thing, and politics is a very complex business. There are wheels within wheels. One may be under certain obligations to people that one must pay. Sooner or later in political life one has to compromise. Everyone does.
lady chiltern
Compromise? Robert, why do you talk so differently to-night from the way I have always heard you talk? Why are you changed?
sir robert chiltern
I am not changed. But circumstances alter things.
lady chiltern
Circumstances should never alter principles!
·57· sir robert chiltern
But if I told you——
lady chiltern
What?
sir robert chiltern
That it was necessary, vitally necessary.
lady chiltern
It can never be necessary to do what is not honourable. Or if it be necessary, then what is it that I have loved! But it is not, Robert; tell me it is not. Why should it be? What gain would you get? Money? We have no need of that! And money that comes from a tainted source is a degradation. Power? But power is nothing in itself. It is power to do good that is fine—that, and that only. What is it, then? Robert, tell me why you are going to do this dishonourable thing!
sir robert chiltern
Gertrude, you have no right to use that word. I told you it was a question of rational compromise. It is no more than that.
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 ·58· 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?
·59· lady chiltern
That they may be 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 ·60· 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 round him.] Robert, love gives one a sort of instinct to things. I feel to-night that I have saved you from ·61· 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 realize 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