"My poor Pierrot," she returned, "we are none too well equipped for this world, where people know how to sing nothing else but the Marseillaise!..."
"Good enough if they even knew how to sing that!"
"We have got off at the wrong station, we left the train too early."
"I'm afraid," said Pierre, "that the next station would have been still worse. Can you see us, my darling, in the social fabric of the future—the hive they promise us, where none will have the right to live except for the queen bee's service or for the republic?"
"Laying eggs from morning to night like a mitrailleuse or from morning to night licking the eggs of others.... Thank you for that choice!" said Luce.
"Oh, Luce, little ugly one, how ugly you talk," said Pierre laughing.
"Yes, it's very bad, I know it. I am good for nothing. Nor you either, my friend. You are just as ill fitted for killing or maiming men as I am for sewing them up again, like those wretched horses when they are ripped up at the bullfights, so that they can serve again at the next affray. We two are useless beings and dangerous, who have the ridiculous, criminal pretention to live only in order to love those we do love, likewise my little lover lad and my friends, honest people and little children, the good light of the day, also good white bread and everything that is pretty and right for me to put in my mouth. It's shameful, it's shameful! Blush for me, Pierrot!... But we shall be well punished! There is going to be no place for us in that factory of the State, without rest and without truce, which the earth will be soon.... Luckily we shall not be here!"
"Yes, what happiness!" quoth Pierre.
"If in thine arms, O Lady of my heart,
I die, to greater fame I'll not aspire,
Content upon thy bosom to expire
Whilst kissing thee and thus from living part...."
"Well, little darling, what sort of a fashion is that?"