Trotter. This is no time for jesting; I am sick of life, and I give it up.
Gnawer. Believe me, you are wrong. Life is not a bad thing. It has its hours of joy and hours of sorrow. I myself have more than once seen our last foe face to face, and yet I live. The traps made by man are not so cleverly constructed that one may not escape from them, and the cat’s claws are not always fatal. If my poor father were living, he would tell you how by patience and perseverance a rat may draw himself out of even the most perilous situations. I was still very young when one day the smell of a nice piece of bacon led him into one of those traps, vulgarly called rat-traps. We all met around his prison, and imitating our poor mother, wept and clamoured for his release. My father, calm, dignified, and self-possessed even in misfortunes, said, “Stop your crying and work, every mother’s son of you. The enemy may be hidden only a few steps off. Those traps invented by the perversity of man are simple enough. The door hangs on a lever” (my father had finished his education by devouring a dry scientific encyclopædia; he therefore knew a little of everything). “It is said that a lever and a weight might lift the world. If by applying weight to this lever you can give me back my liberty, you shall have achieved a nobler work. All of you climb to the top of my prison and hang on to the long end of the lever.” Executing his orders promptly, we succeeded in raising the door and saving my father. Suddenly, with a terrible spring, a furious Tom cat leaped upon us. “Fly!” cried my father, whose courage remained unshaken—“fly! I alone will face the enemy.” A fierce struggle ensued, in which my father, severely wounded, lost his tail, but not his life. Soon after he regained our domestic hole, and while we licked the blood from his wounds, he smilingly said to us, “You see, my children, danger is like drifting wood—portentous in the distance, paltry when it has drifted past.”
Trotter. [Coolly.] That is just my sentiment; I have no dread of danger, I could face anything.
At this moment a noise is heard like a pebble on the window, Trotter is about to flee, Gnawer prevents him.
Gnawer. Ah, my friend, where is your boasted courage? You begin to face danger by running away. Calm yourself, I know this signal. It is Toinon’s lover throwing stones at the window. We may remain here. Lovers are dangerous to no one, they only think of themselves.
SCENE III. THE SAME.
Toinon has softly opened the door and crossed the room on tiptoe; she approaches the window and whispers, “Is that you, Paul? How very imprudent! Oh! if my father were to come in.”
A Voice. It is now two whole days since I saw you. I could wait no longer. Is your father still opposed to me?
Toinon. More than ever, love! He means to go to law.