Scene
II
The same.
Mirabell, Fainall, and Betty.
Fainall
Joy of your success, Mirabell; you look pleased.
Mirabell
Aye; I have been engaged in a matter of some sort of mirth, which is not yet ripe for discovery. I am glad this is not a cabal-night. I wonder, Fainall, that you who are married, and of consequence should be discreet, will suffer your wife to be of such a party.
Fainall
Faith, I am not jealous. Besides, most who are engaged are women and relations; and for the men, they are of a kind too contemptible to give scandal.
Mirabell
I am of another opinion: the greater the coxcomb, always the more the scandal; for a woman who is not a fool can have but one reason for associating with a man who is one.
Fainall
Are you jealous as often as you see Witwoud entertained by Millamant?
Mirabell
Of her understanding I am, if not of her person.
Fainall
You do her wrong; for, to give her her due, she has wit.
Mirabell
She has beauty enough to make any man think so, and complaisance enough not to contradict him who shall tell her so.
Fainall
For a passionate lover methinks you are a man somewhat too discerning in the failings of your mistress.
Mirabell
And for a discerning man somewhat too passionate a lover, for I like her with all her faults; nay, like her for her faults. Her follies are so natural, or so artful, that they become her, and those affectations which in another woman would be odious serve but to make her more agreeable. I’ll tell thee, Fainall, she once used me with that insolence that in revenge I took her to pieces, sifted her, and separated her failings: I studied ’em and got ’em by rote. The catalogue was so large that I was not without hopes, one day or other, to hate her heartily. To which end I so used myself to think of ’em, that at length, contrary to my design and expectation, they gave me every hour less and less disturbance, till in a few days it became habitual to me to remember ’em without being displeased. They are now grown as familiar to me as my own frailties, and in all probability in a little time longer I shall like ’em as well.
Fainall
Marry her, marry her; be half as well acquainted with her charms as you are with her defects, and, my life on’t, you are your own man again.
Mirabell
Say you so?
Fainall
Aye, aye; I have experience. I have a wife, and so forth.
Enter Messenger.
Messenger
Is one squire Witwoud here?
Betty
Yes; what’s your business?
Messenger
I have a letter for him, from his brother Sir Wilfull, which I am charged to deliver into his own hands.
Betty
He’s in the next room, friend. That way.
Exit Messenger.
Mirabell
What, is the chief of that noble family in town, Sir Wilfull Witwoud?
Fainall
He is expected today. Do you know him?
Mirabell
I have seen him; he promises to be an extraordinary person. I think you have the honour to be related to him.
Fainall
Yes; he is half-brother to this Witwoud by a former wife, who was sister to my Lady Wishfort, my wife’s mother. If you marry Millamant, you must call cousins too.
Mirabell
I had rather be his relation than his acquaintance.
Fainall
He comes to town in order to equip himself for travel.
Mirabell
For travel! Why the man that I mean is above forty.
Fainall
No matter for that; ’tis for the honour of England that all Europe should know we have blockheads of all ages.
Mirabell
I wonder there is not an act of parliament to save the credit of the nation and prohibit the exportation of fools.
Fainall
By no means, ’tis better as ’tis; ’tis better to trade with a little loss, than to be quite eaten up with being overstocked.
Mirabell
Pray, are the follies of this knight-errant and those of the squire, his brother, anything related?
Fainall
Not at all: Witwoud grows by the knight like a medlar grafted on a crab. One will melt in your mouth and t’other set your teeth on edge; one is all pulp and the other all core.
Mirabell
So one will be rotten before he be ripe, and the other will be rotten without ever being ripe at all.
Fainall
Sir Wilfull is an odd mixture of bashfulness and obstinacy. But when he’s drunk, he’s as loving as the monster in The Tempest, and much after the same manner. To give t’other his due, he has something of good-nature, and does not always want wit.
Mirabell
Not always: but as often as his memory fails him and his commonplace of comparisons. He is a fool with a good memory and some few scraps of other folks’ wit. He is one whose conversation can never be approved, yet it is now and then to be endured. He has indeed one good quality: he is not exceptious, for he so passionately affects the reputation of understanding raillery that he will construe an affront into a jest, and call downright rudeness and ill language satire and fire.
Fainall
If you have a mind to finish his picture, you have an opportunity to do it at full length. Behold the original.
Enter Witwoud.
Witwoud
Afford me your compassion, my dears! Pity me, Fainall, Mirabell, pity me.
Mirabell
I do from my soul.
Fainall
Why, what’s the matter?
Witwoud
No letters for me, Betty?
Betty
Did not a messenger bring you one but now, sir?
Witwoud
Aye, but no other?
Betty
No, sir.
Witwoud
That’s hard, that’s very hard.—A messenger! A mule, a beast of burden, he has brought me a letter from the fool my brother, as heavy as a panegyric in a funeral sermon, or a copy of commendatory verses from one poet to another. And what’s worse, ’tis as sure a forerunner of the author as an epistle dedicatory.
Mirabell
A fool, and your brother, Witwoud!
Witwoud
Aye, aye, my half-brother. My half-brother he is, no nearer, upon honour.
Mirabell
Then ’tis possible he may be but half a fool.
Witwoud
Good, good, Mirabell, le drôle! Good, good, hang him, don’t let’s talk of him.—Fainall, how does your lady? Gad, I say anything in the world to get this fellow out of my head. I beg pardon that I should ask a man of pleasure and the town a question at once so foreign and domestic. But I talk like an old maid at a marriage, I don’t know what I say: but she’s the best woman in the world.
Fainall
’Tis well you don’t know what you say, or else your commendation would go near to make me either vain or jealous.
Witwoud
No man in town lives well with a wife but Fainall.—Your judgment, Mirabell.
Mirabell
You had better step and ask his wife, if you would be credibly informed.
Witwoud
Mirabell!
Mirabell
Aye.
Witwoud
My dear, I ask ten thousand pardons—gad, I have forgot what I was going to say to you.
Mirabell
I thank you heartily, heartily.
Witwoud
No, but prithee excuse me:—my memory is such a memory.
Mirabell
Have a care of such apologies, Witwoud; for I never knew a fool but he affected to complain either of the spleen or his memory.
Fainall
What have you done with Petulant?
Witwoud
He’s reckoning his money—my money it was—I have no luck today.
Fainall
You may allow him to win of you at play, for you are sure to be too hard for him at repartee: since you monopolise the wit that is between you, the fortune must be his of course.
Mirabell
I don’t find that Petulant confesses the superiority of wit to be your talent, Witwoud.
Witwoud
Come, come, you are malicious now, and would breed debates.—Petulant’s my friend, and a very honest fellow, and a very pretty fellow, and has a smattering—faith and troth, a pretty deal of an odd sort of a small wit: nay, I’ll do him justice. I’m his friend, I won’t wrong him neither.—And if he had any judgment in the world, he would not be altogether contemptible. Come, come, don’t detract from the merits of my friend.
Fainall
You don’t take your friend to be over-nicely bred?
Witwoud
No, no, hang him, the rogue has no manners at all, that I must own; no more breeding than a bum-baily, that I grant you—’tis pity; the fellow has fire and life.
Mirabell
What, courage?
Witwoud
Hum, faith, I don’t know as to that, I can’t say as to that. Yes, faith, in a controversy he’ll contradict anybody.
Mirabell
Though ’twere a man whom he feared or a woman whom he loved.
Witwoud
Well, well, he does not always think before he speaks. We have all our failings; you are too hard upon him, you are, faith. Let me excuse him—I can defend most of his faults, except one or two; one he has, that’s the truth on’t; if he were my brother I could not acquit him—that, indeed, I could wish were otherwise.
Mirabell
Aye, marry, what’s that, Witwoud?
Witwoud
Oh, pardon me!—Expose the infirmities of my friend? No, my dear, excuse me there.
Fainall
What, I warrant he’s unsincere, or ’tis some such trifle.
Witwoud
No, no; what if he be? ’Tis no matter for that, his wit will excuse that. A wit should no more be sincere than a woman constant: one argues a decay of parts, as t’other of beauty.
Mirabell
Maybe you think him too positive?
Witwoud
No, no; his being positive is an incentive to argument, and keeps up conversation.
Fainall
Too illiterate?
Witwoud
That? That’s his happiness. His want of learning gives him the more opportunities to show his natural parts.
Mirabell
He wants words?
Witwoud
Aye; but I like him for that now: for his want of words gives me the pleasure very often to explain his meaning.
Fainall
He’s impudent?
Witwoud
No that’s not it.
Mirabell
Vain?
Witwoud
No.
Mirabell
What! He speaks unseasonable truths sometimes, because he has not wit enough to invent an evasion?
Witwoud
Truths? Ha, ha, ha! No, no, since you will have it—I mean he never speaks truth at all—that’s all. He will lie like a chambermaid, or a woman of quality’s porter. Now that is a fault.
Enter Coachman.
Coachman
Is Master Petulant here, mistress?
Betty
Yes.
Coachman
Three gentlewomen in a coach would speak with him.
Fainall
O brave Petulant! Three!
Betty
I’ll tell him.
Coachman
You must bring two dishes of chocolate and a glass of cinnamon water.
Exeunt Betty and Coachman.
Witwoud
That should be for two fasting strumpets, and a bawd troubled with wind. Now you may know what the three are.
Mirabell
You are very free with your friend’s acquaintance.
Witwoud
Aye, aye, friendship without freedom is as dull as love without enjoyment or wine without toasting: but to tell you a secret, these are trulls whom he allows coach-hire, and something more by the week, to call on him once a day at public places.
Mirabell
How!
Witwoud
You shall see he won’t go to ’em because there’s no more company here to take notice of him. Why, this is nothing to what he used to do:—before he found out this way, I have known him call for himself—
Fainall
Call for himself? What dost thou mean?
Witwoud
Mean! Why he would slip you out of this chocolate-house, just when you had been talking to him. As soon as your back was turned—whip he was gone; then trip to his lodging, clap on a hood and scarf and a mask, slap into a hackney-coach, and drive hither to the door again in a trice; where he would send in for himself; that I mean, call for himself, wait for himself, nay, and what’s more, not finding himself, sometimes leave a letter for himself.
Mirabell
I confess this is something extraordinary. I believe he waits for himself now, he is so long a coming; oh, I ask his pardon.
Enter Petulant and Betty.
Betty
Sir, the coach stays.
Petulant
Well, well, I come. ’Sbud, a man had as good be a professed midwife as a professed whoremaster, at this rate! To be knocked up and raised at all hours, and in all places. Pox on ’em, I won’t come.—D’ye hear, tell ’em I won’t come.—Let ’em snivel and cry their hearts out.
Fainall
You are very cruel, Petulant.
Petulant
All’s one, let it pass. I have a humour to be cruel.
Mirabell
I hope they are not persons of condition that you use at this rate.
Petulant
Condition? Condition’s a dried fig, if I am not in humour. By this hand, if they were your—a—a—your what-d’ye-call-’ems themselves, they must wait or rub off, if I want appetite.
Mirabell
What-d’ye-call-’ems! What are they, Witwoud?
Witwoud
Empresses, my dear. By your what-d’ye-call-’ems he means sultana queens.
Petulant
Aye, Roxolanas.
Mirabell
Cry you mercy.
Fainall
Witwoud says they are—
Petulant
What does he say th’are?
Witwoud
I? Fine ladies, I say.
Petulant
Pass on, Witwoud. Harkee, by this light, his relations: two co-heiresses his cousins, and an old aunt, who loves caterwauling better than a conventicle.
Witwoud
Ha, ha, ha! I had a mind to see how the rogue would come off. Ha, ha, ha! Gad, I can’t be angry with him, if he had said they were my mother and my sisters.
Mirabell
No?
Witwoud
No; the rogue’s wit and readiness of invention charm me, dear Petulant.
Betty
They are gone, sir, in great anger.
Petulant
Enough, let ’em trundle. Anger helps complexion, saves paint.
Fainall
This continence is all dissembled; this is in order to have something to brag of the next time he makes court to Millamant, and swear he has abandoned the whole sex for her sake.
Mirabell
Have you not left off your impudent pretensions there yet? I shall cut your throat, sometime or other, Petulant, about that business.
Petulant
Aye, aye, let that pass. There are other throats to be cut.
Mirabell
Meaning mine, sir?
Petulant
Not I—I mean nobody—I know nothing. But there are uncles and nephews in the world—and they may be rivals. What then? All’s one for that.
Mirabell
How? Harkee, Petulant, come hither—explain, or I shall call your interpreter.
Petulant
Explain? I know nothing. Why, you have an uncle, have you not, lately come to town, and lodges by my Lady Wishfort’s?
Mirabell
True.
Petulant
Why, that’s enough—you and he are not friends; and if he should marry and have a child, yon may be disinherited, ha?
Mirabell
Where hast thou stumbled upon all this truth?
Petulant
All’s one for that; why, then, say I know something.
Mirabell
Come, thou art an honest fellow, Petulant, and shalt make love to my mistress, thou shalt, faith. What hast thou heard of my uncle?
Petulant
I? Nothing, I. If throats are to be cut, let swords clash. Snug’s the word; I shrug and am silent.
Mirabell
Oh, raillery, raillery! Come, I know thou art in the women’s secrets.—What, you’re a cabalist; I know you stayed at Millamant’s last night after I went. Was there any mention made of my uncle or me? Tell me; if thou hadst but good nature equal to thy wit, Petulant, Tony Witwoud, who is now thy competitor in fame, would show as dim by thee as a dead whiting’s eye by a pearl of orient; he would no more be seen by thee than Mercury is by the sun: come, I’m sure thou wo’t tell me.
Petulant
If I do, will you grant me common sense, then, for the future?
Mirabell
Faith, I’ll do what I can for thee, and I’ll pray that Heavan may grant it thee in the meantime.
Petulant
Well, hark’ee.
Mirabell and Petulant talk apart.
Fainall
Petulant and you both will find Mirabell as warm a rival as a lover.
Witwoud
Pshaw, pshaw, that she laughs at Petulant is plain. And for my part, but that it is almost a fashion to admire her, I should—hark’ee—to tell you a secret, but let it go no further between friends, I shall never break my heart for her.
Fainall
How!
Witwoud
She’s handsome; but she’s a sort of an uncertain woman.
Fainall
I thought you had died for her.
Witwoud
Umh—no—
Fainall
She has wit.
Witwoud
’Tis what she will hardly allow anybody else. Now, demme, I should hate that, if she were as handsome as Cleopatra. Mirabell is not so sure of her as he thinks for.
Fainall
Why do you think so?
Witwoud
We stayed pretty late there last night, and heard something of an uncle to Mirabell, who is lately come to town, and is between him and the best part of his estate. Mirabell and he are at some distance, as my Lady Wishfort has been told; and you know she hates Mirabell worse than a quaker hates a parrot, or than a fishmonger hates a hard frost. Whether this uncle has seen Mrs. Millamant or not, I cannot say; but there were items of such a treaty being in embryo; and if it should come to life, poor Mirabell would be in some sort unfortunately fobbed, i’faith.
Fainall
’Tis impossible Millamant should hearken to it.
Witwoud
Faith, my dear, I can’t tell; she’s a woman and a kind of a humorist.
Mirabell
And this is the sum of what you could collect last night?
Petulant
The quintessence. Maybe Witwoud knows more; he stayed longer. Besides, they never mind him; they say anything before him.
Mirabell
I thought you had been the greatest favourite.
Petulant
Aye, tête-à-tête; but not in public, because I make remarks.
Mirabell
You do?
Petulant
Aye, aye, pox, I’m malicious, man. Now he’s soft, you know, they are not in awe of him—the fellow’s well bred, he’s what you call a—what d’ye-call-’em—a fine gentleman, but he’s silly withal.
Mirabell
I thank you, I know as much as my curiosity requires. Fainall, are you for the Mall?
Fainall
Aye, I’ll take a turn before dinner.
Witwoud
Aye, we’ll all walk in the park; the ladies talked of being there.
Mirabell
I thought you were obliged to watch for your brother Sir Wilfull’s arrival.
Witwoud
No, no, he comes to his aunt’s, my Lady Wishfort; pox on him, I shall be troubled with him too; what shall I do with the fool?
Petulant
Beg him for his estate, that I may beg you afterwards, and so have but one trouble with you both.
Witwoud
O rare Petulant! Thou art as quick as fire in a frosty morning; thou shalt to the Mall with us, and we’ll be very severe.
Petulant
Enough; I’m in a humour to be severe.
Mirabell
Are you? Pray then walk by yourselves. Let not us be accessory to your putting the ladies out of countenance with your senseless ribaldry, which you roar out aloud as often as they pass by you, and when you have made a handsome woman blush, then you think you have been severe.
Petulant
What, what! Then let ’em either show their innocence by not understanding what they hear, or else show their discretion by not hearing what they would not be thought to understand.
Mirabell
But hast not thou then sense enough to know that thou ought’st to be most ashamed thyself when thou hast put another out of countenance?
Petulant
Not I, by this hand—I always take blushing either for a sign of guilt or ill-breeding.
Mirabell
I confess you ought to think so. You are in the right, that you may plead the error of your judgment in defence of your practice.
Where modesty’s ill manners, ’tis but fit
That impudence and malice pass for wit.
Exeunt.