. "Morning-room in Algernon\u0092s flat in Half-Moon Street. The room is luxuriously and artistically furnished. The sound of a piano is heard in the adjoining room. [Lane is arranging afternoon tea on the table, and after the music has ceased, Algernon enters.] Algernon. Did you hear what I was playing, Lane? Lane. I didn\u0092t think it polite to listen, sir. Algernon. I\u0092m sorry for that, for your sake. I don\u0092t play accurately - any one can play accurately - but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life. Lane. Yes, sir. [Enter Lane.]"@en . "Morning-room in Algernon\u0092s flat in Half-Moon Street. The room is luxuriously and artistically furnished. The sound of a piano is heard in the adjoining room. [Lane is arranging afternoon tea on the table, and after the music has ceased, Algernon enters.] Algernon. Did you hear what I was playing, Lane? Lane. I didn\u0092t think it polite to listen, sir. Algernon. I\u0092m sorry for that, for your sake. I don\u0092t play accurately - any one can play accurately - but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life. Lane. Yes, sir. Algernon. And, speaking of the science of Life, have you got the cucumber sandwiches cut for Lady Bracknell? Lane. Yes, sir. [Hands them on a salver.] Algernon. [Inspects them, takes two, and sits down on the sofa.] Oh!... by the way, Lane, I see from your book that on Thursday night, when Lord Shoreman and Mr. Worthing were dining with me, eight bottles of champagne are entered as having been consumed. Lane. Yes, sir; eight bottles and a pint. Algernon. Why is it that at a bachelor\u0092s establishment the servants invariably drink the champagne? I ask merely for information. Lane. I attribute it to the superior quality of the wine, sir. I have often observed that in married households the champagne is rarely of a first-rate brand. Algernon. Good heavens! Is marriage so demoralising as that? Lane. I believe it IS a very pleasant state, sir. I have had very little experience of it myself up to the present. I have only been married once. That was in consequence of a misunderstanding between myself and a young person. Algernon. [Languidly.] I don\u0092t know that I am much interested in your family life, Lane. Lane. No, sir; it is not a very interesting subject. I never think of it myself. Algernon. Very natural, I am sure. That will do, Lane, thank you. Lane. Thank you, sir. [Lane goes out.] Algernon. Lanes views on marriage seem somewhat lax. Really, if the lower orders don\u0092t set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them? They seem, as a class, to have absolutely no sense of moral responsibility. [Enter Lane.] Lane. Mr. Ernest Worthing. [Enter Jack.] [Lane goes out.] Algernon. How are you, my dear Ernest? What brings you up to town? Jack. Oh, pleasure, pleasure! What else should bring one anywhere? Eating as usual, I see, Algy! Algernon. [Stiffly.] I believe it is customary in good society to take some slight refreshment at five o\u0092clock. Where have you been since last Thursday? Jack. [Sitting down on the sofa.] In the country. Algernon. What on earth do you do there? Jack. [Pulling off his gloves.] When one is in town one amuses oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other people. It is excessively boring. Algernon. And who are the people you amuse? Jack. [Airily.] Oh, neighbours, neighbours. Algernon. Got nice neighbours in your part of Shropshire? Jack. Perfectly horrid! Never speak to one of them. Algernon. How immensely you must amuse them! [Goes over and takes sandwich.] By the way, Shropshire is your county, is it not? Jack. Eh? Shropshire? Yes, of course. Hallo! Why all these cups? Why cucumber sandwiches? Why such reckless extravagance in one so young? Who is coming to tea? Algernon. Oh! merely Aunt Augusta and Gwendolen. Jack. How perfectly delightful! Algernon. Yes, that is all very well; but I am afraid Aunt Augusta won\u0092t quite approve of your being here. Jack. May I ask why? Algernon. My dear fellow, the way you flirt with Gwendolen is perfectly disgraceful. It is almost as bad as the way Gwendolen flirts with you. Jack. I am in love with Gwendolen. I have come up to town expressly to propose to her. Algernon. I thought you had come up for pleasure?... I call that business. Jack. How utterly unromantic you are! Algernon. I really don\u0092t see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. Why, one may be accepted. One usually is, I believe. Then the excitement is all over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty. If ever I get married, I\u0092ll certainly try to forget the fact. Jack. I have no doubt about that, dear Algy. The Divorce Court was specially invented for people whose memories are so curiously constituted. Algernon. Oh! there is no use speculating on that subject. Divorces are made in Heaven - [Jack puts out his hand to take a sandwich. Algernon at once interferes.] Please don\u0092t touch the cucumber sandwiches. They are ordered specially for Aunt Augusta. [Takes one and eats it.] Jack. Well, you have been eating them all the time. Algernon. That is quite a different matter. She is my aunt. [Takes plate from below.] Have some bread and butter. The bread and butter is for Gwendolen. Gwendolen is devoted to bread and butter. Jack. [Advancing to table and helping himself.] And very good bread and butter it is too. Algernon. Well, my dear fellow, you need not eat as if you were going to eat it all. You behave as if you were married to her already. You are not married to her already, and I don\u0092t think you ever will be. Jack. Why on earth do you say that? Algernon. Well, in the first place girls never marry the men they flirt with. Girls don\u0092t think it right. Jack. Oh, that is nonsense! Algernon. It isn\u0092t. It is a great truth. It accounts for the extraordinary number of bachelors that one sees all over the place. In the second place, I don\u0092t give my consent. Jack. Your consent! Algernon. My dear fellow, Gwendolen is my first cousin. And before I allow you to marry her, you will have to clear up the whole question of Cecily. [Rings bell.] Jack. Cecily! What on earth do you mean? What do you mean, Algy, by Cecily! I don\u0092t know any one of the name of Cecily. [Enter Lane.] Algernon. Bring me that cigarette case Mr. Worthing left in the smoking-room the last time he dined here. Lane. Yes, sir. [Lane goes out.] Jack. Do you mean to say you have had my cigarette case all this time? I wish to goodness you had let me know. I have been writing frantic letters to Scotland Yard about it. I was very nearly offering a large reward. Algernon. Well, I wish you would offer one. I happen to be more than usually hard up. Jack. There is no good offering a large reward now that the thing is found. [Enter Lane with the cigarette case on a salver. Algernon takes it at once. Lane goes out.] Algernon. I think that is rather mean of you, Ernest, I must say. [Opens case and examines it.] However, it makes no matter, for, now that I look at the inscription inside, I find that the thing isn\u0092t yours after all. Jack. Of course it\u0092s mine. [Moving to him.] You have seen me with it a hundred times, and you have no right whatsoever to read what is written inside. It is a very ungentlemanly thing to read a private cigarette case. Algernon. Oh! it is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn\u0092t. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn\u0092t read. Jack. I am quite aware of the fact, and I don\u0092t propose to discuss modern culture. It isn\u0092t the sort of thing one should talk of in private. I simply want my cigarette case back. Algernon. Yes; but this isn\u0092t your cigarette case. This cigarette case is a present from some one of the name of Cecily, and you said you didn\u0092t know any one of that name. Jack. Well, if you want to know, Cecily happens to be my aunt. Algernon. Your aunt! Jack. Yes. Charming old lady she is, too. Lives at Tunbridge Wells. Just give it back to me, Algy. Algernon. [Retreating to back of sofa.] But why does she call herself little Cecily if she is your aunt and lives at Tunbridge Wells? [Reading.] \u0091From little Cecily with her fondest love.\u0092 Jack. [Moving to sofa and kneeling upon it.] My dear fellow, what on earth is there in that? Some aunts are tall, some aunts are not tall. That is a matter that surely an aunt may be allowed to decide for herself. You seem to think that every aunt should be exactly like your aunt! That is absurd! For Heaven\u0092s sake give me back my cigarette case. [Follows Algernon round the room.] Algernon. Yes. But why does your aunt call you her uncle? \u0091From little Cecily, with her fondest love to her dear Uncle Jack.\u0092 There is no objection, I admit, to an aunt being a small aunt, but why an aunt, no matter what her size may be, should call her own nephew her uncle, I can\u0092t quite make out. Besides, your name isn\u0092t Jack at all; it is Ernest. Jack. It isn\u0092t Ernest; it\u0092s Jack. Algernon. You have always told me it was Ernest. I have introduced you to every one as Ernest. You answer to the name of Ernest. You look as if your name was Ernest. You are the most earnest-looking person I ever saw in my life. It is perfectly absurd your saying that your name isn\u0092t Ernest. It\u0092s on your cards. Here is one of them. [Taking it from case.] \u0091Mr. Ernest Worthing, B. 4, The Albany.\u0092 I\u0092ll keep this as a proof that your name is Ernest if ever you attempt to deny it to me, or to Gwendolen, or to any one else. [Puts the card in his pocket.] Jack. Well, my name is Ernest in town and Jack in the country, and the cigarette case was given to me in the country. Algernon. Yes, but that does not account for the fact that your small Aunt Cecily, who lives at Tunbridge Wells, calls you her dear uncle. Come, old boy, you had much better have the thing out at once. Jack. My dear Algy, you talk exactly as if you were a dentist. It is very vulgar to talk like a dentist when one isn\u0092t a dentist. It produces a false impression, Algernon. Well, that is exactly what dentists always do. Now, go on! Tell me the whole thing. I may mention that I have always suspected you of being a confirmed and secret Bunburyist; and I am quite sure of it now. Jack. Bunburyist? What on earth do you mean by a Bunburyist? Algernon. I\u0092ll reveal to you the meaning of that incomparable expression as soon as you are kind enough to inform me why you are Ernest in town and Jack in the country. Jack. Well, produce my cigarette case first. Algernon. Here it is. [Hands cigarette case.] Now produce your explanation, and pray make it improbable. [Sits on sofa.] Jack. My dear fellow, there is nothing improbable about my explanation at all. In fact it\u0092s perfectly ordinary. Old Mr. Thomas Cardew, who adopted me when I was a little boy, made me in his will guardian to his grand-daughter, Miss Cecily Cardew. Cecily, who addresses me as her uncle from motives of respect that you could not possibly appreciate, lives at my place in the country under the charge of her admirable governess, Miss Prism. Algernon. Where is that place in the country, by the way? Jack. That is nothing to you, dear boy. You are not going to be invited... I may tell you candidly that the place is not in Shropshire. Algernon. I suspected that, my dear fellow! I have Bunburyed all over Shropshire on two separate occasions. Now, go on. Why are you Ernest in town and Jack in the country? Jack. My dear Algy, I don\u0092t know whether you will be able to understand my real motives. You are hardly serious enough. When one is placed in the position of guardian, one has to adopt a very high moral tone on all subjects. It\u0092s one\u0092s duty to do so. And as a high moral tone can hardly be said to conduce very much to either one\u0092s health or one\u0092s happiness, in order to get up to town I have always pretended to have a younger brother of the name of Ernest, who lives in the Albany, and gets into the most dreadful scrapes. That, my dear Algy, is the whole truth pure and simple. Algernon. The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility! Jack. That wouldn\u0092t be at all a bad thing. Algernon. Literary criticism is not your forte, my dear fellow. Don\u0092t try it. You should leave that to people who haven\u0092t been at a University. They do it so well in the daily papers. What you really are is a Bunburyist. I was quite right in saying you were a Bunburyist. You are one of the most advanced Bunburyists I know. Jack. What on earth do you mean? Algernon. You have invented a very useful younger brother called Ernest, in order that you may be able to come up to town as often as you like. I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose. Bunbury is perfectly invaluable. If it wasn\u0092t for Bunbury\u0092s extraordinary bad health, for instance, I wouldn\u0092t be able to dine with you at Willis\u0092s to-night, for I have been really engaged to Aunt Augusta for more than a week. Jack. I haven\u0092t asked you to dine with me anywhere to-night. Algernon. I know. You are absurdly careless about sending out invitations. It is very foolish of you. Nothing annoys people so much as not receiving invitations. Jack. You had much better dine with your Aunt Augusta. Algernon. I haven\u0092t the smallest intention of doing anything of the kind. To begin with, I dined there on Monday, and once a week is quite enough to dine with one\u0092s own relations. In the second place, whenever I do dine there I am always treated as a member of the family, and sent down with either no woman at all, or two. In the third place, I know perfectly well whom she will place me next to, to-night. She will place me next Mary Farquhar, who always flirts with her own husband across the dinner-table. That is not very pleasant. Indeed, it is not even decent... and that sort of thing is enormously on the increase. The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks so bad. It is simply washing one\u0092s clean linen in public. Besides, now that I know you to be a confirmed Bunburyist I naturally want to talk to you about Bunburying. I want to tell you the rules. Jack. I\u0092m not a Bunburyist at all. If Gwendolen accepts me, I am going to kill my brother, indeed I think I\u0092ll kill him in any case. Cecily is a little too much interested in him. It is rather a bore. So I am going to get rid of Ernest. And I strongly advise you to do the same with Mr... with your invalid friend who has the absurd name. Algernon. Nothing will induce me to part with Bunbury, and if you ever get married, which seems to me extremely problematic, you will be very glad to know Bunbury. A man who marries without knowing Bunbury has a very tedious time of it. Jack. That is nonsense. If I marry a charming girl like Gwendolen, and she is the only girl I ever saw in my life that I would marry, I certainly won\u0092t want to know Bunbury. Algernon. Then your wife will. You don\u0092t seem to realise, that in married life three is company and two is none. Jack. [Sententiously.] That, my dear young friend, is the theory that the corrupt French Drama has been propounding for the last fifty years. Algernon. Yes; and that the happy English home has proved in half the time. Jack. For heaven\u0092s sake, don\u0092t try to be cynical. It\u0092s perfectly easy to be cynical. Algernon. My dear fellow, it isn\u0092t easy to be anything nowadays. There\u0092s such a lot of beastly competition about. [The sound of an electric bell is heard.] Ah! that must be Aunt Augusta. Only relatives, or creditors, ever ring in that Wagnerian manner. Now, if I get her out of the way for ten minutes, so that you can have an opportunity for proposing to Gwendolen, may I dine with you to-night at Willis\u0092s? Jack. I suppose so, if you want to. Algernon. Yes, but you must be serious about it. I hate people who are not serious about meals. It is so shallow of them. [Enter Lane.] Lady Bracknell and Miss Fairfax. [Algernon goes forward to meet them. Enter Lady Bracknell and Gwendolen.] Lady Bracknell. Good afternoon, dear Algernon, I hope you are behaving very well. Algernon. I\u0092m feeling very well, Aunt Augusta. Lady Bracknell. That\u0092s not quite the same thing. In fact the two things rarely go together. [Sees Jack and bows to him with icy coldness.] Algernon. [To Gwendolen.] Dear me, you are smart! Gwendolen. I am always smart! Am I not, Mr. Worthing? Jack. You\u0092re quite perfect, Miss Fairfax. Gwendolen. Oh! I hope I am not that. It would leave no room for developments, and I intend to develop in many directions. [Gwendolen and Jack sit down together in the corner.] Lady Bracknell. I\u0092m sorry if we are a little late, Algernon, but I was obliged to call on dear Lady Harbury. I hadn\u0092t been there since her poor husband\u0092s death. I never saw a woman so altered; she looks quite twenty years younger. And now I\u0092ll have a cup of tea, and one of those nice cucumber sandwiches you promised me. Algernon. Certainly, Aunt Augusta. [Goes over to tea-table.] Lady Bracknell. Won\u0092t you come and sit here, Gwendolen? Gwendolen. Thanks, mamma, I\u0092m quite comfortable where I am. Algernon. [Picking up empty plate in horror.] Good heavens! Lane! Why are there no cucumber sandwiches? I ordered them specially. Lane. [Gravely.] There were no cucumbers in the market this morning, sir. I went down twice. Algernon. No cucumbers! Lane. No, sir. Not even for ready money. Algernon. That will do, Lane, thank you. Lane. Thank you, sir. [Goes out.] Algernon. I am greatly distressed, Aunt Augusta, about there being no cucumbers, not even for ready money. Lady Bracknell. It really makes no matter, Algernon. I had some crumpets with Lady Harbury, who seems to me to be living entirely for pleasure now. Algernon. I hear her hair has turned quite gold from grief. Lady Bracknell. It certainly has changed its colour. From what cause I, of course, cannot say. [Algernon crosses and hands tea.] Thank you. I\u0092ve quite a treat for you to-night, Algernon. I am going to send you down with Mary Farquhar. She is such a nice woman, and so attentive to her husband. It\u0092s delightful to watch them. Algernon. I am afraid, Aunt Augusta, I shall have to give up the pleasure of dining with you to-night after all. Lady Bracknell. [Frowning.] I hope not, Algernon. It would put my table completely out. Your uncle would have to dine upstairs. Fortunately he is accustomed to that. Algernon. It is a great bore, and, I need hardly say, a terrible disappointment to me, but the fact is I have just had a telegram to say that my poor friend Bunbury is very ill again. [Exchanges glances with Jack.] They seem to think I should be with him. Lady Bracknell. It is very strange. This Mr. Bunbury seems to suffer from curiously bad health. Algernon. Yes; poor Bunbury is a dreadful invalid. Lady Bracknell. Well, I must say, Algernon, that I think it is high time that Mr. Bunbury made up his mind whether he was going to live or to die. This shilly-shallying with the question is absurd. Nor do I in any way approve of the modern sympathy with invalids. I consider it morbid. Illness of any kind is hardly a thing to be encouraged in others. Health is the primary duty of life. I am always telling that to your poor uncle, but he never seems to take much notice... as far as any improvement in his ailment goes. I should be much obliged if you would ask Mr. Bunbury, from me, to be kind enough not to have a relapse on Saturday, for I rely on you to arrange my music for me. It is my last reception, and one wants something that will encourage conversation, particularly at the end of the season when every one has practically said whatever they had to say, which, in most cases, was probably not much. Algernon. I\u0092ll speak to Bunbury, Aunt Augusta, if he is still conscious, and I think I can promise you he\u0092ll be all right by Saturday. Of course the music is a great difficulty. You see, if one plays good music, people don\u0092t listen, and if one plays bad music people don\u0092t talk. But I\u0092ll run over the programme I\u0092ve drawn out, if you will kindly come into the next room for a moment. Lady Bracknell. Thank you, Algernon. It is very thoughtful of you. [Rising, and following Algernon.] I\u0092m sure the programme will be delightful, after a few expurgations. French songs I cannot possibly allow. People always seem to think that they are improper, and either look shocked, which is vulgar, or laugh, which is worse. But German sounds a thoroughly respectable language, and indeed, I believe is so. Gwendolen, you will accompany me. Gwendolen. Certainly, mamma. [Lady Bracknell and Algernon go into the music-room, Gwendolen remains behind.]"@en . "The Importance of Being Earnest/Text/Act 1"@en .