JULIE [Shyly and with womanliness]. You! Say thou to me! Between us there can be no more formality. Say thou.
JEAN. I can't—There must be formality between us—as long as we are in this house. There is the memory of the past—and there is the Count, your father. I have never known anyone else for whom I have such respect. I need only to see his gloves lying in a chair to feel my own insignificance. I have only to hear his bell to start like a nervous horse—and now as I see his boots standing there so stiff and proper I feel like bowing and scraping. [Gives boots a kick]. Superstitions and prejudices taught in childhood can't be uprooted in a moment. Let us go to a country that is a republic where they'll stand on their heads for my coachman's livery—on their heads shall they stand—but I shall not. I am not born to bow and scrape, for there's stuff in me—character. If I only get hold of the first limb, you shall see me climb. I'm a coachman today, but next year I shall be a proprietor, in two years a gentleman of income; then for Roumania where I'll let them decorate me and can, mark you, can end a count!
JULIE. Beautiful, beautiful!
JEAN. Oh, in Roumania, one can buy a title cheap—and so you can be a countess just the same—my countess!
JULIE. What do I care for all that—which I now cast behind me. Say that you love me—else, what am I, without it?
JEAN. I'll say it a thousand times afterwards, but not here. Above all, let us have no sentimentality now or everything will fall through. We must look at this matter coldly like sensible people. [Takes out a cigar and lights it.] Now sit down there and I'll sit here and we'll talk it over as if nothing had happened.
JULIE [Staggered]. Oh, my God, have you no feeling?
JEAN. I? No one living has more feeling than I but I can restrain myself.
JULIE. A moment ago you could kiss my slipper and now—
JEAN [Harshly]. That was—then. Now we have other things to think about.