The Essential Guy de Maupassant Collection. Guy de Maupassant
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this piece of news as a bomb which destroys the power of reflection, if we could have taken time to reason the thing out, to make plans, we could have hidden everything from you, and the devil would have been in it before you would have known anything! Our fault has been that of being too sincere and too loyal. Yet, I do not regret it; it is always better to act openly in life.
MME. DE RONCHARD
Permit me, Monsieur--
PETITPR?
Silence, Clarisse. [_To_ Martinel.] Be it so, Monsieur. There is no question of your honor or of your loyalty, which have been absolutely patent in this unfortunate affair. I willingly admit that your nephew knew nothing of the situation, but how about the child? What is there to prove that it is Jean's?
MARTINEL
Jean alone can prove or disprove that. He believes it, and you know that it is not to his interest to believe it. There is nothing very joyful about such a complication--a poor, little foundling thrusting himself upon one like a thunderbolt, without warning, and upon the very evening of one's marriage. But Jean believes that the child is his, and I--and all of us--must we not accept it as he has accepted it, as the child's father has accepted it? Come, now. [_A short silence._] You ask me to prove to you that this child belongs to Jean?
MME. DE RONCHARD AND PETITPR? [_together_]
Yes!
MARTINEL
Then first prove to me that it is not Jean's child.
MME. DE RONCHARD
You ask an impossibility.
MARTINEL
And so do you. The principal judge in the matter, look you, is my nephew himself. We others can do nothing but accept his decision.
MME. DE RONCHARD
But meanwhile--
PETITPR?
Silence, Clarisse. Monsieur Martinel is right.
MME. DE RONCHARD [_ironically_]
Say that again.
MARTINEL
There can be no better reason, Madame. [_To_ Petitpr?.] I was quite sure that you would understand me, Monsieur, for you are a man of sense.
MME. DE RONCHARD
And what am I, then?
MARTINEL
You are a woman of the world, Madame.
MME. DE RONCHARD
And it is exactly as a woman of the world that I protest, Monsieur. You have a very pretty way of putting things, but none the less this is a fact: Jean Martinel brings to his bride, as a nuptial present, on the day of his marriage, an illegitimate child. Well, I ask you, woman of the world or not, can she accept such a thing?
PETITPR?
My sister is in the right this time, Monsieur Martinel.
MME. DE RONCHARD
And by no means too soon.
PETITPR?
It is evident that a situation exists patent and undeniable, which places us in an awkward dilemma. We have wedded our daughter to a man supposedly free from all ties and all complications in life, and then comes--what you know has come. The consequences should be endured by him, not by us. We have been wounded and deceived in our confidence, and the consent that we have given to this marriage we should certainly have refused, had we known the actual circumstances.
MME. DE RONCHARD
We should have refused? I should say so--not only once, but twice. Besides, this child, if Jean brings it into the house, will certainly be a cause of trouble among us all. Consider, Gilberte will probably become a mother in her turn, and then what jealousies, what rivalries, what hatred, perhaps, will arise between this intruder and her own children. This child will be a veritable apple of discord.
MARTINEL
Oh, no, no! he will not be a burden to anyone. Thanks to Jean's liberality, this child's mother will have left him enough to live comfortably, and, later, when he has become a man, he will travel, no doubt. He will do as I have done; as nine-tenths of the human race do.
PETITPR?
Well, until then, who will take care of it?
MARTINEL
I, if it is agreeable. I am a free man, retired from business; and it will give me something to do, something to distract me. I am ready to take him with me at once, the poor little thing--[_looks at_ Mme. de Ronchard] unless Madame, who is so fond of saving lost dogs--
MME. DE RONCHARD
That child! I! Oh, that would be a piece of foolishness.
MARTINEL
Yet, Madame, if you care to have him, I will yield my right most willingly.
MME. DE RONCHARD
But Monsieur, I never said--
MARTINEL
Not as yet, true, but perhaps you will say it before very long, for I am beginning to understand you. You are an assumed man-hater and nothing else. You have been unhappy in your married life and that has embittered you--just as milk may turn upon its surface, but at the bottom of the churn there is butter of fine quality.
MME. DE RONCHARD [_frowns_]
What a comparison!--milk--butter--pshaw! how vulgar!
PETITPR?
But Clarisse--
MARTINEL
Here is your daughter.
SCENE V.
(_The same, and_ Gilberte _and_ Leon _who enter_ L.)
PETITPR? [_approaches Gilberte_]
Before seeing your husband again, if you decide to see him, it is necessary that we should decide exactly what you are going to say to him.
GILBERTE [_greatly moved, sits_ L. _of table_]
I knew it was some great misfortune.
MARTINEL [_sits beside her_]
Yes, my child; but there are two kinds of misfortune--those that come from the faults of men, and those that spring purely from the hazards of fate; that is to say, destiny. In the first case, the man is guilty; in the second case, he is a victim. Do you understand me?
GILBERTE
Yes, Monsieur.
MARTINEL
A misfortune of which some one person is the victim can also wound another person very cruelly. But will not the heart of this second wounded and altogether innocent, person bestow a pardon upon the involuntary author of her disaster?
GILBERTE [_in a sad voice_]
That depends upon the suffering which she undergoes.
MARTINEL Meanwhile, you knew that before Jean loved you, before he conceived the idea of marrying you, he had--an intrigue. You accepted the fact as one which had nothing exceptional about it.
GILBERTE
I did accept it.
MARTINEL
And now your brother may tell you the rest.
GILBERTE
Yes, Monsieur.
MARTINEL
What shall I say to Jean?