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THE
PRINCESS OF BAGDAD,
A PLAY IN THREE ACTS,
BY
ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUN.,
_Of the "Academie Francaise."_
(TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH.)
UNDER THE SANCTION OF THE AUTHOR.
London:
MARCHANT SINGER & CO.,
INGRAM COURT, FENCHURCH STREET.
1881.
_N.B.--All rights reserved._
_DRAMATIS PERSONAE._
JOHN DE HUN.
NOURVADY.
GODLER.
RICHARD.
TREVELE.
A COMMISSARY OF POLICE.
LIONNETTE.
RAOUL DE HUN (six years).
A LADY'S-MAID.
A NURSE.
ANTHONY.
A FOOTMAN.
A SECRETARY OF THE COMMISSARY OF POLICE.
TWO AGENTS.
IN PARIS.
THE PRINCESS OF BAGDAD.
ACT I.
_A large and very elegant drawing-room, looking out on a garden.
French window with balcony at the lower extremity to the right. To
the left a conservatory. To the right a door opening into the
apartment of_ LIONNETTE. _To the left a door opening into the
apartment of_ JOHN.
SCENE I.
RICHARD, THE FOOTMAN; afterwards JOHN and LIONNETTE.
THE FOOTMAN (_to_ RICHARD, _who waits sitting near a table, turning over
some papers_.)
The Count de Hun is here.
JOHN _enters_; _the_ FOOTMAN _goes out_.
JOHN.
I am quite at your service, Master Richard, but I regret that you have
inconvenienced yourself to come.
RICHARD.
Not at all; I live about two steps from here, and every evening, after
my dinner, I take a short walk. Only, I am in a frock-coat, and you have
friends.
JOHN.
Men only, some club friends. Lionnette is with them in the conservatory.
RICHARD.
Muster all the courage of which you are master.
JOHN.
We are ruined?
RICHARD.
Yes.
JOHN.
Poor Lionnette!
RICHARD.
Alas! It is a little her fault.
JOHN.
It is the fault of her mother, who reared her in luxury and without
order. It is my fault, too, who was not as rich as my love; who not only
never knew how to refuse her anything, but who did not even allow her
time to wish for it; who told her to buy whatever she might wish for.
RICHARD.
And who also gave her by power of attorney--serious imprudence!--the
right of buying, selling, of disposing of her property, and, in
consequence, of yours, as it seemed fit to her. You owe one million, a
hundred and seven thousand, one hundred and twenty-seven francs,
fifty-two centimes. When I say, you owe, that is a figure of speech;
your wife owes. In that amount there are only thirty-eight thousand
francs of your own personal debts, and for which personally you have to
be responsible, as you were married under the system of "separation of
property."
JOHN.
I authorised my wife to make debts, these debts then are mine. In other
words, as she has no money, it is I who have to pay. What are my assets?
RICHARD.
There is this house in which we are, which is worth eight hundred
thousand francs when one does not want to sell it, but which would be
worth from five hundred and fifty to five hundred and eighty thousand,
the moment one is obliged to part with it; it is mortgaged for four
hundred and fifty thousand francs.... Then there are the horses, the
furniture, the laces, the jewels....
JOHN.
Very few jewels. A year ago Lionnette sold every jewel she had, with
that heedlessness, that lightness of disposition, and that want of
consideration, which are the basis of her character, and which you so
well know.
RICHARD.
Ah! well, when you have sold all that you can possibly sell, there will
remain about four hundred thousand francs.
JOHN.
Of capital?
RICHARD.
Of debts.
JOHN.
And the entail of my property?
RICHARD.
Ten thousand pounds income, inalienable, and all in your own power,
fortunately.
JOHN.
Is it impossible to realize the capital?
RICHARD.
Utterly impossible. Your uncle foresaw what has happened, and, with the
knowledge of your habits and the wishes of your mother, he was anxious
to preserve to you always a crust of bread. There remains your sister.
JOHN (_with a doubtful tone_).
Yes, my sister!
RICHARD.
When you were married seven years ago, you know under what conditions,
you had nothing more than what remained to you of the fortune of your
father, about eight or nine hundred thousand francs. You made some legal
interpellations against your mother in order to marry Lionnette--I call
your wife Lionnette quite unceremoniously, as I knew her from her
birth,--and your mother, even in her dying hour, did not pardon you. She
has looked well after your sister's interest, and out of the 6,000,000
that she had she has left you only two, of which half went to pay the
debts that you had already incurred. Your mother was a woman of clear
perception....
JOHN.
Yes; but she ought to have understood....
RICHARD.
It is not easy to understand or to excuse that which wounds us in our
tenderest feelings and in our most sacred traditions. The Countess of
Hun, your mother, was entirely against the marriage you made. She knew
you to be a man led by a first impression, incapable of resisting the
first impulse. These tendencies are dangerous, not only for him who has
them, but also for those who surround him. My age authorizes me to speak
in this way to you. Your mother has only done, then, what every prudent
judicious mother, loving her son, would have done in her place. In spite
of everything, you married Mademoiselle de Quansas. I do not say that
you were wrong; I simply make, as a lawyer and friend, the summary of a
moral and legal position, and, in face of the present difficulties, I
try to find out what we can obtain from it. Your sister is married, and
to a husband who is head of the community. She has five children; an
inheritance invested at interest, the portion which ought to come back
to you having been left and allotted by your mother to the minor
children; your mother made your sister swear never to alter her
disposition of the property. These are all excellent reasons for keeping
her brother's money. I am a lawyer; I understand these legitimate
scruples of conscience!
JOHN.
I start to-morrow for Rennes. I shall go to see my sister; she will
yield, perhaps, for the honour of our name.
RICHARD.
That name is no longer her's.
JOHN.
Nevertheless, I will try.
RICHARD.
Let us hope, but do not rely upon it. Your wife also had hope to the
last, and has made a last effort among the family of ... her father: she
has failed.
JOHN.
Yes.
RICHARD.
There is still another plan.
JOHN.
And that is?
RICHARD.
Call your creditors together, and offer them so much per cent.
JOHN.
Never.
LIONNETTE (_who enters during these last words_).
Never! If we have a sum larger than or equal to our debts, we must pay
them fully; if we have only a smaller amount, we must give it to them on
account, and look for means to procure the remainder; if we are not able
to do it, then we have robbed all these confiding tradesmen, and there
is but one thing left for my husband and me to do, that is, to shut
ourselves up in a room hermetically sealed, set light to a pan of
charcoal, and die together.
JOHN (_kissing her hands_).
I adore you.
RICHARD.
Yes, it is very fine, but like a drama or a romance, it is not reality.
LIONNETTE.
On the contrary, it is the most simple thing in the world--for me, at
least. Either life, with all it is able to bestow, or death, with all it
can promise; I understand nothing else. Do you think that after living
as I have done, at my age I am going to allow myself to live in a
garret, to go to market, and to reckon accounts with the laundress and
general servant? It is unnecessary to try, I could never do it.
Hunting-hound, shepherd-dog, if you like; blind-beggar's dog, never!
RICHARD.
And your son?
LIONNETTE.
My son, I would not have him die with us, it is very evident. But my son
is six years old; he could still be brought up otherwise than I was. One
could instil in him habits of work, and ordinary tastes, that I never
had. There are 10,000 francs income from his father and the heirship
inalienable; it would be misery for us, but independence for him. Men
have no want of money, they only want it for their wives. It will be his
duty not to love a prodigal like myself, and perhaps our example will be
a warning for him.
RICHARD.
Very well. Now that we have well talked over, or rather you have well
talked over, the useless and senseless, let us speak about the possible.
Is it long since you have seen the Baroness de Spadetta?
LIONNETTE.
I see women as little as possible, my dear Richard, as you know well.
Those who would come to me, I do not wish to see; others have had an air
of making me feel their visits too great an honour. Let them stay at
home; every one is free. Women, besides, are for other women nothing but
enemies or accomplices. As to enemies, I have enough of them
out-of-doors, without attracting them to my house; as to accomplices, I
have not yet required any, and I hope to continue so. I content myself
with the society of men; at least with them one knows what to adhere to,
one knows quite well what they desire. But as to Madame Spadetta, that
speaks for itself: she robbed me, and I turned her out, or nearly so. In
any case, I want to see her no more.
RICHARD.
She robbed you! In what way?
LIONNETTE.
She knew my mother from my infancy: she was sometimes the mediator of my
mother and myself with my father on matters of business, as she occupied
an important place about him. A short time before his death my father
said to me, "If I should die, Madame de Spadetta will remit you
1,500,000 francs." My father could leave me nothing in an official and
public will, but he was incapable of telling me a thing like that if it
were not true. There was left to Madame de Spadetta 2,000,000, with this
note: "I am sure that Madame de Spadetta will make good use of that
sum." It is clear. She kept the whole; it was easy to do.
JOHN.
You have never spoken to me of that.
LIONNETTE.
What good would it have done?
JOHN.
Have you claimed that amount from her?
LIONNETTE.
Certainly. She denied it.
JOHN (_to_ RICHARD).
You might follow it up.
RICHARD.
No; it is trust-money. The law does not recognize it, and besides....
LIONNETTE.
I have only my word to support what I say. Madame de Spadetta replied to
me that what my father had left her was in remuneration for services
that her husband and she had rendered my father for thirty years. The
truth is, that out of these two millions there were five hundred
thousand francs for what she calls her services, and fifteen hundred
thousand francs for me. It is for that that I turned her out of doors.
RICHARD.
Knowing that I have the care of your affairs, she came to find me
out....
LIONNETTE.
To....
RICHARD.
To offer you five hundred thousand francs.
LIONNETTE.
On the part of whom? for she is a person equal to any kind of embassy.
RICHARD.
On the part of your father's family.
LIONNETTE.
What does she demand in return?...
RICHARD.
The giving up....
LIONNETTE.
Of all my father's letters.
RICHARD.
Yes; you knew it?
LIONNETTE.
I suspected it, from a few words she said to me. I refuse to do so.
RICHARD.
Your mother, before she died, handed over, for a much less important
amount, all the letters that she also possessed from your father.
LIONNETTE.
My mother did as she pleased; I, too, shall do as I please; and, as my
mother is dead, I refrain from saying all I think.
RICHARD.
Why do you care so much about those letters?
LIONNETTE.
You ask me that, Mr. Richard? Why do I care so much for the letters of a
father whom I loved, who loved me, the man who was my father, and who is
dead?
RICHARD.
What do you intend to do with them?
LIONNETTE.
To keep them, to read them over again, as I do now from time to time,
when the living trouble or disgust me; and when I die, carry them with
me and give them back to him--to him--if it be true that one meets again
in death those one has loved in life. Who knows? Perhaps, after being so
powerful on earth, he will have no one but me in heaven. So I must keep
something by which he may know me--up there--since he was not able to
recognize me here below.
JOHN (_to_ RICHARD).
How can one help worshipping that woman? (_He takes her head between his
hands and kisses her hair._) There.
RICHARD (_taking the hand of_ LIONNETTE).
The fact is that she has the blood of a good race in her, and that they
named you very appropriately, calling you Lionnette--little lioness; but
unfortunately it is not with that that creditors are paid, and I offer
you the only way which is open to you.
LIONNETTE.
God has hitherto given, God will give again; if He forget us, then
chance must take us.