Madame Aubin | Page 4

the past. And certainly my husband doesn't deserve all this outrage. He's a man with faults, surely, even vices, perhaps. But he's honorable and even righteous. And now I think of it these quarrels between him and me must rather proceed from me, spoiled child and over-free young girl that I was before my marriage with this honest, with this gallant man.
PELTIER Let's leave Aubin out of this. In the end what do you mean and what do you want me to do? Return to Paris and your abandoned household?
MARIE I don't know yet. But don't interrupt me every minute and you will be of my opinion. No. My husband ought not to have to endure these things on his honor and his name. And it's true I am afraid of the past. I'm afraid of the future, too. Or rather, no. It's the present which frightens me, sir! For the future, I'll answer for it. And it will conform to the vows of my finally reawakened conscience.
PELTIER (who has a mounting rage within him and feels himself provoked to the last degree) Explain yourself? Are you joking or not? I want to understand you.
MARIE Sir, you have no right to speak to me like this!
(Peltier advances like a man who has the right his interlocutor is speaking of or believes he's going to have it.)
MARIE And I will never give it to you.
PELTIER Madame.
MARIE Do you hear, sir?
(The two stiffen and look each other in the face. A silence.)
PELTIER Then why did you come with me of your own free will, or even on your own initiative?
MARIE (who's settled down) What do you want? I've changed my mind.
PELTIER (very cold and speaking through his teeth) Fine. You've tricked me! At this point I'm not a young man. No one makes a fool of me! For, my darling, I don't think that a caprice of yours, such a sudden turnabout, such a flash of virtue--
MARIE Don't use that word virtue any more. It is terrible to my ears. I was telling you just now that I've something like fear of the present. Yes, fear to remain here this way. But I was in the process of adding that the present doesn't terrify me. It was then that you shrieked out at the moment I was going to explain to you how I intended to confide myself to your honor to allow me to decide in peace. And you got so carried away that you irritated me, too. And you just said things to me! A caprice? me, at my age; twenty-eight years old! A flash of conscience. Yes, that's it. Believe it.
PELTIER But what role is it you wish me to play in all this? You, you are at the same time reasonable, then illogical and me? as for me?
MARIE Your role? All sketched out. Let me do it all. That would be chivalrous and fine.
PELTIER But I love you, why--
MARIE And me, too, I love you and I say to you: Can't we love each other without all this? (scornful gesture) without all this? (disdainful gesture)
PELTIER Ah! We are there. A virgin arises in you when through you a satyr is rising in me. (grabbing her by the waist) And towards you--
MARIE (who soon gets free) Look, let's be serious.
(Peltier, who importunes a long explanation sits with bowed head; one hand on the back of a chair, the other playing with his watch chain.)
MARIE What is it you risk? You, a man, a bachelor by this pleasant voyage? Nothing. A duel perhaps on return! In this illogical world we live in your reputation will be far from damaged; a world which dislikes adultery in a woman and is passionately fond of all the gallant sins of a fashionable man. Whereas I?!! And yet it's only quite natural and especially on the brink of a final resolution, I hesitate and jump back. Must you be angry about it? Look, are you angry? can you be? ought you to be?
PELTIER (as if unexpectedly released and decided, peremptory, brief, confident) Questions! Questions! In my turn I will say to you: Let's be serious. Admit it: You encouraged me to do this thing. And exactly as you say it was quite natural for me to undertake it, and still is; I concur in your reasoning, and will pursue it like a fashionable man or otherwise!
(Marie recoils abruptly. Peltier takes a step forward.)
PELTIER And I am going to prove it to you!
MARIE (rigid and henceforth not giving an inch) Fie!
PELTIER You are going to see.
(Aubin abruptly opens the door and appears.)
AUBIN (addressing himself exclusively to Peltier) Yes, it's I, the one you didn't expect. No need to tell you how I caught wind of your plot and was able to overtake you so soon.