_Clorinde_ [_softly_]--Here's Célie. Look at her clear eyes. I love her,
innocent child!
_Annibal_--Yes, yes, yes! [_He sits down in a corner._]
_Clorinde_ [_approaching Célie, who has paused in the doorway_]--My
child, you would not avoid me to-day if you knew how happy you make me!
_Célie_--My father has ordered me to come to you.
_Clorinde_--Ordered you? Did you need an order? Are we really on such
terms? Tell me, do you think I do not love you, that you should look
upon me as your enemy? Dear, if you could read my heart you would find
there the tenderest attachment.
_Célie_--I do not know whether you are sincere, Madame. I hope that you
are not, for it distresses one to be loved by those--
_Clorinde_--Whom one does not love? They must have painted me black
indeed, that you are so reluctant to believe in my friendship.
_Célie_--They have told me--what I have heard, thanks to you, Madame,
was not fit for my young ears. This interview is cruel--Please let me--
_Clorinde_--No, no! Stay, Mademoiselle. For this interview, painful to
us both, nevertheless concerns us both.
_Célie_--I am not your judge, Madame.
_Clorinde_--Nevertheless you do judge me, and severely! Yes, my life has
been blameworthy; I confess it. But you know nothing of its temptations.
How should you know, sweet soul, to whom life is happy and goodness
easy? Child, you have your family to guard you. You have happiness to
keep watch and ward for you. How should you know what poverty whispers
to young ears on cold evenings! You, who have never been hungry, how
should you understand the price that is asked for a mouthful of bread?
_Célie_--I don't know the pleadings of poverty, but one need not listen
to them. There are many poor girls who go hungry and cold and keep
from harm.
_Clorinde_--Child, their courage is sublime. Honor them if you will, but
pity the cowards.
_Célie_--Yes, for choosing infamy rather than work, hunger, or death!
Yes, for losing the respect of all honest souls! Yes, I can pity them
for not being worthier of pity.
_Clorinde_--So that's your Christian charity! So nothing in the
world--bitter repentance or agonies of suffering, or vows of sanctity
for all time to come--may obliterate the past?
_Célie_--You force me to speak without knowledge. But--since I must give
judgment--who really hates a fault will hate the fruit of it. If you
keep this place, Madame, you will not expect me to believe in the
genuineness of your renunciations.
_Clorinde_--I do not dishonor it. There is no reason why I should leave
it. I have already proved my sincerity by high-minded and generous acts.
I bear myself as my place demands. My conscience is at rest.
_Célie_--Your good action--for I believe you--is only the beginning of
expiation. Virtue seems to me like a holy temple. You may leave it by a
door with a single step, but to enter again you must climb up a hundred
on your knees, beating your breast.
_Clorinde_--How rigid you all are, and how your parents train their
first-born never to open the ranks! Oh, fortunate race! impenetrable
phalanx of respectability, who make it impossible for the sinner to
reform! You keep the way of repentance so rough that the foot of poor
humanity cannot tread it. God will demand from you the lost souls whom
your hardness has driven back to sin.
_Célie_--God, do you say? When good people forgive they betray his
justice. For punishment is not retribution only, but the acknowledgment
and recompense of those fighting ones that brave hunger and cold in a
garret, Madame, yet do not surrender.
_Clorinde_--Go, child! I cannot bear more--
_Célie_--I have said more than I meant to say. Good-by. This is the
first and last time that I shall ever speak of this.
[_She goes_.]