not?
THE ARCHD. 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 HUN. She reads a good deal, I suppose?
THE ARCHD. Just the very largest print. The eyesight is rapidly
going. But she’s never morbid, never morbid.
GER. [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. ALL. Aren’t you coming?
LORD ILL. 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 HUN. 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 CAR. John!
LADY HUN. 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 ILL. So that is our son, Rachel! Well, I am very proud of him.
 He is a Harford, every inch of him. By the way, why Arbuthnot,
 Rachel?
MRS. ARB. One name is as good as another, when one has no right to
 any name.
LORD ILL. I suppose so- but why Gerald?
MRS. ARB. After a man whose heart I broke- after my father.
LORD ILL. Well, Rachel, what is over is over. All I have got to say
 now is 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, am
 glad I have found him.
MRS. ARB. You have no right to claim him, or the smallest part of
 him. The boy is entirely mine, and shall remain mine.
LORD ILL. 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. ARB. Are you talking of the child you abandoned? Of the child
 who, as far as you are concerned, might have died of hunger and
 want?
LORD ILL. You forget, Rachel, it was you who left me. It was not I
 who left you.
MRS. ARB. I left you because you refused to give the child a name.
 Before my son was born, I implored you to marry me.
LORD ILL. 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. ARB. When a man is old enough to do wrong he should be old
enough to do right also.
LORD ILL. 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 year. But
you wouldn’t take anything. You simply disappeared, and carried
the child away with you.
MRS. ARB. 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 ILL. 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. ARB. I am glad to hear you say so. Gerald shall certainly not
go away with you.
LORD ILL. What nonsense, Rachel!
MRS. ARB. Do you think I would allow my son-
LORD ILL. Our son.
MRS. ARB. My son [Lord Illingworth shrugs his shoulders]- to go
away with the man who spoiled my youth, who ruined my life, who
has tainted every moment of my days? You don’t realise what my
past has been in suffering and in shame.
LORD ILL. My dear Rachel, I must candidly say that I think Gerald’s
future considerably more important than your past.
MRS. ARB. Gerald cannot separate his future from my past.
LORD ILL. That is exactly what he should do. That is exactly what
you should help him to do. What a typical woman you are! You
talk sentimentally, and you are thoroughly selfish the whole
time. But don’t let us have a scene, Rachel, I want you to look
at this matter from the common-sense point of view, from the
point of view of what is best for our son, leaving you and me
out of the question. What is our son at present? An underpaid
clerk in a small Provincial Bank in a third-rate English town.
If you imagine he is quite happy in such a position, you are
 mistaken. He is thoroughly discontented.
MRS. ARB. He was not discontented till he met you. You have made
him so.
LORD ILL. Of course, I made him so. Discontent is the first step in
the progress of a man or a nation. But I did not leave him with
a mere longing for things he could not get. No, I made him a
charming offer. He jumped at it, I need hardly say. Any young
man would. And now, simply because it turns out that I am the
boy’s own father, and he my own son, you propose practically to
ruin his career. That is to say, if I were a perfect stranger,
you would allow Gerald to go away with me, but as he is my own
flesh and blood you won’t. How utterly, illogical you are!
MRS. ARB. I will not allow him to go.
LORD ILL. How can you prevent it? What excuse can you give to him
for making him decline such an offer as mine? I won’t tell him
in what relations I stand to him, I need hardly say. But you
daren’t tell him. You know that. Look how you have brought him
up.
MRS. ARB. I have brought him up to be a good man.
LORD ILL. Quite so. And what is the result? You have educated him
to be your judge if he ever finds you out. And a bitter, an
unjust judge he will be to you. Don’t be deceived, Rachel.
Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge
them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.
MRS. ARB. George, don’t take my son away from me. I have had twenty
years of sorrow, and I have only had one thing to love me, only
one thing to love. You have had a life of joy, and pleasure, and
success. You have been quite happy, you have never thought of
us. There was no reason, according to your views of life, why
you should have remembered us at all. Your meeting us was a mere
accident, a horrible accident. Forget it. Don’t come now, and
rob me of… of all I have, of all I have in the whole world.
You are so rich in other things. Leave me the little vineyard of
my life; leave me the walled-in garden and the well of water;
the ewe-lamb God sent me, in pity or in wrath, oh! leave me
 that. George, don’t take Gerald from me.
LORD ILL. Rachel, at the present moment you are not necessary to
Gerald’s career; I am. There is nothing more to be said on the
subject.
MRS. ARB. I will not let him go.

LORD ILL. Here is Gerald. He has a right to decide for himself.

[Enter Gerald.]

GER. Well, dear mother, I hope you have settled it all with Lord
 Illingworth?
MRS. ARB. I have not, Gerald.
LORD ILL. Your mother seems not to like your coming with me, for
 some reason.
GER. Why, mother?
MRS. ARB. I thought you were quite happy here with me, Gerald. I
 didn't know you were so anxious to leave me.
GER. Mother, how can you talk like that? Of course I have been
 quite happy with you. But a man can't always stay with his
 mother. No chap does. I want to make myself a position, to do
 something. I thought you would have been proud to see me Lord
 Illingworth's secretary.
MRS. ARB. I do not think you would be suitable as a private
 secretary to Lord Illingworth. You have no qualifications.
LORD ILL. I don't wish to seem to interfere for a moment, Mrs.
 Arbuthnot, but as far as your last objection is concerned, I
 surely am the best judge. And I can only tell you that your son
 has all the qualifications I had hoped for. He has more, in
 fact, that I had even thought of. Far more. [Mrs. Arbuthnot
 remains silent.] Have you any other reason, Mrs. Arbuthnot, why
 you don't wish your son to accept this post?
GER. Have you, mother? Do answer.
LORD ILL. If you have, Mrs. Arbuthnot, pray, pray say it. We are
 quite by ourselves here. Whatever it is, I need not say I will
 not repeat it.

 GER. Mother?
LORD ILL. If you would like to be alone with your son, I will leave
you. You may have some other reason you don’t wish me to hear.
MRS. ARB. I have no other reason.
LORD ILL. Then, my dear boy, we may look on the thing as settled.
Come, you and I will smoke a cigarette on the terrace together.
And Mrs. Arbuthnot, pray let me tell you, that I think you have

acted very, very wisely.

   [Exit with Gerald. Mrs. Arbuthnot is left alone. She
 stands immobile, with a look of unutterable sorrow on her

face.]

                  ACT-DROP

THIRD_ACT

THIRD ACT