_Madame Fourchambault_--Why do you follow me?
_Fourchambault_--I'm not following you: I'm accompanying you.
_Madame Fourchambault_--I despise you; let me alone. Oh! my poor mother
little thought what a life of privation would be mine when she gave me
to you with a dowry of eight hundred thousand francs!
_Fourchambault_--A life of privation--because I refuse you a yacht!
_Madame Fourchambault_--I thought my dowry permitted me to indulge a
few whims, but it seems I was wrong.
_Fourchambault_--A whim costing eight thousand francs!
_Madame Fourchambault_--Would you have to pay for it?
_Fourchambault_--That's the kind of reasoning that's ruining me.
_Madame Fourchambault_--Now he says I'm ruining him! His whole fortune
comes from me.
_Fourchambault_--Now don't get angry, my dear. I want you to have
everything in reason, but you must understand the situation.
_Madame Fourchambault_--The situation?
_Fourchambault_--I ought to be a rich man; but thanks to the continual
expenses you incur in the name of your dowry, I can barely rub along
from day to day. If there should be a sudden fall in stocks, I have no
reserve with which to meet it.
_Madame Fourchambault_--That can't be true! Tell me at once that it
isn't true, for if it were so you would be without excuse.
_Fourchambault_--I or you?
_Madame Fourchambault_--This is too much! Is it my fault that you don't
understand business? If you haven't had the wit to make the best use of
your way of living and your family connections--any one else--
_Fourchambault_--Quite likely! But I am petty enough to be a scrupulous
man, and to wish to remain one.
_Madame Fourchambault_--Pooh! That's the excuse of all the dolts who
can't succeed. They set up to be the only honest fellows in business. In
my opinion, Monsieur, a timid and mediocre man should not insist upon
remaining at the head of a bank, but should turn the position over
to his son.
_Fourchambault_--You are still harping on that? But, my dear, you might
as well bury me alive! Already I'm a mere cipher in my family.
_Madame Fourchambault_--You do not choose your time well to pose as a
victim, when like a tyrant you are refusing me a mere trifle.
_Fourchambault_--I refuse you nothing. I merely explain my position. Now
do as you like. It is useless to expostulate.
_Madame Fourchambault_--At last! But you have wounded me to the heart,
Adrien, and just when I had a surprise for you--
_Fourchambault_--What is your surprise? [_Aside_: It makes me tremble.]
_Madame Fourchambault_--Thanks to me, the Fourchambaults are going to
triumph over the Duhamels.
_Fourchambault_--How?
_Madame Fourchambault_--Madame Duhamel has been determined this long
time to marry her daughter to the son of the prefect.
_Fourchambault_--I knew it. What about it?
_Madame Fourchambault_--While she was making a goose of herself so
publicly, I was quietly negotiating, and Baron Rastiboulois is coming to
ask our daughter's hand.
_Fourchambault_--That will never do! I'm planning quite a different
match for her.
_Madame Fourchambault_--You? I should like to know--
_Fourchambault_--He's a fine fellow of our own set, who loves Blanche,
and whom she loves if I'm not mistaken.
_Madame Fourchambault_--You are entirely mistaken. You mean Victor
Chauvet, Monsieur Bernard's clerk?
_Fourchambault_--His right arm, rather. His _alter ego_.
_Madame Fourchambault_--Blanche did think of him at one time. But her
fancy was just a morning mist, which I easily dispelled. She has
forgotten all about him, and I advise you to follow her example.
_Fourchambault_--What fault can you find with this young man?
_Madame Fourchambault_--Nothing and everything. Even his name is absurd.
I never would have consented to be called Madame Chauvet, and Blanche is
as proud as I was. But that is only a detail; the truth is, I won't have
her marry a clerk.
_Fourchambault_--You won't have! You won't have! But there are two of
us.
_Madame Fourchambault_--Are you going to portion Blanche?
_Fourchambault_--I? No.
_Madame Fourchambault_--Then you see there are not two of us. As I am
going to portion her, it is my privilege to choose my son-in-law.
_Fourchambault_--And mine to refuse him. I tell you I won't have your
little baron at any price.
_Madame Fourchambault_--Now it is your turn. What fault can you find
with him, except his title?
_Fourchambault_--He's fast, a gambler, worn out by dissipation.
_Madame Fourchambault_--Blanche likes him just as he is.
_Fourchambault_--Heavens! He's not even handsome.
_Madame Fourchambault_--What does that matter? Haven't I been the
happiest of wives?
_Fourchambault_--What? One word is as good as a hundred. I won't have
him. Blanche need not take Chauvet, but she shan't marry Rastiboulois
either. That's all I have to say.
_Madame Fourchambault_--But, Monsieur--
_Fourchambault_--That's all I have to say.
[_He goes out._]