Comedy of Marriage and Other Tales. Guy de Maupassant
Читать онлайн книгу.
circumstances.
M. DE SALLUS
Will you pardon me if I write a note? [Sits at desk at the other end of the drawing-room.]
MME. DE SALLUS [to Jacques de Randol]
What has happened?
JACQUES DE RANDOL
Oh, nothing; everything is all right.
MME, DE SALLUS
When do we go?
JACQUES DE RANDOL
Not at all.
MME. DE SALLUS
Are you mad? Why?
JACQUES DE RANDOL
Please don’t ask me now about it.
MME. DE SALLUS
I am sure that he is laying a trap for us.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
Not at all. He is very quiet, very contented, and has absolutely no suspicion.
MME. DE SALLUS
Then what does it all mean?
JACQUES DE RANDOL
Now, be calm. He is happy, I tell you.
MME. DE SALLUS
That is not true.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
I tell you it is. He has made me the confidant of all his happiness.
MME. DE SALLUS
It is just a trick; he wishes to watch us.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
Oh, no; he is confiding and conciliatory. The only fear he has is of you.
MME. DE SALLUS
Of me?
JACQUES DE RANDOL
Yes; in the same way that you are, all the time, afraid of him.
MME. DE SALLUS
Great heavens! You have lost your head. You are talking at random.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
Listen – I am sure that he intends to go out this evening.
MME. DE SALLUS
Well, in that case, let us go out too.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
No, no, – I tell you there is nothing more for us to fear.
MME. DE SALLUS
What nonsense! You will end by maddening me with your blindness.
M. DE SALLUS [from the other end of the drawing-room]
My dear, I have some good news for you. I have been able to get another night at the Opera for you every week.
MME. DE SALLUS
Really, it is very good of you to afford me the opportunity of applauding Madame Santelli so often.
M. DE SALLUS [from the same place]
Well, she is very clever.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
And everybody says she is charming.
MME. DE SALLUS [irritably]
Yes; it is only such women who please men.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
You are unjust.
MME. DE SALLUS
Oh, my dear Randol; it is only for such women that men commit follies, and [sarcastically], understand me, the measure of a man’s folly is often the measure of his love.
M. DE SALLUS [from the same place]
Oh, no, my dear girl, – men do not marry them, and marriage is the only real folly that a man can commit with a woman.
MME. DE SALLUS
A beautiful idea, truly, when a woman has to endure all man’s caprices.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
Oh, no, not having anything to lose, they have nothing to risk.
MME. DE SALLUS
Ah, men are sad creatures! They marry a young girl because she is demure and self-contained, and they leave her on the morrow to dangle after a girl who is not young and who certainly is not demure, her chief attraction being that all the rich and well-known men about town have at one time been in her favor. The more danglers she has after her, the more she is esteemed, the more she is sought after, and the more she is respected; that is to say, with that kind of Parisian respect which accrues to a woman in the degree of her notoriety – a notoriety due either to the scandal she creates, or the scandal men create about her. Ah, yes, you men are so nice in these things!
M. DE SALLUS [laughs gently]
Take care! One would think you were jealous.
MME. DE SALLUS
I? Jealous? For whom do you take me? [The butler announces.] Madame is served. [Hands a letter to M. de Sallus.]
MME. DE SALLUS [to Jacques de Randol]
Your arm, M. Jacques de Randol.
JACQUES DE RANDOL [in a low tone]
How I love you!
MME. DE SALLUS [indifferently]
Just a little, I suppose.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
Ah, no; with all my soul!
M. DE SALLUS [after reading his letter]
Come along, then, let us go to dinner. I have to go out this evening.
MUSOTTE
JEAN MARTINEL
Nephew of M. Martinel, a painter; not yet thirty years of age, but already well known and the recipient of various honors.
LEON DE PETITPRÉ
Brother to Gilberts Martinel, a young lawyer about thirty years of age.
M. MARTINEL
An old gunmaker of Havre, aged fifty-five.
M. DE PETITPRÉ
An old magistrate, officer of the Legion of Honor. Aged sixty.
DR. PELLERIN
A fashionable physician of about thirty-five.
MME. DE RONCHARD
Sister to M. de Petitpré, about fifty-five years of age.
HENRIETTE LÉVÊQUE
Nicknamed Musotte; a little model, formerly Jean Martinel’s mistress. Twenty-two years of age.
MME. FLACHE
A midwife. Formerly a ballet-dancer at the Opera. About thirty-five years of age.
GILBERTE MARTINEL
Daughter of M. and Mme. de Petitpré, married in the morning to Jean Martinel. About twenty years old.
LISE BABIN
A nurse, about twenty-six.
SERVANTS
Time: Paris of to-day. The first and third acts take place in M. de Petitpré’s drawing-room.
The second act takes place in Musotte’s bedchamber.
ACT I
SCENE I
(A richly yet classically furnished drawing-room in M. de Petitpré’s house. A table, C.; sofas, R.; chairs and armchairs, L. Wide doors, C., opening upon a terrace or gallery. Doors R. and L. of C. Lighted lamps.)
Enter from R. M. de Petitpré,