DOCTOR. There is nothing dishonorable about being ill.
GEORGE. Ah, yes. But people are such idiots. Even yesterday I myself should have laughed at anyone I knew who was in the position that I am in now. Why, I should have avoided him as if he had the plague. Oh, if I were the only one to suffer! But she—she loves me, I swear she does, she is so good. It will be dreadful for her.
DOCTOR. Less so than it would be later.
GEORGE. There’ll be a scandal.
DOCTOR. You will avoid a bigger one.
George quietly puts two twenty-franc pieces on the desk, takes his gloves, hat and stick, and gets up.
GEORGE. I will think it over. Thank you, doctor. I shall come back next week as you told me to—probably. [He goes towards the door].
DOCTOR [rising] No: I shall not see you next week, and what is more you will not think it over. You came here knowing what you had, with the express intention of not acting by my advice unless it agreed with your wishes. A flimsy honesty made you take this chance of pacifying your conscience. You wanted to have someone on whom you could afterwards throw the responsibility of an act you knew to be culpable. Don’t protest. Many who come here think as you think and do what you want to do. But when they have married in opposition to my advice the results have been for the most part so calamitous that now I am almost afraid of not having been persuasive enough. I feel as though in spite of everything I were in some sort the cause of their misery. I ought to be able to prevent such misery. If only the people who are the cause of it knew what I know and had seen what I have seen, it would be impossible. Give me your word that you will break off your engagement.
GEORGE. I can’t give you my word. I can only repeat: I will think it over.
DOCTOR. Think over what?