THE APPRENTICE:
The strings, see, are of sugar.
RAGUENEAU (giving him a coin):
Go, drink my health!
(Seeing Lise enter):
Hush! My wife. Bustle, pass on, and hide that money!
(To Lise, showing her the lyre, with a conscious look):
Is it not beautiful?
LISE:
’Tis passing silly!
(She puts a pile of papers on the counter.)
RAGUENEAU:
Bags? Good. I thank you.
(He looks at them):
Heavens! my cherished leaves! The poems of my friends! Torn, dismembered,
to make bags for holding biscuits and cakes!. . .Ah, ’tis the old tale again.
. .Orpheus and the Bacchantes!
LISE (dryly):
And am I not free to turn at last to some use the sole thing that your
wretched scribblers of halting lines leave behind them by way of payment?
RAGUENEAU:
Groveling ant!. . .Insult not the divine grasshoppers, the sweet singers!
LISE:
Before you were the sworn comrade of all that crew, my friend, you did not
call your wife ant and Bacchante!
RAGUENEAU:
To turn fair verse to such a use!
LISE:
’Faith, ’tis all it’s good for.