Lady Windermere's Fan Read Online Free PDF

know now what you meant to-day at tea-time. Why didn't you tell
me right out? You should have!
    LORD DARLINGTON. I couldn't! A man can't tell these things about
another man! But if I had known he was going to make you ask her
here to-night, I think I would have told you. That insult, at any
rate, you would have been spared.
    LADY WINDERMERE. I did not ask her. He insisted on her coming—
against my entreaties—against my commands. Oh! the house is
tainted for me! I feel that every woman here sneers at me as she
dances by with my husband. What have I done to deserve this? I
gave him all my life. He took it—used it—spoiled it! I am
degraded in my own eyes; and I lack courage—I am a coward!
(Sits
down on sofa.)
    LORD DARLINGTON. If I know you at all, I know that you can't live
with a man who treats you like this! What sort of life would you
have with him? You would feel that he was lying to you every
moment of the day. You would feel that the look in his eyes was
false, his voice false, his touch false, his passion false. He
would come to you when he was weary of others; you would have to
comfort him. He would come to you when he was devoted to others;
you would have to charm him. You would have to be to him the mask
of his real life, the cloak to hide his secret.
    LADY WINDERMERE. You are right—you are terribly right. But where
am I to turn? You said you would be my friend, Lord Darlington.—
Tell me, what am I to do? Be my friend now.
    LORD DARLINGTON. Between men and women there is no friendship
possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no
friendship. I love you -
    LADY WINDERMERE. No, no!
(Rises.)
    LORD DARLINGTON. Yes, I love you! You are more to me than
anything in the whole world. What does your husband give you?
Nothing. Whatever is in him he gives to this wretched woman, whom
he has thrust into your society, into your home, to shame you
before every one. I offer you my life -
    LADY WINDERMERE. Lord Darlington!
    LORD DARLINGTON. My life—my whole life. Take it, and do with it
what you will. . . . I love you—love you as I have never loved any
living thing. From the moment I met you I loved you, loved you
blindly, adoringly, madly! You did not know it then—you know it
now! Leave this house to-night. I won't tell you that the world
matters nothing, or the world's voice, or the voice of society.
They matter a great deal. They matter far too much. But there are
moments when one has to choose between living one's own life,
fully, entirely, completely—or dragging out some false, shallow,
degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands. You
have that moment now. Choose! Oh, my love, choose.
    LADY WINDERMERE.
(Moving slowly away from him, and looking at him
with startled eyes.)
I have not the courage.
    LORD DARLINGTON.
(Following her.)
Yes; you have the courage.
There may be six months of pain, of disgrace even, but when you no
longer bear his name, when you bear mine, all will be well.
Margaret, my love, my wife that shall be some day—yes, my wife!
You know it! What are you now? This woman has the place that
belongs by right to you. Oh! go—go out of this house, with head
erect, with a smile upon your lips, with courage in your eyes. All
London will know why you did it; and who will blame you? No one.
If they do, what matter? Wrong? What is wrong? It's wrong for a
man to abandon his wife for a shameless woman. It is wrong for a
wife to remain with a man who so dishonours her. You said once you
would make no compromise with things. Make none now. Be brave!
Be yourself!
    LADY WINDERMERE. I am afraid of being myself. Let me think! Let
me wait! My husband may return to me.
(Sits down on sofa.)
    LORD DARLINGTON. And you would take him back! You are not what I
thought you were. You are just the same as every other woman. You
would stand anything rather than face the censure of a world, whose
praise you would despise. In a week you will be driving with this
woman in the Park. She will be