章节正文
was there, Caroline?
LADY CAROLINE. There was poor Margaret's baby. You remember how
anxious she was to have a boy, and it was a boy, but it died, and
her husband died shortly afterwards, and she married almost
immediately one of Lord Ascot's sons, who, I am told, beats her.
LADY HUNSTANTON. Ah, that is in the family, dear, that is in the
family. And there was also, I remember, a clergyman who wanted to
be a lunatic, or a lunatic who wanted to be a clergyman, I forget
which, but I know the Court of Chancery investigated the matter,
and decided that he was quite sane. And I saw him afterwards at
poor Lord Plumstead's with straws in his hair, or something very
odd about him. I can't recall what. I often regret, Lady
Caroline, that dear Lady Cecilia never lived to see her son get the
title.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Lady Cecilia?
LADY HUNSTANTON. Lord Illingworth's mother, dear Mrs. Arbuthnot,
was one of the Duchess of Jerningham's pretty daughters, and she
married Sir Thomas Harford, who wasn't considered a very good match
for her at the time, though he was said to be the handsomest man in
London. I knew them all quite intimately, and both the sons,
Arthur and George.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. It was the eldest son who succeeded, of course,
Lady Hunstanton?
LADY HUNSTANTON. No, dear, he was killed in the hunting field. Or
was it fishing, Caroline? I forget. But George came in for
everything. I always tell him that no younger son has ever had
such good luck as he has had.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Lady Hunstanton, I want to speak to Gerald at
once. Might I see him? Can he be sent for?
LADY HUNSTANTON. Certainly, dear. I will send one of the servants
into the dining-room to fetch him. I don't know what keeps the
gentlemen so long. [Rings bell.] When I knew Lord Illingworth
first as plain George Harford, he was simply a very brilliant young
man about town, with not a penny of money except what poor dear
Lady Cecilia gave him. She was quite devoted to him. Chiefly, I
fancy, because he was on bad terms with his father. Oh, here is
the dear Archdeacon. [To Servant.] It doesn't matter.
[Enter SIR JOHN and DOCTOR DAUBENY. SIR JOHN goes over to LADY
STUTFIELD, DOCTOR DAUBENY to LADY HUNSTANTON.]
THE ARCHDEACON. Lord Illingworth has been most entertaining. I
have never enjoyed myself more. [Sees MRS. ARBUTHNOT.] Ah, Mrs.
Arbuthnot.
LADY HUNSTANTON. [To DOCTOR DAUBENY.] You see I have got Mrs.
Arbuthnot to come to me at last.
THE ARCHDEACON. That is a great honour, Lady Hunstanton. Mrs.
Daubeny will be quite jealous of you.
LADY HUNSTANTON. Ah, I am so sorry Mrs. Daubeny could not come
with you to-night. Headache as usual, I suppose.
THE ARCHDEACON. Yes, Lady Hunstanton; a perfect martyr. But she
is happiest alone. She is happiest alone.
LADY CAROLINE. [To her husband.] John! [SIR JOHN goes over to
his wife. DOCTOR DAUBENY talks to LADY HUNSTANTON and MRS.
ARBUTHNOT.]
[MRS. ARBUTHNOT watches LORD ILLINGWORTH the whole time. He has
passed across the room without noticing her, and approaches MRS.
ALLONBY, who with LADY STUTFIELD is standing by the door looking on
to the terrace.]
LORD ILLINGWORTH. How is the most charming woman in the world?
MRS. ALLONBY. [Taking LADY STUTFIELD by the hand.] We are both
quite well, thank you, Lord Illingworth. But what a short time you
have been in the dining-room! It seems as if we had only just
left.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. I was bored to death. Never opened my lips the
whole time. Absolutely longing to come in to you.
MRS. ALLONBY. You should have. The American girl has been giving
us a lecture.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Really? All Americans lecture, I believe. I
suppose it is something in their climate. What did she lecture
about?
MRS. ALLONBY. Oh, Puritanism, of course.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. I am going to convert her, am I not? How long
do you give me?
MRS. ALLONBY. A week.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. A week is more than enough.
[Enter GERALD and LORD ALFRED.]
GERALD. [Going to MRS. ARBUTHNOT.] Dear mother!
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Gerald, I don't feel at all well. See me home,
Gerald. I shouldn't have come.
GERALD. I am so sorry, mother. Certainly. But you must know Lord
Illingworth first. [Goes across room.]
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Not to-night, Gerald.
GERALD. Lord Illingworth, I want you so much to know my mother.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. With the greatest pleasure. [To MRS. ALLONBY.]
I'll be back in a moment. People's mothers always bore me to
death. All women become like their mothers. That is their
tragedy.
MRS. ALLONBY. No man does. That is his.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. What a delightful mood you are in to-night!
[Turns round and goes across with GERALD to MRS. ARBUTHNOT. When
he sees her, he starts back in wonder. Then slowly his eyes turn
towards GERALD.]
GERALD. Mother, this is Lord Illingworth, who has offered to take
me as his private secretary. [MRS. ARBUTHNOT bows coldly.] It is
a wonderful opening for me, isn't it? I hope he won't be
disappointed in me, that is all. You'll thank Lord Illingworth,
mother, won't you?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Lord Illingworth in very good, I am sure, to
interest himself in you for the moment.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. [Putting his hand on GERALD's shoulder.] Oh,
Gerald and I are great friends already, Mrs . . . Arbuthnot.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. There can be nothing in common between you and my
son, Lord Illingworth.
GERALD. Dear mother, how can you say so? Of course Lord
Illingworth is awfully clever and that sort of thing. There is
nothing Lord Illingworth doesn't know.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. My dear boy!
GERALD. He knows more about life than any one I have ever met. I
feel an awful duffer when I am with you, Lord Illingworth. Of
course, I have had so few advantages. I have not been to Eton or
Oxford like other chaps. But Lord Illingworth doesn't seem to mind
that. He has been awfully good to me, mother.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Lord Illingworth may change his mind. He may not
really want you as his secretary.
GERALD. Mother!
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. You must remember, as you said yourself, you have
had so few advantages.
MRS. ALLONBY. Lord Illingworth, I want to speak to you for a
moment. Do come over.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Will you excuse me, Mrs. Arbuthnot? Now, don't
let your charming mother make any more difficulties, Gerald. The
thing is quite settled, isn't it?
GERALD. I hope so. [LORD ILLINGWORTH goes across to MRS.
ARBUTHNOT.]
MRS. ALLONBY. I thought you were never going to leave the lady in
black velvet.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. She is excessively handsome. [Looks at MRS.
ARBUTHNOT.]
LADY HUNSTANTON. Caroline, shall we all make a move to the music-
room? Miss Worsley is going to play. You'll come too, dear Mrs.
Arbuthnot, won't you? You don't know what a treat is in store for
you. [To DOCTOR DAUBENY.] I must really take Miss Worsley down
some afternoon to the rectory. I should so much like dear Mrs.
Daubeny to hear her on the violin. Ah, I forgot. Dear Mrs.
Daubeny's hearing is a little defective, is it not?
THE ARCHDEACON. Her deafness is a great privation to her. She
can't even hear my sermons now. She reads them at home. But she
has many resources in herself, many resources.
LADY HUNSTANTON. She reads a good deal, I suppose?
THE ARCHDEACON. Just the very largest print. The eyesight is
rapidly going. But she's never morbid, never morbid.
GERALD. [To LORD ILLINGWORTH.] Do speak to my mother, Lord
Illingworth, before you go into the music-room. She seems to
think, somehow, you don't mean what you said to me.
MRS. ALLONBY. Aren't you coming?
LORD ILLINGWORTH. In a few moments. Lady Hunstanton, if Mrs.
Arbuthnot would allow me, I would like to say a few words to her,
and we will join you later on.
LADY HUNSTANTON. Ah, of course. You will have a great deal to say
to her, and she will have a great deal to thank you for. It is not
every son who gets such an offer, Mrs. Arbuthnot. But I know you
appreciate that, dear.
LADY CAROLINE. John!
LADY HUNSTANTON. Now, don't keep Mrs. Arbuthnot too long, Lord
Illingworth. We can't spare her.
[Exit following the other guests. Sound of violin heard from
music-room.]
LORD ILLINGWORTH. So that is our son, Rachel! Well, I am very
proud of him. He in a Harford, every inch of him. By the way, why
Arbuthnot, Rachel?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. One name is as good as another, when one has no
right to any name.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. I suppose so - but why Gerald?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. After a man whose heart I broke - after my father.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Well, Rachel, what in over is over. All I have
got to say now in that I am very, very much pleased with our boy.
The world will know him merely as my private secretary, but to me
he will be something very near, and very dear. It is a curious
thing, Rachel; my life seemed to be quite complete. It was not so.
It lacked something, it lacked a son. I have found my son now, I
am glad I have found him.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. You have no right to claim him, or the smallest
part of him. The boy is entirely mine, and shall remain mine.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. My dear Rachel, you have had him to yourself for
over twenty years. Why not let me have him for a little now? He
is quite as much mine as yours.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Are you talking of the child you abandoned? Of
the child who, as far as you are concerned, might have died of
hunger and of want?
LORD ILLINGWORTH. You forget, Rachel, it was you who left me. It
was not I who left you.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. I left you because you refused to give the child a
name. Before my son was born, I implored you to marry me.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. I had no expectations then. And besides,
Rachel, I wasn't much older than you were. I was only twenty-two.
I was twenty-one, I believe, when the whole thing began in your
father's garden.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. When a man is old enough to do wrong he should be
old enough to do right also.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. My dear Rachel, intellectual generalities are
always interesting, but generalities in morals mean absolutely
nothing. As for saying I left our child to starve, that, of
course, is untrue and silly. My mother offered you six hundred a
year. But you wouldn't take anything. You simply disappeared, and
carried the child away with you.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. I wouldn't have accepted a penny from her. Your
father was different. He told you, in my presence, when we were in
Paris, that it was your duty to marry me.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Oh, duty is what one expects from others, it is
not what one does oneself. Of course, I was influenced by my
mother. Every man is when he is young.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. I am glad to hear you say so. Gerald shall
LADY CAROLINE. There was poor Margaret's baby. You remember how
anxious she was to have a boy, and it was a boy, but it died, and
her husband died shortly afterwards, and she married almost
immediately one of Lord Ascot's sons, who, I am told, beats her.
LADY HUNSTANTON. Ah, that is in the family, dear, that is in the
family. And there was also, I remember, a clergyman who wanted to
be a lunatic, or a lunatic who wanted to be a clergyman, I forget
which, but I know the Court of Chancery investigated the matter,
and decided that he was quite sane. And I saw him afterwards at
poor Lord Plumstead's with straws in his hair, or something very
odd about him. I can't recall what. I often regret, Lady
Caroline, that dear Lady Cecilia never lived to see her son get the
title.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Lady Cecilia?
LADY HUNSTANTON. Lord Illingworth's mother, dear Mrs. Arbuthnot,
was one of the Duchess of Jerningham's pretty daughters, and she
married Sir Thomas Harford, who wasn't considered a very good match
for her at the time, though he was said to be the handsomest man in
London. I knew them all quite intimately, and both the sons,
Arthur and George.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. It was the eldest son who succeeded, of course,
Lady Hunstanton?
LADY HUNSTANTON. No, dear, he was killed in the hunting field. Or
was it fishing, Caroline? I forget. But George came in for
everything. I always tell him that no younger son has ever had
such good luck as he has had.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Lady Hunstanton, I want to speak to Gerald at
once. Might I see him? Can he be sent for?
LADY HUNSTANTON. Certainly, dear. I will send one of the servants
into the dining-room to fetch him. I don't know what keeps the
gentlemen so long. [Rings bell.] When I knew Lord Illingworth
first as plain George Harford, he was simply a very brilliant young
man about town, with not a penny of money except what poor dear
Lady Cecilia gave him. She was quite devoted to him. Chiefly, I
fancy, because he was on bad terms with his father. Oh, here is
the dear Archdeacon. [To Servant.] It doesn't matter.
[Enter SIR JOHN and DOCTOR DAUBENY. SIR JOHN goes over to LADY
STUTFIELD, DOCTOR DAUBENY to LADY HUNSTANTON.]
THE ARCHDEACON. Lord Illingworth has been most entertaining. I
have never enjoyed myself more. [Sees MRS. ARBUTHNOT.] Ah, Mrs.
Arbuthnot.
LADY HUNSTANTON. [To DOCTOR DAUBENY.] You see I have got Mrs.
Arbuthnot to come to me at last.
THE ARCHDEACON. That is a great honour, Lady Hunstanton. Mrs.
Daubeny will be quite jealous of you.
LADY HUNSTANTON. Ah, I am so sorry Mrs. Daubeny could not come
with you to-night. Headache as usual, I suppose.
THE ARCHDEACON. Yes, Lady Hunstanton; a perfect martyr. But she
is happiest alone. She is happiest alone.
LADY CAROLINE. [To her husband.] John! [SIR JOHN goes over to
his wife. DOCTOR DAUBENY talks to LADY HUNSTANTON and MRS.
ARBUTHNOT.]
[MRS. ARBUTHNOT watches LORD ILLINGWORTH the whole time. He has
passed across the room without noticing her, and approaches MRS.
ALLONBY, who with LADY STUTFIELD is standing by the door looking on
to the terrace.]
LORD ILLINGWORTH. How is the most charming woman in the world?
MRS. ALLONBY. [Taking LADY STUTFIELD by the hand.] We are both
quite well, thank you, Lord Illingworth. But what a short time you
have been in the dining-room! It seems as if we had only just
left.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. I was bored to death. Never opened my lips the
whole time. Absolutely longing to come in to you.
MRS. ALLONBY. You should have. The American girl has been giving
us a lecture.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Really? All Americans lecture, I believe. I
suppose it is something in their climate. What did she lecture
about?
MRS. ALLONBY. Oh, Puritanism, of course.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. I am going to convert her, am I not? How long
do you give me?
MRS. ALLONBY. A week.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. A week is more than enough.
[Enter GERALD and LORD ALFRED.]
GERALD. [Going to MRS. ARBUTHNOT.] Dear mother!
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Gerald, I don't feel at all well. See me home,
Gerald. I shouldn't have come.
GERALD. I am so sorry, mother. Certainly. But you must know Lord
Illingworth first. [Goes across room.]
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Not to-night, Gerald.
GERALD. Lord Illingworth, I want you so much to know my mother.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. With the greatest pleasure. [To MRS. ALLONBY.]
I'll be back in a moment. People's mothers always bore me to
death. All women become like their mothers. That is their
tragedy.
MRS. ALLONBY. No man does. That is his.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. What a delightful mood you are in to-night!
[Turns round and goes across with GERALD to MRS. ARBUTHNOT. When
he sees her, he starts back in wonder. Then slowly his eyes turn
towards GERALD.]
GERALD. Mother, this is Lord Illingworth, who has offered to take
me as his private secretary. [MRS. ARBUTHNOT bows coldly.] It is
a wonderful opening for me, isn't it? I hope he won't be
disappointed in me, that is all. You'll thank Lord Illingworth,
mother, won't you?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Lord Illingworth in very good, I am sure, to
interest himself in you for the moment.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. [Putting his hand on GERALD's shoulder.] Oh,
Gerald and I are great friends already, Mrs . . . Arbuthnot.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. There can be nothing in common between you and my
son, Lord Illingworth.
GERALD. Dear mother, how can you say so? Of course Lord
Illingworth is awfully clever and that sort of thing. There is
nothing Lord Illingworth doesn't know.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. My dear boy!
GERALD. He knows more about life than any one I have ever met. I
feel an awful duffer when I am with you, Lord Illingworth. Of
course, I have had so few advantages. I have not been to Eton or
Oxford like other chaps. But Lord Illingworth doesn't seem to mind
that. He has been awfully good to me, mother.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Lord Illingworth may change his mind. He may not
really want you as his secretary.
GERALD. Mother!
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. You must remember, as you said yourself, you have
had so few advantages.
MRS. ALLONBY. Lord Illingworth, I want to speak to you for a
moment. Do come over.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Will you excuse me, Mrs. Arbuthnot? Now, don't
let your charming mother make any more difficulties, Gerald. The
thing is quite settled, isn't it?
GERALD. I hope so. [LORD ILLINGWORTH goes across to MRS.
ARBUTHNOT.]
MRS. ALLONBY. I thought you were never going to leave the lady in
black velvet.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. She is excessively handsome. [Looks at MRS.
ARBUTHNOT.]
LADY HUNSTANTON. Caroline, shall we all make a move to the music-
room? Miss Worsley is going to play. You'll come too, dear Mrs.
Arbuthnot, won't you? You don't know what a treat is in store for
you. [To DOCTOR DAUBENY.] I must really take Miss Worsley down
some afternoon to the rectory. I should so much like dear Mrs.
Daubeny to hear her on the violin. Ah, I forgot. Dear Mrs.
Daubeny's hearing is a little defective, is it not?
THE ARCHDEACON. Her deafness is a great privation to her. She
can't even hear my sermons now. She reads them at home. But she
has many resources in herself, many resources.
LADY HUNSTANTON. She reads a good deal, I suppose?
THE ARCHDEACON. Just the very largest print. The eyesight is
rapidly going. But she's never morbid, never morbid.
GERALD. [To LORD ILLINGWORTH.] Do speak to my mother, Lord
Illingworth, before you go into the music-room. She seems to
think, somehow, you don't mean what you said to me.
MRS. ALLONBY. Aren't you coming?
LORD ILLINGWORTH. In a few moments. Lady Hunstanton, if Mrs.
Arbuthnot would allow me, I would like to say a few words to her,
and we will join you later on.
LADY HUNSTANTON. Ah, of course. You will have a great deal to say
to her, and she will have a great deal to thank you for. It is not
every son who gets such an offer, Mrs. Arbuthnot. But I know you
appreciate that, dear.
LADY CAROLINE. John!
LADY HUNSTANTON. Now, don't keep Mrs. Arbuthnot too long, Lord
Illingworth. We can't spare her.
[Exit following the other guests. Sound of violin heard from
music-room.]
LORD ILLINGWORTH. So that is our son, Rachel! Well, I am very
proud of him. He in a Harford, every inch of him. By the way, why
Arbuthnot, Rachel?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. One name is as good as another, when one has no
right to any name.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. I suppose so - but why Gerald?
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. After a man whose heart I broke - after my father.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Well, Rachel, what in over is over. All I have
got to say now in that I am very, very much pleased with our boy.
The world will know him merely as my private secretary, but to me
he will be something very near, and very dear. It is a curious
thing, Rachel; my life seemed to be quite complete. It was not so.
It lacked something, it lacked a son. I have found my son now, I
am glad I have found him.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. You have no right to claim him, or the smallest
part of him. The boy is entirely mine, and shall remain mine.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. My dear Rachel, you have had him to yourself for
over twenty years. Why not let me have him for a little now? He
is quite as much mine as yours.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Are you talking of the child you abandoned? Of
the child who, as far as you are concerned, might have died of
hunger and of want?
LORD ILLINGWORTH. You forget, Rachel, it was you who left me. It
was not I who left you.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. I left you because you refused to give the child a
name. Before my son was born, I implored you to marry me.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. I had no expectations then. And besides,
Rachel, I wasn't much older than you were. I was only twenty-two.
I was twenty-one, I believe, when the whole thing began in your
father's garden.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. When a man is old enough to do wrong he should be
old enough to do right also.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. My dear Rachel, intellectual generalities are
always interesting, but generalities in morals mean absolutely
nothing. As for saying I left our child to starve, that, of
course, is untrue and silly. My mother offered you six hundred a
year. But you wouldn't take anything. You simply disappeared, and
carried the child away with you.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. I wouldn't have accepted a penny from her. Your
father was different. He told you, in my presence, when we were in
Paris, that it was your duty to marry me.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Oh, duty is what one expects from others, it is
not what one does oneself. Of course, I was influenced by my
mother. Every man is when he is young.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. I am glad to hear you say so. Gerald shall
- shortly [´ʃɔ:tli]
ad.立刻，马上；不久 (初中英语单词) - brilliant [´briliənt] a.灿烂的；杰出的 (初中英语单词)
- chiefly [´tʃi:fli] ad.主要地；尤其 (初中英语单词)
- jealous [´dʒeləs] a.妒忌的 (初中英语单词)
- standing [´stændiŋ] n.持续 a.直立的 (初中英语单词)
- charming [´tʃɑ:miŋ] a.可爱的；极好的 (初中英语单词)
- absolutely [´æbsəlu:tli] ad.绝对地；确实 (初中英语单词)
- climate [´klaimit] n.气候；特殊气候地带 (初中英语单词)
- convert [kən´və:t, ´kɔnvə:t] v.转变 n.改变信仰者 (初中英语单词)
- delightful [di´laitful] a.讨人喜欢的 (初中英语单词)
- opening [´əupəniŋ] n.开放；开端 a.开始的 (初中英语单词)
- starve [stɑ:v] v.(使)饥饿 (初中英语单词)
- clergyman [´klə:dʒimən] n.牧师；教士 (高中英语单词)
- decided [di´saidid] a.明显的；决定的 (高中英语单词)
- duchess [´dʌtʃis] n.公爵夫人；女公爵 (高中英语单词)
- eldest [´eldist] a.最年长的 (高中英语单词)
- headache [´hedeik] n.头痛；使人头痛的事 (高中英语单词)
- martyr [´mɑ:tə] n.烈士；殉难者 (高中英语单词)
- longing [´lɔŋiŋ] n.&a.渴望(的) (高中英语单词)
- awfully [´ɔ:fuli] ad.令人畏惧地 (高中英语单词)
- hearing [´hiəriŋ] n.听力；听证会；审讯 (高中英语单词)
- concerned [kən´sə:nd] a.有关的；担心的 (高中英语单词)
- intellectual [,inti´lektʃuəl] n.知识分子 (高中英语单词)
- saying [´seiŋ, ´sei-iŋ] n.言语；言论；格言 (高中英语单词)
- fishing [´fiʃiŋ] n.钓鱼；捕鱼；渔业 (英语四级单词)
- devoted [di´vəutid] a.献身...的，忠实的 (英语四级单词)
- violin [,vaiə´lin] n.(小)提琴 (英语四级单词)
- defective [di´fektiv] a.有缺陷的；有瑕疵的 (英语四级单词)
- lunatic [´lu:nətik] a.精神错乱的 n.疯子 (英语六级单词)
- intimately [´intimitli] ad.密切地；熟悉地 (英语六级单词)
- hunting [´hʌntiŋ] n.打猎 (英语六级单词)
- abandoned [ə´bændənd] a.被抛弃的；无约束的 (英语六级单词)
- untrue [ʌn´tru:] a.不真(忠)实的 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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