FIRST SCENE
(The Auberge des Adrets: a cafe in sixteenth century style, with a
suggestion of stage effect. Tables and easy-chairs are scattered in
corners and nooks. The walls are decorated with armour and weapons.
Along the ledge of the wainscoting stand glasses and jugs.)
(MAURICE and HENRIETTE are in evening dress and sit facing each other at
a table on which stands a bottle of champagne and three filled glasses.
The third glass is placed at that side of the table which is nearest the
background, and there an easy-chair is kept ready for the still missing
"third man.")
MAURICE. [Puts his watch in front of himself on the table] If he doesn't
get here within the next five minutes, he isn't coming at all. And
suppose in the meantime we drink with his ghost. [Touches the third
glass with the rim of his own.]
HENRIETTE. [Doing the same] Here's to you, Adolphe!
MAURICE. He won't come.
HENRIETTE. He will come.
MAURICE. He won't.
HENRIETTE. He will.
MAURICE. What an evening! What a wonderful day! I can hardly grasp that
a new life has begun. Think only: the manager believes that I may count
on no less than one hundred thousand francs. I'll spend twenty thousand
on a villa outside the city. That leaves me eighty thousand. I won't be
able to take it all in until to-morrow, for I am tired, tired, tired.
[Sinks back into the chair] Have you ever felt really happy?
HENRIETTE. Never. How does it feel?
MAURICE. I don't quite know how to put it. I cannot express it, but I
seem chiefly to be thinking of the chagrin of my enemies. It isn't nice,
but that's the way it is.
HENRIETTE. Is it happiness to be thinking of one's enemies?
MAURICE. Why, the victor has to count his killed and wounded enemies in
order to gauge the extent of his victory.
HENRIETTE. Are you as bloodthirsty as all that?
MAURICE. Perhaps not. But when you have felt the pressure of other
people's heels on your chest for years, it must be pleasant to shake off
the enemy and draw a full breath at last.
HENRIETTE. Don't you find it strange that you are sitting here, alone
with me, an insignificant girl practically unknown to you--and on an
evening like this, when you ought to have a craving to show yourself
like a triumphant hero to all the people, on the boulevards, in the big
restaurants?
MAURICE. Of course, it's rather funny, but it feels good to be here, and
your company is all I care for.
HENRIETTE. You don't look very hilarious.
MAURICE. No, I feel rather sad, and I should like to weep a little.
HENRIETTE. What is the meaning of that?
MAURICE. It is fortune conscious of its own nothingness and waiting for
misfortune to appear.
HENRIETTE. Oh my, how sad! What is it you are missing anyhow?
MAURICE. I miss the only thing that gives value to life.
HENRIETTE. So you love her no longer then?
MAURICE. Not in the way I understand love. Do you think she has read
my play, or that she wants to see it? Oh, she is so good, so
self-sacrificing and considerate, but to go out with me for a night's
fun she would regard as sinful. Once I treated her to champagne, you
know, and instead of feeling happy over it, she picked up the wine list
to see what it cost. And when she read the price, she wept--wept because
Marion was in need of new stockings. It is beautiful, of course: it is
touching, if you please. But I can get no pleasure out of it. And I do
want a little pleasure before life runs out. So far I have had nothing
but privation, but now, now--life is beginning for me. [The clock
strikes twelve] Now begins a new day, a new era!
HENRIETTE. Adolphe is not coming.
MAURICE. No, now he won't, come. And now it is too late to go back to
the Cremerie.
HENRIETTE. But they are waiting for you.
MAURICE. Let them wait. They have made me promise to come, and I take
back my promise. Are you longing to go there?
HENRIETTE. On the contrary!
MAURICE. Will you keep me company then?
HENRIETTE. With pleasure, if you care to have me.
MAURICE. Otherwise I shouldn't be asking you. It is strange, you know,
that the victor's wreath seems worthless if you can't place it at the
feet of some woman--that everything seems worthless when you have not a
woman.
HENRIETTE. You don't need to be without a woman--you?
MAURICE. Well, that's the question.
HENRIETTE. Don't you know that a man is irresistible in his hour of
success and fame?
MAURICE. No, I don't know, for I have had no experience of it.
HENRIETTE. You are a queer sort! At this moment, when you are the most
envied man in Paris, you sit here and brood. Perhaps your conscience
is troubling you because you have neglected that invitation to drink
chicory coffee with the old lady over at the milk shop?
MAURICE. Yes, my conscience is troubling me on that score, and even here
I am aware of their resentment, their hurt feelings, their well-grounded
anger. My comrades in distress had the right to demand my presence this
evening. The good Madame Catherine had a privileged claim on my success,
from which a glimmer of hope was to spread over the poor fellows who
have not yet succeeded. And I have robbed them of their faith in me. I
can hear the vows they have been making: "Maurice will come, for he is
a good fellow; he doesn't despise us, and he never fails to keep his
word." Now I have made them forswear themselves.
(While he is still speaking, somebody in the next room has begun to
play the finale of Beethoven's Sonata in D-minor (Op. 31, No. 3).
The allegretto is first played piano, then more forte, and at last
passionately, violently, with complete abandon.)
MAURICE. Who can be playing at this time of the night?
HENRIETTE. Probably some nightbirds of the same kind as we. But listen!
Your presentation of the case is not correct. Remember that Adolphe
promised to meet us here. We waited for him, and he failed to keep his
promise. So that you are not to blame--
MAURICE. You think so? While you are speaking, I believe you, but when
you stop, my conscience begins again. What have you in that package?
HENRIETTE. Oh, it is only a laurel wreath that I meant to send up to the
stage, but I had no chance to do so. Let me give it to you now--it
is said to have a cooling effect on burning foreheads. [She rises and
crowns him with the wreath; then she kisses him on the forehead] Hail to
the victor!
MAURICE. Don't!
HENRIETTE. [Kneeling] Hail to the King!
MAURICE. [Rising] No, now you scare me.
HENRIETTE. You timid man! You of little faith who are afraid of fortune
even! Who robbed you of your self-assurance and turned you into a dwarf?
MAURICE. A dwarf? Yes, you are right. I am not working up in the clouds,
like a giant, with crashing and roaring, but I forge my weapons deep
down in the silent heart of the mountain. You think that my modesty
shrinks before the victor's wreath. On the contrary, I despise it: it is
not enough for me. You think I am afraid of that ghost with its jealous
green eyes which sits over there and keeps watch on my feelings--the
strength of which you don't suspect. Away, ghost! [He brushes the third,
untouched glass off the table] Away with you, you superfluous third
person--you absent one who has lost your rights, if you ever had any.
You stayed away from the field of battle because you knew yourself
already beaten. As I crush this glass under my foot, so I will crush the
image of yourself which you have reared in a temple no longer yours.
HENRIETTE. Good! That's the way! Well spoken, my hero!
MAURICE. Now I have sacrificed my best friend, my most faithful helper,
on your altar, Astarte! Are you satisfied?
HENRIETTE. Astarte is a pretty name, and I'll keep it--I think you love
me, Maurice.
MAURICE. Of course I do--Woman of evil omen, you who stir up man's
courage with your scent of blood, whence do you come and where do you
lead me? I loved you before I saw you, for I trembled when I heard them
speak of you. And when I saw you in the doorway, your soul poured itself
into mine. And when you left, I could still feel your presence in my
arms. I wanted to flee from you, but something held me back, and this
evening we have been driven together as the prey is driven into the
hunter's net. Whose is the fault? Your friend's, who pandered for us!
HENRIETTE. Fault or no fault: what does it matter, and what does it
mean?--Adolphe has been at fault in not bringing us together before. He
is guilty of having stolen from us two weeks of bliss, to which he had
no right himself. I am jealous of him on your behalf. I hate him because
he has cheated you out of your mistress. I should like to blot him from
the host of the living, and his memory with him--wipe him out of the
past even, make him unmade, unborn!
MAURICE. Well, we'll bury him beneath our own memories. We'll cover him
with leaves and branches far out in the wild woods, and then we'll pile
stone on top of the mound so that he will never look up again. [Raising
his glass] Our fate is sealed. Woe unto us! What will come next?
HENRIETTE. Next comes the new era--What have you in that package?
MAURICE. I cannot remember.
HENRIETTE. [Opens the package and takes out a tie and a pair of gloves]
That tie is a fright! It must have cost at least fifty centimes.
MAURICE. [Snatching the things away from her] Don't you touch them!
HENRIETTE. They are from her?
MAURICE. Yes, they are.
HENRIETTE. Give them to me.
MAURICE. No, she's better than we, better than everybody else.
HENRIETTE. I don't believe it. She is simply stupider and stingier. One
who weeps because you order champagne--
MAURICE. When the child was without stockings. Yes, she is a good woman.
HENRIETTE. Philistine! You'll never be an artist. But I am an artist,
and I'll make a bust of you with a shopkeeper's cap instead of the
laurel wreath--Her name is Jeanne?
MAURICE. How do you know?
HENRIETTE. Why, that's the name of all housekeepers.
MAURICE. Henriette!
(HENRIETTE takes the tie and the gloves and throws them into the
fireplace.)
MAURICE. [Weakly] Astarte, now you demand the sacrifice of women. You
shall have them, but if you ask for innocent children, too, then I'll
send you packing.
HENRIETTE. Can you tell me what it is that binds you to me?
MAURICE. If I only knew, I should be able to tear myself away. But I
believe it must be those qualities which you have and I lack. I believe
that the evil within you draws me with the irresistible lure of novelty.
HENRIETTE. Have you ever committed a crime?
MAURICE. No real one. Have you?
HENRIETTE. Yes.
MAURICE. Well, how did you find it?
HENRIETTE. It was greater than to perform a good deed, for by that we
are placed on equality with others; it was greater than to perform some
act of heroism, for by that we are raised above others and rewarded.
That crime placed me outside and beyond life, society, and my
fellow-beings. Since then I am living only a partial life, a sort of
dream life, and that's why reality never gets a hold on me.
MAURICE. What was it you did?
HENRIETTE. I won't tell, for then you would get scared again.
MAURICE. Can you never be found out?
HENRIETTE. Never. But that does not prevent me from seeing, frequently,
the five stones at the Place de Roquette, where the scaffold used to
stand; and for this reason I never dare to open a pack of cards, as I
always turn up the five-spot of diamonds.
MAURICE. Was it that kind of a crime?
HENRIETTE. Yes, it was that kind.
MAURICE. Of course, it's horrible, but it is interesting. Have you no
conscience?
HENRIETTE. None, but I should be grateful if you would talk of something
else.
MAURICE. Suppose we talk of--love?
HENRIETTE. Of that you don't talk until it is over.
MAURICE. Have you been in love with Adolphe?
HENRIETTE. I don't know. The goodness of his nature drew me like some
beautiful, all but vanished memory of childhood. Yet there was much
about his person that offended my eye, so that I had to spend a long
time retouching, altering, adding, subtracting, before I could make a
presentable figure of him. When he talked, I could notice that he had
learned from you, and the lesson was often badly digested and awkwardly
applied. You can imagine then how miserable the copy must appear now,
when I am permitted to study the original. That's why he was afraid of
having us two meet; and when it did happen, he understood at once that
his time was up.
MAURICE. Poor Adolphe!
HENRIETTE. I feel sorry for him, too, as I know he must be suffering
beyond all bounds--
MAURICE. Sh! Somebody is coming.
HENRIETTE. I wonder if it could be he?
MAURICE. That would be unbearable.
HENRIETTE. No, it isn't he, but if it had been, how do you think the
situation would have shaped itself?
MAURICE. At first he would have been a little sore at you because he had
made a mistake in regard to the meeting-place--and tried to find us in
several other cafes--but his soreness would have changed into pleasure
at finding us--and seeing that we had not deceived him. And in the joy
at having wronged us by his suspicions, he would love both of us. And so
it would make him happy to notice that we had become such good friends.
It had always been his dream--hm! he is making the speech now--his dream
that the three of us should form a triumvirate that could set the world
a great example of friendship asking for nothing--"Yes, I trust you,
Maurice, partly because you are my friend, and partly because your
feelings are tied up elsewhere."
HENRIETTE. Bravo! You must have been in a similar situation before,
or you couldn't give such a lifelike picture of it. Do you know that
Adolphe is just that kind of a third person who cannot enjoy his
mistress without having his friend along?
MAURICE. That's why I had to be called in to entertain you--Hush! There
is somebody outside--It must be he.
HENRIETTE. No, don't you know these are the hours when ghosts walk, and
then you can see so many things, and hear them also. To keep awake at
night, when you ought to be sleeping, has for me the same charm as a
crime: it is to place oneself above and beyond the laws of nature.
MAURICE. But the punishment is fearful--I am shivering or quivering,
with cold or with fear.
HENRIETTE. [Wraps her opera cloak about him] Put this on. It will make
you warm.
MAURICE. That's nice. It is as if I were inside of your skin, as if my
body had been melted up by lack of sleep and were being remoulded in
your shape. I can feel the moulding process going on. But I am also
growing a new soul, new thoughts, and here, where your bosom has left an
impression, I can feel my own beginning to bulge.
(During this entire scene, the pianist in the next room has been
practicing the Sonata in D-minor, sometimes pianissimo, sometimes wildly
fortissimo; now and then he has kept silent for a little while, and at
other times nothing has been heard but a part of the finale: bars 96 to
107.)
MAURICE. What a monster, to sit there all night practicing on the piano.
It gives me a sick feeling. Do you know what I propose? Let us drive out
to the Bois de Boulogne and take breakfast in the Pavilion, and see the
sun rise over the lakes.
HENRIETTE. Bully!
MAURICE. But first of all I must arrange to have my mail and the morning
papers sent out by messenger to the Pavilion. Tell me, Henriette: shall
we invite Adolphe?
HENRIETTE. Oh, that's going too far! But why not? The ass can also be
harnessed to the triumphal chariot. Let him come. [They get up.]
MAURICE. [Taking off the cloak] Then I'll ring.
HENRIETTE. Wait a moment! [Throws herself into his arms.]
(Curtain.)
SECOND SCENE
(A large, splendidly furnished restaurant room in the Bois de Boulogne.
It is richly carpeted and full of mirrors, easy-chairs, and divans.
There are glass doors in the background, and beside them windows
overlooking the lakes. In the foreground a table is spread, with flowers
in the centre, bowls full of fruit, wine in decanters, oysters on
platters, many different kinds of wine glasses, and two lighted
candelabra. On the right there is a round table full of newspapers and
telegrams.)
(MAURICE and HENRIETTE are sitting opposite each other at this small
table.)
(The sun is just rising outside.)
MAURICE. There is no longer any doubt about it. The newspapers tell me
it is so, and these telegrams congratulate me on my success. This is the
beginning of a new life, and my fate is wedded to yours by this night,
when you were the only one to share my hopes and my triumph. From your
hand I received the laurel, and it seems to me as if everything had come
from you.
HENRIETTE. What a wonderful night! Have we been dreaming, or is this
something we have really lived through?
MAURICE. [Rising] And what a morning after such a night! I feel as if
it were the world's first day that is now being illumined by the rising
sun. Only this minute was the earth created and stripped of those white
films that are now floating off into space. There lies the Garden of
Eden in the rosy light of dawn, and here is the first human couple--Do
you know, I am so happy I could cry at the thought that all mankind is
not equally happy--Do you hear that distant murmur as of ocean waves
beating against a rocky shore, as of winds sweeping through a forest?
Do you know what it is? It is Paris whispering my name. Do you see the
columns of smoke that rise skyward in thousands and tens of thousands?
They are the fires burning on my altars, and if that be not so, then
it must become so, for I will it. At this moment all the telegraph
instruments of Europe are clicking out my name. The Oriental Express is
carrying the newspapers to the Far East, toward the rising sun; and the
ocean steamers are carrying them to the utmost West. The earth is mine,
and for that reason it is beautiful. Now I should like to have wings for
us two, so that we might rise from here and fly far, far away, before
anybody can soil my happiness, before envy has a chance to wake me out
of my dream--for it is probably a dream!
HENRIETTE. [Holding out her hand to him] Here you can feel that you are
not dreaming.
MAURICE. It is not a dream, but it has been one. As a poor young man,
you know, when I was walking in the woods down there, and looked up
to this Pavilion, it looked to me like a fairy castle, and always my
thoughts carried me up to this room, with the balcony outside and the
heavy curtains, as to a place of supreme bliss. To be sitting here in
company with a beloved woman and see the sun rise while the candles were
still burning in the candelabra: that was the most audacious dream of my
youth. Now it has come true, and now I have no more to ask of life--Do
you want to die now, together with me?
HENRIETTE. No, you fool! Now I want to begin living.
MAURICE. [Rising] To live: that is to suffer! Now comes reality. I can
hear his steps on the stairs. He is panting with alarm, and his heart is
beating with dread of having lost what it holds most precious. Can
you believe me if I tell you that Adolphe is under this roof? Within a
minute he will be standing in the middle of this floor.
HENRIETTE. [Alarmed] It was a stupid trick to ask him to come here, and
I am already regretting it--Well, we shall see anyhow if your forecast
of the situation proves correct.
MAURICE. Oh, it is easy to be mistaken about a person's feelings.
(The HEAD WAITER enters with a card.)
MAURICE. Ask the gentleman to step in. [To HENRIETTE] I am afraid we'll
regret this.
HENRIETTE. Too late to think of that now--Hush!
(ADOLPHE enters, pale and hollow-eyed.)
MAURICE. [Trying to speak unconcernedly] There you are! What became of
you last night?
ADOLPHE. I looked for you at the Hotel des Arrets and waited a whole
hour.
MAURICE. So you went to the wrong place. We were waiting several hours
for you at the Auberge des Adrets, and we are still waiting for you, as
you see.
ADOLPHE. [Relieved] Thank heaven!
HENRIETTE. Good morning, Adolphe. You are always expecting the worst and
worrying yourself needlessly. I suppose you imagined that we wanted to
avoid your company. And though you see that we sent for you, you are
still thinking yourself superfluous.
ADOLPHE. Pardon me: I was wrong, but the night was dreadful.
(They sit down. Embarrassed silence follows.)
HENRIETTE. [To ADOLPHE] Well, are you not going to congratulate Maurice
on his great success?
ADOLPHE. Oh, yes! Your success is the real thing, and envy itself cannot
deny it. Everything is giving way before you, and even I have a sense of
my own smallness in your presence.
MAURICE. Nonsense!--Henriette, are you not going to offer Adolphe a
glass of wine?
ADOLPHE. Thank you, not for me--nothing at all!
HENRIETTE. [To ADOLPHE] What's the matter with you? Are you ill?
ADOLPHE. Not yet, but--
HENRIETTE. Your eyes--
ADOLPHE. What of them?
MAURICE. What happened at the Cremerie last night? I suppose they are
angry with me?
ADOLPHE. Nobody is angry with you, but your absence caused a depression
which it hurt me to watch. But nobody was angry with you, believe me.
Your friends understood, and they regarded your failure to come with
sympathetic forbearance. Madame Catherine herself defended you and
proposed your health. We all rejoiced in your success as if it had been
our own.
HENRIETTE. Well, those are nice people! What good friends you have,
Maurice.
MAURICE. Yes, better than I deserve.
ADOLPHE. Nobody has better friends than he deserves, and you are a man
greatly blessed in his friends--Can't you feel how the air is softened
to-day by all the kind thoughts and wishes that stream toward you from a
thousand breasts?
(MAURICE rises in order to hide his emotion.)
ADOLPHE. From a thousand breasts that you have rid of the nightmare
that had been crushing them during a lifetime. Humanity had been
slandered--and you have exonerated it: that's why men feel grateful
toward you. To-day they are once more holding their heads high and
saying: You see, we are a little better than our reputation after all.
And that thought makes them better.
(HENRIETTE tries to hide her emotion.)
ADOLPHE. Am I in the way? Just let me warm myself a little in your
sunshine, Maurice, and then I'll go.
MAURICE. Why should you go when you have only just arrived?
ADOLPHE. Why? Because I have seen what I need not have seen; because I
know now that my hour is past. [Pause] That you sent for me, I take
as an expression of thoughtfulness, a notice of what has happened, a
frankness that hurts less than deceit. You hear that I think well of my
fellow-beings, and this I have learned from you, Maurice. [Pause] But,
my friend, a few moments ago I passed through the Church of St. Germain,
and there I saw a woman and a child. I am not wishing that you had seen
them, for what has happened cannot be altered, but if you gave a thought
or a word to them before you set them adrift on the waters of the great
city, then you could enjoy your happiness undisturbed. And now I bid you
good-by.
HENRIETTE. Why must you go?
ADOLPHE. And you ask that? Do you want me to tell you?
HENRIETTE. No, I don't.
ADOLPHE. Good-by then! [Goes out.]
MAURICE. The Fall: and lo! "they knew that they were naked."
HENRIETTE. What a difference between this scene and the one we imagined!
He is better than we.
MAURICE. It seems to me now as if all the rest were better than we.
HENRIETTE. Do you see that the sun has vanished behind clouds, and that
the woods have lost their rose colour?
MAURICE. Yes, I see, and the blue lake has turned black. Let us flee to
some place where the sky is always blue and the trees are always green.
HENRIETTE. Yes, let us--but without any farewells.
MAURICE. No, with farewells.
HENRIETTE. We were to fly. You spoke of wings--and your feet are of
lead. I am not jealous, but if you go to say farewell and get two pairs
of arms around your neck--then you can't tear yourself away.
MAURICE. Perhaps you are right, but only one pair of little arms is
needed to hold me fast.
HENRIETTE. It is the child that holds you then, and not the woman?
MAURICE. It is the child.
HENRIETTE. The child! Another woman's child! And for the sake of it I am
to suffer. Why must that child block the way where I want to pass, and
must pass?
MAURICE. Yes, why? It would be better if it had never existed.
HENRIETTE. [Walks excitedly back and forth] Indeed! But now it does
exist. Like a rock on the road, a rock set firmly in the ground,
immovable, so that it upsets the carriage.
MAURICE. The triumphal chariot!--The ass is driven to death, but the
rock remains. Curse it! [Pause.]
HENRIETTE. There is nothing to do.
MAURICE. Yes, we must get married, and then our child will make us
forget the other one.
HENRIETTE. This will kill this!
MAURICE. Kill! What kind of word is that?
HENRIETTE. [Changing tone] Your child will kill our love.
MAURICE. No, girl, our love will kill whatever stands in its way, but it
will not be killed.
HENRIETTE. [Opens a deck of cards lying on the mantlepiece] Look at it!
Five-spot of diamonds--the scaffold! Can it be possible that our fates
are determined in advance? That our thoughts are guided as if through
pipes to the spot for which they are bound, without chance for us to
stop them? But I don't want it, I don't want it!--Do you realise that I
must go to the scaffold if my crime should be discovered?
MAURICE. Tell me about your crime. Now is the time for it.
HENRIETTE. No, I should regret it afterward, and you would despise
me--no, no, no!--Have you ever heard that a person could be hated to
death? Well, my father incurred the hatred of my mother and my sisters,
and he melted away like wax before a fire. Ugh! Let us talk of something
else. And, above all, let us get away. The air is poisoned here.
To-morrow your laurels will be withered, the triumph will be forgotten,
and in a week another triumphant hero will hold the public attention.
Away from here, to work for new victories! But first of all, Maurice,
you must embrace your child and provide for its immediate future. You
don't have to see the mother at all.
MAURICE. Thank you! Your good heart does you honour, and I love you
doubly when you show the kindness you generally hide.
HENRIETTE. And then you go to the Cremerie and say good-by to the old
lady and your friends. Leave no unsettled business behind to make your
mind heavy on our trip.
MAURICE. I'll clear up everything, and to-night we meet at the railroad
station.
HENRIETTE. Agreed! And then: away from here--away toward the sea and the
sun!
(Curtain.)