(ADOLPHE enters, pale and hollow-eyed.)
MAURICE. [Trying to speak unconcernedly] There you are! What became of you last night?
ADOLPHE. I looked for you at the Hotel des Arrets and waited a whole hour.
MAURICE. So you went to the wrong place. We were waiting several hours for you at the Auberge des Adrets, and we are still waiting for you, as you see.
ADOLPHE. [Relieved] Thank heaven!
HENRIETTE. Good morning, Adolphe. You are always expecting the worst and worrying yourself needlessly. I suppose you imagined that we wanted to avoid your company. And though you see that we sent for you, you are still thinking yourself superfluous.
ADOLPHE. Pardon me: I was wrong, but the night was dreadful.
(They sit down. Embarra.s.sed silence follows.)
HENRIETTE. [To ADOLPHE] Well, are you not going to congratulate Maurice on his great success?
ADOLPHE. Oh, yes! Your success is the real thing, and envy itself cannot deny it. Everything is giving way before you, and even I have a sense of my own smallness in your presence.
MAURICE. Nonsense!--Henriette, are you not going to offer Adolphe a gla.s.s of wine?
ADOLPHE. Thank you, not for me--nothing at all!
HENRIETTE. [To ADOLPHE] What"s the matter with you? Are you ill?
ADOLPHE. Not yet, but--
HENRIETTE. Your eyes--
ADOLPHE. What of them?
MAURICE. What happened at the Cremerie last night? I suppose they are angry with me?
ADOLPHE. n.o.body is angry with you, but your absence caused a depression which it hurt me to watch. But n.o.body was angry with you, believe me.
Your friends understood, and they regarded your failure to come with sympathetic forbearance. Madame Catherine herself defended you and proposed your health. We all rejoiced in your success as if it had been our own.
HENRIETTE. Well, those are nice people! What good friends you have, Maurice.
MAURICE. Yes, better than I deserve.
ADOLPHE. n.o.body has better friends than he deserves, and you are a man greatly blessed in his friends--Can"t you feel how the air is softened to-day by all the kind thoughts and wishes that stream toward you from a thousand b.r.e.a.s.t.s?
(MAURICE rises in order to hide his emotion.)
ADOLPHE. From a thousand b.r.e.a.s.t.s that you have rid of the nightmare that had been crushing them during a lifetime. Humanity had been slandered--and you have exonerated it: that"s why men feel grateful toward you. To-day they are once more holding their heads high and saying: You see, we are a little better than our reputation after all.
And that thought makes them better.
(HENRIETTE tries to hide her emotion.)
ADOLPHE. Am I in the way? Just let me warm myself a little in your sunshine, Maurice, and then I"ll go.
MAURICE. Why should you go when you have only just arrived?
ADOLPHE. Why? Because I have seen what I need not have seen; because I know now that my hour is past. [Pause] That you sent for me, I take as an expression of thoughtfulness, a notice of what has happened, a frankness that hurts less than deceit. You hear that I think well of my fellow-beings, and this I have learned from you, Maurice. [Pause] But, my friend, a few moments ago I pa.s.sed through the Church of St. Germain, and there I saw a woman and a child. I am not wishing that you had seen them, for what has happened cannot be altered, but if you gave a thought or a word to them before you set them adrift on the waters of the great city, then you could enjoy your happiness undisturbed. And now I bid you good-by.
HENRIETTE. Why must you go?
ADOLPHE. And you ask that? Do you want me to tell you?
HENRIETTE. No, I don"t.
ADOLPHE. Good-by then! [Goes out.]
MAURICE. The Fall: and lo! "they knew that they were naked."
HENRIETTE. What a difference between this scene and the one we imagined!
He is better than we.
MAURICE. It seems to me now as if all the rest were better than we.
HENRIETTE. Do you see that the sun has vanished behind clouds, and that the woods have lost their rose colour?
MAURICE. Yes, I see, and the blue lake has turned black. Let us flee to some place where the sky is always blue and the trees are always green.
HENRIETTE. Yes, let us--but without any farewells.
MAURICE. No, with farewells.
HENRIETTE. We were to fly. You spoke of wings--and your feet are of lead. I am not jealous, but if you go to say farewell and get two pairs of arms around your neck--then you can"t tear yourself away.
MAURICE. Perhaps you are right, but only one pair of little arms is needed to hold me fast.
HENRIETTE. It is the child that holds you then, and not the woman?
MAURICE. It is the child.
HENRIETTE. The child! Another woman"s child! And for the sake of it I am to suffer. Why must that child block the way where I want to pa.s.s, and must pa.s.s?
MAURICE. Yes, why? It would be better if it had never existed.
HENRIETTE. [Walks excitedly back and forth] Indeed! But now it does exist. Like a rock on the road, a rock set firmly in the ground, immovable, so that it upsets the carriage.
MAURICE. The triumphal chariot!--The a.s.s is driven to death, but the rock remains. Curse it! [Pause.]
HENRIETTE. There is nothing to do.
MAURICE. Yes, we must get married, and then our child will make us forget the other one.
HENRIETTE. This will kill this!