Gorgo. Is Praxinoë at home?
Praxinoë. My dear Gorgo, at last! Yes, here I am. Euno, find a chair—get a cushion for it.
Gorgo. It will do beautifully as it is.
Praxinoë. Do sit down.
Gorgo. Oh, this gad-about spirit! I could hardly get to you, Praxinoë, through all the crowd and all the carriages. Nothing but heavy boots, nothing but men in uniform. And what a journey it is! My dear child, you really live too far off.
Praxinoë. It is all that insane husband of mine. He has chosen to come out here to the end of the world, and take a hole of a place—for a house it is not—on purpose that you and I might not be neighbours. He is always just the same—anything to quarrel with one! anything for spite!
Gorgo. My dear, don’t talk so of your husband before the little fellow. Just see how astonished he looks at you. (Talking to the child.) Never mind, Zopyrio my pet, she is not talking about papa. (Good heavens, the child does really understand.) Pretty papa!
Praxinoë. That “pretty papa” of his the other day (though I told him beforehand to mind what he was about), when I sent him to a shop to buy soap and rouge, brought me home salt instead; stupid, great, big, interminable animal!
Gorgo. Mine is just the fellow to him. But never mind now, get on your things and let us be off to the palace to see the Adonis. I hear the Queen’s decorations are something splendid.