JULIE. Yes, yes. I forgot. You love me! Which means that I am to submit to your caresses when the fancy takes you. They used to say of us women, ‘housekeeper or mistress.’ But we have moved with the times. Now you want the same woman to play both parts. Housekeeper and mistress. That is the only difference between us and the women you love before you marry us. A wife is a mistress who minds the house. That is not enough for me, thank you. No. No. No. I will not pass my whole life between cooking your dinner and accepting your kisses.
ANTONIN. That’s right. Off we go on the old story of the wife who is not understood; the poor woman who is a slave and a martyr. If you really love me, if you thought a little more instead of cramming your head with ideas which you don’t understand, you would be content with the part, modest no doubt but not dishonorable, with which plenty of women as good as you have contented themselves.
JULIE. Perhaps you are right. If I loved you, as you say, if we loved one another nothing would matter. But I say again I do not love you.
ANTONIN. Be silent.
JULIE. I do not love you.
ANTONIN. Julie, I shall end by losing my temper. You will force me to say things.
JULIE. To say things?
ANTONIN. Never mind.
JULIE. Oh, you may speak out. A little shame more or less doesn’t matter. We are alone. Let us speak out and clear up the matter once and for all. We must. It has been weighing on my mind for a long time. Say what you have to say.
ANTONIN. No.