The Double Widowing | Page 7

mistress approaches. She's coming here to
cry on the way. She needs practice.
Tuneless Exactly. Soon she'll be crying for her money. Real tears then.
Lucy Don't joke. I'm afraid all this may be dangerous for her.
Tuneless Why is that?
Lucy I'm sorry for her. When the Countess guaranteed she was a
widow, it was like a knife thrust in her heart.
Tuneless What? She felt the blow?
Lucy Think what she's going to feel when they undeceive her. The loss
of her delightful status of widowhood will cause her to die.
Tuneless Let's come to the business. Tell me truly, now that she
believes her husband is dead--is she in love with Desmond, and does
she plan to marry him?
Lucy She thought about it even while she was alive. And I always
thought she prayed the nephew would outlive his uncle.
Tuneless >From the confidences her husband has made to me, I have
often thought he destined his niece for the post of her aunt. He was
quite explicit that Arabella was the niece of his wife only in the third
degree.
Lucy My mistress wishes that Desmond was not her husband's nephew.
Tuneless These sentiments astonish me in a woman so careful of the
proprieties.
Lucy She's proper in public, but with certain women, public morals and
private morals differ as much their faces do from the time they get up
and the time they go to bed.
Tuneless Everything considered, I judge that these two are perfectly
matched in all the arts of conjugal hypocrisy.
Lucy They love each other, in proportion to the wealth they hope to
obtain from each other.
Tuneless Yes, self-interest by itself produces more false love in some
families than true love produces in all the sincere lovers in London.
Lucy I admire the wisdom of our law which permits spouses to
disinherit one another. For only the hope of inheriting is the dike that

can prevent a torrent of family quarrels. Go quickly. Here is my
mistress. To gain her confidence, I am going to help her out of her
sorrows.
(Exit Tuneless and the Maid. Enter from another direction, the
Countess and the Widow Bramble.)
Countess Save your tears, Madame, save your tears. To tremble, to sigh,
to sob. All these demonstrations of sorrow are worse than sorrow itself.
Widow Alas.
Countess Don't avoid the offer I'm making you any more. Respond to
me exactly. You don't like to have your niece around. I'm going to take
her off your hands and marry her off in the country. Won't you give her
some wedding present?
Widow This is the fourth day of my widowhood--the fourth day isn't it,
Lucy?
Lucy The fourth, yes.
Widow (to Countess) Well, Madame, since then I haven't had any
nourishment at all.
Lucy We are nourished only by affliction and black tea.
Widow Everything I eat rests on my stomach like lead.
Lucy We eat hardly anything, and what we eat suffocates us.
Countess Answer me, then Madame, agree.
Widow No, I won't be alive in four days.
Countess Live, and don't cry.
Widow Ah, I will cry more than thirty years.
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.
Countess To hear you speak thus about marriage, one would think you
didn't like it.
Widow On the contrary, it was because my happiness was so perfect,
that I don't wish to marry my niece.

Countess That's a reason to marry her.
Widow I had a very loveable husband, and I don't want her to have one.
Countess Explain yourself!
Widow She will be too overcome if she loses him, to marry her would
be to expose her to the risk of becoming a widow. (cries) And, to
unhappiness like mine. Ah, Madame, in the abyss in which I find
myself--retreat and solitude--that's the road my niece ought to take.
Countess Solitude doesn't agree with Arabella.
Widow Don't speak to me anymore about it. I am too afflicted.
Countess And, in a word--your niece?
Widow No, no--I am too afflicted. I intend that she spend her life in a
convent.
Countess >From the bad reasons you give me, I discern the good ones
you keep to yourself. You wish to protect your money, so