MAURICE. Kill! What kind of word is that?
HENRIETTE. [Changing tone] Your child will kill our love.
MAURICE. No, girl, our love will kill whatever stands in its way, but it will not be killed.
HENRIETTE. [Opens a deck of cards lying on the mantlepiece] Look at it!
Five-spot of diamonds--the scaffold! Can it be possible that our fates are determined in advance? That our thoughts are guided as if through pipes to the spot for which they are bound, without chance for us to stop them? But I don"t want it, I don"t want it!--Do you realise that I must go to the scaffold if my crime should be discovered?
MAURICE. Tell me about your crime. Now is the time for it.
HENRIETTE. No, I should regret it afterward, and you would despise me--no, no, no!--Have you ever heard that a person could be hated to death? Well, my father incurred the hatred of my mother and my sisters, and he melted away like wax before a fire. Ugh! Let us talk of something else. And, above all, let us get away. The air is poisoned here.
To-morrow your laurels will be withered, the triumph will be forgotten, and in a week another triumphant hero will hold the public attention.
Away from here, to work for new victories! But first of all, Maurice, you must embrace your child and provide for its immediate future. You don"t have to see the mother at all.
MAURICE. Thank you! Your good heart does you honour, and I love you doubly when you show the kindness you generally hide.
HENRIETTE. And then you go to the Cremerie and say good-by to the old lady and your friends. Leave no unsettled business behind to make your mind heavy on our trip.
MAURICE. I"ll clear up everything, and to-night we meet at the railroad station.
HENRIETTE. Agreed! And then: away from here--away toward the sea and the sun!
(Curtain.)
ACT III
FIRST SCENE
(In the Cremerie. The gas is lit. MME. CATHERINE is seated at the counter, ADOLPHE at a table.)
MME. CATHERINE. Such is life, Monseiur Adolphe. But you young ones are always demanding too much, and then you come here and blubber over it afterward.
ADOLPHE. No, it isn"t that. I reproach n.o.body, and I am as fond as ever of both of them. But there is one thing that makes me sick at heart.
You see, I thought more of Maurice than of anybody else; so much that I wouldn"t have grudged him anything that could give him pleasure--but now I have lost him, and it hurts me worse than the loss of her. I have lost both of them, and so my loneliness is made doubly painful. And then there is still something else which I have not yet been able to clear up.
MME. CATHERINE. Don"t brood so much. Work and divert yourself. Now, for instance, do you ever go to church?
ADOLPHE. What should I do there?
MME. CATHERINE. Oh, there"s so much to look at, and then there is the music. There is nothing commonplace about it, at least.
ADOLPHE. Perhaps not. But I don"t belong to that fold, I guess, for it never stirs me to any devotion. And then, Madame Catherine, faith is a gift, they tell me, and I haven"t got it yet.
MME. CATHERINE. Well, wait till you get it--But what is this I heard a while ago? Is it true that you have sold a picture in London for a high price, and that you have got a medal?
ADOLPHE. Yes, it"s true.
MME. CATHERINE. Merciful heavens!--and not a word do you say about it?
ADOLPHE. I am afraid of fortune, and besides it seems almost worthless to me at this moment. I am afraid of it as of a spectre: it brings disaster to speak of having seen it.
MME. CATHERINE. You"re a queer fellow, and that"s what you have always been.
ADOLPHE. Not queer at all, but I have seen so much misfortune come in the wake of fortune, and I have seen how adversity brings out true friends, while none but false ones appear in the hour of success--You asked me if I ever went to church, and I answered evasively. This morning I stepped into the Church of St. Germain without really knowing why I did so. It seemed as if I were looking for somebody in there--somebody to whom I could silently offer my grat.i.tude. But I found n.o.body. Then I dropped a gold coin in the poor-box. It was all I could get out of my church-going, and that was rather commonplace, I should say.
MME. CATHERINE. It was always something; and then it was fine to think of the poor after having heard good news.
ADOLPHE. It was neither fine nor anything else: it was something I did because I couldn"t help myself. But something more occurred while I was in the church. I saw Maurice"s girl friend, Jeanne, and her child.
Struck down, crushed by his triumphal chariot, they seemed aware of the full extent of their misfortune.
MME. CATHERINE. Well, children, I don"t know in what kind of shape you keep your consciences. But how a decent fellow, a careful and considerate man like Monsieur Maurice, can all of a sudden desert a woman and her child, that is something I cannot explain.
ADOLPHE. Nor can I explain it, and he doesn"t seem to understand it himself. I met them this morning, and everything appeared quite natural to them, quite proper, as if they couldn"t imagine anything else. It was as if they had been enjoying the satisfaction of a good deed or the fulfilment of a sacred duty. There are things, Madame Catherine, that we cannot explain, and for this reason it is not for us to judge. And besides, you saw how it happened. Maurice felt the danger in the air.
I foresaw it and tried to prevent their meeting. Maurice wanted to run away from it, but nothing helped. Why, it was as if a plot had been laid by some invisible power, and as if they had been driven by guile into each other"s arms. Of course, I am disqualified in this case, but I wouldn"t hesitate to p.r.o.nounce a verdict of "not guilty."
MME. CATHERINE. Well, now, to be able to forgive as you do, that"s what I call religion.
ADOLPHE. Heavens, could it be that I am religious without knowing it.
MME. CATHERINE. But then, to LET oneself be driven or tempted into evil, as Monsieur Maurice has done, means weakness or bad character. And if you feel your strength failing you, then you ask for help, and then you get it. But he was too conceited to do that--Who is this coming? The Abbe, I think.
ADOLPHE. What does he want here?
ABBE. [Enters] Good evening, madame. Good evening, Monsieur.
MME. CATHERINE. Can I be of any service?
ABBE. Has Monsieur Maurice, the author, been here to-day?
MME. CATHERINE. Not to-day. His play has just been put on, and that is probably keeping him busy.
ABBE. I have--sad news to bring him. Sad in several respects.
MME. CATHERINE. May I ask of what kind?
ABBE. Yes, it"s no secret. The daughter he had with that girl, Jeanne, is dead.
MME. CATHERINE. Dead!
ADOLPHE. Marion dead!