Оскар Уайльд (Oscar Wilde)The Model Millionaire
by Oscar Wilde
(Adapted book. Upper-Intermediate level)
Unless one is wealthy there is no use in being a charming person. The poor should be ordinary and practical. It is better to have a permanent income than to be interesting. These are the great truths of modern life which Hughie Erskine never realized. Poor Hughie! He was not, we must admit, a man of great intelligence. He never said a clever or even an unkind thing in his life. But then he was wonderfully good-looking, with his brown hair, his clear-cut features, and his grey eyes. He was as popular with men as he was with women, and he had every quality except that of making money. His father, on his death, had left him his sword and a History of the Peninsular War in 15 parts. Hughie hung the first above his mirror, put the second on a shelf, and lived on two hundred pounds a year that an old aunt allowed him. He had tried everything. He had bought and sold shares for six months; but how could he succeed among experienced men? He had been a tea trader for a little longer, but he had soon tired of that. Then he had tried selling wine, but nobody bought any. At last he became nothing, a charming, useless young man with perfect features and no profession.
To make matters worse, he was in love. The girl he loved was Laura Merton, the daughter of a former army officer who had lost his temper and his health in India, and had never found either of them again. Hughie loved her so much that he was ready to kiss her feet; and Laura loved him too. They were the best-looking pair in London, and had no money at all. Her father was very fond of Hughie, but would not hear of any marriage plans.
‘Come to me, my boy, when you have got ten thousand pounds of your own, and we will see about it,’ he used to say.
One morning, Hughie called in to see a great friend of his, Alan Trevor. Trevor was a painter. Of course, few people are not these days. But he was also an artist, and artists are rather rare. He was a strange, rough man, with a spotty face and an overgrown red beard. But when he took up the brush he was a real master, and his pictures were very popular. He had been much attracted by Hughie at first, it must be admitted, just because of his personal charm. ‘The only people a painter should know,’ he used to say, ‘are people who are both beautiful and stupid, people who are a pleasure to look at and restful to talk to.’ But after he got to know Hughie better, he liked him quite as much for his bright, cheerful spirits, and his generous, carefree nature, and had asked him to visit whenever he liked.