ACT IV
The same scene. M. and Madame Dupont are sitting together.
DUPONT. She’s determined to leave him, then?
MME. DUPONT. Quite determined.
DUPONT. And he?
MME. DUPONT. After the scene I told you of he went straight out of the house and he hasn’t come back since.
DUPONT. He didn’t sleep at home last night?
MME. DUPONT. No.
DUPONT [scornfully] He has gone back to ‘maman,’ no doubt. [He goes to the window].
MME. DUPONT [after a pause] Why do you keep looking out of that window?
DUPONT. I’m watching the lawyer’s opposite. Caroline went in five minutes ago. I’m terribly afraid Angèle won’t come. [To himself] Confound Caroline. Who the Dickens can have got hold of that other fifteen thousand francs? [Joyfully] There’s Angèle. Look. She’s going in now. What did you say? Bless my soul, my daughters give me worry enough. Yes: he has gone back to ‘maman.’ And you think this won’t blow over, eh?
MME. DUPONT. I’m certain it won’t. Julie will never forgive him.
DUPONT [almost with triumph] That means a divorce then, eh?
MME. DUPONT. Yes. A divorce.
DUPONT. Ah! And who was the clever one this time, too, eh? Who was it?
MME. DUPONT. I don’t know.
DUPONT. Of course not. Well, I was.
MME. DUPONT. In what way?
DUPONT. You say she’ll ask for a divorce?
MME. DUPONT. Unless he does.
DUPONT. Very well, then. Whichever way it is her money was settled on herself, and our good Antonin will have to give back the thirty thousand francs and my house. Thanks to me. Thanks to me. [He rubs his hands].
The maid comes in.
MAID. M. and Madame Mairaut.
DUPONT. Show them in. [The maid goes out. To his wife] Don’t go.
M. and Madame Mairaut come in.
MME. MAIRAUT [turning to the door and speaking to her husband, who hangs back] Are you coming in or are you not?
MAIRAUT. I’m coming. [He closes the door].
Formal greetings are exchanged.
MME. MAIRAUT [sitting down] After what passed between us yesterday—
DUPONT [with dangerous sweetness] About Uncle Maréchal’s money?
MME. MAIRAUT [appearing not to have heard] After what passed between us yesterday, I intended never to set foot in this house again.
DUPONT [bowing] It rested entirely with you, madame.
MME. MAIRAUT. Since then, however, grave differences have arisen between our children.
DUPONT. Very grave.
MME. MAIRAUT. You know, then?
DUPONT. Yes.
MME. MAIRAUT. We are come therefore, my husband and I, in the name of our son, formally to request your daughter, Madame Antonin Mairaut, to return to her husband’s roof.
DUPONT. His roof?
MME. MAIRAUT. To St. Laurent. My son awaits her there.
DUPONT. He’ll have to wait some time. My daughter will not return to her husband. You are welcome to bring an officer of the Court to bear witness to the fact. It will provide your son with a ground for his divorce.
MME. MAIRAUT [sweetly] There is no question of a divorce.
DUPONT [astonished] What? No question of a divorce?
MME. MAIRAUT. None, monsieur.
DUPONT. In spite of my daughter’s refusal—
MME. MAIRAUT. In spite of her refusal.
DUPONT. In spite of what she has said to her husband?
MME. MAIRAUT. In spite of that, too.
DUPONT. In spite of anything she may do in the future?
MME. MAIRAUT. In spite of anything she may do. There is no question of a divorce and there never will be.
DUPONT. On your part, you mean?
MME. MAIRAUT. On yours also. We shall give you no grounds. My son is waiting for his wife to return to him. He is ready to receive her whenever she sees fit to present herself.
DUPONT. Whatever she does?
MME. MAIRAUT. Whatever she does.
DUPONT. Even if—
MME. MAIRAUT. Even in that case. [Movement of Mairaut]. What is it, my dear?
MAIRAUT. Nothing.
DUPONT. The truth is you would rather risk your son’s honor than give back the thirty thousand francs.
MME. MAIRAUT [still very sweetly] After all, thirty thousand francs is a considerable sum. [Mairaut fidgets uneasily].
DUPONT. Yesterday, when he went away, your son uttered certain threats.
MME. MAIRAUT [still sweetly] He has decided not to put them into execution.
MME. DUPONT. You know, of course, that Julie will never agree—
MME. MAIRAUT. I can’t help that.
MME. DUPONT. All their lives they will be chained to one another. Young as they are, they must give up the idea of having a home.
MME. MAIRAUT. Your daughter has only to return to her duty. Antonin will receive her.
MAIRAUT [breaking out] No. I won’t have it. I have a word to say on this.
MME. MAIRAUT. What’s the matter now? Pray speak if you have anything to say.
MAIRAUT [loudly] What we are doing is an infamy.
MME. MAIRAUT. Hold your tongue.
MAIRAUT. I won’t.
MME. MAIRAUT. Hold your tongue, I tell you.
MAIRAUT. No. And don’t you try to shout me down. Do you hear?
MME. MAIRAUT. What’s taken the man? I’ve never seen him like this before.
MAIRAUT. I tell you this is infamous! Infamous! I’ve thought so for a long time, ever since the day you wouldn’t let me speak out about Uncle Maréchal. I said nothing because I was afraid of you. For thirty years I have said nothing. But now this is too much, and I say what I think. It’s an infamy. Come what may, I will say it. Sit down. I tell you it’s an infamy. Rogues have been meddling with these children’s lives too long; it’s time for honest men to take a hand in them. I’m going to do it.
MME. MAIRAUT. Pay no attention to him. He’s out of his senses.
MAIRAUT. Be silent, you. M. and Madame Dupont, this is what I have to say to you. An effort must be made to reconcile Julie and Antonin. If this is impossible, I will pay you back the thirty thousand francs.
MME. MAIRAUT [with a scream] Good Heavens, what is he saying?
MAIRAUT. I will return the thirty thousand francs, and you’ll see after that if my precious son won’t be the first to talk of a divorce.
MME. MAIRAUT [to her husband] You shall pay for this when we get home.
MAIRAUT. As you please. And now be off, and be quick about it. [Madame Mairaut goes out]. Au revoir, M. and Madame Dupont. Do what you can on your side, and I will try and make Antonin come and beg his wife’s pardon.
DUPONT. Good evening, M. Mairaut.
MME. DUPONT. Count on me, M. Mairaut, and give me your hand. You’re a good man.
MAIRAUT [as he goes] That’s all right. [He goes].
DUPONT. Are you really going to try?
MME. DUPONT. Yes.
DUPONT. But since old Mairaut is willing to give back the money.
MME. DUPONT. I won’t make up my mind to a divorce until I’m absolutely convinced there’s no other way.
DUPONT. But there is no other way. You said so yourself.
MME. DUPONT. Are you sure you aren’t thinking more of your money than of the happiness of your child?
DUPONT. I! Well, I declare! Are you taking a leaf out of old Mairaut’s book?
MME. DUPONT [gravely] Perhaps so.
Madame Mairaut returns.
MME. MAIRAUT. I have come back for two things. First, to advise you not to count too much on my husband’s promise. Next, to thank you for the fresh insult you have put upon us.
DUPONT. What insult?
MME. MAIRAUT. You don’t know, I suppose, to whom Mlle. Caroline has given half her legacy?
DUPONT. No. But I shall be glad to learn.
MME. MAIRAUT. To your clerk, Courthezon.
DUPONT. Courthezon? It’s a lie!
MME. DUPONT. Courthezon!
MME. MAIRAUT. She has just told me so herself.
Caroline comes in.
| MME. DUPONT. |  | Caroline, is it really to Courthezon thatyou’ve given the fifteen thousand francs? |
| DUPONT. | You have given fifteen thousand francsto Courthezon! | |
| MME. MAIRAUT. | Isn’t it to Courthezon that you havegiven the fifteen thousand francs? |
CAROLINE. Yes.
DUPONT. You are crazy!
MME. DUPONT. What possessed you to do that?
MME. MAIRAUT. For his invention! An invention not worth twopence, Antonin says.
MME. DUPONT. You think more of strangers than your own flesh and blood.
DUPONT. Just at the very time when my plant needed renewing.
MME. MAIRAUT. And when her brother-in-law is on the verge of bankruptcy. Yes, mademoiselle, yes! And this money, which you give to a crack-brained inventor who is nothing to you, might perhaps have saved your sister from penury. That is all I have to say to you. Good bye. [She goes].
DUPONT. Well! Perhaps now you’ll tell us why you have done this?
MME. DUPONT. What has taken you? How did such an idea come into your head?
DUPONT. Do you imagine his invention will make your fortune?
CAROLINE. No.
DUPONT. Do you know anything at all about it?
CAROLINE. No.
MME. DUPONT. Did he ask you to lend him money?
CAROLINE. No.
DUPONT. Then you ought to be put in an asylum. You’re out of your senses.
MME. DUPONT. I still can’t make out how you came to have such an idea.
CAROLINE [beginning to cry] I was unhappy.
DUPONT. What! You give away fifteen thousand francs to the first comer because you are unhappy!
CAROLINE. I hope he will be grateful for what I have done for him, and that—
DUPONT. Well?
CAROLINE. I am no longer young, I know; but he is not young either.
DUPONT. You think he will marry you!
CAROLINE. Yes.
DUPONT. Then you don’t know—
MME. DUPONT. Hush.
CAROLINE. I can’t go on living alone. I am too wretched. For a long time I have thought—when I saw M. Courthezon, so steady and careful and quiet—I thought I could be happy with him. But I knew he would never marry me without money, and there was only enough for Julie. The time when I was most unhappy was when M. Antonin was here. He used to talk to Julie. They took no notice of me. They used to kiss one another. And though I don’t think I’m jealous, it made me very wretched. So when this legacy came, and I knew M. Courthezon needed money for his invention, I thought I would give him some.
MME. DUPONT. You should at least have given him some idea of what you meant. It would have saved you from disappointment, my poor child.
DUPONT. You should have spoken to me. I could have told you why you had nothing to hope in that quarter.
CAROLINE. Nothing to hope? But why? Why?
DUPONT. Because for twenty years Courthezon has been living with a married woman. He does not speak of it, of course, but they have two children.
CAROLINE [faintly] God have pity on me! [She almost falls].
MME. DUPONT. Caroline! My child!
DUPONT. My child. Come, come. You must be reasonable.
MME. DUPONT. You mustn’t cry like that.
CAROLINE [sobbing] No.
DUPONT [to his wife] This is your fault. We should have told her that Courthezon—But you always said no.
MME. DUPONT. One can’t tell things like that to a young girl. And afterwards, when she was grown up, it didn’t seem worth while. [To Caroline] Don’t cry any more, dear.
CAROLINE [stifling her sobs by a great effort] I am not crying any more.
DUPONT. There is only one thing to be done. We must try and get the money back from Courthezon.
CAROLINE. No! No!
DUPONT. We shall see. [He hurries out].
CAROLINE. Stop him. Stop him, mother. Go at once. Stop him, I beg of you.
MME. DUPONT. Very well, dear. [She follows her husband].
Caroline is left alone for a moment. Then Angèle comes in.
ANGÈLE [very tenderly] Caroline, are you in trouble?
CAROLINE [in a low voice] Yes.
ANGÈLE. What about? Tell me.
CAROLINE [in an expressionless voice, but not angrily]. No. It is over now.
ANGÈLE. You won’t tell me?
CAROLINE [coldly] It would be useless.
ANGÈLE. Who knows? Come. I can see you have been crying.
CAROLINE. Yes. We are very unfortunate, Julie and I.
ANGÈLE. Julie?
CAROLINE. She is leaving her husband.
ANGÈLE. Why?
CAROLINE. They cannot go on living together any longer.
ANGÈLE. And you?
CAROLINE. I? [She makes a gesture of hopelessness].
Julie comes in.
JULIE. I was looking for you, Caroline. I am going away sooner than I expected. They say my husband is coming here. I do not wish ever to see him again. So I am going.
CAROLINE. What will you do?
JULIE. I shall do as you do; hire a room somewhere and get work.
CAROLINE. What kind of work?
JULIE. I don’t know. Anything I can get.
CAROLINE. Don’t do that, Julie. Don’t! [Deeply distressed] If you only knew!
JULIE. What?
CAROLINE. The wretchedness of living alone.
JULIE. I’m not afraid. I shall work so hard that I shall have no time for moping.
CAROLINE. You will work. [She sighs]. It isn’t easy for a woman who is alone to earn her living.
JULIE. Nonsense.
CAROLINE. I know what I’m talking about. Sometimes when I take my work to the shop they refuse it with an insolent contempt they would never dare to show to a man. It’s true. For I am doubly unprotected since I am a woman and I need work.
JULIE. But in your own room, at least, you are free.
CAROLINE. Free! [With a mirthless laugh]. If that is freedom, give me slavery.
JULIE. I shall have friends.
CAROLINE. Do you think so? The women will have nothing to do with you because you’ll be a wife living apart from her husband, and because you will be dull. And the men? What will people say if they visit you?
JULIE. Little I care what people will say.
CAROLINE. Still for your own sake you will have to send them away.
JULIE. What do you advise, then? That I should remain with my husband?
CAROLINE. Ah, Julie dear, you complain of not being loved as you wish to be. What can I say to that, I whom no man will ever take in his arms? I who feel myself a thing apart, useless, absurd, incomplete. You don’t know what a void that means for a woman: to have no one to forgive, no one to devote herself to. And the world sneers at women for remaining single. It makes their loneliness a reproach. Look at me, hardly allowed to dispose of my own property, black looks all round me because I have dared to use my own money in my own way.
JULIE. Poor Caroline.
CAROLINE. Yes. You may well pity me. And if I told you all. I turned to religion for consolation. For a while it cheated my craving for love; but it couldn’t give me peace, and it has only left me more bitter and more disillusioned. For months I buoyed myself up on one last hope. I was a fool. [Weeping] Ah, no one need tell me how absurd it was. I know it well enough. I, at my age and in these clothes, much like everyone else’s clothes, only everything looks ridiculous on me. I to fall in love! I must be crazy. Don’t laugh at me. I have suffered so much. I knew he couldn’t love me, but I hoped he would be grateful for what I—I only wanted his gratitude and his pity, no more, I swear to you. And now it seems there is some other woman. [A pause]. Oh, what good was it to guard my good name as a miser guards his gold if this is all? No, Julie; don’t spoil your life a second time. If you cannot resign yourself to living with your husband, at least don’t follow my example. Don’t try to live my life. One of us is enough. Don’t try to earn your bread. It is too hard, and men have made it too humiliating.
JULIE. But, Caroline, if people see me accepting hardship with courage, living alone deliberately, because I choose, surely the dignity of my life will make them respect me?
CAROLINE. No one will believe in the dignity of your life.
JULIE. Then it is monstrous! That is all I can say. Monstrous! And since to pay for bread to eat and clothes to wear and a roof to cover me I must either give myself to a husband I hate or to a lover whom, perhaps, I may love, I choose the lover. If I must sell myself to someone, I prefer to choose the buyer.
ANGÈLE. You are mad! Mad! Be reconciled to your husband. That is the best thing you can do.
JULIE. So everybody says. Well, I tell you I will not. I will not.
ANGÈLE. You would soon be glad enough to have your married life back again, bad as it may be; or even Caroline’s poverty.
JULIE [scornfully] You think so.
ANGÈLE [passionately] You don’t know what you are saying. You don’t understand, Julie. You to talk like that! You to wish—Oh, you don’t understand.
JULIE. You did it yourself.
ANGÈLE [with great emotion] Yes. I did it. But I would strangle myself rather than begin it again. Julie, I entreat you. What am I to say? How am I to stop you? I can’t tell you and Caroline all the shame I have endured. Oh, don’t make me do that.
JULIE. Well, you’re happy now, at least.
ANGÈLE. Happy! When I went off with Georges—they told you, didn’t they? Well, his people got him away from me. His mother was dying of grief. Yes: I know that is not what you wish to hear, but I must tell you, that you may understand how I came to fall as low as I did. I was left alone with the child. I had to feed it, hadn’t I? You can understand that, at least. But how? Work? I tried to get work. But they told me to wait. How was I to wait? And then—my God! that I should have to tell you all this—then I let myself go. [She sobs]. And afterwards—No: I can’t speak of it. But you understand, Julie. You can guess. You can imagine what my life was when you see that even now I can’t bring myself to tell you about it. [Mastering herself]. You think women—women like me—are happy because you see us laugh. But to laugh is our trade. We are paid for that. And I swear to you often we would ask nothing better than just to sit and cry. And you talk of choosing! You poor child. Do you suppose we women choose? Oh, if you could but know how one comes to loathe the whole world, to be wicked, wicked! They despise us so. We have no friends, no pity, no justice. We are robbed, exploited. I tell you all this anyhow, just as it comes, but you understand, don’t you? And once you start downhill you can’t stop. That is our life, the life of women like me. That is the slough in which I have struggled ten years. No, no, Julie! No, little sister. I implore you don’t do as I did. It is too horrible, too abject, too degraded.
JULIE. Poor Angèle.
ANGÈLE. You understand, don’t you?
JULIE. Yes.
ANGÈLE [rising] I must go. Good-bye. I dare not look either of you in the face again now that you know everything, now that I remember what I once was. I knew you could never have anything more to do with me. But I felt such a craving to be loved that I half fancied you, at least, Caroline—I see I was wrong. Well, good-bye. 1 am going away. Forgive me, both of you, for what I have done. Goodbye. [She turns to the door].
CAROLINE. Angèle! [A pause. Angèle turns at the door]. I pity you with all my heart. [Another pause]. May I kiss you? [Angèle throws herself into her arms].
ANGÈLE. Caroline! My kind, good Caroline!
The three sisters embrace with tears.
Dupont, Antonin, and Mairaut come in.
ANTONIN [pushed forward by his father. To Julie] My dear wife, I have come to ask you to forgive me.
JULIE. It is I who ask you to forgive me. I was full of romantic ideas. I thought marriage something quite different from what it is. Now that I understand I will be reasonable. One must make allowances. I will make some—to myself.
DUPONT. That’s right.
ANTONIN. That’s right. You can’t imagine how glad I am that you understand me at last. It seems to me it’s only from today that our marriage really begins.
JULIE. Perhaps.
ANTONIN. To celebrate our reconciliation I will give a grand dinner. I will invite the Pouchelets, the Rambourgs, Lignol—
JULIE [sadly, and with meaning] Exactly—Lignol.
DUPONT. Ah, my children, everything comes right when once you make up your mind to be like the rest of the world.
JULIE [slowly] Yes: like the rest of the world. I dreamed of something better. But it seems it was impossible.