Oscar Wilde

An Ideal Husband Oscar Wilde

The octagon room at Sir Robert Chiltern's house in Grosvenor Square.[The room is brilliantly lighted and full of guests. At the top of the staircase stands LADY CHILTERN, a woman ofgrave Greek beauty, about twenty-seven years of age. She receives the guests as they come up. Over the well of thestaircase hangs a great chandelier with wax lights, which illumine a large eighteenth-century French tapestry-representing the Triumph of Love, from a design by Boucher-that is stretched on the staircase wall. On the right isthe entrance to the music-room. The sound of a string quartette is faintly heard. The entrance on the left leads to otherreception-rooms. MRS. MARCHMONT and LADY BASILDON, two very pretty women, are seated together on a LouisSeize sofa. They are types of exquisite fragility. Their affectation of manner has a delicate charm. Watteau would haveloved to paint them.]MRS. MARCHMONT. Going on to the Hartlocks' to-night, Margaret?LADY BASILDON. I suppose so. Are you?MRS. MARCHMONT. Yes. Horribly tedious parties they give, don't they?LADY BASILDON. Horribly tedious! Never know why I go. Never know why I go anywhere. MRS. MARCHMONT. I come here to be educated. LADY BASILDON. Ah! I hate being educated!MRS. MARCHMONT. So do I. It puts one almost on a level with the commercial classes, doesn't it? Butdear Gertrude Chiltern is always telling me that I should have some serious purpose in life. So Icome here to try to find one. LADY BASILDON. [Looking round through her lorgnette.] I don't see anybody here to-night whom onecould possibly call a serious purpose. The man who took me in to dinner talked to me about his wifethe whole time.