SCENE II

The same

MIRABELL, FAINALL, and BETTY.

FAIN. Joy of your success, Mirabell; you look pleased.

MIR. Ay; 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.

FAIN. 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.

MIR. 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.

FAIN. Are you jealous as often as you see Witwoud entertained by

Millamant?

MIR. Of her understanding I am, if not of her person.

FAIN. You do her wrong; for, to give her her due, she has wit.

MIR. She has beauty enough to make any man think so; and

complaisance enough not to contradict him who shall tell her so.

FAIN. For a passionate lover, methinks you are a man somewhat too

discerning in the failings of your mistress.

MIR. 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.

FAIN. 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.

MIR. Say you so?

FAIN. Ay, ay, I have experience: I have a wife, and so forth.

Enter Messenger.

MES. Is one Squire Witwoud here?

BET. Yes, what’s your business?

MES. I have a letter for him, from his brother Sir Wilfull, which I

am charged to deliver into his own hands.

BET. He’s in the next room, friend- that way.

[Exit Messenger.

MIR. What, is the chief of that noble family in town, Sir Wilfull

Witwoud?

FAIN. He is expected to-day. Do you know him?

MIR. I have seen him. He promises to be an extraordinary person; I

think you have the honour to be related to him.

FAIN. 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.

MIR. I had rather be his relation than his acquaintance.

FAIN. He comes to town in order to equip himself for travel.

MIR. For travel! why, the man that I mean is above forty.

FAIN. No matter for that; ’tis for the honour of England,

that all Europe should know we have blockheads of all ages.

MIR. I wonder there is not an act of parliament to save the credit

of the nation, and prohibit the exportation of fools.

FAIN. By no means; ’tis better as ’tis. ’Tis better to trade with a

little loss, than to be quite eaten up with being over-stocked.

MIR. Pray, are the follies of this knight-errant, and those of the

squire his brother, anything related?

FAIN. 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.

MIR. So one will be rotten before he be ripe, and the other will be

rotten without ever being ripe at all.

FAIN. 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.

MIR. Not always: but as often as his memory fails him, and his

common-place 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.

FAIN. If you have a mind to finish his picture, you have an

opportunity to do it at full length. Behold the original!

Enter WITWOUD.

WIT. Afford me your compassion, my dears! pity me, Fainall!

Mirabell, pity me!

MIR. I do from my soul.

FAIN. Why, what’s the matter?

WIT. No letters for me, Betty?

BET. Did not a messenger bring you one but now, sir?

WIT. Ay, but no other?

BET. No, sir.

WIT. 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.

MIR. A fool, and your brother, Witwoud!

WIT. Ay, ay, my half brother. My half brother he is, no nearer upon

honour.

MIR. Then ’tis possible he may be but half a fool.

WIT. Good, good, Mirabell, le drole! 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.

FAIN. ’Tis well you don’t know what you say, or else your

commendation would go near to make me either vain or jealous.

WIT. No man in town lives well with a wife but Fainall.- Your

judgment, Mirabell.

MIR. You had better step and ask his wife, if you would be credibly

informed.

WIT. Mirabell?

MIR. Ay.

WIT. My dear, I ask ten thousand pardons;- gad, I have forgot what

I was going to say to you!

MIR. I thank you heartily, heartily.

WIT. No, but prithee excuse me:- my memory is such a memory.

MIR. 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.

FAIN. What have you done with Petulant?

WIT. He’s reckoning his money- my money it was.- I have no luck

to-day.

FAIN. 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.

MIR. I don’t find that Petulant confesses the superiority of wit to

be your talent, Witwoud.

WIT. 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.

FAIN. You don’t take your friend to be over-nicely bred?

WIT. No, no, hang him, the rogue has no manners at all, that I must

own:- no more breeding than a bum-bailiff, that I grant you:-

’tis pity, faith; the fellow has fire and life.

MIR. What, courage?

WIT. 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.

MIR. Though ’twere a man whom he feared, or a woman whom he loved.

WIT. 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.

MIR. Ay, marry, what’s that, Witwoud?

WIT. O pardon me!- expose the infirmities of my friend!- No, my

dear, excuse me there.

FAIN. What, I warrant he’s unsincere, or ’tis some such trifle.

WIT. 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.

MIR. Maybe you think him too positive?

WIT. No, no, his being positive is an incentive to argument, and

keeps up conversation.

FAIN. Too illiterate?

WIT. That! that’s his happiness:- his want of learning gives him

the more opportunities to show his natural parts.

MIR. He wants words?

WIT. Ay: but I like him for that now; for his want of words gives me

the pleasure very often to explain his meaning.

FAIN. He’s impudent?

WIT. No, that’s not it.

MIR. Vain?

WIT. No.

MIR. What! he speaks unseasonable truths sometimes, because be has

not wit enough to invent an evasion?

WIT. 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.

COACH. Is Master Petulant here, mistress?

BET. Yes.

COACH. Three gentlewomen in a coach would speak with him.

FAIN. O brave Petulant! three!

BET. I’ll tell him.

COACH. You must bring two dishes of chocolate and a glass of

cinnamon-water. [Exeunt BETTY and Coachman.

WIT. That should be for two fasting strumpets, and a bawd troubled

with the wind. Now you may know what the three are.

MIR. You are very free with your friend’s acquaintance.

WIT. Ay, ay, 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.

MIR. How!

WIT. 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.

FAIN. Call for himself! what dost thou mean?

WIT. 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.

MIR. 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.

BET. Sir, the coach stays.

PET. 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.

FAIN. You are very cruel, Petulant.

PET. All’s one, let it pass:- I have a humour to be cruel.

MIR. I hope they are not persons of condition that you use at this

rate.

PET. 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.

MIR. What d’ye-call-’ems! what are they, Witwoud?

WIT. Empresses, my dear:- by your what-d’ye-call-’ems he means

sultana queens.

PET. Ay, Roxolanas.

MIR. Cry you mercy!

FAIN. Witwoud says they are-

PET. What does he say th’are?

WIT. I? fine ladies, I say.

PET. Pass on, Witwoud.- Hark’ee, by this light his relations:-

two co-heiresses his cousins, and an old aunt, who loves

caterwauling better than a conventicle.

WIT. 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.

MIR. No!

WIT. No; the rogue’s wit and readiness of invention charm me. Dear

Petulant.

BET. They are gone, sir, in great anger.

PET. Enough, let ’em trundle. Anger helps complexion, saves paint.

FAIN. 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.

MIR. Have you not left off your impudent pretensions there yet? I

shall cut your throat some time or other, Petulant, about that

business.

PET. Ay, ay, let that pass- there are other throats to be cut.

MIR. Meaning mine, sir?

PET. 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.

MIR. How! hark’ee, Petulant, come hither:- explain, or I shall call

your interpreter.

PET. Explain! I know nothing.- Why, you have an uncle, have you not,

lately come to town, and lodges by my Lady Wishfort’s?

MIR. True.

PET. Why, that’s enough- you and he are not friends; and if he

should marry and have a child, you may be disinherited, ha?

MIR. Where hast thou stumbled upon all this truth?

PET. All’s one for that, why then say I know something.

MIR. Come, thou art an honest fellow, Petulant, and shalt make love

to my mistress, thou sha’t, faith. What hast thou heard of my

uncle?

PET. I? nothing I. If throats are to be cut, let swords clash!

snug’s the word, I shrug and am silent.

MIR. 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.

PET. If I do, will you grant me common sense then for the future?

MIR. Faith, I’ll do what I can for thee, and I’ll pray that Heaven

may grant it thee in the meantime.

PET. Well, hark’ee. [MIRABELL and PETULANT talk apart.

FAIN. Petulant and you both will find Mirabell as warm a rival as a

lover.

WIT. 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.

FAIN. How!

WIT. She’s handsome; but she’s a sort of an uncertain woman.

FAIN. I thought you had died for her.

WIT. Umh- no-

FAIN. She has wit.

WIT. ’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.

FAIN. Why do you think so?

WIT. 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.

FAIN. ’Tis impossible Millamant should hearken to it.

WIT. Faith, my dear, I can’t tell; she’s a woman, and a kind of

humourist.

MIR. And this is the sum of what you could collect last night?

PET. The quintessence. Maybe Witwoud knows more, he staid longer:-

besides, they never mind him; they say anything before him.

MIR. I thought you had been the greatest favourite.

PET. Ay, tete-a-tete, but not in public, because I make remarks.

MIR. You do?

PET. Ay, ay; 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.

MIR. I thank you, I know as much as my curiosity requires.

Fainall, are you for the Mall?

FAIN. Ay, I’ll take a turn before dinner.

WIT. Ay, we’ll walk in the Park; the ladies talked of being there.

MIR. I thought you were obliged to watch for your brother Sir

Wilfull’s arrival.

WIT. 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?

PET. Beg him for his estate, that I may beg you afterwards: and so

have but one trouble with you both.

WIT. 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.

PET. Enough, I’m in a humour to be severe.

MIR. 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.

PET. 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.

MIR. But hast not thou then sense enough to know that thou oughtest

to be most ashamed thyself, when thou hast put another out of

countenance?

PET. Not I, by this hand!- I always take blushing either for a sign

of guilt, or ill-breeding.

MIR. 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.