MAURICE. [Stops unwillingly] What is it?
MME. CATHERINE. Don"t do it! Don"t do it!
MAURICE. What?
MME. CATHERINE. Don"t do it!
MAURICE. Don"t be scared. This lady is not my kind, but she interests me. Or hardly that even.
MME. CATHERINE, Don"t trust yourself!
MAURICE. Yes, I do trust myself. Good-bye. [Goes out.]
(Curtain.)
ACT II
FIRST SCENE
(The Auberge des Adrets: a cafe in sixteenth century style, with a suggestion of stage effect. Tables and easy-chairs are scattered in corners and nooks. The walls are decorated with armour and weapons.
Along the ledge of the wainscoting stand gla.s.ses and jugs.)
(MAURICE and HENRIETTE are in evening dress and sit facing each other at a table on which stands a bottle of champagne and three filled gla.s.ses.
The third gla.s.s is placed at that side of the table which is nearest the background, and there an easy-chair is kept ready for the still missing "third man.")
MAURICE. [Puts his watch in front of himself on the table] If he doesn"t get here within the next five minutes, he isn"t coming at all. And suppose in the meantime we drink with his ghost. [Touches the third gla.s.s with the rim of his own.]
HENRIETTE. [Doing the same] Here"s to you, Adolphe!
MAURICE. He won"t come.
HENRIETTE. He will come.
MAURICE. He won"t.
HENRIETTE. He will.
MAURICE. What an evening! What a wonderful day! I can hardly grasp that a new life has begun. Think only: the manager believes that I may count on no less than one hundred thousand francs. I"ll spend twenty thousand on a villa outside the city. That leaves me eighty thousand. I won"t be able to take it all in until to-morrow, for I am tired, tired, tired.
[Sinks back into the chair] Have you ever felt really happy?
HENRIETTE. Never. How does it feel?
MAURICE. I don"t quite know how to put it. I cannot express it, but I seem chiefly to be thinking of the chagrin of my enemies. It isn"t nice, but that"s the way it is.
HENRIETTE. Is it happiness to be thinking of one"s enemies?
MAURICE. Why, the victor has to count his killed and wounded enemies in order to gauge the extent of his victory.
HENRIETTE. Are you as bloodthirsty as all that?
MAURICE. Perhaps not. But when you have felt the pressure of other people"s heels on your chest for years, it must be pleasant to shake off the enemy and draw a full breath at last.
HENRIETTE. Don"t you find it strange that you are sitting here, alone with me, an insignificant girl practically unknown to you--and on an evening like this, when you ought to have a craving to show yourself like a triumphant hero to all the people, on the boulevards, in the big restaurants?
MAURICE. Of course, it"s rather funny, but it feels good to be here, and your company is all I care for.
HENRIETTE. You don"t look very hilarious.
MAURICE. No, I feel rather sad, and I should like to weep a little.
HENRIETTE. What is the meaning of that?
MAURICE. It is fortune conscious of its own nothingness and waiting for misfortune to appear.
HENRIETTE. Oh my, how sad! What is it you are missing anyhow?
MAURICE. I miss the only thing that gives value to life.
HENRIETTE. So you love her no longer then?
MAURICE. Not in the way I understand love. Do you think she has read my play, or that she wants to see it? Oh, she is so good, so self-sacrificing and considerate, but to go out with me for a night"s fun she would regard as sinful. Once I treated her to champagne, you know, and instead of feeling happy over it, she picked up the wine list to see what it cost. And when she read the price, she wept--wept because Marion was in need of new stockings. It is beautiful, of course: it is touching, if you please. But I can get no pleasure out of it. And I do want a little pleasure before life runs out. So far I have had nothing but privation, but now, now--life is beginning for me. [The clock strikes twelve] Now begins a new day, a new era!
HENRIETTE. Adolphe is not coming.
MAURICE. No, now he won"t, come. And now it is too late to go back to the Cremerie.
HENRIETTE. But they are waiting for you.
MAURICE. Let them wait. They have made me promise to come, and I take back my promise. Are you longing to go there?
HENRIETTE. On the contrary!
MAURICE. Will you keep me company then?
HENRIETTE. With pleasure, if you care to have me.
MAURICE. Otherwise I shouldn"t be asking you. It is strange, you know, that the victor"s wreath seems worthless if you can"t place it at the feet of some woman--that everything seems worthless when you have not a woman.
HENRIETTE. You don"t need to be without a woman--you?
MAURICE. Well, that"s the question.