Excerpt
ACT I. SCENE I.
Mme. de Sallus in her drawing-room, seated in a corner by the fireplace. Enter Jacques de RANDOL noiselessly; glances to see that no one is looking, and kisses Mme. de Sallus quickly upon her hair. She starts; utters a faint cry, and turns upon him.
MME. DE SALLUSOh! How imprudent you are!
JACQUES DE RANDOLDon't be afraid; no one saw me.
MME. DE SALLUSBut the servants!
JACQUES DE RANDOLOh, they are in the outer hall.
MME. DE SALLUSHow is that? No one announced you
JACQUES DE RANDOLNo, they simply opened the door for me.
MME. DE SALLUSBut what will they think?
JACQUES DE RANDOLWell, they will doubtless think that I don't count.
MME. DE SALLUSBut I will not permit it. I must have you announced in future. It does not look well.
JACQUES DE RANDOL [laughs]
Perhaps they will even go so far as to announce your husband—
MME. DE SALLUSJacques, this jesting is out of place.
JACQUES DE RANDOLForgive me. [Sits.] Are you waiting for anybody?
MME. DE SALLUSYes—probably. You know that I always receive when I am at home.
JACQUES DE RANDOLI know that I always have the pleasure of seeing you for about five minutes—just enough time to ask you how you feel, and then some one else comes in—some one in love with you, of course,—who impatiently awaits my departure.
MME. DE SALLUS [smiles]
Well, what can I do? I am not your wife, so how can it be otherwise?
JACQUES DE RANDOLAh! If you only were my wife!
MME. DE SALLUSIf I were your wife?
JACQUES DE RANDOLI would snatch you away for five or six months, far from this horrible town, and keep you all to myself.
MME. DE SALLUSYou would soon have enough of me.
JACQUES DE RANDOLNo, no!
MME. DE SALLUSYes, yes!
JACQUES DE RANDOLDo you know that it is absolute torture to love a woman like you?
MME. DE SALLUS [bridles]
And why?
JACQUES DE RANDOLBecause I covet you as the starving covet the food they see behind the glassy barriers of a restaurant.
MME. DE SALLUSOh, Jacques!
JACQUES DE RANDOLI tell you it is true! A woman of the world belongs to the world; that is to say, to everyone except the man to whom she gives herself. He can see her with open doors for a quarter of an hour every three days—not oftener, because of servants. In exceptional cases, with a thousand precautions, with a thousand fears, with a thousand subterfuges, she visits him once or twice a month, perhaps, in a furnished room. Then she has just a quarter of an hour to give him, because she has just left Madame X in order to visit Madame Z, where she has told her coachman to take her. If he complains, she will not come again, because it is impossible for her to get rid of her coachman. So, you see, the coachman, and the footman, and Madame Z, and Madame X, and all the others, who visit her house as they would a museum,—a museum that never closes,—all the he's and all the she's who eat up her leisure minute by minute and second by second, to whom she owes her time as an employee owes his time to the State, simply because she belongs to the world—all these persons are like the transparent and impassable glass: they keep you from my love....