Lady Windermere's Fan

Part 1

LADY WINDERMERE’S FAN

A PLAY ABOUT A GOOD WOMAN

OSCAR WILDE

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METHUEN & CO. LTD. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON

Sixteenth Edition

First Published 1893 First Issued by Methuen & Co. Ltd. (Limited Editions on 1908 Hand-made Paper and Japanese Vellum) February Third Edition (F’cap 8vo, 5s. net) September 1909 Fourth Edition (5s. net) June 1910 Fifth Edition (F’cap 8vo, 1s. net) November 3rd 1911 Sixth Edition (1s. net) November 1911 Eighth Edition (1s. net) 1912, Ninth and Tenth Editions (1s. net) 1913, Eleventh Edition (1s. net) 1914, Twelfth Edition (1s. net) 1915, Thirteenth Edition (1s. net) 1916, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Edition (1s. net) 1917 Sixteenth Edition (5s. net) 1917

The literary and dramatic rights of “Lady Windermere’s Fan” belong to Sir George Alexander, by arrangement with whom this play is included in this edition. The acting version (Samuel French) does not contain the complete text.

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TO THE DEAR MEMORY OF ROBERT EARL OF LYTTON IN AFFECTION AND ADMIRATION

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THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

Lord Windermere

Lord Darlington

Lord Augustus Lorton

Mr. Dumby

Mr. Cecil Graham

Mr. Hopper

Parker, Butler

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Lady Windermere

The Duchess of Berwick

Lady Agatha Carlisle

Lady Plymdale

Lady Stutfield

Lady Jedburgh

Mrs. Cowper-Cowper

Mrs. Erlynne

Part 2

Rosalie, Maid

THE SCENES OF THE PLAY

ACT I. Morning-room in Lord Windermere’s house. ACT II. Drawing-room in Lord Windermere’s house. ACT III. Lord Darlington’s rooms. ACT IV. Same as Act I. TIME: The Present. PLACE: London.

The action of the play takes place within twenty-four hours, beginning on a Tuesday afternoon at five o’clock, and ending the next day at 1.30 p.m.

LONDON: ST. JAMES’S THEATRE

Lessee and Manager: Mr. George Alexander February 22nd, 1892.

LORD WINDERMERE Mr. George Alexander. LORD DARLINGTON Mr. Nutcombe Gould. LORD AUGUSTUS LORTON Mr. H. H. Vincent. MR. CECIL GRAHAM Mr. Ben Webster. MR. DUMBY Mr. Vane-Tempest. MR. HOPPER Mr. Alfred Holles. PARKER (Butler) Mr. V. Sansbury. LADY WINDERMERE Miss Lily Hanbury. THE DUCHESS OF BERWICK Miss Fanny Coleman. LADY AGATHA CARLISLE Miss Laura Graves. LADY PLYMDALE Miss Granville. LADY JEDBURGH Miss B. Page. LADY STUTFIELD Miss Madge Girdlestone. MRS. COWPER-COWPER Miss A. de Winton. MRS. ERLYNNE Miss Marion Terry. ROSALIE (Maid) Miss Winifred Dolan.

FIRST ACT

SCENE

Morning-room of Lord Windermere’s house in Carlton House Terrace. Doors C. and R. Bureau with books and papers R. Sofa with small tea-table L. Window opening on to terrace L. Table R.

PARKER. Is your ladyship at home this afternoon?

LADY WINDERMERE. Yes—who has called?

PARKER. Lord Darlington, my lady.

LADY WINDERMERE. [Hesitates for a moment.] Show him up—and I’m at home to any one who calls.

PARKER. Yes, my lady.

LADY WINDERMERE. It’s best for me to see him before to-night. I’m glad he’s come.

PARKER. Lord Darlington,

LORD DARLINGTON. How do you do, Lady Windermere?

LADY WINDERMERE. How do you do, Lord Darlington? No, I can’t shake hands with you. My hands are all wet with these roses. Aren’t they lovely? They came up from Selby this morning.

LORD DARLINGTON. They are quite perfect. [Sees a fan lying on the table.] And what a wonderful fan! May I look at it?

LADY WINDERMERE. Do. Pretty, isn’t it! It’s got my name on it, and everything. I have only just seen it myself. It’s my husband’s birthday present to me. You know to-day is my birthday?

LORD DARLINGTON. No? Is it really?

LADY WINDERMERE. Yes, I’m of age to-day. Quite an important day in my life, isn’t it? That is why I am giving this party to-night. Do sit down. [Still arranging flowers.]

LORD DARLINGTON. [Sitting down.] I wish I had known it was your birthday, Lady Windermere. I would have covered the whole street in front of your house with flowers for you to walk on. They are made for you.

LADY WINDERMERE. Lord Darlington, you annoyed me last night at the Foreign Office. I am afraid you are going to annoy me again.

LORD DARLINGTON. I, Lady Windermere?

LADY WINDERMERE. Put it there, Parker. That will do. [Wipes her hands with her pocket-handkerchief, goes to tea-table, and sits down.] Won’t you come over, Lord Darlington?

LORD DARLINGTON. [Takes chair and goes across L.C.] I am quite miserable, Lady Windermere. You must tell me what I did. [Sits down at table L.]

Part 3

LADY WINDERMERE. Well, you kept paying me elaborate compliments the whole evening.

LORD DARLINGTON. [Smiling.] Ah, nowadays we are all of us so hard up, that the only pleasant things to pay are compliments. They’re the only things we can pay.

LADY WINDERMERE. [Shaking her head.] No, I am talking very seriously. You mustn’t laugh, I am quite serious. I don’t like compliments, and I don’t see why a man should think he is pleasing a woman enormously when he says to her a whole heap of things that he doesn’t mean.

LORD DARLINGTON. Ah, but I did mean them. [Takes tea which she offers him.]

LADY WINDERMERE. [Gravely.] I hope not. I should be sorry to have to quarrel with you, Lord Darlington. I like you very much, you know that. But I shouldn’t like you at all if I thought you were what most other men are. Believe me, you are better than most other men, and I sometimes think you pretend to be worse.

LORD DARLINGTON. We all have our little vanities, Lady Windermere.

LADY WINDERMERE. Why do you make that your special one? [Still seated at table L.]

LORD DARLINGTON. [Still seated L.C.] Oh, nowadays so many conceited people go about Society pretending to be good, that I think it shows rather a sweet and modest disposition to pretend to be bad. Besides, there is this to be said. If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn’t. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.

LADY WINDERMERE. Don’t you want the world to take you seriously then, Lord Darlington?

LORD DARLINGTON. 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.

LADY WINDERMERE. Why—why me?

LORD DARLINGTON. [After a slight hesitation.] Because I think we might be great friends. Let us be great friends. You may want a friend some day.

LADY WINDERMERE. Why do you say that?

LORD DARLINGTON. Oh!—we all want friends at times.

LADY WINDERMERE. I think we’re very good friends already, Lord Darlington. We can always remain so as long as you don’t—

LORD DARLINGTON. Don’t what?

LADY WINDERMERE. Don’t spoil it by saying extravagant silly things to me. 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. I lived always with Lady Julia, my father’s elder sister, you know. She was stern to me, but she taught me what the world is forgetting, the difference that there is between what is right and what is wrong. She allowed of no compromise. I allow of none.

LORD DARLINGTON. My dear Lady Windermere!

LADY WINDERMERE. [Leaning back on the sofa.] You look on me as being behind the age.—Well, I am! I should be sorry to be on the same level as an age like this.

LORD DARLINGTON. You think the age very bad?

LADY WINDERMERE. Yes. 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.

LORD DARLINGTON. [Smiling.] Oh, anything is better than being sacrificed!

LADY WINDERMERE. [Leaning forward.] Don’t say that.

LORD DARLINGTON. I do say it. I feel it—I know it.

PARKER. The men want to know if they are to put the carpets on the terrace for to-night, my lady?

LADY WINDERMERE. You don’t think it will rain, Lord Darlington, do you?

LORD DARLINGTON. I won’t hear of its raining on your birthday!

LADY WINDERMERE. Tell them to do it at once, Parker.

Part 4

LORD DARLINGTON. [Still seated.] Do you think then—of course I am only putting an imaginary instance—do you think that in the case of a young married couple, say about two years married, if the husband suddenly becomes the intimate friend of a woman of—well, more than doubtful character—is always calling upon her, lunching with her, and probably paying her bills—do you think that the wife should not console herself?

LADY WINDERMERE. [Frowning.] Console herself?

LORD DARLINGTON. Yes, I think she should—I think she has the right.

LADY WINDERMERE. Because the husband is vile—should the wife be vile also?

LORD DARLINGTON. Vileness is a terrible word, Lady Windermere.

LADY WINDERMERE. It is a terrible thing, Lord Darlington.

LORD DARLINGTON. 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. I take the side of the charming, and you, Lady Windermere, can’t help belonging to them.

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