HENRIETTE. Let us talk of something else--Do you believe there are many unpunished criminals at large among us, some of whom may even be our intimate friends?
ADOLPHE. [Nervously] Why? What do you mean?
HENRIETTE. Don"t you believe that every human being at some time or another has been guilty of some kind of act which would fall under the law if it were discovered?
ADOLPHE. Yes, I believe that is true, but no evil act escapes being punished by one"s own conscience at least. [Rises and unb.u.t.tons his coat] And--n.o.body is really good who has not erred. [Breathing heavily]
For in order to know how to forgive, one must have been in need of forgiveness--I had a friend whom we used to regard as a model man. He never spoke a hard word to anybody; he forgave everything and everybody; and he suffered insults with a strange satisfaction that we couldn"t explain. At last, late in life, he gave me his secret in a single word: I am a penitent! [He sits down again.]
(HENRIETTE remains silent, looking at him with surprise.)
ADOLPHE. [As if speaking to himself] There are crimes not mentioned in the Criminal Code, and these are the worse ones, for they have to be punished by ourselves, and no judge could be more severe than we are against our own selves.
HENRIETTE. [After a pause] Well, that friend of yours, did he find peace?
ADOLPHE. After endless self-torture he reached a certain degree of composure, but life had never any real pleasures to offer him. He never dared to accept any kind of distinction; he never dared to feel himself ent.i.tled to a kind word or even well-earned praise: in a word, he could never quite forgive himself.
HENRIETTE. Never? What had he done then?
ADOLPHE. He had wished the life out of his father. And when his father suddenly died, the son imagined himself to have killed him. Those imaginations were regarded as signs of some mental disease, and he was sent to an asylum. From this he was discharged after a time as wholly recovered--as they put it. But the sense of guilt remained with him, and so he continued to punish himself for his evil thoughts.
HENRIETTE. Are you sure the evil will cannot kill?
ADOLPHE. You mean in some mystic way?
HENRIETTE. As you please. Let it go at mystic. In my own family--I am sure that my mother and my sisters killed my father with their hatred.
You see, he had the awful idea that he must oppose all our tastes and inclinations. Wherever he discovered a natural gift, he tried to root it out. In that way he aroused a resistance that acc.u.mulated until it became like an electrical battery charged with hatred. At last it grew so powerful that he languished away, became depolarised, lost his will-power, and, in the end, came to wish himself dead.
ADOLPHE. And your conscience never troubled you?
HENRIETTE. No, and furthermore, I don"t know what conscience is.
ADOLPHE. You don"t? Well, then you"ll soon learn. [Pause] How do you believe Maurice will look when he gets here? What do you think he will say?
HENRIETTE. Yesterday morning, you know, he and I tried to make the same kind of guess about you while we were waiting for you.
ADOLPHE. Well?
HENRIETTE. We guessed entirely wrong.
ADOLPHE. Can you tell me why you sent for me?
HENRIETTE. Malice, arrogance, outright cruelty!
ADOLPHE. How strange it is that you can admit your faults and yet not repent of them.
HENRIETTE. It must be because I don"t feel quite responsible for them.
They are like the dirt left behind by things handled during the day and washed off at night. But tell me one thing: do you really think so highly of humanity as you profess to do?
ADOLPHE. Yes, we are a little better than our reputation--and a little worse.
HENRIETTE. That is not a straightforward answer.
ADOLPHE. No, it isn"t. But are you willing to answer me frankly when I ask you: do you still love Maurice?
HENRIETTE. I cannot tell until I see him. But at this moment I feel no longing for him, and it seems as if I could very well live without him.
ADOLPHE. It"s likely you could, but I fear you have become chained to his fate--Sh! Here he comes.
HENRIETTE. How everything repeats itself. The situation is the same, the very words are the same, as when we were expecting you yesterday.
MAURICE. [Enters, pale as death, hollow-eyed, unshaven] Here I am, my dear friends, if this be me. For that last night in a cell changed me into a new sort of being. [Notices HENRIETTE and ADOLPHE.]
ADOLPHE. Sit down and pull yourself together, and then we can talk things over.
MAURICE. [To HENRIETTE] Perhaps I am in the way?
ADOLPHE. Now, don"t get bitter.
MAURICE. I have grown bad in these twenty-four hours, and suspicious also, so I guess I"ll soon be left to myself. And who wants to keep company with a murderer?
HENRIETTE. But you have been cleared of the charge.
MAURICE. [Picks up a newspaper] By the police, yes, but not by public opinion. Here you see the murderer Maurice Gerard, once a playwright, and his mistress, Henriette Mauclerc--
HENRIETTE. O my mother and my sisters--my mother! Jesus have mercy!
MAURICE. And can you see that I actually look like a murderer? And then it is suggested that my play was stolen. So there isn"t a vestige left of the victorious hero from yesterday. In place of my own, the name of Octave, my enemy, appears on the bill-boards, and he is going to collect my one hundred thousand francs. O Solon, Solon! Such is fortune, and such is fame! You are fortunate, Adolphe, because you have not yet succeeded.
HENRIETTE. So you don"t know that Adolphe has made a great success in London and carried off the first prize?
MAURICE. [Darkly] No, I didn"t know that. Is it true, Adolphe?
ADOLPHE. It is true, but I have returned the prize.
HENRIETTE. [With emphasis] That I didn"t know! So you are also prevented from accepting any distinctions--like your friend?
ADOLPHE. My friend? [Embarra.s.sed] Oh, yes, yes!
MAURICE. Your success gives me pleasure, but it puts us still farther apart.
ADOLPHE. That"s what I expected, and I suppose I"ll be as lonely with my success as you with your adversity. Think of it--that people feel hurt by your fortune! Oh, it"s ghastly to be alive!
MAURICE. You say that! What am I then to say? It is as if my eyes had been covered with a black veil, and as if the colour and shape of all life had been changed by it. This room looks like the room I saw yesterday, and yet it is quite different. I recognise both of you, of course, but your faces are new to me. I sit here and search for words because I don"t know what to say to you. I ought to defend myself, but I cannot. And I almost miss the cell, for it protected me, at least, against the curious glances that pa.s.s right through me. The murderer Maurice and his mistress! You don"t love me any longer, Henriette, and no more do I care for you. To-day you are ugly, clumsy, insipid, repulsive.
(Two men in civilian clothes have quietly seated themselves at a table in the background.)
ADOLPHE. Wait a little and get your thoughts together. That you have been discharged and cleared of all suspicion must appear in some of the evening papers. And that puts an end to the whole matter. Your play will be put on again, and if it comes to the worst, you can write a new one.
Leave Paris for a year and let everything become forgotten. You who have exonerated mankind will be exonerated yourself.