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- Pridružio: 17 Jul 2005
- Poruke: 3097
- Gde živiš: "Daleko od Negdje"
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A dazzling blend of farce and morality, this play explores human frailty and social hypocrisy. Sir Robert Chilton's secret is discovered and exposed. He is accused of having exploited government secrets for his own gain early in his political career. With this revelation from Mrs. Cheveley comes the threat of blackmail and the ruin of Sir Robert's career. Yet in order to be a successful blackmailer, one's own reputation must be beyond reproach.
by Oscar Wilde
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LORD GORING
Lady Chiltern, why are you playing Mrs. Cheveley's cards?
LADY CHILTERN
[Startled.] I don't understand you.
LORD GORING
Mrs. Cheveley made an attempt to ruin your husband. Either to drive him from public life, or to make him adopt a dishonourable position. From the latter tragedy you saved him. The former you are now thrusting on him. Why should you do him the wrong Mrs. Cheveley tried to do and failed?
LADY CHILTERN
Lord Goring?
LORD GORING
[Pulling himself together for a great effort, and showing the philosopher that underlies the dandy.] Lady Chiltern, allow me. You wrote me a letter last night in which you said you trusted me and wanted my help. Now is the moment when you really want my help, now is the time when you have got to trust me, to trust in my counsel and judgment. You love Robert. Do you want to kill his love for you? What sort of existence will he have if you rob him of the fruits of his ambition, if you take him from the splendour of a great political career, if you close the doors of public life against him, if you condemn him to sterile failure, he who was made for triumph and success? Women are not meant to judge us, but to forgive us when we need forgiveness. Pardon, not punishment, is their mission. Why should you scourge him with rods for a sin done in his youth, before he knew you, before he knew himself? A man's life is of more value than a woman's. It has larger issues, wider scope, greater ambitions. A woman's life revolves in curves of emotions. It is upon lines of intellect that a man's life progresses. Don't make any terrible mistake, Lady Chiltern. A woman who can keep a man's love, and love him in return, has done all the world wants of women, or should want of them.
LADY CHILTERN
[Troubled and hesitating.] But it is my husband himself who wishes to retire from public life. He feels it is his duty. It was he who first said so.
LORD GORING
Rather than lose your love, Robert would do anything, wreck his whole career, as he is on the brink of doing now. He is making for you a terrible sacrifice. Take my advice, Lady Chiltern, and do not accept a sacrifice so great. If you do, you will live to repent it bitterly. We men and women are not made to accept such sacrifices from each other. We are not worthy of them. Besides, Robert has been punished enough.
LADY CHILTERN
We have both been punished. I set him up too high.
LORD GORING
[With deep feeling in his voice.] Do not for that reason set him down now too low. If he has fallen from his altar, do not thrust him into the mire. Failure to Robert would be the very mire of shame. Power is his passion. He would lose everything, even his power to feel love. Your husband's life is at this moment in your hands, your husband's love is in your hands. Don't mar both for him.
[Enter SIR ROBERT CHILTERN.]
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Gertrude, here is the draft of my letter. Shall I read it to you?
LADY CHILTERN
Let me see it.
[SIR ROBERT hands her the letter. She reads it, and then, with a gesture of passion, tears it up.]
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
What are you doing?
LADY CHILTERN
A man's life is of more value than a woman's. It has larger issues, wider scope, greater ambitions. Our lives revolve in curves of emotions. It is upon lines of intellect that a man's life progresses. I have just learnt this, and much else with it, from Lord Goring. And I will not spoil your life for you, nor see you spoil it as a sacrifice to me, a useless sacrifice!
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Gertrude! Gertrude!
LADY CHILTERN
You can forget. Men easily forget. And I forgive. That is how women help the world. I see that now.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
[Deeply overcome by emotion, embraces her.] My wife! my wife! [To LORD GORING.] Arthur, it seems that I am always to be in your debt.
LORD GORING
Oh dear no, Robert. Your debt is to Lady Chiltern, not to me!
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
I owe you much. And now tell me what you were going to ask me just now as Lord Caversham came in.
LORD GORING
Robert, you are your sister's guardian, and I want your consent to my marriage with her. That is all.
LADY CHILTERN
Oh, I am so glad! I am so glad! [Shakes hands with LORD GORING.]
LORD GORING
Thank you, Lady Chiltern.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
[With a troubled look.] My sister to be your wife?
LORD GORING
Yes.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
[Speaking with great firmness.] Arthur, I am very sorry, but the thing is quite out of the question. I have to think of Mabel's future happiness. And I don't think her happiness would be safe in your hands. And I cannot have her sacrificed!
LORD GORING
Sacrificed!
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Yes, utterly sacrificed. Loveless marriages are horrible. But there is one thing worse than an absolutely loveless marriage. A marriage in which there is love, but on one side only; faith, but on one side only; devotion, but on one side only, and in which of the two hearts one is sure to be broken.
LORD GORING
But I love Mabel. No other woman has any place in my life.
LADY CHILTERN
Robert, if they love each other, why should they not be married?
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Arthur cannot bring Mabel the love that she deserves.
LORD GORING
What reason have you for saying that?
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
[After a pause.] Do you really require me to tell you?
LORD GORING
Certainly I do.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
As you choose. When I called on you yesterday evening I found Mrs. Cheveley concealed in your rooms. It was between ten and eleven o'clock at night. I do not wish to say anything more. Your relations with Mrs. Cheveley have, as I said to you last night, nothing whatsoever to do with me. I know you were engaged to be married to her once. The fascination she exercised over you then seems to have returned. You spoke to me last night of her as of a woman pure and stainless, a woman whom you respected and honoured. That may be so. But I cannot give my sister's life into your hands. It would be wrong of me. It would be unjust, infamously unjust to her.
LORD GORING
I have nothing more to say.
LADY CHILTERN
Robert, it was not Mrs. Cheveley whom Lord Goring expected last night.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
Not Mrs. Cheveley! Who was it then?
LORD GORING
Lady Chiltern!
LADY CHILTERN
It was your own wife. Robert, yesterday afternoon Lord Goring told me that if ever I was in trouble I could come to him for help, as he was our oldest and best friend. Later on, after that terrible scene in this room, I wrote to him telling him that I trusted him, that I had need of him, that I was coming to him for help and advice. [SIR ROBERT CHILTERN takes the letter out of his pocket.] Yes, that letter. I didn't go to Lord Goring's, after all. I felt that it is from ourselves alone that help can come. Pride made me think that. Mrs. Cheveley went. She stole my letter and sent it anonymously to you this morning, that you should think . . . Oh! Robert, I cannot tell you what she wished you to think. . . .
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
What! Had I fallen so low in your eyes that you thought that even for a moment I could have doubted your goodness? Gertrude, Gertrude, you are to me the white image of all good things, and sin can never touch you. Arthur, you can go to Mabel, and you have my best wishes! Oh! stop a moment. There is no name at the beginning of this letter. The brilliant Mrs. Cheveley does not seem to have noticed that. There should be a name.
LADY CHILTERN
Let me write yours. It is you I trust and need. You and none else.
LORD GORING
Well, really, Lady Chiltern, I think I should have back my own letter.
LADY CHILTERN
[Smiling.] No; you shall have Mabel. [Takes the letter and writes her husband's name on it.]
LORD GORING
Well, I hope she hasn't changed her mind. It's nearly twenty minutes since I saw her last.
[Enter MABEL CHILTERN and LORD CAVERSHAM.]
MABEL CHILTERN
Lord Goring, I think your father's conversation much more improving than yours. I am only going to talk to Lord Caversham in the future, and always under the usual palm tree.
LORD GORING
Darling! [Kisses her.]
LORD CAVERSHAM
[Considerably taken aback.] What does this mean, sir? You don't mean to say that this charming, clever young lady has been so foolish as to accept you?
LORD GORING
Certainly, father! And Chiltern's been wise enough to accept the seat in the Cabinet.
LORD CAVERSHAM
I am very glad to hear that, Chiltern . . . I congratulate you, sir. If the country doesn't go to the dogs or the Radicals, we shall have you Prime Minister, some day.
[Enter MASON.]
MASON
Luncheon is on the table, my Lady!
[MASON goes out.]
MABEL CHILTERN
You'll stop to luncheon, Lord Caversham, won't you?
LORD CAVERSHAM
With pleasure, and I'll drive you down to Downing Street afterwards, Chiltern. You have a great future before you, a great future. Wish I could say the same for you, sir. [To LORD GORING.] But your career will have to be entirely domestic.
LORD GORING
Yes, father, I prefer it domestic.
LORD CAVERSHAM
And if you don't make this young lady an ideal husband, I'll cut you off with a shilling.
MABEL CHILTERN
An ideal husband! Oh, I don't think I should like that. It sounds like something in the next world.
LORD CAVERSHAM
What do you want him to be then, dear?
MABEL CHILTERN
He can be what he chooses. All I want is to be . . . to be . . . oh! a real wife to him.
LORD CAVERSHAM
Upon my word, there is a good deal of common sense in that, Lady Chiltern.
[They all go out except SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. He sinks in a chair, wrapt in thought. After a little time LADY CHILTERN returns to look for him.]
LADY CHILTERN
[Leaning over the back of the chair.] Aren't you coming in, Robert?
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN
[Taking her hand.] Gertrude, is it love you feel for me, or is it pity merely?
LADY CHILTERN
[Kisses him.] It is love, Robert. Love, and only love. For both of us a new life is beginning.
CURTAIN
Text version: [Link mogu videti samo ulogovani korisnici]
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Movie version: [Link mogu videti samo ulogovani korisnici]
Lord Arthur Goring: To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.
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Mabel: To look at a thing is quite different from seeing a thing, and one does not see anything until one sees its beauty.
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Lord Caversham: I don't know how you stand society. A lot of damned nobodies talking about nothing.
Lord Arthur Goring: I love talking about nothing, Father. It's the only thing I know anything about.
Lord Caversham: That is a paradox, sir. I hate paradoxes.
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Sir Robert Chiltern: I will give you any sum of money you want.
Laura: Even you are not rich enough to buy back your past, Sir Robert. No man is.
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Lord Arthur Goring: I'm sorry, Father, but the truth is, this is not my day for talking seriously.
Lord Caversham: Well, what do you mean, sir?
Lord Arthur Goring: I mean that I only talk seriously on the first Tuesday of every month. Between noon and three.
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