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_ ACT II - FIRST SCENE. THE AUBERGE DES ADRETS
(The Auberge des Adrets: a cafe in sixteenth century style, with a suggestion of stage effect. Tables and easy-chairs are scattered in corners and nooks. The walls are decorated with armour and weapons. Along the ledge of the wainscoting stand glasses and jugs.)
(MAURICE and HENRIETTE are in evening dress and sit facing each other at a table on which stands a bottle of champagne and three filled glasses. The third glass is placed at that side of the table which is nearest the background, and there an easy-chair is kept ready for the still missing "third man.")
MAURICE.
[Puts his watch in front of himself on the table]
If he doesn't get here within the next five minutes, he isn't coming at all. And suppose in the meantime we drink with his ghost.
[Touches the third glass with the rim of his own.]
HENRIETTE.
[Doing the same]
Here's to you, Adolphe!
MAURICE.
He won't come.
HENRIETTE.
He will come.
MAURICE.
He won't.
HENRIETTE.
He will.
MAURICE.
What an evening! What a wonderful day! I can hardly grasp that a new life has begun. Think only: the manager believes that I may count on no less than one hundred thousand francs. I'll spend twenty thousand on a villa outside the city. That leaves me eighty thousand. I won't be able to take it all in until to-morrow, for I am tired, tired, tired.
[Sinks back into the chair]
Have you ever felt really happy?
HENRIETTE.
Never. How does it feel?
MAURICE.
I don't quite know how to put it. I cannot express it, but I seem chiefly to be thinking of the chagrin of my enemies. It isn't nice, but that's the way it is.
HENRIETTE.
Is it happiness to be thinking of one's enemies?
MAURICE.
Why, the victor has to count his killed and wounded enemies in order to gauge the extent of his victory.
HENRIETTE.
Are you as bloodthirsty as all that?
MAURICE.
Perhaps not. But when you have felt the pressure of other people's heels on your chest for years, it must be pleasant to shake off the enemy and draw a full breath at last.
HENRIETTE.
Don't you find it strange that yon are sitting here, alone with me, an insignificant girl practically unknown to you-- and on an evening like this, when you ought to have a craving to show yourself like a triumphant hero to all the people, on the boulevards, in the big restaurants?
MAURICE.
Of course, it's rather funny, but it feels good to be here, and your company is all I care for.
HENRIETTE.
You don't look very hilarious.
MAURICE.
No, I feel rather sad, and I should like to weep a little.
HENRIETTE.
What is the meaning of that?
MAURICE.
It is fortune conscious of its own nothingness and waiting for misfortune to appear.
HENRIETTE.
Oh my, how sad! What is it you are missing anyhow?
MAURICE.
I miss the only thing that gives value to life.
HENRIETTE.
So you love her no longer then?
MAURICE.
Not in the way I understand love. Do you think she has read my play, or that she wants to see it? Oh, she is so good, so self-sacrificing and considerate, but to go out with me for a night's fun she would regard as sinful. Once I treated her to champagne, you know, and instead of feeling happy over it, she picked up the wine list to see what it cost. And when she read the price, she wept--wept because Marion was in need of new stockings. It is beautiful, of course: it is touching, if you please. But I can get no pleasure out of it. And I do want a little pleasure before life runs out. So far I have had nothing but privation, but now, now--life is beginning for me. [The clock strikes twelve] Now begins a new day, a new era!
HENRIETTE.
Adolphe is not coming.
MAURICE.
No, now he won't, come. And now it is too late to go back to the Cremerie.
HENRIETTE.
But they are waiting for you.
MAURICE.
Let them wait. They have made me promise to come, and I take back my promise. Are you longing to go there?
HENRIETTE.
On the contrary!
MAURICE.
Will you keep me company then?
HENRIETTE.
With pleasure, if you care to have me.
MAURICE.
Otherwise I shouldn't be asking you. It is strange, you know, that the victor's wreath seems worthless if you can't place it at the feet of some woman--that everything seems worthless when you have not a woman.
HENRIETTE.
You don't need to be without a woman--you?
MAURICE.
Well, that's the question.
HENRIETTE.
Don't you know that a man is irresistible in his hour of success and fame?
MAURICE. No, I don't know, for I have had no experience of it.
HENRIETTE. You are a queer sort! At this moment, when you are the most envied man in Paris, you sit here and brood. Perhaps your conscience is troubling you because you have neglected that invitation to drink chicory coffee with the old lady over at the milk shop?
MAURICE.
Yes, my conscience is troubling me on that score, and even here I am aware of their resentment, their hurt feelings, their well-grounded anger. My comrades in distress had the right to demand my presence this evening. The good Madame Catherine had a privileged claim on my success, from which a glimmer of hope was to spread over the poor fellows who have not yet succeeded. And I have robbed them of their faith in me. I can hear the vows they have been making: "Maurice will come, for he is a good fellow; he doesn't despise us, and he never fails to keep his word." Now I have made them forswear themselves.
(While he is still speaking, somebody in the next room has begun to play the finale of Beethoven's Sonata in D-minor (Op. 31, No. 3). The allegretto is first played piano, then more forte, and at last passionately, violently, with complete abandon.)
MAURICE.
Who can be playing at this time of the night?
HENRIETTE.
Probably some nightbirds of the same kind as we. But listen! Your presentation of the case is not correct. Remember that Adolphe promised to meet us here. We waited for him, and he failed to keep his promise. So that you are not to blame--
MAURICE.
You think so? While you are speaking, I believe you, but when you stop, my conscience begins again. What have you in that package?
HENRIETTE.
Oh, it is only a laurel wreath that I meant to send up to the stage, but I had no chance to do so. Let me give it to you now--it is said to have a cooling effect on burning foreheads.
[She rises and crowns him with the wreath; then she kisses him on the forehead]
Hail to the victor!
MAURICE.
Don't!
HENRIETTE.
[Kneeling]
Hail to the King!
MAURICE.
[Rising]
No, now you scare me.
HENRIETTE.
You timid man! You of little faith who are afraid of fortune even! Who robbed you of your self-assurance and turned you into a dwarf?
MAURICE.
A dwarf? Yes, you are right. I am not working up in the clouds, like a giant, with crashing and roaring, but I forge my weapons deep down in the silent heart of the mountain. You think that my modesty shrinks before the victor's wreath. On the contrary, I despise it: it is not enough for me. You think I am afraid of that ghost with its jealous green eyes which sits over there and keeps watch on my feelings--the strength of which you don't suspect. Away, ghost!
[He brushes the third, untouched glass off the table]
Away with you, you superfluous third person--you absent one who has lost your rights, if you ever had any. You stayed away from the field of battle because you knew yourself already beaten. As I crush this glass under my foot, so I will crush the image of yourself which you have reared in a temple no longer yours.
HENRIETTE.
Good! That's the way! Well spoken, my hero!
MAURICE.
Now I have sacrificed my best friend, my most faithful helper, on your altar, Astarte! Are you satisfied?
HENRIETTE.
Astarte is a pretty name, and I'll keep it--I think you love me, Maurice.
MAURICE.
Of course I do--Woman of evil omen, you who stir up man's courage with your scent of blood, whence do you come and where do you lead me? I loved you before I saw you, for I trembled when I heard them speak of you. And when I saw you in the doorway, your soul poured itself into mine. And when you left, I could still feel your presence in my arms. I wanted to flee from you, but something held me back, and this evening we have been driven together as the prey is driven into the hunter's net. Whose is the fault? Your friend's, who pandered for us!
HENRIETTE.
Fault or no fault: what does it matter, and what does it mean?--Adolphe has been at fault in not bringing us together before. He is guilty of having stolen from us two weeks of bliss, to which he had no right himself. I am jealous of him on your behalf. I hate him because he has cheated you out of your mistress. I should like to blot him from the host of the living, and his memory with him--wipe him out of the past even, make him unmade, unborn!
MAURICE.
Well, we'll bury him beneath our own memories. We'll cover him with leaves and branches far out in the wild woods, and then we'll pile stone on top of the mound so that he will never look up again.
[Raising his glass]
Our fate is sealed. Woe unto us! What will come next?
HENRIETTE.
Next comes the new era--What have you in that package?
MAURICE.
I cannot remember.
HENRIETTE.
[Opens the package and takes out a tie and a pair of gloves]
That tie is a fright! It must have cost at least fifty centimes.
MAURICE.
[Snatching the things away from her]
Don't you touch them!
HENRIETTE.
They are from her?
MAURICE.
Yes, they are.
HENRIETTE.
Give them to me.
MAURICE. No, she's better than we, better than everybody else.
HENRIETTE.
I don't believe it. She is simply stupider and stingier. One who weeps because you order champagne--
MAURICE.
When the child was without stockings. Yes, she is a good woman.
HENRIETTE.
Philistine! You'll never be an artist. But I am an artist, and I'll make a bust of you with a shopkeeper's cap instead of the laurel wreath--Her name is Jeanne?
MAURICE. How do you know?
HENRIETTE. Why, that's the name of all housekeepers.
MAURICE. Henriette!
(HENRIETTE takes the tie and the gloves and throws them into the fireplace.)
MAURICE.
[Weakly]
Astarte, now you demand the sacrifice of women. You shall have them, but if you ask for innocent children, too, then I'll send you packing.
HENRIETTE.
Can you tell me what it is that binds you to me?
MAURICE.
If I only knew, I should be able to tear myself away. But I believe it must be those qualities which you have and I lack. I believe that the evil within you draws me with the irresistible lure of novelty.
HENRIETTE.
Have you ever committed a crime?
MAURICE.
No real one. Have you?
HENRIETTE.
Yes.
MAURICE.
Well, how did you find it?
HENRIETTE.
It was greater than to perform a good deed, for by that we are placed on equality with others; it was greater than to perform some act of heroism, for by that we are raised above others and rewarded. That crime placed me outside and beyond life, society, and my fellow-beings. Since then I am living only a partial life, a sort of dream life, and that's why reality never gets a hold on me.
MAURICE.
What was it you did?
HENRIETTE.
I won't tell, for then you would get scared again.
MAURICE.
Can you never be found out?
HENRIETTE.
Never. But that does not prevent me from seeing, frequently, the five stones at the Place de Roquette, where the scaffold used to stand; and for this reason I never dare to open a pack of cards, as I always turn up the five-spot of diamonds.
MAURICE.
Was it that kind of a crime?
HENRIETTE.
Yes, it was that kind.
MAURICE.
Of course, it's horrible, but it is interesting. Have you no conscience?
HENRIETTE.
None, but I should be grateful if you would talk of something else.
MAURICE.
Suppose we talk of--love?
HENRIETTE.
Of that you don't talk until it is over.
MAURICE.
Have you been in love with Adolphe?
HENRIETTE.
I don't know. The goodness of his nature drew me like some beautiful, all but vanished memory of childhood. Yet there was much about his person that offended my eye, so that I had to spend a long time retouching, altering, adding, subtracting, before I could make a presentable figure of him. When he talked, I could notice that he had learned from you, and the lesson was often badly digested and awkwardly applied. You can imagine then how miserable the copy must appear now, when I am permitted to study the original. That's why he was afraid of having us two meet; and when it did happen, he understood at once that his time was up.
MAURICE.
Poor Adolphe!
HENRIETTE.
I feel sorry for him, too, as I know he must be suffering beyond all bounds--
MAURICE.
Sh! Somebody is coming.
HENRIETTE.
I wonder if it could be he?
MAURICE.
That would be unbearable.
HENRIETTE.
No, it isn't he, but if it had been, how do you think the situation would have shaped itself?
MAURICE.
At first he would have been a little sore at you because he had made a mistake in regard to the meeting-place--and tried to find us in several other cafes--but his soreness would have changed into pleasure at finding us--and seeing that we had not deceived him. And in the joy at having wronged us by his suspicions, he would love both of us. And so it would make him happy to notice that we had become such good friends. It had always been his dream--hm! he is making the speech now--his dream that the three of us should form a triumvirate that could set the world a great example of friendship asking for nothing--"Yes, I trust you, Maurice, partly because you are my friend, and partly because your feelings are tied up elsewhere."
HENRIETTE.
Bravo! You must have been in a similar situation before, or you couldn't give such a lifelike picture of it. Do you know that Adolphe is just that kind of a third person who cannot enjoy his mistress without having his friend along?
MAURICE.
That's why I had to be called in to entertain you--Hush! There is somebody outside--It must be he.
HENRIETTE.
No, don't you know these are the hours when ghosts walk, and then you can see so many things, and hear them also. To keep awake at night, when you ought to be sleeping, has for me the same charm as a crime: it is to place oneself above and beyond the laws of nature.
MAURICE.
But the punishment is fearful--I am shivering or quivering, with cold or with fear.
HENRIETTE.
[Wraps her opera cloak about him]
Put this on. It will make you warm.
MAURICE.
That's nice. It is as if I were inside of your skin, as if my body had been melted up by lack of sleep and were being remoulded in your shape. I can feel the moulding process going on. But I am also growing a new soul, new thoughts, and here, where your bosom has left an impression, I can feel my own beginning to bulge.
(During this entire scene, the pianist in the next room has been practicing the Sonata in D-minor, sometimes pianissimo, sometimes wildly fortissimo; now and then he has kept silent for a little while, and at other times nothing has been heard but a part of the finale: bars 96 to 107.)
MAURICE.
What a monster, to sit there all night practicing on the piano. It gives me a sick feeling. Do you know what I propose? Let us drive out to the Bois de Boulogne and take breakfast in the Pavilion, and see the sun rise over the lakes.
HENRIETTE.
Bully!
MAURICE.
But first of all I must arrange to have my mail and the morning papers sent out by messenger to the Pavilion. Tell me, Henriette: shall we invite Adolphe?
HENRIETTE.
Oh, that's going too far! But why not? The ass can also be harnessed to the triumphal chariot. Let him come.
[They get up.]
MAURICE.
[Taking off the cloak]
Then I'll ring.
HENRIETTE.
Wait a moment!
[Throws herself into his arms.]
(Curtain.) _
Read next: Act 2 - Scene 2. The Bois De Boulogne
Read previous: Act 1 - Scene 2. The Cremerie
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