JEAN. You shall be the mistress of the house, the ornament of the firm. With your appearance and your manners we are sure of a colossal success. You sit like a queen in the office and set your slaves in motion with one touch on the electric bell; the guests march past your throne and lay their treasures humbly on the table. You cannot imagine how people tremble when they get a bill. I will salt the accounts and you will sugar them with your most bewitching smile. Yes, let us travel far from here. He takes a time-table from his pockety Good. By the next train we are in Malmö at 6.30, in Hamburg at 8.40 to-morrow morning, from Frankfort to Basle in one day, and we are in Como by the St. Gothard route in, let me see, three days. Three days!
JULIE. That is ah very fine. But, Jean, you must give me courage. Say that you love me. Come and take me in your arms.
JEAN. [Hesitating] I would like to, but I dare not. Not here in this house. I love you without doubt. Can you doubt it?
JULIE. YOU! Say "thou" to me. Between us there are no longer any barriers. Say "thou."
JEAN. [Troubled] I cannot. There are still barriers between us so long as we remain in this house. It recalls the past, it recalls the Count. I have never met any man who compelled such respect from me. I have only to see his glove lying on a table to feel quite small. I have only to hear his bell and I start like a shying horse. And when I look at his boots standing there so stiff and stately, it makes me shiver. [He pushes the boots away with his foot.] Superstition, prejudice, which has been driven into us from childhood, but which we can never get free of. If you will only come into another country, into a republic, then people shall kneel down before my porter's livery, people shall kneel down. But I shall not kneel down. I am not born to kneel, for there is stuff in me; there is character in me; and if once I reach the lowest branch, you shall watch me climb. To-day I am a lackey, but next year I am a proprietor; in a few years I shall have an income, and then I run off to Roumania, where I buy a decoration. I can—mark well that I say can—die a count.
JULIE. Beautiful, beautiful!
JEAN. Ah, in Roumania a man can buy a count's title, and then you will be a countess, my countess.
JULIE. What do I care for what I have cast aside! Say that you love me, or else—ah, what am I else?
JEAN. I will say it a thousand times—later on. But not here. And above all, no hysterics, or all is lost. We must manage the affair quietly, like sensible people. [He takes out a cigar, cuts the end, and lights it.] Sit down there, and I will sit here, and then we can chat as if nothing had happened.
JULIE. Oh, my God! Have you no feelings?