The Forfeiture | Page 6

All will be lost. (Frontin puts on a brown coat and a black
wig)
FRONTIN: It's necessary that I first be Senechal Groux. Wait for me
upstairs at Aunt Araminte's. She's getting ready to leave. There I can go
without fear and instruct you in everything.
VALERE: I am going there.
FRONTIN: I will rejoin you.
(Exit Valere)
FRONTIN: (to Lackey) I thought I'd have two days time at least. But
both of them taking the money to the notary are going to discover the
trick. We'll have to speed up the affair.
(Exit Lackey, enter Belise)
FRONTIN: Good. The prude is leaving. By having imitated trait for
trait her insipidity, her cold gravity, I pleased her. There's no other way
to please this foolish woman except by echoing her vapid whims.-------
Madame
BELISE: Ah, Senechal. What! You are here. I see you again.
FRONTIN: You see? As for me, I see you again, too.
BELISE: Once more I see the happiness of an unfeeling woman.
FRONTIN: I see again the happiness of a fire-proof man.
BELISE: Who looks with frigidity on the most charming of men.

FRONTIN: Who views with disdain the most loveable object.
BELISE: Preceded by terror, considering my love. I am astonished to
see this extreme change you've wrought in me in less than two weeks.
FRONTIN: I see with a kind of horror that you have effected a
metamorphosis in me.
BELISE: Both of us, at the same time, think the same thing?
FRONTIN: The same thing, and always sympathy between us.
BELISE: What a coincidence! Oh, heaven! To take you for a spouse.
That makes me tremble.
FRONTIN: I quiver, Madame, on account of the step I am going to
take, by taking you for my wife.
BELISE: I, who by my example have kept my sister in the vow she
made to guard her heart. She respected me as the most perfect. I must
blush before my little sister.
FRONTIN: I who to my elders reprimanded passions, forcing even my
sisters to celibacy, I who in history to distinguish my name would have
gloried in the title of extinguisher of my race--
BELISE: I who abhorred even the name of marriage and would have
become famous for it.
FRONTIN: I, Senechal Groux, caustic philosopher who jested at
suitors, insulted them, apostrophized them.
BELISE: I called marriage a myth, a stumbling block.
FRONTIN: The prison of desires, the coffin of the living.
BELISE: (tenderly) The abyss. Now see what an unfeeling fondness--
FRONTIN: Towards the abyss, a slope--
BELISE: Yes, sweet--
FRONTIN: Imperceptible--
BELISE: Leads me to the brink--
FRONTIN: The foot slips and here I am.
BELISE: Here I am. But at least the world agrees I have chosen you
from taste, from wisdom.
FRONTIN: Our marriage is the wisest type.
BELISE: But all my embarrassment is, that by marrying, I must--here's
the trouble--, I must pay this forfeiture. What to do? This forfeiture
note that I gave to Valere. That crazy sister of mine invented the
forfeiture. We made two promissory notes to this cursed nephew. All
falls on me, since I am marrying, so I will have to pay up all by myself,

and I'm going to have to put up with all kinds of jesting from her. Blush
to death.
FRONTIN: While our love remains secret, compose yourself and
retrieve your promissory notes from Valere.
BELISE: That's my intention. I am going to my notary to take some
money to my nephew. Without a doubt he will instantly return my
promissory note to me. But if my sister should learn of it, oh, my heart
palpitates. From reason and from shame, I avoid her carefully. After
seeing you, I dare not see her.
(Exit Belise)
FRONTIN: We shall get to tap that money she's going to receive.
(Enter Lackey)
LACKEY: Sir, change clothes or hide yourself quickly. Araminte has
returned.
FRONTIN: I ought to avoid her. But no. Let's pull it off! I am going to
wait for her here. Time presses. Wait, take this wig. By knotting it this
way, I will have the most comic look. Playful, negligent. It's the
Chevalier Cique. To charm a madwoman you have to rave.
(Exit Lackey, enter Araminte)
ARAMINTE (assuming all passions, one after another) I run in
thoughtless. They've just been plotting against me. I tremble; I still
have a hundred things to say to you. And jests. First, I am going to
make you laugh. But no. The serious is more pressing. My sister,
seeing me there, passed by proudly. I was trembling. It's of this we will
speak first. Let's begin by you admiring my conduct, the softness and
complacency with which I hide my shame. Now, in secret, I hoped, but
I fear. At the same time I sense an