The Importance of Being Earnest | Page 4

to do so. And as a high moral
tone can hardly be said to conduce very much to either one's health or one's 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't be at all a bad thing.
Algernon. Literary criticism is not your forte, my dear fellow. Don't try it. You should
leave that to people who haven't 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't for Bunbury's
extraordinary bad health, for instance, I wouldn't be able to dine with you at Willis's
to-night, for I have been really engaged to Aunt Augusta for more than a week.
Jack. I haven't 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't 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's 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's 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'm not a Bunburyist at all. If Gwendolen accepts me, I am going to kill my brother,
indeed I think I'll 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't want to know Bunbury.
Algernon. Then your wife will. You don't 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's sake, don't try to be cynical. It's perfectly easy to be cynical.
Algernon. My dear fellow, it isn't easy to be anything nowadays. There's 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's?
Jack. I suppose so, if you want to.
Algernon. Yes, but you must be serious about it. I hate