The Stepmother, A Drama in Five Acts Part 14

Pauline Yes, papa, Marguerite had forgotten to take away the vase of flowers, and I almost died.

Gertrude Come, my daughter, come into the open air.

(Gertrude and Pauline go towards the door.)

The General Stay a moment. What have you done with the flowers.

Pauline I do not know where Madame has put them.

Gertrude I threw them into the garden.

(The General abruptly rushes out, after setting his candle on the card table.)

SCENE THIRTEENTH

Pauline and Gertrude; later, the General.

Gertrude Go back to your room, lock yourself in! I'll take all the blame.

(Pauline goes to her room.) I will wait for him here.

(Gertrude goes back into her room.)

The General (coming in from the garden) I can find the vase of flowers nowhere. There is some mystery in all these things. Gertrude?--There is no one here! Ah! Madame de Grandchamp, you will have to tell me!--It is a nice thing that I should be deceived by both wife and daughter!

Curtain to the Second Act.

ACT III

SCENE FIRST

(Same stage-setting. Morning.)

Gertrude; then Champagne.

Gertrude (brings a flower vase from the garden and puts it down on the table) What trouble I had to allay his suspicions! One or two more scenes like that and I shall lose control of him. But I have gained a moment of liberty now--provided Pauline does not come to trouble me! She must be asleep--she went to bed so late!--would it be possible to lock her in her room? (She goes to the door of Pauline's chamber, but cannot find the key.) I am afraid not.

Champagne (coming in) M. Ferdinand is coming, madame.

Gertrude Thank you, Champagne. He went to bed very late, did he not?

Champagne M. Ferdinand makes his rounds, as you know, every night, and he came in at half-past one o'clock. I sleep over him, and I heard him.

Gertrude Does he ever go to bed later than that?

Champagne Sometimes he does, but that is according to the time he makes his rounds.

Gertrude Very good. Thank you, Champagne. (Exit Champagne.) As the reward for a sacrifice which has lasted for twelve years, and whose agonies can only be understood by women,--for what man can guess at such tortures!--what have I asked? Very little! Merely to know that he is here, near to me, without any satisfaction saving, from time to time, a furtive glance at him. I wished only to feel sure that he would wait for me. To feel sure of this is enough for us, us for whom a pure, a heavenly love is something never to be realized. Men never believe that they are loved by us, until they have brought us down into the mire! And this is how he has rewarded me! He makes nocturnal a.s.signations with this stupid girl! Ah! He may as well p.r.o.nounce my sentence of death; and if he has the courage to do so, I shall have the courage at once to bring about their eternal separation; I can do it! But here he comes! I feel faint! My G.o.d! Why hast Thou made me love with such desperate devotion him who no longer loves me!

SCENE SECOND

Ferdinand and Gertrude.

Gertrude Yesterday you deceived me. You came here last night, through this room, entering by means of a false key, to see Pauline, at the risk of being killed by M. de Grandchamp! Oh! you needn't lie about it. I saw you, and I came upon Pauline just as you concluded your nocturnal promenade. You have made a choice upon which I cannot offer you my congratulations. If only you had heard us discussing the matter, on this very spot! If you had seen the boldness of this girl, the effrontery with which she denied everything to me, you would have trembled for your future, that future which belongs to me, and for which I have sold myself, body and soul.

Ferdinand (aside) What an avalanche of reproach! (Aloud) Let us try, Gertrude, both of us, to behave wisely in this matter. Above all things, let us try to avoid base accusations. I shall never forget what you have been to me; I still entertain towards you a friends.h.i.+p which is sincere, unalterable and absolute; but I no longer love you.

Gertrude That is, since eighteen months ago.

Ferdinand No. Since three years ago.

Gertrude You must admit then that I have the right to detest and make war upon your love for Pauline; for this love has rendered you a traitor and criminal towards me.

Ferdinand Madame!

Gertrude Yes, you have deceived me. In standing as you did between us two, you made me a.s.sume a character which is not mine. I am violent as you know. Violence is frankness, and I am living a life of outrageous duplicity. Tell me, do you know what it is to have to invent new lies, on the spur of the moment, every day,--to live with a dagger at your heart? Oh! This lying! But for us, it is the Nemesis of happiness. It is disgraceful, when it succeeds; it is death, when it fails. And you, other men envy you because you make women love you. You will be applauded, while I shall be despised. And you do not wish me to defend myself! You have nothing but bitter words for a woman who has hidden from you everything--her remorse--her tears! I have suffered alone and without you the wrath of heaven; alone and without you I have descended into my soul's abyss, an abyss which has been opened by the earthquake of sorrow; and, while repentance was gnawing at my heart, I had for you nothing but looks of tenderness, and smiles of gaiety!

Come, Ferdinand, do not despise a slave who lies in such utter subjection to your will!

Ferdinand (aside) I must put an end to this. (Aloud) Listen to me, Gertrude. When first we met it was youth alone united us in love. I then yielded, you may say, to an impulse of that egotism which lies at the bottom of every man's heart, though he knows it not, concealed under the flowers of youthful pa.s.sion. There is so much turbulence in our sentiments at twenty-two! The infatuation which may seize us then, permits us not to reflect either upon life as it really is, or upon the seriousness of its issues--

Gertrude (aside) How calmly he reasons upon it all! Ah! It is infamous!

Ferdinand And at that time I loved you freely, with entire devotion; but afterwards--afterwards, life changed its aspect for both of us. If you ask why I remained under a roof which I should never have approached, it is because I chose in Pauline the only women with whom it was possible for me to end my days. Come, Gertrude, do not break yourself to pieces against the barrier raised by heaven. Do not torture two beings who ask you to yield to them happiness, and who will ever love you dearly.

Gertrude Ah, I see! You are the martyr--and I--I am the executioner! Would not I have been your wife to-day, if I had not set your happiness above the satisfaction of my love?

Ferdinand Very well! Do the same thing to-day, by giving me my liberty.

Gertrude You mean the liberty of loving some one else. That is not the way you spoke twelve years ago. Now it will cost my life.

Ferdinand It is only in romance that people die of love. In real life they seek consolation.

Gertrude Do not you men die for your outraged honor, for a word, for a gesture?

Well, there are women who die for their love, that is, when their love is a treasure which has become their all, which is their very life!