Charles Rivière Dufresny

“ Townly: You hold a strange opinion of me—for of all the women in the world, there isn't one who contradicts less than I do.
Lucas:
There's nobody like you, it's true.
Mrs. Townly: I never contradict except for good reason. But I don't like being contradicted. For example, I'm angry with you for your obstinacy. Why do you obstinately hide from me that which I wish to know? Don't I know that you are the advisor, the oracle of my husband? Without a doubt he has taken you into his confidence in the plan he has for Angelica. ”

“ In making you believe I was dead, she exposed you to a possible seizure. You might have died.
Bramble
You?—she would've enjoyed to make me die.
Widow Thank God's Mercy, you look—well. You appear healthy. I am furious with—that woman.
Bramble All this has merely redoubled my feelings for you. I can't really express them.
Widow I feel, also, that my love for you—I don't know how to say it. Huh— how I hate the Countess.
Bramble This is like a renewal of the feelings I had for you when we first met.
Widow
Yes. It's like a second honeymoon.
Tuneless
A posthumous marriage. ”

“ Widow
Because Mr. Argon is supposed to come find me.
Girard
He'll be here soon. He's still in the chateau.
Widow
I'm getting impatient.
Girard What for? You're not excited by a tender love. It's an old lover, and you should wait without impatience, coldly.
Widow
Shut up, Girard. Shut up. You know how I value him.
Girard To believe an old man is an old grey beard is no big crime. I honor him more, being his collector. The collection is small and for you, with all my heart, I wish I could pay him a one hundred thousand francs of income. ”

“ FRONTIN: Everything in you is beautiful. All of me loves you. Everything in me, everything in you, a charming agreement that demands marriage.
ARAMINTE: It's true. But I fear this forfeiture which preoccupies me. And I fear still more this severe sister who believes that, alas, it is a crime to have a heart; she made me take a vow of indifference when I would have broken it in my childhood. That is to say from the age when my discernment had been able to distinguish you, to choose you for my lover. ”

“ Lucy
You see in your nephew the living features of your husband, his uncle.
Catching the possessor of those features will cure you of your
scruples.
Widow
Lucy, do you suppose Desmond misunderstands my motives?
Lucy
Not at all. I'm sure he understands them perfectly. But, be discreet.
A man understands a widow's hint.
Widow
I have always spoken to him with an indifference, a frigidity—
Lucy
See the fate of virtue—
Widow I have expressed all the ideas of tenderness with perfect circumspection, but—shrewdly, delicately, with refinement. ”

“ For she refused my wealth which I would give, only wanting me. But, I am doubly wrong to betray you, to anger you. From prudence, I ought never to speak of Lisette. Yes, Madame, I am wrong, a hundred times wrong. But she will be my wife.
Widow I cannot recover. This blow is overwhelming. I excuse Argon. At bottom, he loves blindly. As for me, I really deserve for Lisette to deceive me. But, for this marriage—it is necessary that I break it. Were the good Argon never to marry me, let us try to disabuse him— from friendship. ”

“ Lucy
To die soon and cry forever is our final resolution.
Widow
I don't know what I'm saying, Lucy.
Lucy
I see it plainly. We haven't the strength to marry Arabella.
Countess While your husband was living, you gave the excuse that you hoped to have children. Now, your hopes and excuses are dead with your husband: you are mistress of your estate. You must marry Arabella, or tell me that you don't wish it.
Widow I cannot make up my mind to marry Arabella. Really, I don't wish her so much ill as to expose her to marriage. ”

“ Townly: Look, you're more imagination than I do. And more sense than philosophers—who haven't any, really.
Lucas: Wait, sir. There are peasants who are sharp about acquiring money—but my philosophy is to govern the world like a careful gardener. You for example, want to marry your daughter but you don't know to whom. But me, I've seen it all in my garden. As I tell Madam, trees benefit from the sun; plants from the shade. So you see if your daughter is ready to benefit from marriage, your wife will put her in a convent. ”

“ Desmond
Is this a way to talk of love?
Arabella
As for love—will yours always be so afflicted?
Desmond
If I had less refinement—
Arabella
You would be more reasonable.
Desmond
Is there anything more reasonable than my complaints?
Arabella Oh, your exaggerations are always full of reason. But they don't make you happy.
Desmond
What a conversation. Alas—how different your character is from mine.
Arabella
Marriage will solve all that.
Desmond
There, Lucy, I ask you to judge—
Lucy I have nothing to gain by judging. ”

“ Fortune, on the contrary, is favoring you. It has determined to make
you happy.
Baron
Oh, oh!
Widow
For the money, and without any love, these days, the most noble marry
Lisettes.
Baron Right, one hundred thousand francs would pay off my debts. This motive and love will excuse all.
Widow
Yes, but you must marry instantly, before this lottery becomes known.
This is delicacy. She will believe she owes your tenderness more.
Lucas will get the Grand Prize, but while he is unaware of it, the
fool must be taken, so that he gives all his wealth to Lisette.
Wealth, present and to come. ”

“ VALERE: (to Geronte) Take advantage of the opportunity. Better not wait. They are pushing their explanation a long way. (aloud) Isabelle didn't leave my aunts happily. And I've learned some good news.
GERONTE: I come to rejoice for the sake of Isabelle's love.
ISABELLE: I come with all my heart to congratulate you and I saw immediately it was in joking that you always declaimed against marriage, for you yourselves—
ARAMINTE: We ourselves—
BELISE: Ah, sis, what language—
VALERE: You are both going to get married.
ARAMINTE: (low) So as not to pay out, sister, we must deny it. ”

“ Girard Let's renew our discussion and talk of Lisette again. Because, having so much power over her, being her neighbor, and a sort of surrogate parent, you are working hard to turn her into a coquette, instead of making her wiser.
Widow
Language of Paris. That's what will make her perfect.
Girard Some perfection! Alas, you make her worse, when you come here to refine her wit. You make her heart more false and more vain.
Widow At nine years, she was already a coquette in embryo. ”

“ Desmond I am not being peculiar, when, after quiet reasoning, I conclude that your frivolousness—
Arabella Oh, my frivolousness, my frivolousness; I believe that my gayety ought to prove my tenderness. Here's how I think you ought to have reasoned, knowing me, and my fear of marriage because it is sad. I naturally fear marriage. I see they want to marry me to you—and I show no emotion. Well—to be gay under these circumstances—doesn't that prove I love you? ”

“ But it isn't natural that she should contradict my garden.
Townly:
Patience, Lucas, patience.
Lucas: To be perfectly frank I don't like being gardener here—or anywhere there are women. A woman in a garden causes more damage than a million hedgehogs. ”

“ Do I owe Lucas respect? He owes me some, perhaps. But now each of us rests on his pedestal, and for a collector to be the son-in-law of a farmer, it's by right of the game.
Widow Good. It's an old game. Regretfully, I see your scheme is in ruins. Lisette repents of having considered you, and she says she no longer intends to have Girard. Now, the proud father and daughter find that your fortune is too recent. Everywhere you find ungrateful hearts, as in the village, even with regrets. But, during some times, gamble, pilfer, respect, trim, clip, loot and loot again. ”

“ BELISE, Valere's older aunt
ARAMINTE, her younger sister
VALERE, nephew of Belise and Araminte
FRONTIN, Valere's valet
A Lackey
4 men, 3 women
(Enter Isabelle and Valere from opposite directions without seeing each other)
VALERE: What! Unable to reason with my two aunts!
ISABELLE: I can never return. What extravagants!
VALERE: Yes, the more I think of it the less I see of a way out.
ISABELLE: To have such revolting procedures for a nephew.
VALERE: We shall get nothing out of it.
ISABELLE: Oh Gods!
VALERE: Cruel Aunts. For more than ten years always new injustices. ”