Comedy of Marriage and Other Tales. Guy de Maupassant
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and I think she has invited him to supper after the performance. Now, if the supper is very much to his taste, he will probably be in good humor when he comes home.
MME. DE SALLUS
Oh! How provoking you are. Can’t you understand that I am in the power of this man, that I belong to him even more than his valet or his dog, because he has those abominable legal rights over me? The Code, your barbarous Code, puts me entirely in his power without any possible defense on my part; save actually killing me, he can do everything. Can’t you understand that? Can’t you realize the horror of my situation? Imagine, save actual murder, he can do anything to me, and he has the strength – not only physical but legal – to obtain anything from me. And I, I have not a single avenue of escape from a man whom I despise and hate. And that is the law made by you men! He took me, married me, deserted me. On my part, I have an absolutely moral right to leave him. And yet, despite this righteous hatred, this overpowering disgust, this loathing which creeps through me in the presence of the man who has scorned me, deceived me, and who has fluttered, right under my eyes, from girl to girl – this man, I say, has the right to demand from me a shameful and infamous concession. I have no right to hide myself; I have no right even to a key to my own door. Everything belongs to him – the key, the door, and even the woman who hates him. It is monstrous! Can you imagine such a horrible situation? That a woman should not be mistress of herself, should not even have the sacred right of preserving her person from a loathsome stain? And all this is the consequence of the infamous law which you men have made!
JACQUES DE RANDOL [appealingly]
My darling! I fully understand what you must be suffering; but how can I help it? No magistrate can protect you; no statute can preserve you.
MME. DE SALLUS
I know it. But when you have neither mother nor father to protect you, when the law is against you, and when you shrink from complicity in those degrading transactions to which many women yield themselves, there is always one means of escape.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
And that?
MME. DE SALLUS
Flight.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
You mean to say —
MME. DE SALLUS
Flight.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
Alone?
MME. DE SALLUS
No – with you.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
With me! Are you dreaming?
MME. DE SALLUS
No; so much the better. The scandal of it will prevent him from taking me back. I have gained courage now. Since he forces me to dishonor, I shall see that that dishonor is complete and overwhelming – even though it be the worse for him and for me.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
Oh! Beware, beware, my darling! You are in one of those moments of exaltation and nervous excitement in which a woman sometimes commits a folly that is irreparable.
MME. DE SALLUS
Well, I would rather commit such a folly and ruin myself – if that be ruin – than expose myself to the infamous struggle with which each day I am threatened.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
Madeline, hear me. You are in a terrible situation, but for God’s sake do not throw yourself into one that is irretrievable. Be calm, I implore you.
MME. DE SALLUS
Well, what do you advise?
JACQUES DE RANDOL
I do not know; we shall see. But I do not, I cannot, advise you to venture on a scandal which will put you outside the pale of society.
MME. DE SALLUS
Well, yes, there is another law, an unwritten law which permits one to have lovers, even though it be shameful, because [sarcastically] it does not outrage society.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
That is not the question. The thing is to avoid taking up a wrong position in your quarrel with your husband. Have you decided to leave him?
MME. DE SALLUS
Yes.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
Finally and forever?
MME. DE SALLUS
Yes.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
Do you mean for all time?
MME. DE SALLUS
For all time.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
Well, now, be cautious; be careful and cunning; guard your reputation and your name. Make neither commotion nor scandal, and await your opportunity.
MME. DE SALLUS [ironically]
And must I continue to be very charming when he returns to me, and be ready for all his fancies?
JACQUES DE RANDOL
Oh, Madeline, I speak to you in the truest friendship.
MME. DE SALLUS [bitterly]
In the truest friendship!
JACQUES DE RANDOL
Yea, as a friend who loves you far too dearly to advise you to commit any folly.
MME. DE SALLUS
And loves me just enough to advise me to be complaisant to a man I despise.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
I! Never, never. My most ardent desire is to be with you forever. Get a divorce, and then if you still love me, let us wed.
MME. DE SALLUS
Oh, yes, yes – two years from now. Certainly, you are a patient lover!
JACQUES DE RANDOL
But supposing I were to carry you off, he would take you back to-morrow; would shut you up in his house, and would never get a divorce lest you should become my wife.
MME. DE SALLUS
Well, do you mean to say I could fly nowhere but to your house, that I could not hide myself in such fashion that he would never find me?
JACQUES DE RANDOL
Yes, you could hide yourself, but it would be necessary for you to live abroad under another name, or buried in the country, till death. That is the curse of our love. In three months you would hate me. I never will let you commit such a folly.
MME. DE SALLUS
I thought you loved me enough to fly with me, but it seems that I am mistaken. Adieu!
JACQUES DE RANDOL
Madeline, listen to me for God’s —
MME. DE SALLUS Jacques, take me, or leave me – answer!
JACQUES DE RANDOL
Madeline, I implore you!
MME. DE SALLUS
Never! Adieu! [Rises and goes to the door.]
JACQUES DE RANDOL
Once more I implore you, Madeline, listen to me.
MME. DE SALLUS
Oh, no, no; adieu! [De Randol takes her by the arms; she frees herself angrily.] Unhand me! Let me go, or I shall call for help!
JACQUES DE RANDOL
Call if you will, but listen to me. I would not that you should ever be able to reproach me for the madness that you meditate. God forbid that you should hate me, but, bound to me by this flight that you propose, you would carry with you forever a keen and unavailing regret that I allowed you to do it.
MME. DE SALLUS
Let me go! I despise you! Let me go!
JACQUES DE RANDOL
Well,