Signora Fantastic | Page 8

will play aristocratic fathers.
MR. DE KRIEGSCHENMAHL: Aristocratic fathers! Why, certainly.
The Kriegschenmahls are gentlemen from father to son.
SIGNORA FANTASTICI: What! Your ancestors have all been actors?
MR. DE KRIEGSCHENMAHL: Madame, what do you mean? Do you
mean to offend me?
SIGNORA FANTASTICI: No, assuredly--but I am taking your sons
with me. They please me. I will perfect their education. The younger
will play the heroes; the older, tender roles. The former will become
stronger, the latter more sweet. And in ten years from now I will send
them back to you charmers.
MR. DE KRIEGSCHENMAHL: Ah, madame. What must be done so
as not to separate from them?
SIGNORA FANTASTICI: Listen, I'm a good person; I don't enjoy
causing pain to whoever it may be, but I insist that the rights of poetry
be respected in me. Too much prose, sir, too much prose in this house!
MR. DE KRIEGSCHENMAHL: What! Madame? I cannot order my
dinner in prose from Madame de Kriegschenmahl?
SIGNORA FANTASTICI: Poetry doesn't consist only of verse, but in
love for the arts, in enthusiasm and imagination, which raises the soul

and the spirit. It proscribes all manner of sentiments, vulgarity,
undemocratic ideas under the weight of which you've spent your entire
life! Listen to me. I am going to give a party to a charming woman that
illness keeps at home and who supports her sufferings with admirable
courage. Now that's poetry for heaven's sake, true poetry. Would you
play a role in the play we want to perform for her?
MR. DE KRIEGSCHENMAHL: What are you thinking of, Madame,
me?
SIGNORA FANTASTICI: There will be a siege of a town in it.
MR. DE KRIEGSCHENMAHL: A siege! And do you think my gout
will prevent me from rising to the assault?
SIGNORA FANTASTICI: We will take care that the ramparts will be
easy to approach.
MR. DE KRIEGSCHENMAHL: And I will take the town?
SIGNORA FANTASTICI: Without a doubt.
MR. DE KRIEGSCHENMAHL: Ah, what a pleasure for me; I've
always been beaten.
SIGNORA FANTASTICI: You see plainly that acting repairs the faults
of destiny. And you, Madame de Kriegschenmahl, we pray you to
accept in our play the role of a respectable woman.
MADAME DE KRIEGSCHENMAHL: And why so respectable?
SIGNORA FANTASTICI: Excuse me, I thought--
MADAME DE KRIEGSCHENMAHL: Do you think that the one
wouldn't be as agreeable as the other?
SIGNORA FANTASTICI: Well! Madame. Play the great flirts. I
abdicate and I give them to you.

MR. DE KRIEGSCHENMAHL: What now, Madame De
Kriegschenmahl?
MADAME DE KRIEGSCHENMAHL: Dear spouse, control your
jealous transports. I will be a flirt only on the stage. Everywhere
else--you know me.
SIGNORA FANTASTICI: Now then, here we are all content and we
are going to celebrate suitably, the triumph of poetry over prose.

CURTAIN

End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Signora Fantastici by Madame
de Stael, translated by Frank J. Morlock.

Signora Fantastic
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