This, messieurs and mesdames, represents a view of Athens, in Greece.—(To his wife.) Put my soup on the charcoal and tell me where you’ve been.
MADAME TROUSQUIN.
Why, I’ve been at home, I tell you, you jealous fool! I met Angélique and talked with her a minute. Have you much of an audience?
MONSIEUR TROUSQUIN.
Observe the beauty of the sky and water. Observe the palaces, the columns and temples, built by the Romans; note those magnificent statues, of which but few fragments remain. See that circus, in which they used to hold bull fights, to train the young men to be strong.—(To his wife.) I’m satisfied that you’ve been gallivanting with Grugeon.—See, in the distance, the famous Partiates fighting with their fists like Englishmen, and playing the game of Siam with a large roulette table.—(To his wife.) He asked you to take a glass of beer in a private room.—That handsome young man you see at the right is Alcibiades, with Socrates, his teacher, who is teaching him things he don’t know.
While I listened I saw the curtain move more violently, and I heard the girl say in an undertone:
“Oh! how stupid! Ah! how stupid! I tell you I won’t!”
Père Trousquin motioned to his wife to pull the cord, and resumed his harangue.
“This, messieurs and mesdames, is taken from mythology; it is the magnificent Judgment of Solomon, called the Wise, who is preparing to carve a little child, exactly as if it was a pie. Observe the consternation of the little one as he awaits his fate, with his legs in the air; observe the fiendish glee of that shrewish stepmother, who looks on, dry-eyed, as if someone was going to give her a slice of rabbit; but observe the grief of the real mother, who seeks to turn aside the cleaver which already threatens the innocent child’s navel.”
THE YOUNG WOMAN (under the curtain).