Fifty Contemporary One-Act Plays. Various
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have tried to keep you away from her.
[She breaks into tears.]
Marcel. She's crying! Good, there's liberty for you!
Françoise [bitterly]. Liberty? I did not suffer when I promised you your liberty.
Marcel. That was your "resignation."
Françoise. You knew life, I did not. You ought never to have accepted it!
Marcel. You're like all the rest!
Françoise [more excited]. Doesn't unhappiness level us all?
Marcel. I see it does!
Françoise. What can you ask for, then? So long as you have no great happiness like mine you are ready enough to make any sacrifice, but when once you have it, you never resign yourself to losing it.
Marcel. That's just the difficulty.
Françoise. Be a little patient, dear: I have not yet reached that state of cynicism and subtlety which you seem to want in your wife—I thought I came near to your ideal once! Perhaps there's some hope for me yet: I have promised myself to do my best to satisfy your ideal.
Marcel [moved]. I don't ask that.
Françoise. You are right, I am very foolish to try to struggle. What is the good? It will suffice when I have lost the dearest creature on earth—through my foolishness, my blunders!
Marcel. The dearest creature?
Françoise. I can't help it if he seems so to me!
Marcel [disarmed]. You—you're trying to appeal to my vanity!
Françoise. I am hardly in the mood for joking.
Marcel [tenderly, as he kneels at her feet]. But you make me say things like that—I don't know what! I am not bad—really bad! No, I have not deceived you! I love you, and only you! You! You know that, Françoise! Ask—ask any woman! All women!
[A pause.]
Françoise [smiling through her tears]. Best of husbands! You're not going out then? You'll stay?
Marcel [in Françoise's arms]. Can I go now, now that I'm here? You are so pretty that I—
Françoise. Not when I'm in trouble.
Marcel. Don't cry!
Françoise. I forgive you!
Marcel. Wait, I haven't confessed everything.
Françoise. Not another word!
Marcel. I want to be sincere.
Françoise. I prefer you to lie to me!
Marcel. First, read this note—the one I received this morning.
Françoise [surprised]. From Madame Guérin?
Marcel. You saw her not long ago. Yes, she calmly told me—
Françoise. That her husband had found some letters!
Marcel. And that she was about to leave for England with her lover.
Françoise. Then she is quite consoled?
Marcel. Perfectly.
Françoise. Poor Marcel! And you went to see her and try to prevent her going away with him?
Marcel. My foolishness was well punished. She wouldn't receive me.
Françoise. Then I am the only one left who loves you? How happy I am!
Marcel. I'll kill that love some day with my ridiculous philandering!
Françoise [gravely]. I defy you!
Marcel [playfully]. Then I no longer have the right to provoke Monsieur Guérin? Now?
Françoise [gayly]. You are growing old, Lovelace, his wife has deceived you!
Marcel [lovingly]. Françoise' luck! [Sadly.] Married!
[Curtain.]
ALTRUISM
A Satire
By Karl Ettlinger
Translated by Benjamin F. Glazer.
Copyright, 1920, by Benjamin F. Glazer.
All rights reserved.
The first performance of Altruism was given by The Stage Society of Philadelphia at the Little Theatre, Philadelphia, on January 28, 1916, with the following cast:
| A Beggar | Henry C. Sheppard |
| A Waiter | E. Ryland Carter |
| A Young Man | William H. McClure |
| A Cocotte | Sylvia Loeb. |
| A Parisian | Edward B. Latimer |
| His Wife | Florence Bernstein |
| Their Child | Jean Massey |
| An Artist | Theron J. Bamberger |
| An American | William J. Holt |
| A Gentleman | Caspar W. Briggs |
| Another Gentleman | Norris W. Corey |
| A Pickpocket | Walter E. Endy |
| A Gendarme | William H. Russell |
| Another Gendarme | Frederick Cowperthwaite |
| A Workingman | Walter D. Dalsimer |
| A Flower Girl | Katherine Kennedy |
| A Passing Lady | C. Warren Briggs |
| A Bystander | Charles E. Sommer |
| An Old Lady | Paulyne Brinkman |
| A Grisette | Florence M. Lyman |
[Time: The present. PLACE: A Parisian Café by the Seine.]
Produced