Fifty Contemporary One-Act Plays. Various
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morning. I thought I should prefer not to trouble you.
Marcel [uncertain]. Ah!
Madeleine. Yes.
Marcel. Well?
Madeleine. Well, no!
Marcel. I'm sorry. [Kissing her hand.] Glad to see you, at any rate.
Madeleine. Same studio as always, eh?
Marcel. You are still as charming as ever.
Madeleine. You are as handsome as ever.
Marcel. I can say no less for you.
Madeleine. I'm only twenty-eight.
Marcel. But your husband is fifty: that keeps you young. How long have you been back?
Madeleine. A week.
Marcel. And I haven't seen Guérin yet!
Madeleine. There's no hurry.
Marcel. What's the matter?
Madeleine. He's a bit worried: you know how jealous he is! Well, yesterday, when I was out, he went through all my private papers—
Marcel. Naturally he came across some letters.
Madeleine. The letters, my dear!
Marcel. Mine?
Madeleine. Yes. [Gesture from Marcel.] Old letters.
Marcel. You kept them?
Madeleine. From a celebrity? Of course!
Marcel. The devil!
Madeleine. Ungrateful!
Marcel. I beg your pardon.
Madeleine. You can imagine my explanation following the discovery. My dear Marcel, there's going to be a divorce.
Marcel. A—! A divorce?
Madeleine. Don't feel too sorry for me. After all, I shall be free and almost happy.
Marcel. What resignation!
Madeleine. Only—
Marcel. Only what?
Madeleine. He is going to send you his seconds.
Marcel [gayly]. A duel? To-day? You're not serious?
Madeleine. I think he wants to kill you.
Marcel. But that affair was three years ago! Why, to begin with, he hasn't the right!
Madeleine. Because it was so long ago?
Marcel. Three years is three years.
Madeleine. You're right: now you are not in love with his wife: you love your own. Time has changed everything. Now your own happiness is all-sufficient. I can easily understand your indignation against my husband.
Marcel. Oh, I—
Madeleine. My husband is slow, but he's sure, isn't he?
Marcel. You're cruel, Madeleine.
Madeleine. If it's ancient history for you, it's only too recent for him!
Marcel. Let's not speak about him!
Madeleine. But he ought to be a very interesting topic of conversation just now!
Marcel. I hadn't foreseen his feeling so keenly.
Madeleine. You must tell him how sorry you are when you see him.
Marcel. At the duel?
Madeleine. Elsewhere!
Marcel. Where? Here, in my house?
Madeleine. My dear, he may want to tell you how he feels.
[A pause.]
Marcel [aside, troubled]. The devil! And Françoise? [Another pause.] Oh, a duel! Well, I ought to risk my life for you; you have done the same thing for me many times.
Madeleine. Oh, I was not so careful as you were then.
Marcel. You are not telling me everything, Madeleine. What put it into your husband's head to look through your papers?
Madeleine. Ah!
Marcel. Well, evidently I couldn't have excited his jealousy. For a long time he has had no reason to suspect me! Were they my letters he was looking for?
Madeleine. That is my affair!
Marcel. Then I am expiating for some one else?
Madeleine. I'm afraid so.
Marcel. Perfect!
Madeleine. Forgive me!
Marcel [reproachfully]. So you are deceiving him?
Madeleine. You are a perfect friend to-day!
Marcel. Then you really have a lover?
Madeleine. A second lover! That would be disgraceful, wouldn't it?
Marcel. The first step always brings the worst consequences.
Madeleine. What are you smiling at?
Marcel. Oh, the happiness of others! Well, let's have no bitterness.
Madeleine. No, you might feel remorse!
Marcel. Oh, Madeleine, why am I not the guilty one this time? You are always so beautiful!
Madeleine. Your fault! You should have kept what you had!
Marcel. I thought you were tired of me.
Madeleine. You will never know what I suffered; I cried like an abandoned shopgirl!
Marcel. Not for long, though?
Madeleine. Three months. When I think I once loved you so much, and here I am before you so calm and indifferent! You look like anybody else now. How funny, how disgusting life is! You meet some one, do no end of foolish and wicked and mean things in order to belong to him, and the day comes when you don't know one another. Each takes his turn! I think it would have been better—[Gesture from Marcel.] Yes—I ought to try to forget everything.
Marcel. That's all buried in the past! Wasn't it worth the trouble, and the suffering we have to undergo now?
Madeleine. You, too! You have to recall—!
Marcel. I'm sorry, but I didn't begin this conversation.
Madeleine. Never mind! It's all over, let's say no more about it!
Marcel. No, please! Let's—curse me, Madeleine say anything you like about me: I deserve it all!
Madeleine. Stop! Behave yourself, married man! What if your wife heard you!
Marcel. She? Dear child! She is much too afraid of what I might say to listen.
Madeleine. Dear child! You cynic! I'll wager you have not been a model husband since your marriage!
Marcel. You are mistaken this time, my dear.
Madeleine. You are lying!
Marcel. Seriously; and I'm more surprised than you at the fact—but it's true.
Madeleine. Poor Marcel!
Marcel. I do suffer!
Madeleine. Then you are a faithful husband?
Marcel. I am frivolous and—compromising—that is all.
Madeleine. It's rather funny: you seem somehow to be ready to belong to some one!
Marcel. Madeleine, you are the first who has come near tempting me.
Madeleine. Is it possible?
Marcel.