Edouard Pailleron

“ Duchess. Oh, the Professor! Yes, Bellac. You told me that. You think no woman can follow his lectures without falling in love with him?
Mme. de Céran. But Suzanne hasn’t missed a single lecture, Aunt, and she takes notes and corrects them and copies them—I tell you Suzanne is in earnest. And while he is speaking she never takes her eyes off him; she drinks in every word. And you think that is all for the sake of science! Nonsense, it isn’t the science she loves, it’s the scientist. That is as plain as day. You have only to watch her when she’s with Lucy. She is dreadfully jealous. ”

“ Mme. de Céran. Oh, Aunt, you are too romantic!
Duchess. The fault of my years! Women find romance but twice in their lives: at sixteen in their own hearts, at sixty in the hearts of others. Well, you want your son to marry Lucy; I want him to marry Suzanne. You say Suzanne is in love with Bellac; I say, Lucy. Perhaps we are both wrong; it is for Roger to decide. ”

“ Mme. de Loudan. They were not Petrarch’s, Duchess; let’s have fair play.
Bellac. Héloise——
Duchess. Oh, she!
Bellac. And their sisters of more recent date: Elvira, Eloa, and many others, known and unknown. That cohort of pure and unknown loves, is growing from day to day—I call all womankind to witness!
Ladies. Ah, my dear, how true!
Bellac. The soul has a language all its own; its aspirations, its pleasures and its tortures belong to it: are its very existence. And if it be chained to the body, it is like the wing of a bird: in order to raise it to the heights! ”

“ Suzanne. To kill him? (Puts her arms around his neck) How nice you are! Then you thought—?
Roger. Let’s not say any more about that, it’s all over, forgotten, the past is dead. Let’s begin all over again: from my arrival—How are you, Suzanne? How are you, dear? It’s been so long since I’ve seen you! Come to me, dear, the way you used to! (He seats himself with her beside him)
Suzanne. Oh, Roger, how nice you are! What lovely things you say! You love me better than you love her, then?
Roger. (With feeling) Love you! But isn’t it my duty to love you? As a relative, as a tutor, as an honest man? ”

“ Jeanne. Oh, come, dear, sit by me!
Paul. (Seating himself, and rising again as before) And the lectures and the Literature! And Revel’s candidacy! Clever old fox who keeps dying every evening and coming back to life every morning! (He starts to sit down, then he pauses) And Saint-Réault! Ah! Saint-Réault! And the Ramas-Ravanas and all the clap-trap about Buddha!
Mme. de Céran. (Indignantly) Oh!
Duchess. (Laughing to herself) Oh, he’s so funny!
Paul. And the other one, he’s a wonder! Bellac of the many conquests, with his Platonic love!!
Jeanne. (Dropping her eyes) He’s silly! ”

“ Bellac. And now, ladies, I take occasion emphatically to declare that that opinion is not my opinion, and that I deny the theory with every fiber of my soul and being!
Ladies. Good! Excellent!
Baroness. (Aside to Mme. de Loudan) What pretty hands!
Bellac. No, ladies, no! Love is not, as the German philosopher has it, a purely specific passion; a deceitful illusion shackling mankind in order to work its own ends! No, a hundred times no! if we have souls!
Ladies. Yes!—Yes—
Suzanne. Bravo!
Duchess. (Aside to Roger) She is certainly doing that on purpose!
Bellac. ”

“ Paul. Very well, dear. I call you dear, as we are alone, but later on, before the guests, it must be merely Jeanne. The Comtesse de Céran has done me the honor of asking me to introduce my young wife to her, and of spending a few days here at her château. Mme. de Céran’s circle is one of the three or four most influential in Paris. We are not here to amuse ourselves. I come here merely a Sub-prefect; I am determined to leave a Prefect. Everything depends on her—upon us—upon you!
Jeanne. Upon me? What do you mean?
Paul. Of course, on you! Society judges a man by his wife, and society is right. ”

“ Duchess. (Aside) That for you, Saint-Réault!
Paul. (Aside) Candidate number two!
Mme. de Loudan. Ah, Monsieur Bellac!
Suzanne. Dear Professor!
Baroness. A veritable banquet of the soul!
Mme. Arriégo. Beautiful!
Bellac. Oh, ladies, I have but given words to your ideas.
Mme. de Loudan. Flatterer! Charmer!
Bellac. Are we reconciled yet, Marquise?
Mme. de Loudan. How can one be angry with you? (Introducing the Baroness) Madame la baronne de Boines—another conquest! She is at your feet already!
Baroness. You made me weep, Monsieur.
Bellac. Oh, Madame la baronne!
Mme. Arriégo. Isn’t it superb! ”

“ Duchess. (Aside to Mme. de Céran) Bellac, that’s as plain as day! (To Lucy) Let me congratulate you, then. I have nothing to complain of, except those frightful glasses. Why do you wear such awful things?
Lucy. Because I cannot see without them, Madame.
Duchess. A nice reason! (Aside) Isn’t she practical! I detest practical people! She’ll pass, she’s not as thin as I thought she was! These English occasionally disappoint one pleasantly!
Mme. de Céran. Ah, here’s my son!
(Enter Roger.)
Roger. Mother! Mother! How good it is to see you again!
Mme. de Céran. How good it is to see you, my dear! ”

“ Lucy. (Drawing back a little) But——
Bellac. (Gently holding her) No, no, you’ll see! They gaze fixedly into each other’s eyes, she feels his breath on her cheek, her hair brushes against his face——
Lucy. But, M. Bellac——
Bellac. And then—and then, their Egoes mingle, independently of the Ego itself, an uninterrupted series of involuntary acts which, by a natural succession, progressing slowly and inevitably, hurls them, if I may be permitted the expression, into the maelstrom which, though foreseen, cannot be avoided—in which Reason and Soul are powerless! ”

“ She sighs, sulks, blushes, turns pale, laughs, cries——
Duchess. April showers! She’s just coming into bloom. She’s bored, poor child!
Mme. de Céran. Here?
Duchess. Here? Do you think it’s amusing here? Do you suppose that if I were eighteen, I should be here, among all your old ladies and your old gentlemen? I should say not! I’d associate with young people all the time; the younger the better, the handsomer the better, the more admirers I had the better! There are only two things that women never grow weary of: loving and being loved! ”

“ Duchess. (To Roger) Of course!
Mme. Arriégo. So poetic!
Mme. de Loudan. And so scientific! He is half psychologist, half dreamer; he plays with the scalpel as well as the lyre! It was—there was only one thing I couldn’t agree with: that the basis of love is instinct.
Bellac. But, Marquise, I was speaking of——
Mme. de Loudan. Oh, no, no!
Bellac. I was speaking of love in Nature!
Mme. de Loudan. Instinct! The idea! Ladies, come, we must defend ourselves! Help me. Come to the rescue, Lucy!
Bellac. She will not help you, Marquise; she agrees with me.
Mme. de Saint-Réault. Is it possible, Lucy? ”

“ Mme. de Céran. You are too late for Science, too early for Poetry! I am waiting for my poet.
Baroness. Who is he?
Mme. de Céran. An unknown.
Baroness. Young?
Mme. de Céran. I know nothing whatsoever about him, but I am assured that this is his first work. Gaiac is bringing him—you know Gaiac, of the Conservateur? They should have been here at nine. I can’t imagine what keeps them.
Baroness. I shall profit by the circumstance, for I came to see neither scholar nor poet. I came to see him, my dear: Bellac! Think of it, I’ve never met him! He is so attractive, they tell me! ”

“ I tell you, this nation, which is at bottom gay, despises itself for being so; it has forgotten its faith in the good common sense of its generous laughter; this sceptical and talkative nation believes in those who have little to say, this whole-hearted and amiable people allows itself to be imposed upon by pedantic false pride and the pretentious asininity of the pontiffs of the white dress necktie: in politics, in science, in art, in literature, in everything! ”

“ And then, finally, by an entirely different process—though springing from the same source—they too arrive at that obscure and turbulent state of mind in which the being is ignorant even of its own existence—a delicious atrophy of the Will which seems the summum and the terminus of human happiness; they leave the earth to awaken in a free Heaven, for their love transports them far above the murky clouds of earthly passion into the pure Ether of the sublimely Ideal! (A pause)
Paul. (To Jeanne) They’re going to kiss!
Bellac. Lucy!! Dear Lucy, don’t you understand? Say that you understand me! ”

“ Mme. de Céran. I say that that young lady is openly courting favor with a man much too serious to marry her, but gallant enough to amuse her, and to have this going on under my own roof,—though it isn’t as yet scandalous—is decidedly improper.
Duchess. (To Roger) Do you hear that?
Roger. But, Mother, you surprise me! Suzanne, a little child I left in short dresses, climbing trees, a child I used to punish with extra lessons, who used to jump on my knee and call me Daddy—— Come, come! It is impossible! Such demoralization at her age!
Duchess. Demoralization? Because she is in love! ”

“ These they scoff at, hate, flee as from a pestilence, yet they alone preserve for these things a secret admiration and perfect confidence! And you ask what influence has boredom? Ah, my dear girl, there are just two kinds of people in the world: those who don’t know how to bore themselves, and who are nobodies; and those who know how to bore themselves, and who are somebody—besides those who know how to bore others!
Jeanne. ”

“ M. Bellac is never tired of telling me so!
Roger. Ah, Monsieur——?
Suzanne. But what can you expect? There is no help for it! It’s not my fault, I tell you, it’s not my fault. It is not so easy as you think; I made a vow with myself that when you came back you32 would find me just as formal as Lucy, that I would wear myself out learning!—Here I’ve been studying six months—and then all of a sudden you appear and, whist—there goes six months’ work for nothing!
Roger. (Reproachfully) For nothing?
Suzanne. Oh, how glad I am you’ve come! Oh, how I love you! I adore you!
Roger. Suzanne, Suzanne! ”

“ Oh, you filled the Countess full—of Joubert and Latin and Tocqueville—your own manufacture, too!
Mme. de Céran. What, her own manufacture?
Duchess. She is lovely! I like her all the more!
Jeanne. Well, I don’t feel any remorse—A woman who puts us in separate rooms!
Mme. de Céran. (Rising) And suppose I tell her to leave!
Duchess. Be still!
Jeanne. And it’s just horrid of her! Yes, she does it on purpose! A woman knows very well that new-married people always—have things to say to each other.
Paul. (Tenderly) Yes, always!
Jeanne. Always? Really?—Always like this?
Paul. ”

“ Jeanne. I’m going to take a little walk. You’ll excuse me, won’t you?
Duchess. Of course; by all means!
Jeanne. (Holding her head between her hands, and going toward the door) Oh, how it aches! Ah! (Aside) Paul will find an excuse to get away! (She goes out through the door leading to the garden)
Duchess. (To Roger) Do you think so? Do you think so?
Roger. Oh, Aunt, it’s only a coincidence!
Duchess. Possibly; you know how easily one may be mistaken, and one must never— (The door of the drawing-room opens) Ahh, this time! ”

“ Paul. It is the 1881 edition of the Hotel de Rambouillet: a section of society where everybody talks and poses, where pedantry masquerades as knowledge, sentimentality as sentiment, and preciosity as delicacy and refinement;—here no one ever dreams of saying what one thinks, and never believes what one says, where friendship is a matter of cold calculation, and chivalry and manners merely means to an end. It is where one swallows7 one’s tongue in the drawing-room just as one leaves one’s cane in the hallway: in short, Society where one learns the art of being serious! ”

“ Paul. My dear Countess! (Presenting Jeanne) Madame Paul Raymond!
Mme. de Céran. You are most welcome here, Madame! Consider yourself in the home of a friend. (Presenting them to Saint-Réault) Monsieur Paul Raymond, Sub-prefect of Agenis, Madame Paul Raymond, Monsieur le baron Eriel de Saint-Réault. ”

“ Paul. How fortunate we are to be able to enjoy among these charming people another of these wonderful opportunities that one finds nowhere except beneath your roof.
Mme. de Céran. Doesn’t this literary atmosphere frighten you, Madame? Your charms will be wasted at a soirée like this.
Jeanne. (Seriously) “What appears a waste to the vulgar is often a gain”—as M. de Tocqueville has said.
Mme. de Céran. (Looking at her in astonishment—aside to Paul) She is charming! ”

“ Gaiac. Will you ever forgive me, Countess? I was kept at the office. (Aside) I was writing up your soirée!—Monsieur des Millets, my friend the tragic poet, whose talent you will soon have an opportunity of appreciating.
Des Millets. (Bowing) Madame la comtesse!
Duchess. (To Roger) So that is the young poet! He’s an odd one!
Mme. Arriégo. (Aside to the other ladies) How awful!
Baroness. He’s gray!
Mme. de Saint-Réault. Bald!
Mme. de Loudan. He has no talent: he’s much too ugly, my dear!
Mme. de Céran. We are very happy, Monsieur, my guests and I, to be favored with your presence! ”

“ Roger. Suzanne! It’s not possible! (He goes out)
Duchess. No, it’s not possible! And yet——!
(Enter Madame de Céran, Toulonnier, M. and Mme. de Saint-Réault and a moment later, Lucy, Madame de Loudan, Madame Arriégo, with Bellac in their midst.)
Mme. de Céran. (Introducing Toulonnier to the Duchess) The Secretary General, Aunt.
Toulonnier. (Bowing) Madame la duchesse!
Duchess. My dear Monsieur Toulonnier, we were just going to sit down without you.
Toulonnier. I hope you will pardon me, my dear Duchess, but—business, you know! We are literally up to the ears in work. ”