Why does algernon let bunbury die

Cecily is a little too interested in him. And I strongly advise you to do the same with Mr Algernon I will not be separated from Bunbury That must be my aunt now. Now, if I keep her busy for ten minutes so you can propose to Gwendolen, will you have dinner with me tonight? Narrator A well-dressed, elderly woman and her daughter, a pretty, young lady enter the room. Lady Bracknell Now, Algernon I'd like a nice cup of tea, and one of those cucumber sandwiches you promised me. Algernon Certainly, Aunt Augusta.

Good heavens! Why are there no cucumber sandwiches? Lane There were no cucumbers in the market this morning, sir. Lady Bracknell Thank you. Now, Algernon, about tonight - you will be seated next to Mary Farquhar. Algernon I'm afraid, Aunt Augusta, I won't be able to have dinner with you tonight.

Algernon Well, I have just heard that my poor friend Bunbury is very ill again. I'll have to go and see him. Lady Bracknell It's very strange. This Mr Bunbury seems to have curiously bad health. I think it is time that he made up his mind whether he was going to live or to die.

But why don't we go next door to look at the programme of music I've prepared. Narrator Algernon and his aunt go into the music room, leaving Jack and Gwendolen alone. Gwendolen Please don't talk to me about the weather, Mr Worthing. Whenever people talk about the weather, I am sure they mean something else. And that makes me nervous. Gwendolen Yes, I realised that. Actually, I have always been fascinated by you Gwendolen Yes, I've always wanted to love someone called Ernest.

That name inspires complete confidence. When Algernon first mentioned that he had a friend called Ernest, I knew I was destined to love you. Jack But you don't really mean that you couldn't love me if my name wasn't Ernest? Jack Yes, I know. But what if it was something else?

Do you mean you couldn't love me then? Personally, I don't think the name suits me. Jack But there are lots of other much nicer names. Jack, for instance, is a charming name. Gwendolen Jack? Oh, no, Jack does not have the same sound at all. It's not exciting. The only really safe name is Ernest. Jack Gwendolen, I must get christened at once - I mean, we must get married at once. Jack Well You know that I love you, and you led me to believe, Miss Fairfax, that you felt the same. Gwendolen I adore you.

But you haven't proposed to me yet. Nothing has been said at all about marriage. Narrator And so Jack kneels down and asks Gwendolen to marry him. She accepts and Jack is still on his knees when Lady Bracknell returns. Gwendolen Mamma! Please leave us.

Oh, pleasure, pleasure! What else should bring one anywhere? Eating as usual, I see, Algy! Where have you been since last Thursday? When one is in the country one amuses other people. It is excessively boring. How immensely you must amuse them! Yes, of course. Why all these cups? Why cucumber sandwiches? Why such reckless extravagance in one so young? Who is coming to tea? My dear fellow, the way you flirt with Gwendolen is perfectly disgraceful.

It is almost as bad as the way Gwendolen flirts with you. I am in love with Gwendolen. I have come up to town expressly to propose to her. I thought you had come up for pleasure? I call that business. 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.

I have no doubt about that, dear Algy. The Divorce Court was specially invented for people whose memories are so curiously constituted. Divorces are made in Heaven—[ Jack puts out his hand to take a sandwich. Algernon at once interferes.

They are ordered specially for Aunt Augusta. That is quite a different matter. She is my aunt. The bread and butter is for Gwendolen.

Gwendolen is devoted to bread and butter. 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. Well, in the first place girls never marry the men they flirt with. It is a great truth. It accounts for the extraordinary number of bachelors that one sees all over the place. 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.

What on earth do you mean? What do you mean, Algy, by Cecily! Bring me that cigarette case Mr. Worthing left in the smoking-room the last time he dined here. 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.

Well, I wish you would offer one. I happen to be more than usually hard up. There is no good offering a large reward now that the thing is found. Algernon takes it at once. Lane goes out. I think that is rather mean of you, Ernest, I must say.

It is a very ungentlemanly thing to read a private cigarette case. I simply want my cigarette case back. Charming old lady she is, too. Lives at Tunbridge Wells [5]. Just give it back to me, Algy. 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! But why does your aunt call you her uncle? 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. Here is one of them. Ernest Worthing, B. Well, my name is Ernest in town and Jack in the country, and the cigarette case was given to me in the country.

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. My dear Algy, you talk exactly as if you were a dentist. It produces a false impression. 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. Here it is. My dear fellow, there is nothing improbable about my explanation at all.

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.

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. 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? 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.

That, my dear Algy, is the whole truth pure and simple. The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility! Literary criticism is not your forte, my dear fellow. 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.

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. 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.

In the second place, whenever I do dine there I am always treated as a member of the family, and sent down [7] 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. The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous.

It looks so bad. 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. 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. 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. That is nonsense. Then your wife will. Yes; and that the happy English home has proved in half the time.

Only relatives, or creditors, ever ring in that Wagnerian [9] manner. Yes, but you must be serious about it. I hate people who are not serious about meals. It is so shallow of them. Enter Lady Bracknell and Gwendolen. Lady Bracknell. Good afternoon, dear Algernon, I hope you are behaving very well. In fact the two things rarely go together. I hope I am not that. It would leave no room for developments, and I intend to develop in many directions.

I never saw a woman so altered; she looks quite twenty years younger. Why are there no cucumber sandwiches? I ordered them specially. I went down twice. A thoroughly experienced French maid produces a really marvellous result in a very brief space of time. I remember recommending one to young Lady Lancing, and after three months her own husband did not know her.

There are distinct social possibilities in your profile. The two weak points in our age are its want of principle and its want of profile. The chin a little higher, dear. Style largely depends on the way the chin is worn. They are worn very high, just at present. Cecily is the sweetest, dearest, prettiest girl in the whole world. And I don't care twopence about social possibilities. Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon.

Only people who can't get into it do that. But I do not approve of mercenary marriages. When I married Lord Bracknell I had no fortune of any kind.

But I never dreamed for a moment of allowing that to stand in my way. Well, I suppose I must give my consent. To speak frankly, I am not in favour of long engagements.

They give people the opportunity of finding out each other's character before marriage, which I think is never advisable. I beg your pardon for interrupting you, Lady Bracknell, but this engagement is quite out of the question. I am Miss Cardew's guardian, and she cannot marry without my consent until she comes of age. That consent I absolutely decline to give.

Upon what grounds may I ask? Algernon is an extremely, I may almost say an ostentatiously, eligible young man. He has nothing, but he looks everything.

What more can one desire? It pains me very much to have to speak frankly to you, Lady Bracknell, about your nephew, but the fact is that I do not approve at all of his moral character. I suspect him of being untruthful.

I fear there can be no possible doubt about the matter. This afternoon during my temporary absence in London on an important question of romance, he obtained admission to my house by means of the false pretence of being my brother.

Under an assumed name he drank, I've just been informed by my butler, an entire pint bottle of my Perrier-Jouet, Brut, '89; wine I was specially reserving for myself.

Continuing his disgraceful deception, he succeeded in the course of the afternoon in alienating the affections of my only ward. He subsequently stayed to tea, and devoured every single muffin. And what makes his conduct all the more heartless is, that he was perfectly well aware from the first that I have no brother, that I never had a brother, and that I don't intend to have a brother, not even of any kind. I distinctly told him so myself yesterday afternoon. Worthing, after careful consideration I have decided entirely to overlook my nephew's conduct to you.

That is very generous of you, Lady Bracknell. My own decision, however, is unalterable. I decline to give my consent. Well, I am really only eighteen, but I always admit to twenty when I go to evening parties. You are perfectly right in making some slight alteration.

Indeed, no woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating. Well, it will not be very long before you are of age and free from the restraints of tutelage. So I don't think your guardian's consent is, after all, a matter of any importance.

Pray excuse me, Lady Bracknell, for interrupting you again, but it is only fair to tell you that according to the terms of her grandfather's will Miss Cardew does not come legally of age till she is thirty-five. That does not seem to me to be a grave objection. Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.

Lady Dumbleton is an instance in point. To my own knowledge she has been thirty-five ever since she arrived at the age of forty, which was many years ago now.

I see no reason why our dear Cecily should not be even still more attractive at the age you mention than she is at present. There will be a large accumulation of property. Yes, I felt it instinctively, but I couldn't wait all that time. I hate waiting even five minutes for anybody.

It always makes me rather cross. I am not punctual myself, I know, but I do like punctuality in others, and waiting, even to be married, is quite out of the question. My dear Mr. Worthing, as Miss Cardew states positively that she cannot wait till she is thirty-five - a remark which I am bound to say seems to me to show a somewhat impatient nature - I would beg of you to reconsider your decision. But my dear Lady Bracknell, the matter is entirely in your own hands. The moment you consent to my marriage with Gwendolen, I will most gladly allow your nephew to form an alliance with my ward.

That is not the destiny I propose for Gwendolen. Algernon, of course, can choose for himself. To miss any more might expose us to comment on the platform. At their age? The idea is grotesque and irreligious! Algernon, I forbid you to be baptized.

I will not hear of such excesses. Lord Bracknell would be highly displeased if he learned that that was the way in which you wasted your time and money. Am I to understand then that there are to he no christenings at all this afternoon? I don't think that, as things are now, it would be of much practical value to either of us, Dr. I am grieved to hear such sentiments from you, Mr. They savour of the heretical views of the Anabaptists, views that I have completely refuted in four of my unpublished sermons.

However, as your present mood seems to be one peculiarly secular, I will return to the church at once. Indeed, I have just been informed by the pew-opener that for the last hour and a half Miss Prism has been waiting for me in the vestry.

Did I bear you mention a Miss Prism? Pray allow me to detain you for a moment. This matter may prove to be one of vital importance to Lord Bracknell and myself. Is this Miss Prism a female of repellent aspect, remotely connected with education? It is obviously the same person. May I ask what position she holds in your household? In spite of what I hear of her, I must see her at once.

Let her be sent for. I was told you expected me in the vestry, dear Canon. I have been waiting for you there for an hour and three-quarters. She looks anxiously round as if desirous to escape. Where is that baby? You never returned. A few weeks later, through the elaborate investigations of the Metropolitan police, the perambulator was discovered at midnight, standing by itself in a remote corner of Bayswater. It contained the manuscript of a three-volume novel of more than usually revolting sentimentality.

Lady Bracknell, I admit with shame that I do not know.