Scene II.
The Recorder [at the door] Etchepare—come in. You had better wait here for your final discharge. It won't take much longer.
Etchepare. Thank you, Monsieur.
The Recorder. Well, there you are, then, acquitted, my poor fellow! There's one matter done with.
Etchepare. It's finished as far as justice is concerned, Monsieur; it isn't finished for me. I'm acquitted, it's true, but my life is made miserable.
The Recorder. You didn't know—
Etchepare. That's it.
The Recorder. It's a long time ago—you'll forgive her.
Etchepare. Things like that, Monsieur—a Basque never forgives them. It's as though a thunderbolt had struck me to the heart. And all the misfortune that's befallen us—it's she who is the cause—God has avenged himself. Everything's over.
The Recorder [after a pause] I am sorry for you with all my heart.
Etchepare. Thank you, Monsieur. [A pause] Since you are so kind, Monsieur, will you allow my mother, who's there in the corridor, waiting for me, to come and speak to me?
The Recorder. I'll send her in to you. Good-bye.
Etchepare. Good-bye.
Scene III:—The recorder goes out. Enter Etchepare's mother.
Etchepare [pressing his mother's head against his breast] Poor old mother—how the misery of these three months has changed you!
The Mother. My poor boy, how you must have suffered!
Etchepare. That woman!
The Mother. Yes, they've just been telling me.
Etchepare. For ten years I've lived with that thief—that wretched woman! How she lied! Ah! When I heard that judge say to her, "You were convicted of theft and complicity with your lover," and when, before all those people, she owned to it—I tell you, mummy, I thought the skies were falling on my head—and when she admitted she'd been that man's mistress—I don't know just what happened—nor which I would have killed soonest—the judge who said such things so calmly or her who admitted them with her back turned to me. And then I was on the point of confessing myself guilty—I, an innocent man—in order not to learn any more—to get away—but I thought of you and the children! [A long pause] Come! We've got to make up our minds what we're going to do. You left them at home?
The Mother. No. I had to send them to our cousin at Bayonne. We've no longer got a home—we've nothing—we are ruined. Besides, I've got a horror of this place now. The women edge away and make signs to one another when I meet them, and in the church they leave me all alone in the middle of an empty space. Already—I had to take the children away from school.
Etchepare. My God!
The Mother. No one would speak to them. One day Georges picked a quarrel with the biggest, and they fought, and as Georges got the better of it, the other, to revenge himself, called him the son of a gallows-bird.
Etchepare. And Georges?
The Mother. He came home crying and wouldn't go out of doors. It was then that I sent them away to Bayonne.
Etchepare. That's what we'll do. Go away. We'll go and fetch them. To-morrow or to-night I shall be with you again. There are emigration companies there—boats to America—they'll send all four of us—they'll give us credit for the voyage on account of the children.
The Mother. And when they ask for their mother—
Etchepare [after a pause] You'll tell them she's dead.
Scene IV:—Yanetta is shown in.
Yanetta [to someone outside] Very good, Monsieur. [The door is closed]
The Mother [without looking at Yanetta] Then I'll go.
Etchepare [the same] Yes. I shall see you again to-night or down there to-morrow.
Etchepare. Directly you get there you'll go and find out about the day and hour.
The Mother. Very well.
Etchepare. Till to-morrow then.
The Mother. To-morrow. [She goes out without glancing at Yanetta]
Yanetta [takes a few steps towards her husband, falls on her knees, and clasps her hands. In a low voice] Forgive me!
Etchepare. Never!
Yanetta. Don't say never!
Etchepare. Was the judge lying?
Yanetta. No—he wasn't lying.
Etchepare. You wretched thing!
Yanetta. Yes, I am a wretched thing! Forgive me!
Etchepare. Kill you rather! I could kill you!
Yanetta. Yes, yes! But forgive me!
Etchepare. You're just a loose woman—a loose woman from Paris, with no honor, no shame, no honesty even!
Yanetta. Yes! Insult me—strike me!
Etchepare. For ten years you have been lying to me!
Yanetta. Oh, how I wished I could have told you everything! Oh, how many times I began that dreadful confession! I never had courage enough. I was always afraid of your anger, Pierre, and of the pain I should cause you—I saw you were so happy!
Etchepare. You came from up there, fresh from your vice, fresh from prison, and you chose me to be your gull.
Yanetta. My God, to think he believes that!
Etchepare. You brought me the leavings of a swindler—the leavings of a swindler—and you stole, in my house, the place of an honest woman! Your lies have brought the curse of God on my family and it's you who are the cause of everything. The misfortune that's just befallen us, it's you who are the cause of it, I tell you! You're a pest, accursed, damned! Don't say another word to me! Don't speak to me!
Yanetta. Have you no pity, Pierre? Do you suppose I'm not suffering?
Etchepare. If you are suffering you've deserved it! You haven't suffered enough yet. But what had I ever done to you that you should choose me for your victim? What did I ever do that I should have to bear what I'm suffering? You've made me a coward—you've lowered me almost to your own level—I ought to have been able to put you out of my mind and my heart already! And I can't! And I'm suffering torture, terrible torture—for I'm suffering through the love I once had for you. You—you were everything to me for ten years—my whole life. You've been everything, everything! And now the one hope left me is that I may forget you!
Yanetta. Oh, forgive me!
Etchepare. Never! Never!
Yanetta. Don't say that word—only God has the right to say—never! I will come back to you. I'll be only like the head servant—no, the lowest if you like! I won't take my place in the home again until you tell me to.
Etchepare. We have no house; we have no home. Nothing is left now! And I tell you again it's your fault—and it's because you used to be there, in the mother's place, my mother's place, you, a lie and a sacrilege—it's because of that that misfortune has overtaken us!
Yanetta. I swear to you I'd make you forget it all in time—I'd be so humble, so devoted, so repentant. And wherever you go I shall follow you. Pierre—think, your children still need me.
Etchepare. My children! You shall never see them again! You shall never speak to them. I won't have you kiss them. I won't have you even touch them!
Yanetta [changing her tone] Ah, no, not that, not that! The children! No, you are wrong there! You can deprive me of everything—you can put every imaginable shame upon me—you can force me to beg my bread—I'll do it willingly. You needn't look at me—you needn't speak to me except to abuse me—you can do anything, anything you like. But my children, my children—they are mine, the fruit of my body—they are still part of me—they are blood of my blood and bone of my bone forever. You might cut off one of my arms, and my arm would be a dead thing, and no part of myself any more, but you can't stop my children being my children.
Etchepare. You have made yourself unworthy to keep them.
Yanetta. Unworthy! What has unworthiness to do with it? Have I ever failed in my duty to them? Have I been a bad mother? Answer me! I haven't, have I? Well then, if I haven't been a bad mother, my rights over them are as great as ever they were! Unworthy! I might be a thousand times more guilty—more unworthy, as you call it—but neither you, nor the law, nor the priests, nor God himself would have the right to take them from me. I have been to blame as a wife, it's possible, but as a mother I've nothing to reproach myself with. Well then—well then—no one can steal them from me! And you, who could think of such a thing, you're a wretch! Yes, it's to avenge yourself that you want to part me from them! You're just a coward! Just a man! There's no fatherhood left in your heart—you don't think of them. Yes—you are lying—I tell you, you are lying! When you say I'm not worthy to bring them up you're lying! It's only a saying—only words. You know it isn't true—you know I've nourished them, cared for them, loved them, consoled them, and I have taught them to say their prayers every night, and I would go on doing so. You know that no other woman will ever fill my place—but that makes no difference to you. You forget them—you want to punish me, so you want to take them from me. I'm justified in saying to you that it's an act of cowardly wickedness and a vile piece of vengeance! Ah! The children! You want to gamble with them now. No—to take them away from me—think, Pierre, think; it isn't possible, what you are saying!
Etchepare. You are right; I am revenging myself! What you think an impossibility is done already. My mother has taken the children and gone away with them.
Yanetta. I shall find them again.
Etchepare. America is a big country.
Yanetta. I shall find them again!
Etchepare. Then I shall tell them why I have taken them away from you!
Yanetta. Never! Never that! I'll obey you, but swear—
The recorder enters.
The Recorder. Etchepare, come and sign your discharge. You will be released at once.
Yanetta. Wait a moment, Monsieur, wait a moment. [To Etchepare] I agree to separation if I must. I will disappear—you will never hear of me again. But in return for this wicked sacrifice swear solemnly that you will never tell them.
Yanetta. You swear never to tell them anything that may lessen their affection for me?
Etchepare. I swear.
Yanetta. Promise me too—I beg you, Pierre—in the name of our happiness and my misery—promise to keep me fresh in their memory—let them pray for me, won't you?
Etchepare. I swear it.
Yanetta. Then go—my life is done with.
Etchepare. Good-bye.
He goes out with the recorder. At the door the latter meets Mouzon.
The Recorder [to Etchepare] They are coming to show you the way out.
The Recorder [to Mouzon] The woman Etchepare is there.
Mouzon. Ah, she's there. Monsieur Vagret has been speaking of her. Well, I withdraw my complaint; I ask nothing better than that she shall be set at liberty. Now that I am a Councillor I don't want to be coming back from Pau every week for the examination. Proceed with the necessary formalities.
Scene V:—Mouzon, Yanetta, the recorder.
Mouzon. Well—in consideration of the time you have been in custody, I am willing that you should be set at liberty—provisional liberty. I may, perhaps, even withdraw my complaint if you express regret for having insulted me.
Yanetta [calmly] I do not regret having insulted you.
Mouzon. Do you want to go back to prison?
Yanetta. My poor man, if you only knew how little it matters to me whether I go to prison or not!
Yanetta. Because I have nothing left, neither house, nor home, nor husband, nor children. [She looks at him] And—I think—I think—
Mouzon. You think?
Yanetta. I think it is you who are the cause of all the trouble.
Mouzon. You are both acquitted, aren't you? What more do you ask?
Yanetta. We have been acquitted, it is true. But all the same, I am no longer an honest woman—neither to my husband, nor to my children, nor to the world.
Mouzon. If anyone reproaches you with the penalty inflicted upon you formerly, if anyone makes any illusion to the time you have spent in custody under remand, you have the right to prosecute the offender in the courts. He will be punished.
Yanetta. Well! It is because someone reproached me with that old conviction that my husband has taken my children from me. That someone is a magistrate. Can I have him punished?
Mouzon. No.
Yanetta. Why not? Because he is a magistrate?
Mouzon. No. Because he is the law.
Yanetta. The law! [Violently] Then the law is wicked, wicked!
Mouzon. Come, no shouting, no insults, please. [To the recorder] Have you finished? Then go to the office and have an order made out for her discharge.
Yanetta. I'm no scholar; I've not studied the law in books, like you, and perhaps for that very reason I know better than you what is just and what is not. And I want to ask you a plain question: How is the law going to give me back my children and make up to me for the harm it's done me?
Mouzon. The law owes you nothing.
Yanetta. The law owes me nothing! Then what are you going to do—you, the judge?
Mouzon. A magistrate is not responsible.
Yanetta. Ah, you are not responsible! So you can arrest people just as you like, just when you fancy, on a suspicion or even without a suspicion; you can bring shame and dishonor on their families; you can torture the unhappy, ferret into their past lives, expose their misfortunes, dig up forgotten offences, offences which have been atoned for and which go back to ten years ago; you can make use of your skill, your tricks and lies, and your cruelty to send a man to the foot of the scaffold, and worse still, you can drive people into taking a mother's children away from her—and after that you say, like Pontius Pilate, that you aren't responsible! Not responsible! Perhaps you aren't responsible in the eyes of this law of yours, since you tell me you aren't, but in the eyes of pure and simple justice, the justice of decent people, the justice of God, before that I swear you are responsible, and that is why I am going to call you to account!
She sees on Mouzon's desk the dagger which he uses as a paper-knife. He turns his back on her. She seizes the knife and puts it down again.
Mouzon. I order you to get out of here.
Yanetta. Listen to me. For the last time I ask you—what do you think you can do to make up to me—to give me back all I've lost through your fault; what are you going to do to lessen my misery, and how do you propose to give me back my children?
Mouzon. I have nothing to say to you. I owe you nothing.
Yanetta. You owe me nothing! You owe me more than life—more than everything. My children I shall never see again. What you've taken from me is the happiness of every moment of the day—their kisses at night—the pride I felt in watching them grow up. Never, never again shall I hear them call me "mother." It's as though they were dead—it's as though you had killed them. [She seizes the knife] Yes! That's your work; it's you bad judges have done it; you have nearly made a criminal of an innocent man, and you force an honest woman, a mother—to become a criminal!
She stabs him. He falls.