FRONTIN: I quiver, Madame, on account of the step I am going to take, by taking you for my wife.
BELISE: I, who by my example have kept my sister in the vow she made to guard her heart. She respected me as the most perfect. I must blush before my little sister.
FRONTIN: I who to my elders reprimanded passions, forcing even my sisters to celibacy, I who in history to distinguish my name would have gloried in the title of extinguisher of my race—
BELISE: I who abhorred even the name of marriage and would have become famous for it.
FRONTIN: I, Senechal Groux, caustic philosopher who jested at suitors, insulted them, apostrophized them.
BELISE: I called marriage a myth, a stumbling block.
FRONTIN: The prison of desires, the coffin of the living.
BELISE: (tenderly) The abyss. Now see what an unfeeling fondness—
FRONTIN: Towards the abyss, a slope—
BELISE: Yes, sweet—