Richard.
And your child?
Lionnette.
I see at what you are aiming, my dear Mr. Richard ... you want to touch my tender feelings. Feel my hands, they are cold; listen to my voice, it does not tremble; if you put your hand on my heart, you would feel that I have not one pulsation more than ordinarily. You still hope there is some remedy for what has happened ... there is none ... there can never be any. If there were any I should reject it. Would you like me to open my heart to you? I merit what has happened. I often condemned my mother, because the guilty always accuse some one else of the faults that they commit; but I am no better than she was. There is too great a mixture in me, and I should be foolish to attempt to discover what I am. I am simply and logically what I was destined to be. I shall not be the first woman who was proud of her disgrace, especially in these times; and what difference will that make to the world? I ought to have been economical or ugly! These two men who hate each other, and are equally resolved to be the ruin of me, are yet better than I, for they love, though one suffers and the other desires; whereas I desire nothing more, I can suffer no more, and this disclosure of affairs will appear quite natural to those who knew me. It is horrible; it is monstrous ... it is all that, and I tell it to you because I have no one now to deceive, thank God! And, apart from that, I am going into vice that I like no better than anything else, as I entered into marriage and motherhood, without considering why. I have no heart! no heart! that is at the bottom of it all. A creature of luxury and pleasure. You ask me, then, why I do not kill myself—why I do not put an end to myself—that is the word? That would be done more quickly, and would simplify everything. Yesterday I was ready to die to avoid dishonour. To-day, what good would it do? I am dishonoured. What do you want me to destroy in myself? Nothing has any more life in me, and it seems that I can still bestow pleasure, love—happiness may be. You say to yourself that all that is impossible, because you call to mind your mother, your wife, your children. Yes, there are, indeed, mothers, wives, children ... and, again, there are some beings who have the same forms, and bear the same names, but who are not in any degree the same thing. What do you want still to know?
Richard.
I do not dispute; only embrace your child for the last time.
Lionnette.
Why disturb him? he is playing no doubt.
Richard.
I am going to look for him.