Part 2
THE STEP-DAUGHTER (_to Manager_). Worse? Worse? Listen! Stage this drama for us at once! Then you will see that at a certain moment I ... when this little darling here ... (_Takes the Child by the hand and leads her to the Manager_): Isn't she a dear? (_Takes her up and kisses her_). Darling! Darling! (_Puts her down again and adds feelingly_): Well, when God suddenly takes this dear little child away from that poor mother there; and this imbecile here (_seizing hold of the Boy roughly and pushing him forward_) does the stupidest things, like the fool he is, you will see me run away. Yes, gentleman, I shall be off. But the moment hasn't arrived yet. After what has taken place between him and me (_indicates the Father with a horrible wink_), I can't remain any longer in this society, to have to witness the anguish of this mother here for that fool.... (_indicates the Son_). Look at him! Look at him! See how indifferent, how frigid he is, because he is the legitimate son. He despises me, despises him (_pointing to the Boy_), despises this baby here; because ... we are bastards (_goes to the Mother and embraces her_). And he doesn't want to recognize her as his mother--she who is the common mother of us all. He looks down upon her as if she were only the mother of us three bastards. Wretch! (_She says all this very rapidly, excitedly. At the word "bastards" she raises her voice, and almost spits out the final "Wretch!"_).
THE MOTHER (_to the Manager, in anguish_). In the name of these two little children, I beg you.... (_She grows faint and is about to fall_). Oh God!
THE FATHER (_coming forward to support her as do some of the actors_). Quick a chair, a chair for this poor widow!
THE ACTORS. Is it true? Has she really fainted?
THE MANAGER. Quick, a chair! Here!
(_One of the actors brings a chair, the others proffer assistance. The Mother tries to prevent the Father from lifting the veil which covers her face_).
THE FATHER. Look at her! Look at her!
THE MOTHER. No, no; stop it please!
THE FATHER (_raising her veil_). Let them see you!
THE MOTHER (_rising and covering her face with her hands, in desperation_). I beg you, sir, to prevent this man from carrying out his plan which is loathsome to me.
THE MANAGER (_dumbfounded_). I don't understand at all. What is the situation? Is this lady your wife? (_to the Father_).
THE FATHER. Yes, gentlemen: my wife!
THE MANAGER. But how can she be a widow if you are alive? (_The actors find relief for their astonishment in a loud laugh_).
THE FATHER. Don't laugh! Don't laugh like that, for Heaven's sake. Her drama lies just here in this: she has had a lover, a man who ought to be here.
THE MOTHER (_with a cry_). No! No!
THE STEP-DAUGHTER. Fortunately for her, he is dead. Two months ago as I said. We are in mourning, as you see.
THE FATHER. He isn't here you see, not because he is dead. He isn't here--look at her a moment and you will understand--because her drama isn't a drama of the love of two men for whom she was incapable of feeling anything except possibly a little gratitude--gratitude not for me but for the other. She isn't a woman, she is a mother, and her drama--powerful sir, I assure you--lies, as a matter of fact, all in these four children she has had by two men.
THE MOTHER. I had them? Have you got the courage to say that I wanted them? (_To the company_). It was his doing. It was he who gave me that other man, who forced me to go away with him.
THE STEP-DAUGHTER. It isn't true.
THE MOTHER (_startled_). Not true, isn't it?
THE STEP-DAUGHTER. No, it isn't true, it just isn't true.
THE MOTHER. And what can you know about it?
THE STEP-DAUGHTER. It isn't true. Don't believe it. (_To Manager_). Do you know why she says so? For that fellow there (_indicates the Son_). She tortures herself, destroys herself on account of the neglect of that son there; and she wants him to believe that if she abandoned him when he was only two years old, it was because he (_indicates the Father_) made her do so.
THE MOTHER (_vigorously_). He forced me to it, and I call God to witness it (_to the Manager_). Ask him (_indicates husband_) if it isn't true. Let him speak. You (_to daughter_) are not in a position to know anything about it.
THE STEP-DAUGHTER. I know you lived in peace and happiness with my father while he lived. Can you deny it?
THE MOTHER. No, I don't deny it....
THE STEP-DAUGHTER. He was always full of affection and kindness for you (_to the Boy, angrily_). It's true, isn't it? Tell them! Why don't you speak, you little fool?
THE MOTHER. Leave the poor boy alone. Why do you want to make me appear ungrateful, daughter? I don't want to offend your father. I have answered him that I didn't abandon my house and my son through any fault of mine, nor from any wilful passion.
THE FATHER. It is true. It was my doing.
LEADING MAN (_to the Company_). What a spectacle!
LEADING LADY. We are the audience this time.
JUVENILE LEAD. For once, in a way.
THE MANAGER (_beginning to get really interested_). Let's hear them out. Listen!
THE SON. Oh yes, you're going to hear a fine bit now. He will talk to you of the Demon of Experiment.
THE FATHER. You are a cynical imbecile. I've told you so already a hundred times (_to the Manager_). He tries to make fun of me on account of this expression which I have found to excuse myself with.
THE SON (_with disgust_). Yes, phrases! phrases!
THE FATHER. Phrases! Isn't everyone consoled when faced with a trouble or fact he doesn't understand, by a word, some simple word, which tells us nothing and yet calms us?
THE STEP-DAUGHTER. Even in the case of remorse. In fact, especially then.
THE FATHER. Remorse? No, that isn't true. I've done more than use words to quieten the remorse in me.
THE STEP-DAUGHTER. Yes, there was a bit of money too. Yes, yes, a bit of money. There were the hundred lire he was about to offer me in payment, gentlemen.... (_sensation of horror among the actors_).
THE SON (_to the Step-Daughter_). This is vile.
THE STEP-DAUGHTER. Vile? There they were in a pale blue envelope on a little mahogany table in the back of Madame Pace's shop. You know Madame Pace--one of those ladies who attract poor girls of good family into their ateliers, under the pretext of their selling _robes et manteaux_.
THE SON. And he thinks he has bought the right to tyrannise over us all with those hundred lire he was going to pay; but which, fortunately--note this, gentlemen--he had no chance of paying.
THE STEP-DAUGHTER. It was a near thing, though, you know! (_laughs ironically_).
THE MOTHER (_protesting_.) Shame, my daughter, shame!
THE STEP-DAUGHTER. Shame indeed! This is my revenge! I am dying to live that scene.... The room ... I see it.... Here is the window with the mantles exposed, there the divan, the looking-glass, a screen, there in front of the window the little mahogany table with the blue envelope containing one hundred lire. I see it. I see it. I could take hold of it.... But you, gentlemen, you ought to turn your backs now: I am almost nude, you know. But I don't blush: I leave that to him (_indicating Father_).
THE MANAGER. I don't understand this at all.
THE FATHER. Naturally enough. I would ask you, sir, to exercise your authority a little here, and let me speak before you believe all she is trying to blame me with. Let me explain.
THE STEP-DAUGHTER. Ah yes, explain it in your own way.
THE FATHER. But don't you see that the whole trouble lies here. In words, words. Each one of us has within him a whole world of things, each man of us his own special world. And how can we ever come to an understanding if I put in the words I utter the sense and value of things as I see them; while you who listen to me must inevitably translate them according to the conception of things each one of you has within himself. We think we understand each other, but we never really do! Look here! This woman (_indicating the Mother_) takes all my pity for her as a specially ferocious form of cruelty.
THE MOTHER. But you drove me away.
THE FATHER. Do you hear her? I drove her away! She believes I really sent her away.
THE MOTHER. You know how to talk, and I don't; but, believe me sir, (_to Manager_) after he had married me ... who knows why? ... I was a poor insignificant woman....
THE FATHER. But, good Heavens! it was just for your humility that I married you. I loved this simplicity in you (_He stops when he sees she makes signs to contradict him, opens his arms wide in sign of desperation, seeing how hopeless it is to make himself understood_). You see she denies it. Her mental deafness, believe me, is phenomenal, the limit (_touches his forehead_): deaf, deaf, mentally deaf! She has plenty of feeling. Oh yes, a good heart for the children; but the brain--deaf, to the point of desperation--!
THE STEP-DAUGHTER. Yes, but ask him how his intelligence has helped us.
THE FATHER. If we could see all the evil that may spring from good, what should we do? (_At this point the Leading Lady who is biting her lips with rage at seeing the Leading Man flirting with the Step-Daughter, comes forward and says to the Manager_).
LEADING LADY. Excuse me, but are we going to rehearse today?
MANAGER. Of course, of course; but let's hear them out.
JUVENILE LEAD. This is something quite new.
L'INGÉNUE. Most interesting!
LEADING LADY. Yes, for the people who like that kind of thing (_casts a glance at Leading Man_).
THE MANAGER (_to Father_.) You must please explain yourself quite clearly (_sits down_).
THE FATHER. Very well then: listen! I had in my service a poor man, a clerk, a secretary of mine, full of devotion, who became friends with her (_indicating the Mother_). They understood one another, were kindred souls in fact, without, however, the least suspicion of any evil existing. They were incapable even of thinking of it.
THE STEP-DAUGHTER. So he thought of it--for them!
THE FATHER. That's not true. I meant to do good to them--and to myself, I confess, at the same time. Things had come to the point that I could not say a word to either of them without their making a mute appeal, one to the other, with their eyes. I could see them silently asking each other how I was to be kept in countenance, how I was to be kept quiet. And this, believe me, was just about enough of itself to keep me in a constant rage, to exasperate me beyond measure.
THE MANAGER. And why didn't you send him away then--this secretary of yours?
THE FATHER. Precisely what I did, sir. And then I had to watch this poor woman drifting forlornly about the house like an animal without a master, like an animal one has taken in out of pity.
THE MOTHER. Ah yes...!
THE FATHER (_suddenly turning to the Mother_). It's true about the son anyway, isn't it?
THE MOTHER. He took my son away from me first of all.
THE FATHER. But not from cruelty. I did it so that he should grow up healthy and strong by living in the country.
THE STEP-DAUGHTER (_pointing to him ironically_). As one can see.
THE FATHER (_quickly_). Is it my fault if he has grown up like this? I sent him to a wet nurse in the country, a peasant, as _she_ did not seem to me strong enough, though she is of humble origin. That was, anyway, the reason I married her. Unpleasant all this maybe, but how can it be helped? My mistake possibly, but there we are! All my life I have had these confounded aspirations towards a certain moral sanity. (_At this point the Step-Daughter bursts out into a noisy laugh_). Oh, stop, it! Stop it! I can't stand it.
THE MANAGER. Yes, please stop it, for Heaven's sake.
THE STEP-DAUGHTER. But imagine moral sanity from him, if you please--the client of certain ateliers like that of Madame Pace!
THE FATHER. Fool! That is the proof that I am a man! This seeming contradiction, gentlemen, is the strongest proof that I stand here a live man before you. Why, it is just for this very incongruity in my nature that I have had to suffer what I have. I could not live by the side of that woman (_indicating the Mother_) any longer; but not so much for the boredom she inspired me with as for the pity I felt for her.
THE MOTHER. And so he turned me out--.
THE FATHER. --well provided for! Yes, I sent her to that man, gentlemen ... to let her go free of me.
THE MOTHER. And to free himself.
THE FATHER. Yes, I admit it. It was also a liberation for me. But great evil has come of it. I meant well when I did it; and I did it more for her sake than mine. I swear it (_crosses his arms on his chest; then turns suddenly to the Mother_). Did I ever lose sight of you until that other man carried you off to another town, like the angry fool he was? And on account of my pure interest in you ... my pure interest, I repeat, that had no base motive in it ... I watched with the tenderest concern the new family that grew up around her. She can bear witness to this (_points to the Step-Daughter_).
THE STEP-DAUGHTER. Oh yes, that's true enough. When I was a kiddie, so so high, you know, with plaits over my shoulders and knickers longer than my skirts, I used to see him waiting outside the school for me to come out. He came to see how I was growing up.
THE FATHER. This is infamous, shameful!
THE STEP-DAUGHTER. No, why?
THE FATHER. Infamous! infamous! (_Then excitedly to Manager explaining_). After she (_indicating Mother_) went away, my house seemed suddenly empty. She was my incubus, but she filled my house. I was like a dazed fly alone in the empty rooms. This boy here (_indicating the Son_) was educated away from home, and when he came back, he seemed to me to be no more mine. With no mother to stand between him and me, he grew up entirely for himself, on his own, apart, with no tie of intellect or affection binding him to me. And then--strange but true--I was driven, by curiosity at first and then by some tender sentiment, towards her family, which had come into being through my will. The thought of her began gradually to fill up the emptiness I felt all around me. I wanted to know if she were happy in living out the simple daily duties of life. I wanted to think of her as fortunate and happy because far away from the complicated torments of my spirit. And so, to have proof of this, I used to watch that child coming out of school.
THE STEP-DAUGHTER. Yes, yes. True. He used to follow me in the street and smiled at me, waved his hand, like this. I would look at him with interest, wondering who he might be. I told my mother, who guessed at once (_the Mother agrees with a nod_). Then she didn't want to send me to school for some days; and when I finally went back, there he was again--looking so ridiculous--with a paper parcel in his hands. He came close to me, caressed me, and drew out a fine straw hat from the parcel, with a bouquet of flowers--all for me!
THE MANAGER. A bit discursive this, you know!
THE SON (_contemptuously_). Literature! Literature!
THE FATHER. Literature indeed! This is life, this is passion!
THE MANAGER. It may be, but it won't act.
THE FATHER. I agree. This is only the part leading up. I don't suggest this should be staged. She (_pointing to the Step-Daughter_), as you see, is no longer the flapper with plaits down her back--.
THE STEP-DAUGHTER. --and the knickers showing below the skirt!
THE FATHER. The drama is coming now, sir; something new, complex, most interesting.
THE STEP-DAUGHTER. As soon as my father died....
THE FATHER. --there was absolute misery for them. They came back here, unknown to me. Through her stupidity (_pointing to the Mother_)! It is true she can barely write her own name; but she could anyhow have got her daughter to write to me that they were in need....
THE MOTHER. And how was I to divine all this sentiment in him?
THE FATHER. That is exactly your mistake, never to have guessed any of my sentiments.
THE MOTHER. After so many years apart, and all that had happened....
THE FATHER. Was it my fault if that fellow carried you away? It happened quite suddenly; for after he had obtained some job or other, I could find no trace of them; and so, not unnaturally, my interest in them dwindled. But the drama culminated unforeseen and violent on their return, when I was impelled by my miserable flesh that still lives.... Ah! what misery, what wretchedness is that of the man who is alone and disdains debasing _liaisons_! Not old enough to do without women, and not young enough to go and look for one without shame. Misery? It's worse than misery; it's a horror; for no woman can any longer give him love; and when a man feels this ... One ought to do without, you say? Yes, yes, I know. Each of us when he appears before his fellows is clothed in a certain dignity. But every man knows what unconfessable things pass within the secrecy of his own heart. One gives way to the temptation, only to rise from it again, afterwards, with a great eagerness to reestablish one's dignity, as if it were a tomb-stone to place on the grave of one's shame, and a monument to hide and sign the memory of our weaknesses. Everybody's in the same case. Some folks haven't the courage to say certain things, that's all!
THE STEP-DAUGHTER. All appear to have the courage to do them though.
THE FATHER. Yes, but in secret. Therefore, you want more courage to say these things. Let a man but speak these things out, and folks at once label him a cynic. But it isn't true. He is like all the others, better indeed, because he isn't afraid to reveal with the light of the intelligence the red shame of human bestiality on which most men close their eyes so as not to see it.
Woman--for example, look at her case! She turns tantalizing inviting glances on you. You seize her. No sooner does she feel herself in your grasp than she closes her eyes. It is the sign of her mission, the sign by which she says to man: "Blind yourself, for I am blind."
THE STEP-DAUGHTER. Sometimes she can close them no more: when she no longer feels the need of hiding her shame to herself, but dry-eyed and dispassionately, sees only that of the man who has blinded himself without love. Oh, all these intellectual complications make me sick, disgust me--all this philosophy that uncovers the beast in man, and then seeks to save him, excuse him ... I can't stand it, sir. When a man seeks to "simplify" life bestially, throwing aside every relic of humanity, every chaste aspiration, every pure feeling, all sense of ideality, duty, modesty, shame ... then nothing is more revolting and nauseous than a certain kind of remorse--crocodiles' tears, that's what it is.
THE MANAGER. Let's come to the point. This is only discussion.
THE FATHER. Very good, sir! But a fact is like a sack which won't stand up when it is empty. In order that it may stand up, one has to put into it the reason and sentiment which have caused it to exist. I couldn't possibly know that after the death of that man, they had decided to return here, that they were in misery, and that she (_pointing to the Mother_) had gone to work as a modiste, and at a shop of the type of that of Madame Pace.
THE STEP-DAUGHTER. A real high-class modiste, you must know, gentlemen. In appearance, she works for the leaders of the best society; but she arranges matters so that these elegant ladies serve her purpose ... without prejudice to other ladies who are ... well ... only so so.
THE MOTHER. You will believe me, gentlemen, that it never entered my mind that the old hag offered me work because she had her eye on my daughter.
THE STEP-DAUGHTER. Poor mamma! Do you know, sir, what that woman did when I brought her back the work my mother had finished? She would point out to me that I had torn one of my frocks, and she would give it back to my mother to mend. It was I who paid for it, always I; while this poor creature here believed she was sacrificing herself for me and these two children here, sitting up at night sewing Madame Pace's robes.
THE MANAGER. And one day you met there....
THE STEP-DAUGHTER. Him, him. Yes sir, an old client. There's a scene for you to play! Superb!
THE FATHER. She, the Mother arrived just then....
THE STEP-DAUGHTER (_treacherously_). Almost in time!
THE FATHER (_crying out_). No, in time! in time! Fortunately I recognized her ... in time. And I took them back home with me to my house. You can imagine now her position and mine: she, as you see her; and I who cannot look her in the face.
THE STEP-DAUGHTER. Absurd! How can I possibly be expected--after that--to be a modest young miss, a fit person to go with his confounded aspirations for "a solid moral sanity"?
THE FATHER. For the drama lies all in this--in the conscience that I have, that each one of us has. We believe this conscience to be a single thing, but it is many-sided. There is one for this person, and another for that. Diverse consciences. So we have this illusion of being one person for all, of having a personality that is unique in all our acts. But it isn't true. We perceive this when, tragically perhaps, in something we do, we are as it were, suspended, caught up in the air on a kind of hook. Then we perceive that all of us was not in that act, and that it would be an atrocious injustice to judge us by that action alone, as if all our existence were summed up in that one deed. Now do you understand the perfidy of this girl? She surprised me in a place, where she ought not to have known me, just as I could not exist for her; and she now seeks to attach to me a reality such as I could never suppose I should have to assume for her in a shameful and fleeting moment of my life. I feel this above all else. And the drama, you will see, acquires a tremendous value from this point. Then there is the position of the others ... his.... (_indicating the Son_).