Woman on Her Own, False Gods and The Red Robe / Three Plays By Brieux

by Eugène Brieux

Mouzon [to Mondoubleau] Singular coincidence! [To the officer] Was he comfortably off, this Etchepare?

Officer. He was pressed for money. Three months ago he borrowed eight hundred francs from a Mauleon cattle-dealer.

Mouzon. And what do the neighbors say?

Officer. They say Etchepare was a sly grasping fellow, and they aren't surprised to hear that he's the murderer. All the same, they all speak very highly of the woman Yanetta Etchepare. They say she is a model mother and housekeeper.

Mouzon. How many children?

Officer. Two—Georges and—I can't remember the name of the other now.

Mouzon. And the woman's moral character?

Officer. Irreproachable.

Mouzon. Good.

Officer. I was forgetting. One of my men, one of those who effected the arrest, informs me that when Etchepare saw him coming he said to his wife, "They've got me."