『真面目が肝心：真面目な人々のための些細な喜劇』

Part 3

Algernon strikes up the Wedding March; Jack, furious, begs him to stop. When Algernon enters, Jack explains Gwendolen accepted him but her mother is “a perfect Gorgon.” Algernon loves hearing relations abused—“a tedious pack of people” with no instinct about when to die. Jack calls this nonsense; Algernon retorts things were originally made for argument. They spar about Gwendolen becoming her mother in a hundred and fifty years. Algernon observes “all women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.” Jack is sick to death of cleverness; Algernon mourns the lack of fools. They turn to disposing of fictional Ernest, whom Jack plans to have die in Paris of apoplexy. Algernon warns apoplexy is hereditary—a severe chill would be safer. Jack accepts, then warns Algernon away from Cecily, “excessively pretty, and only just eighteen.”

Lane announces Miss Fairfax. Gwendolen returns, sends Algernon to the fireplace, confesses they may never marry, but nothing her mother does “can alter my eternal devotion.” She extracts Jack’s country address—the Manor House, Woolton, Hertfordshire. Algernon listens, smiles, and writes the address on his shirt-cuff. Gwendolen will communicate daily, then permits Algernon to turn round. Jack escorts her to the carriage.

Lane brings Algernon letters—evidently bills—which he tears up unread. He orders sherry and announces he is going Bunburying tomorrow, possibly not back until Monday, requiring dress clothes, smoking jacket, and Bunbury suits. When he hopes for a fine day, Lane observes it never is. Algernon calls him a perfect pessimist; Lane replies he does his best to give satisfaction.

Jack returns, enraptured by his “sensible, intellectual girl” and baffled by Algernon’s laughter. He warns that Bunbury will get him into a serious scrape; Algernon replies he loves scrapes because they are the only things never serious. Nobody ever talks anything but nonsense, he concludes, lights a cigarette, reads his shirt-cuff, and smiles. The act drops.

The second act opens in the Woolton garden in July. Miss Prism sits beneath a yew-tree; Cecily waters flowers behind. Miss Prism summons her for German, but Cecily protests the language is unbecoming and makes her look plain. Miss Prism defends Jack’s grave demeanour and anxiety about wicked brother Ernest. Cecily wishes Uncle Jack would let Ernest visit, suggesting German and geology might improve him. She opens her diary, prompting Miss Prism to declare memory is the diary we all carry—Cecily retorts memory chronicles things that never happened. She asks about Miss Prism’s three-volume novel. Miss Prism primly replies the good ended happily, the bad unhappily—that is what Fiction means. Her own manuscript was “abandoned,” lost or mislaid.