Gabriel Marcel: A Mystery of Love and The Posthumous Joke by

A Mystery of Love
A Drama in Four Acts
and
The Posthumous Joke

A Three Act Comedy
by
Gabriel Marcel
The Cover Illustrations depict the Commemorative Medal struck by
L’Hôtel des Monnaies, the National Mint of France, honoring Gabriel
Marcel’s outstanding contributions to the culture and nation of France.
The face offers a likeness of Gabriel Marcel; the reverse side represents
the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, and bears the captions fidelity,
availability, and hope. Orpheus was such a gifted musician that he was
able to charm the Gods of the underworld and by doing so gained
their permission to retrieve his wife Eurydice from the underworld.
There was one stipulation; he could not look back to see her until
he had reached the world above. He could not resist however, turned
around and lost her back to the netherworld. This myth highlights
the importance of music in Marcel’s life as well as his concern with
the presence of loved ones from beyond death.
A Mystery of Love
A Drama in Four Acts
and
The Posthumous Joke

A Three Act Comedy
by
Gabriel Marcel
Existential Playwright Philosopher
(1889-1973)
Introduction and Reflections by the Translator
Katharine Rose Hanley

Marquette Studies in Philosophy No. 39
Andrew Tallon, Series Editor
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Marcel, Gabriel, 1889-1973.

[Iconoclaste. English]
Ghostly mysteries / by Gabriel Marcel ; introduction and reflections by the trans-
lator Katharine Rose Hanley.
p. cm. -- (Marquette studies in philosophy ; no. 39)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-87462-662-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Marcel, Gabriel, 1889-1973--Translations into English. I. Marcel, Gabriel,
1889-1973. Divertissement posthume. English. II. Hanley, Katharine Rose.
III. Title: Mystery of love. IV. Title: Posthumous joke. V. Title. VI. Series. VII.
Marquette studies in philosophy ; #39.
PQ2625.A755I313 2004
842’.912--dc22
2004017515
© 2004 K.R. Hanley

Contents
Acknowledgements...................................................................................7
About the Translator and Author (of Introduction and Reflections)..........9
Introduction ...........................................................................................11
A Mystery of Love ....................................................................................17
The Posthumous Joke .............................................................................101
Reflections............................................................................................171
Sources .................................................................................................179
Gabriel Marcel Resources .....................................................................181
Additional Reading ..............................................................................183

Acknowledgements
Profound gratitude to Monsieur Jean-Marie and Madame Anne
Marcel for their cherished friendship, kind help and encouragement,
and generous permission to publish the first English translation of
these two Gabriel Marcel plays L’ Iconoclaste and Le Divertissement
Posthume.
Deep appreciation goes to Ellen M. McCauley for her faithful
friendship, her longstanding and contagious enthusiasm for sharing
the work of Gabriel Marcel and for her helpful association in produc-
ing this book.
Special thanks to Penny Marten, for her artistic skill in creating the
cover illustrations.
To Le Moyne College alumni, whose generous contributions made
this book possible, and to family, friends and members of the Le Moyne
College community for all their encouragement I extend my sincere
gratitude.
About the Translator and Author
(Introduction and Reflections)
Dr. K. R. (Katharine Rose) Hanley received her Ph. D. from the
Higher Institute of Philosophy at Louvain University in Belgium. An
internationally respected expert on Gabriel Marcel’s theatre and phi-
losophy, she has lectured extensively in the US and at various national
and international philosophical meetings in France, Canada, China
and Japan.
Her first book, Dramatic Approaches to Creative Fidelity: A Study in
the Theater and Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel (1987, University Press of
America), announced and illustrated her perspective for appreciating
Marcel’s work. So that others could experience the benefits of this
approach, she then published translations (and commentaries) of
seven Gabriel Marcel plays.
Dr. Hanley first met Gabriel Marcel when he lectured at Louvain
University. They met again in 1965, (the 300th anniversary of Simon
Le Moyne, S.J.), when he came to Le Moyne College, in Syracuse,
NY, to lecture and receive an honorary degree. There was also an
especially meaningful conversation, between the two, at Marcel’s home
in Paris in September 1973, just three weeks before his death, when
he inscribed his book Five Major Plays, to her, “In remembrance of a
spiritual bond which once renewed shall not be broken.”
Hanley has taught at Le Moyne College since 1961. Students’
enthusiasm for the realism and meaningfulness of Marcel thought,
and its concrete accessibility through comedy and drama, encouraged
and supported her continuing involvement with his work. Plays were
staged, televised and preserved as videos, and performed on the road
as dramatic readings. Most recently she produced two audio CDs of
Marcel plays performed by professional actors.
Dr. Hanley’s book Gabriel Marcel’s Perspectives on The Broken
World, published by Marquette University Press in 1998, contains
a gold mine of information: the play - The Broken World, his essay
“Concrete Approaches to Investigating the Ontological Mystery”
10 Gabriel Marcel
reflecting on issues raised in the play, and appendices listing Marcel’s
biblio-biography, his dramatic and philosophic works in French and
their English translations, his books as drama critic, and titles of his
musical compositions.
This work GHOSTLY MYSTERIES presents, in a drama and a
comedy, something of Marcel’s investigations and reflections on a
theme dear to his heart, the presence of loved ones from beyond
death. Hanley’s Introduction and Reflections serve as background
information as well as grounds for personal inquiry.
Dr. Hanley finds the Marcel inscription, written over thirty years
ago to her, a fitting dedication for this volume; both to Gabriel Marcel
and you, the reader…
“In remembrance of a spiritual bond which once renewed shall not be
broken.”
Ghostly Mysteries
Introduction
In this volume we have chosen to present two Gabriel Marcel plays,
A Mystery of Love and The Posthumous Joke. For those of you who are
new to his work, some background information may be beneficial.
He was born on December 7th, 1889 in Paris, where he lived most
of his life, until his death on October 8th, 1973. He was a respected
Paris drama critic, playwright and philosopher.
Marcel had a distinguished career. An Existential Dramatist and
Philosopher, he wrote some thirty plays and a similar number of
philosophic works that essentially were his search to find meaning
and value in his own life.
Referring to his thought and life’s work, Marcel wrote in “The
Secret is in the Isles”, that he saw his dramas as islands. One lands on
an island with both feet. Audiences, or readers, of existential drama
are moved to enter wholeheartedly into the situation. He then sees
his philosophic writings as the continents. They can be mapped out,
juxtaposed, and compared and contrasted to the thought of other
philosophers whose boundaries are contiguous to them. ( 1 )
Marcel’s lead questions were “Who am I? Is Life Empty or Full?”
in other words, what is a person’s authentic potential and what is
the meaningful fulfillment one can hope to participate in? Marcel
sought, and found through Drama, a method capable of focusing on,
and clarifying, a person’s interpersonal encounters and relationships,
including afterlife presence.
Drama was always the first form of inquiry for Marcel. His dramatic
imagination envisioned concrete individuals in particular situations
of conflict. As the drama evolves, the differing fundamental attitudes
of various protagonists become evident.
In “The Invisible Threshold”, the Preface to his first volume of pub-
lished plays, Marcel points out that his dramas deal with the spiritual
level of human experience for without this transcendent dimension
our lives would be diminished significantly. ( 2 )
12 Gabriel Marcel: Ghostly Mysteries
Inspiration for many of Marcel’s plays was drawn directly from his
own experience. Marcel sought to bring to the light of the theatre,
some of the questions that plagued him and some of the conflicts he
himself experienced with his extended family and acquaintances.
Central to his thought was the question of the presence of loved
ones after death. We all experience the presence of loved ones in our
lives; while nursing a baby, courting one’s fiancée, holding a dying
elder or when thinking about a family member in a battle zone. When
someone we love, a deceased parent, relative or friend, has died we may
long for them; particularly on an anniversary or during the holiday
season. At these times we may ponder this sort of communion and
the mysterious presence that often accompanies it.
This concern for presence dates from the loss of his Mother when
he was barely four. A few years later, on a summer holiday walking
in the Swiss Alps with his aunt, he asked her what becomes of people
after they die. When she responded that no one knows, young Gabriel
said simply that someday he would. Presence then became a theme
in many, and a focus in seventeen of his thirty plays, centering on
the experience of a loved one’s death and bringing to light various
interpretations of its meaning.
An early, and striking, example of presence is the first act of an
unfinished play, “The Unfathomable”, an English translation of
“L’Insondable” written in March 1919, when he was assigned by the
Red Cross to notify the families of those missing in action in WWI.
“The Unfathomable” reveals how family members’ different interpreta-
tions are influenced by their previous attitudes toward, and relations
with, the individual who is MIA. A passionate exchange occurs between
the Chaplain and a confirmed dead soldier’s sister-in-law where he
tells her to no longer think of him, let go of memories and thoughts
of him, and just pray for him. The sister-in-law rejects the chaplain’s
interpretation and advice. She asserts “The only dead, the truly dead,
are those whom one no longer loves.”, and further affirms, “When
I think of him in a certain way -with tenderness, with recollection
- there wells up in me something like a richer deeper life in which I
know he participates. This life is not I, nor is it he; it is both of us.”
(3)
K.R. Hanley: Introduction 13
Marcel’s awareness became intensified when he realized the families
were not merely seeking facts about the case, but were voicing their
passion to reunite with those they dearly loved. They sought grounds
for their hope that their loved ones would survive, and return, and
that their presence would be renewed and preserved to them.
In his willingness to help find these grounds Marcel even served as
a medium. His experiences demonstrated that valid communication
can occur. While they can, and on occasion did, provide correct and
helpful information, the communications were often deceptive and
would always fall short of the genuine goal of those inquiring, namely
the actual presence of the loved one sought. He also found that séances
can endanger the medium with burn out. ( 4 )
In a later essay “Audacity in Metaphysics” Marcel challenged phi-
losophers to pay more attention to the study of extra sensory percep-
tion and parapsychology. ( 5 ) He was able to think his way through,
and beyond, the limits of the Idealism of his day to find a method
capable of dealing, not just with empiric facts or a strict logic of ideas,
but more importantly with the full gamut of human experience. He
sought a method capable of investigating and interpreting peoples’
incarnate, affective and conscious encounters with the realities that
are part of human life and enrich its meaning.
An incident at a Philosophic Society Meeting emphasizes his pre-
occupation with presence after death. In a debate, a leading idealist,
Léon Brunschwicg accused Marcel of attaching more importance to his
own death than Léon Brunschwicg did to his. Marcel responded that
it was not his own death that concerned him, but rather the death of
his loved ones. ( 6) Indeed this incident highlights the uniqueness of
Marcel’s perspective among philosophic traditions and circles arguing
the possibility of personal immortality. Marcel reversed the traditional
perspective for investigation and introduced a new focus for consider-
ing experiences and reflections on immortality now envisioned as the
presence of loved ones beyond death.
Ghostly Mysteries is the presentation of two recently translated
Marcel Plays A Mystery of Love and The Posthumous Joke that have
the presence theme. Both are period pieces, set in France during the
1920’s. They are presented at a safe distance from the world of today’s
audiences, yet the characters are so realistically drawn that modern
14 Gabriel Marcel: Ghostly Mysteries
viewers can readily sympathize with the characters’ attitudes and
directly relate to the confusing and troubling situations in which they
find themselves.
A Mystery of Love a four act play, originally entitled L’Iconoclaste, was
written in Paris 1917, revised in Sens 1921, and dedicated by Gabriel
Marcel to his grandmother. ( 7 ) It is a poignant drama dealing with
romantic love and the threat of tragic outcomes through a deceived
rival’s jealous manipulations.
Marcel notes that it was at the end of this play that he first used the
term “mystery”. Marcel distinguished between problem and mystery.
A problem is something outside a disengaged impersonal spectator,
who, as investigator, treats it as something to be solved and then dis-
missed. Mystery, by contrast, requires that the inquiring subject be
engaged, or touched and affected, by the reality under investigation.
The inquirer takes an active role in investigating and an indispensable
role in interpreting, through critical reflective clarification, the meaning
of a mystery. It is the opposite to empiric experience and impersonal
scientific analysis of problems affecting mere physical objects. Mystery
becomes Marcel’s foundation in designating existential experience, and
central to the development of his philosophic method of reflective
clarification. ( 8 )
The second play, The Posthumous Joke ( 9 ), a Three Act Play, is a
satirical farce where Marcel makes fun of his most cherished presence
theme. It is a hilarious comedy yet one that presents, in caricature,
the nature and possibility of presence beyond death.
Let the reader beware, Marcel’s plays are not thesis theatre intended
to illustrate an idea or theory; on the contrary, he explores questions of
concern in his own life situation. His first way of examining questions
is always to consider them concretely in the way they affect individual
lives.
The unfolding of the play is the first reflection. The various person-
alities reveal their differing fundamental attitudes, and the interpreta-
tions of life situations those attitudes produce. The final scene does
not offer a solution rather it leaves the audience with questions that
invite them to reconstruct the play in retrospect.
K.R. Hanley: Introduction 15
Marcel’s plays do not provide answers but they do suggest paths of
light for reflection whereby we might discover an authentic response
to the challenge of the dramatic situation. Indeed after the curtain
falls, spectators reflect on the questions raised not only in relation to
the characters in the play but in relation to their own lives as well.
Now to enjoy the Ghostly Mysteries present in

A Mystery of Love and The Posthumous Joke.
A MYSTERY OF LOVE
(Published in the Original French as

“The Iconoclast”)
A Play in Four Acts
by
Gabriel Marcel
In loving memory of my Grandmother
Paris, 1921
18 Gabriel Marcel
Cast of Characters
In order of appearance
MADELEINE DELORME
Jacques Delorme’s Second Wife
MADAME CHAZOT
Madeleine’s Mother
MONSIEUR CHAZOT
Madeleine’s Father
JACQUES DELORME
Madeleine’s Husband
Viviane Breau-DELORME
Jacques Delorme’s deceased first wife
ROGER
Jacques and Viviane’s Son
MISS BULLFINCH
The Delorme’s Governess
ABEL RENAUDIER
Jacques and Viviane’s Old Friend
MADAME RENAUDIER
Abel’s Mother
FLORENCE BRÉAU
Viviane’s Breau Delorme’s Sister
A Mystery of Love 19
ACT ONE
(It is a July morning. The scene is set at the Delorme’s country estate, on
a terrace with steps leading into their garden. They are finishing breakfast,
served at a small table with wicker chairs around it.)
MADAME CHAZOT: (To Madeleine.) Your husband hasn’t had
breakfast yet?
MADELEINE: No, I think he’s taking a walk in the garden.
MADAME CHAZOT: He shouldn’t allow you to get up so early.
MADELEINE: But, Mother, it’s late enough already.
MADAME CHAZOT: (To her husband.) Aren’t I right, Albert?
MONSIEUR CHAZOT: Hmm!
MADAME CHAZOT: There’s no excuse as he should be well aware
of the precautions your delicate condition requires.
MADELEINE: Now, mother!
MADAME CHAZOT: When a man has been previously married,
and has already had children…
MADELEINE: Jacques is as considerate of me as I could possibly
wish.
MADAME CHAZOT: Oh!
MADELEINE: Don’t you realize you are hurting my feelings.
MONSIEUR CHAZOT: (To his wife.) She’s right.
MADAME CHAZOT: (Bitterly.) You, of course, always find me at
fault. But, unfortunately, I can see clearly. Also concerning this matter,
what was your husband thinking of when he invited Abel Renaudier
and his mother to come for a visit?
MADELEINE: Abel is Jacques’ oldest and best friend, you know
that.
MADAME CHAZOT: What difference does that make? Besides,
I don’t like the man; I find his haughty airs unpleasant.
MONSIEUR CHAZOT: That’s rash judgment!
MADAME CHAZOT: As for his Mother why invite that old
lady?
20 Gabriel Marcel Ghostly Mysteries
MONSIEUR CHAZOT: You’re as old as she is Adrienne.
MADAME CHAZOT: That doesn’t matter. We’re visiting our
daughter, at her home.
MONSIEUR CHAZOT: Madame Renaudier is almost like a mother
to Jacques. Apparently she’s exceptionally kind.
MADAME CHAZOT: You say “apparently”. You yourself don’t
really know, and after all it’s the mistress of the house who invites, not
the husband. What’s more I’ve never met those people at your house
before.
MADELEINE: He travels a great deal; she doesn’t do much socially.
Besides… (She hesitates.)
MADAME CHAZOT: Finish your sentences, child.
MADELEINE: I’m afraid you may not understand the sense of
what I want to say.
MADAME CHAZOT: Charming.
MONSIEUR CHAZOT: Come, come.
MADELEINE: She knew Jacques’ first wife very well, and was
extremely fond of her. I find it quite natural that she show a certain
reserve toward us at first.
MADAME CHAZOT: In that case it’s tactless of him to have invited
her, or I should have said to have her invited. He’s done every stupid
thing possible. And this Florence Bréau?
MADELEINE: Well, mother, she’s the children’s aunt.
MADAME CHAZOT: She’s another one I find totally unpleas-
ant.
MONSIEUR CHAZOT: You obviously have a real gift for disliking
people.
MADAME CHAZOT: She doesn’t enter into conversations. One
never knows what’s she’s thinking. She barely manages to be polite to
me. Did your husband deliberately invite his sister in law, Florence
and this Monsieur Abel Renaudier at the same time?
MADELEINE: I don’t know.
MADAME CHAZOT: Then he doesn’t explain things to you! And
you put up with that?
(Jacques comes in from the garden.)
MADAME CHAZOT: Listen here Jacques, you should insist on
your wife’s staying in bed later mornings. After all she’s not going
to go to Mass, and while we’re on that subject, is the car ready yet?
I wouldn’t want to be late again like we were last Sunday. I imagine
Madame Renaudier will not be going with us?
JACQUES: No she won’t.
MADAME CHAZOT: Nor Florence Breau, either?
JACQUES: They must be bringing the car around. Why don’t you
go on ahead now; that will be quicker.
MADAME CHAZOT: Very well, we’ll see you later.
(She goes out with her husband.)
MADELEINE: Haven’t you had breakfast yet?
JACQUES: No.
MADELEINE: I’ll get some fresh tea for you, what’s left here must
be cold.
JACQUES: Don’t bother dear, I don’t want anything.
MADELEINE: How come?
JACQUES: I’ll have some bread and hot chocolate later with the
children.
MADELEINE: Are they playing croquet?
JACQUES: Probably.
MADELEINE: Didn’t you check on them?
JACQUES: No. Tell me; haven’t our guests come down for breakfast
yet?
MADELEINE: I haven’t seen any of them.
JACQUES: Didn’t you find that Abel looked poorly last night?
MADELEINE: Doesn’t he always look like that? You know, I’ve
seen him so rarely, I really couldn’t tell. Besides, yesterday he’d been
traveling. Did he come here often before?
JACQUES: Almost every year.
MADELEINE: But not since, the loss?
JACQUES: No.
MADELEINE: It’s only natural that he be quite moved. He seemed
really disappointed that the children had gone to bed so early.
JACQUES: Is that so? He played with them so often when they
were little.
MADELEINE: It’s strange. To look at him, you wouldn’t think he
was the kind of person who would enjoy little children.
JACQUES: Well you know Abel is a complicated person.
MADELEINE: That’s just it.
JACQUES: No, I mean he has contradictory tastes and certain
characteristics that one would think were mutually exclusive. I’ve seen
him laugh uncontrollably for some silly thing; you wouldn’t expect
that, would you?
MADELEINE: Definitely not, just the opposite. He seems so seri-
ous. I’ll even admit he intimidates me. Tell me, Jacques, did he also
intimidate Viviane?
JACQUES: At first, yes certainly, but gradually they became good
friends. She admired him very much, but I always felt that there was
something about him that bothered her, something that made her
feel uncomfortable. At times that saddened me. I would have liked
there to be more trust and understanding between them. But given
the way she was…
(A long silence. Jacques stares off into space, his thoughts elsewhere;
Madeleine watches him.)
MADELEINE: Is Florence like her sister Viviane?
JACQUES: That’s really strange. I was just thinking about Florence,
did you sense that about me?
MADELEINE: No, I don’t believe so.
JACQUES: If I wanted to have Abel and Florence here at the same
time, you might suspect that I had my reasons. Abel is thirty-seven,
Florence thirty-six. (He pauses, looking off into space again.) So I would
like to ask your advice about the best way of going about this.
MADELEINE: But what can I tell you? Remember I don’t actually
know either one of them.
JACQUES: Do you think I should sound him out first?
MADELEINE: Yes, I think you should start with him; but has he
seen her enough to know how he might feel about her?
JACQUES: Well, they’ve been here on several different occasions
in the past.
MADELEINE: Then it’s possible, isn’t it, that he might have had
this idea on his own?
JACQUES: In those days, Florence was just a young girl; besides,
I can’t be sure that Abel wasn’t involved with someone else at the
time.
MADELEINE: And you think that involvement is a thing of the
past now?
JACQUES: Naturally that’s something we’ll have to find out for
sure.
MADELEINE: It seems to me, that in any event you have to begin
by talking with your friend first.
JACQUES: Yes, but it’s very strange, just a moment ago you were
saying that Abel intimidates you. Well I have to admit that now he
intimidates me too.
MADELEINE: How do you explain that?
JACQUES: I don’t exactly know. (He reflects.) We haven’t seen each
other much recently, in fact not for three years. At times I feared his
feelings toward me had changed. I was overjoyed that he accepted this
invitation.
MADELEINE: Couldn’t you perhaps speak with his mother first?
JACQUES: Yes, I could; that sounds like a good idea.
MADELEINE: She may still be in the living room; she had several
letters to write.
JACQUES: Tell me, do you think it’s crazy, this idea of wanting
Abel and Florence to get together.
MADELEINE: Of course not, why?
JACQUES: Well it’s just that I need to feel supported. In my mind I
called on, you know who, and this time I felt as if my appeal received
no response. So I was afraid.
MADELEINE: (Softly.) Jacques dear, you shouldn’t let that discour-
age you. Why wouldn’t it be a good idea?
JACQUES: I feel I have a duty toward Florence; her father and
brother are so egotistical and a duty toward Abel too.
MADELEINE: No, there you’re overdoing it; he has his mother.
JACQUES: I assure you he frightens me. Our secret, I’ve never
dared confide it to him.
MADELEINE: (Painfully.) You mean your secret about you and
her.
JACQUES: (Warmly.) And you too, my dearest, it involves you
too.
MADELEINE: Oh, me. Well yes, if you like.
JACQUES: It’s a secret that binds the three of us.
MADELEINE: I find it perfectly natural that you didn’t tell Abel.
JACQUES: Do you really?
MADELEINE: It’s something so intimate. (Suddenly.) I would be
angry with you if you told him.
JACQUES: And what if he disputed it? What if he didn’t seem to
take it seriously? I couldn’t bear that; to think that he might judge it
an illusion.
MADELEINE: Come now! Who would dare to say it’s an illu-
sion?
JACQUES: (Painfully.) You yourself, sometimes I ask myself with
real anguish, what you believe, what you feel.
MADELEINE: (Touched.) Is that true? Well, my dearest, that’s all
I need, just to know that you think of me at times with tenderness,
with compassion.
JACQUES: Aren’t you happy?
MADELEINE: Of course I’m happy, even very happy; only some-
times (with a different tone) it’s a little difficult. Come now, you must
talk to Abel’s Mother; as for me I can see that Miss Bullfinch wants a
word with me.
JACQUES: Bye, dearest.
(He kisses her and then goes into the house.)
MISS BULLFINCH: I have something to tell you, Madam.
MADELEINE: What is it, Miss Bullfinch?
MISS BULLFINCH: It’s something a bit strange, and still I feel
bound to tell you. Last night, you know I’m a very poor sleeper, I
heard something in Roger’s room; Monsieur Renaudier was there.
MADELEINE: Monsieur Renaudier was in Roger’s room?
MISS BULLFINCH: He was right next to the child’s bed, and he
was crying.
MADELEINE: Crying? You must have been dreaming!
MISS BULLFINCH: I was not dreaming, Madam; I saw him as
sure as I’m looking at you now.
MADELEINE: And Roger didn’t wake up?
MISS BULLFINCH: I don’t think so, I’m not sure. But I’d be very
much surprised, if he did. He is such a sound sleeper, Roger is.
MADELEINE: (After a silence.) Why are you telling me this?
MISS BULLFINCH: But, I thought…
MADELEINE: What importance can this have? Abel Renaudier
knew the children when they were babies; he hasn’t seen them in
years.
MISS BULLFINCH: But Madam, he was crying.
MADELEINE: Abel Renaudier was an old friend of Roger’s mother;
perhaps Roger resembles what his mother looked like when she was
young.
MISS BULLFINCH: Oh! I didn’t know that.
MADELEINE: It’s of no importance, no importance whatsoever.
MISS BULLFINCH: Still it shouldn’t be repeated, should it?
MADELEINE: It’s not worth worrying about. I shall mention it to
my husband, if I think of it.
MISS BULLFINCH: But what if he does it again?
MADELEINE: I’ll ask him not to, it could upset Roger.
MISS BULLFINCH: Of course it might. Oh, here comes Made-
moiselle Florence.
(She leaves.)
FLORENCE: I’m embarrassed to be coming downstairs so late.
MADELEINE: You should rest. Your life in Lyon is very tiring, I
know.
FLORENCE: No need to exaggerate.
MADELEINE: I know from what Jacques has told me, that you
don’t serve your charities in any halfhearted manner.
FLORENCE: One has to kill time. Anything is better than idleness,
even volunteer work.
MADELEINE: Have you so little faith in what you do?
FLORENCE: (Dryly.) As little as possible, having seen misery first
hand, I realize how little any individual can do.
MADELEINE: What is your answer then, is it socialism?
FLORENCE: Not even that. I have no theories about anything,
perhaps because I’ve always lived with people who have theories for
everything.
MADELEINE: What a contrary attitude! Have you seen the children
yet this morning?
FLORENCE: They came to my room to say good morning as usual.
It seemed to me Roger acted a bit strangely.
MADELEINE: Oh!
FLORENCE: I had the impression he wanted to tell me something,
but didn’t quite dare to. He’s very special, that child, don’t you think;
far more sensitive than his sister.
MADELEINE: (Lively!) But Odette has gifts Roger does not; to
begin with she’s much more conscientious.
FLORENCE: You really are determined to keep a fair balance
between these two children!
MADELEINE: That’s my first duty.
FLORENCE: So be it. But I’ll tell you at the risk of scandalizing
you that I find my young nephew infinitely more charming than his
sister. Odette is a nice little girl, but she has nothing original about
her, whereas Roger can be delightful. I suppose you know that the
children idolize you?
MADELEINE: (Embarrassed.) I believe they do love me.
FLORENCE: You won your way into their hearts immediately, and
that’s not easy, especially with Roger.
MADELEINE: I never had any difficulty with them. They are very
easy children.
FLORENCE: In that they take after their father more than they do
my sister. Jacques has always been extraordinarily gentle, I believe.
(Abel enters.)
ABEL: Good morning, ladies.
MADELEINE: Have you had breakfast?
ABEL: I recall something was brought to my room.
MADELEINE: That sounds a bit vague.
ABEL: I don’t really remember what it was.
FLORENCE: Great men don’t pay attention to small details.
ABEL: How clever you are at noting paradoxes. I wasn’t aware of
your way with words.
MADELEINE: Have you seen the children?
ABEL: I shall be delighted to see them.
MADELEINE: You will find them changed.
ABEL: Jacques sent me their pictures while I was in America.
Above all they seem to have grown. Odette looks like Jacques did as
a child.
MADELEINE: Actually how old were you when you first met my
husband?
ABEL: We started first grade together, and before that we played in
the park together. You see it all goes back to the beginning of time.
MADELEINE: I’ve heard you were an extraordinarily precocious
child.
ABEL: Oh!
MADELEINE: Just the other day Jacques read me a composition
you wrote when you were twelve years old that he’d copied.
ABEL: (With irony.) Is that so!
MADELEINE: It startled me to read what you wrote at age
twelve. You were to report on your summer reading; you had chosen
Shakespeare’s Othello.
ABEL: I remember, actually it was quite ridiculous.
MADELEINE: I admit I’d be disappointed if our little Roger were
that precocious.
ABEL: I agree that would be disastrous.
MADELEINE: One never knows if you are speaking seriously or
not.
ABEL: I am absolutely serious. The first duty of a child is to be a
child.
MADELEINE: I’m pleased to hear that.
FLORENCE: (With sudden violence.) Unfortunately I remember
Abel saying just the opposite. He pleaded the case of those little
monsters, whose every word and gesture is written down, he asked
that intelligent children be encouraged to keep a journal for the future
pleasure of psychologists.
ABEL: I don’t remember having said such absurdities, but it’s pos-
sible.
FLORENCE: What’s one contradiction more or less? And, what’s
more you’re quite proud to have read Othello at age twelve. Don’t think
you’ve fooled us.
(She leaves.)
ABEL: What was that explosion all about?
MADELEINE: I have no idea, I’m dumbfounded.
ABEL: I sensed right from the start yesterday that our arrival dis-
pleased her, still…
MADELEINE: Before, did you and she have disagreements?
ABEL: In those days she never opened her mouth. Oh, I realized
she was a bit strange, even a bit unbalanced. Her sister talked to me
about her on several occasions with anxious concern. Not just worries
about her ideas, but about the way she lived.
MADELEINE: Do you know her father and her brother?
ABEL: Yes, very well indeed. They are stuffed shirts.
MADELEINE: It must be so sad for her living alone with them.
ABEL: But I believe she has made a life for herself on her own.
Besides, why hasn’t she ever married? She’s no worse than the next
one; and these days eccentricity is considered attractive in a woman.
MADELEINE: Here’s Jacques.
(Jacques enters.)
JACQUES: (To Abel, affectionately.) Well, tell me, how are you, my
friend?
ABEL: (Coldly.) Well. Thank you.
JACQUES: Did you sleep well? (To Madeleine.) I remember when
we used to travel together the slightest unexpected event would prevent
him from sleeping. Sometimes it was ridiculous. Fear of not waking
up on time, a letter that was delayed…
ABEL: You always were more confident than I; that’s certain.
JACQUES: You know, I often think of those trips together, what
wonderful memories.
ABEL: Do you think so?
MADELEINE: He speaks of them often.
ABEL: Those are memories I never recall. We were still too naïve
about life then.
JACQUES: That’s just what I love about the past. You were so full
of ideas and projects.
ABEL: The unfulfilled projects of others may seem poetic, but when
it’s a question of one’s own.
MADELEINE: I’m going to leave you two alone together; you must
have so much to talk about.
(She leaves.)
JACQUES: It saddens me to hear you talk like that. You sound like
your life has been a complete failure.
ABEL: And it’s the truth.
JACQUES: That doesn’t make sense for one who received his doc-
torate at thirty-two.
ABEL: What’s a piece of paper? Do you think that’s what really
counts for me? If so, you misunderstand me worse than I’d thought.
JACQUES: What do you mean “worse than you’d thought”?
ABEL: Let’s say, “less well”, it’s all the same to me.
JACQUES: Abel my friend, something’s wrong. What’s the
matter?
ABEL: What will you imagine next?
JACQUES: Last night when you arrived, I felt a kind of shock. I
can’t explain it to you any more clearly, but those impressions never
fail me.
ABEL: (Disdainfully.) Yes, I know you have always believed in
intuitions, in presentiments.
JACQUES: No need to go that far. I know you well enough to see
that you have changed. Even now you have an expression that I’ve
never seen before, stone faced. And every now and then an ironic smile
comes from who knows where. You’re hiding something from me.
ABEL: Go on create a novel if that pleases you.
JACQUES: You are not answering me truthfully. Come now, I
suspected that behind those endless trips for no apparent reason there
was some secret pain, sentimental, most likely. You had a mistress; she
betrayed you or she left you.
ABEL: That version doesn’t flatter my ego very much, but I won’t
hold that against you.
JACQUES: I’ve just had a long talk with your mother she didn’t
hide from me that she’s very concerned about you. Actually, what’s
happening to you doesn’t surprise me.
ABEL: At least you believe in your own creations.
JACQUES: (Following his own thought.) The longer I live the more
I realize that I was right to marry young; otherwise one doesn’t escape
situations like yours.
ABEL: Go on, if that amuses you.
JACQUES: Remember, I’ve been criticized enough. Not by you, I
have to give you credit for that.
ABEL: Thank you.
JACQUES: But those others, still we were wonderfully happy. Until
that catastrophe; since then, I’ve lived so much in the past.
ABEL: (With irony.) Oh!
JACQUES: Do you remember when we met her for the first time
at the Bertrin’s home?
ABEL: Yes.
JACQUES: When I think that it was you who dragged me to that
household. In those days I was wilder than you. I remember that at first
Viviane didn’t impress me. I thought she was cold, distant, affected.
ABEL: (In a half-whisper.) Show some respect Jacques, please.
JACQUES: What I can’t understand is how I came to return there.
I know it was you who insisted.
ABEL: Was it I?
JACQUES: Still there had to be a will more powerful than ours that
intervened.
ABEL: Oh!
JACQUES: It was the next time that my eyes were opened. She sat
down at the piano. Do you remember? She played a prelude, choral
and fugue?
ABEL: No, not a fugue.
JACQUES: I can still see us there, in that little living room at avenue
de Breteuil, the Bertrins not saying anything.
ABEL: They never said anything.
JACQUES: There must have been other people there that evening,
a bald man to whom we were not introduced, and there were several
others too.
ABEL: Yes, on the couch, to the left of the piano, that’s right
indeed.
JACQUES: An elderly lady. It’s you who turned her pages. Those
slight nods of her head to say, “Yes, now you may turn.” Tell me, my
friend, aren’t you moved by the fact that the past lives on in such vivid
detail? Moreover, is it really past? What does it all mean?
ABEL: You’ve become a philosopher, congratulations.
JACQUES: And since then, so much has happened.
ABEL: Yes indeed. (A long silence.)
(Madeleine enters.)
MADELEINE: Listen, Jacques, I don’t feel all that well; I’d like to
go upstairs and rest.
JACQUES: But what’s wrong? I’ll go up with you.
MADELEINE: No, don’t be silly, it’s nothing. Only I may not come
down for lunch. Don’t fret; if I need you, I promise I’ll send for you.
Above all, not a word to mother when she comes back, she gets so
upset needlessly.
JACQUES: You’re pale!
MADELEINE: I know it’s nothing, so don’t fuss!
(She leaves.)
(Abel observes Jacques.)
JACQUES: She’s not careful enough. I can’t get her to take care of
herself properly, and since she’s not as strong as she looks these last
two months are going to be difficult.
ABEL: The baby is due in two months?
JACQUES: Yes, about that.
ABEL: (In an equivocal tone.) You wasted no time that’s for sure.
JACQUES: And I can’t bear the thought of these new sufferings.
There are moments when I would like to just go to sleep and wake
up after it’s all over. I remember so clearly what it was like with Vivi-
ane.
ABEL: Stop it!
JACQUES: What’s the matter?
ABEL: Nothing; it’s that sick way you have of always bringing up
the past.
JACQUES: I must tell you again, for me the present and the past
are so intimately linked I cannot separate them.
ABEL: You are extraordinary.
JACQUES: For me it’s all connected with some very deep things
that I must talk with you about some day.
ABEL: No, old man, I don’t know what it’s all about, but I prefer
that you spare me such confidences. It would certainly be too painful
for me to enter into your way of seeing things.
JACQUES: How discouraging you are, Abel. One would say you
dread anything that might bring us closer together.
ABEL: Confidences don’t always bring people closer together, believe
me.
JACQUES: Please excuse me; I’m going upstairs for a moment it
wouldn’t be right of me not to, she never complains at all.
(Jacques leaves.)
(Abel leans on the terrace railing, a look of scornful irony on his face.
At that moment Roger enters.)
ROGER: Abelou! My Uncle Abelou! (He jumps up and throws his
arms around Abel’s neck.)
ABEL: My pal!
ROGER: Uncle Abel! Why did you come into my room last
night?
ABEL: You’re imagining things, my little man.
ROGER: I’m sure of it.
ABEL: You were dreaming.
ROGER: And you even stayed quite a while, Uncle Abel. You were
crying.
ABEL: Where did you dream up such ideas?
ROGER: It was strange. But, you know, I was a little afraid. You
were breathing hard, heavy, like that. You came near my bed to kiss
me, and then all of a sudden you left.
ABEL: Did I speak?
ROGER: See! You no longer say it isn’t true!
ABEL: I’m asking you if in your dream I spoke.
ROGER: (Embarrassed.) I don’t know for sure. You looked so sad.
ABEL: (Still acting as if it were a joke.) You must have been very
scared. Why didn’t you call for help, silly boy?
ROGER: Don’t you see it seemed to me that I shouldn’t, that you
would have been even unhappier if I had cried out.
ABEL: (In a different voice.) My friend, (He takes him on his knees;
in a smothered voice.) you do love me a little bit, don’t you? You do
like me, don’t you?
ROGER: But why were you crying, tell me? It’s so strange for
someone your age to cry.
(Florence appears at that moment.)
FLORENCE: What are you doing there, Roger? I thought you were
with Odette.
ROGER: But, Aunt Florence!
FLORENCE: Off with you now.
ROGER: I didn’t do anything wrong.
(He leaves sadly.)
FLORENCE: You realize I suppose, that I was not informed about
your coming here. Jacques failed to tell me that he had planned for
us to meet each other.
ABEL: (Coldly.) So?
FLORENCE: If I had known you were coming, I would have
left.
ABEL: Oh, really?
FLORENCE: Not every one here is blind.
ABEL: You know I’m not following you at all.
FLORENCE: You realize one of us must leave.
(Jacques joins them.)
JACQUES: Well, I’m peaceful now, it was nothing. What would
you say to a walk together before lunch, Abel?
ABEL: As you wish.
JACQUES: Florence, won’t you come with us?
FLORENCE: No, I’ll stay here; I’ll go and keep your wife com-
pany.
JACQUES: It’s better to let her rest, she is somewhat tired. But here’s
Abel’s mother who I’m sure will be delighted to chat with you.
FLORENCE: And I myself have something to tell her too.
(Jacques and Abel leave.)
FLORENCE: Good morning, Madame.
MADAME RENAUDIER: How are you, Florence? I haven’t seen
you since that terribly sad ceremony three years ago, and I find you’ve
changed so much since then! I believe your likeness to your sister
Viviane is even more striking now.
FLORENCE: I don’t know; it’s possible.
MADAME RENAUDIER: If you knew how often I think of
her! We understood one another right from the start. From the day
Jacques introduced her to me, I knew we’d be friends. To begin with
she reminded me of a young cousin of mine whom I loved dearly,
and who died at twenty-five. Why do you look away? Is it painful for
you that I speak of your sister?
FLORENCE: (Profoundly.) Yes, very painful, I can’t bear it.
MADAME RENAUDIER: Still I assure you it was no ordinary
feeling that she inspired. Her image stays with me throughout my life.
Just the way she sometimes spoke to me about my son but what’s the
matter with you?
FLORENCE: Then you… I can’t, I just can’t.
MADAME RENAUDIER: Come now, dear girl.
FLORENCE: Forgive me, I am so alone, I tell you I can’t put up
with it.
MADAME RENAUDIER: (With a trembling voice.) What are you
insinuating?
FLORENCE: I beg you; don’t pretend that you don’t understand.
You saw them together, and the idea must have crossed your mind.
MADAME RENAUDIER: Never, do you hear me? That monstrous
suspicion never even occurred to me. I can not pardon you for having
expressed it.
FLORENCE: (Bitterly.) Obviously.
MADAME RENAUDIER: There is too much hate in your eyes.
FLORENCE: (Strongly.) Not hate, horror.
MADAME RENAUDIER: You don’t know my son at all. Just the
thought of that betrayal is monstrous.
FLORENCE: The facts are there.
MADAME RENAUDIER: What facts?
FLORENCE: First of all a letter, don’t ask me to show it to you,
a letter of hers that I found. And then, last night your son went into
the boy’s room, he stayed there a long time, he was crying.
MADAME RENAUDIER: How do you know?
FLORENCE: I heard some strange noises; I questioned that English
governess. At first, she lied, but then she told me everything.
MADAME RENAUDIER: Does she have any idea?
FLORENCE: He must leave; I can’t answer for my behavior if
he stays. If you have some influence over him, get him to leave, for
heaven’s sake!
MADAME RENAUDIER: Under what pretext?
FLORENCE: A letter that just arrived, what do I know? He must
leave, do you understand me.
MADAME RENAUDIER: Above all we must not awaken this ter-
rible suspicion in Jacques’ mind. But I can’t ask my son to play along
with this comedy.
FLORENCE: All right, then I’ll leave.
MADAME RENAUDIER: That’s right, why shouldn’t it be you
who leaves?
(A silence.)
FLORENCE: You don’t believe me do you?
MADAME RENAUDIER: No. And then even, even if I did, even
if you were sure what right have you to upset me like this. He’s my
son; I have no one but him.
FLORENCE: (Brutally.) What other means did I have to make him
leave? My departure will arouse more suspicions than his.
MADAME RENAUDIER: (Following her thought.) And for her,
for the deceased, oh, you never loved her!
FLORENCE: What do you know of me?
(Abel comes in.)
ABEL: I left Jacques playing croquet; that innocent game suits
him.
FLORENCE: (To Madame Renaudier.) Permit me to remind you
of your promise. (She leaves.)
ABEL: What’s all this about a promise?
MADAME RENAUDIER: I made no promise, Abel, although she
wanted to force me to talk to you.
ABEL: You seem upset. (Affectionately.) Tell me now, what is it?
MADAME RENAUDIER: You have no idea what she’s accused
you of.
ABEL: Just a while ago she said some things that intrigued me.
MADAME RENAUDIER: There you are again with that pursed
lip expression I know only too well. Tell me she lied. Abel for the sake
of all our closeness in the past! Remember. It wasn’t so long ago that
you shared confidences with me. You used to tell me your preoccupa-
tions. In those days I existed for you. Little by little you seemed to
grow away from me; however it’s not I who has changed, you know
that very well. (In a different tone.) It’s hard. Obviously at my age one
shouldn’t make demands. It all shows that I’ve grown old. None the
less, in my life, there was only you so…
ABEL: Mother, can you believe that I’ve really distanced myself
from you.
MADAME RENAUDIER: Alas! I don’t believe it, I’m sure of it.
Since after the death of your father you supported me; spoiled me.
ABEL: Don’t you understand there are certain sorrows that can’t be
shared with anyone. You sensed that I was unhappy, didn’t you?
MADAME RENAUDIER: I feared you were, but with you it’s
sometimes so hard to know. When you’re merely reflecting, sometimes
you seem so somber. I remember when you started to work on your
thesis.
ABEL: (Sadly.) So, even you, you can’t tell when I’m merely preoc-
cupied and when I’m suffering.
MADAME RENAUDIER: I just told you, I was sure that you had
some sorrow, but I didn’t dare ask you about it. Abel, sometimes I’m
almost afraid of you. Right now, yes, there’s something frightening in
your expression. Is it that dreadful accusation?
ABEL: Kindly tell me exactly what that person said to you?
MADAME RENAUDIER: That person, Abel! Viviane’s sister! Aha!
You trembled! So it’s true then.
ABEL: As reasoning that’s a bit simplistic, you must admit.
MADAME RENAUDIER: That’s no answer.
ABEL: (Bitterly.) Obviously you want a yes or a no answer. A soul like
yours does not recognize nuances. Well then, no, I was not Viviane’s
lover.
MADAME RENAUDIER: You swear that to me?
ABEL: (Strongly.) I have not been Viviane’s lover, Mother, I assure
you.
MADAME RENAUDIER: My son, I realize now that I believed
you were guilty. Forgive me. How could I have? But the proof she
talked about…
ABEL: What proof?
MADAME RENAUDIER: A letter, what do I know? Abel, it does
my heart good to be able to look at you without blushing. That infi-
delity would have been something so odious, so… there’s no word to
express it. Let me kiss you.
ABEL: Your joy is beautiful. Your joy brings us close again; however
who says that it depended on me whether that betrayal was consum-
mated or not?
(Monsieur and Madame Chazot enter.)
MONSIEUR CHAZOT: Good morning. Do you know where my
daughter is?
MADAME RENAUDIER: I believe she’s in her room resting.
MADAME CHAZOT: She must be totally exhausted, she’s the last
one to give in to the way she feels. I presume my son-in-law is with
her?
ABEL: Jacques is playing croquet.
MADAME CHAZOT: What’s that you say?
MONSIEUR CHAZOT: He’s absolutely right to leave Madeleine
alone to rest.
MADAME CHAZOT: Come along, Albert.
(They go into the house.)
ABEL: That nice old man and that nagging harpy form an odd
couple, don’t they?
MADAME RENAUDIER: Abel just before they arrived, you had
been saying that if it only depended on you, things would have hap-
pened differently. Surely you’re mistaken. There is no one less capable
of deception and lying than you.
ABEL: Just consider; did you ever suspect the immense love I had
for Viviane?
MADAME RENAUDIER: You say that in such a tone!
ABEL: Take these words without trying too much to imagine what
they refer to. Your good life, mother, has not prepared you to under-
stand what a creature like Viviane can inspire in a heart like mine.
Oh believe me, I’m not vain about this excessive love, believe me. Just
know that whatever might have been, in another destiny, vital ideas,
creation, all that was spent in this love. And little by little that intimate
treasure was… no, I can’t say spent, it evaporated, if you like, in sterile
outpourings, in dreams, in unrealistic projects. And there’s nothing
left of this past but a sad memory. A memory that is everything and
that is nothing.
MADAME RENAUDIER: (Softly.) When did this love begin?
ABEL: A love like that has no beginning. A love like mine, one
knows it has existed forever.
MADAME RENAUDIER: If she had known, perhaps it’s you she
would have married.
ABEL: Mother, I didn’t know myself that I loved her until after
she was already married to Jacques. So I had no illusions about my
chances.
MADAME RENAUDIER: Abel!
ABEL: Oh! I assure you if I had thought that Viviane might consent,
nothing would have stopped me; but as soon as I became close to her
I realized that an imprudent word would risk ruining our friendship
forever. That risk was too dreadful; I didn’t dare to run it.
MADAME RENAUDIER: Less pure, she would have been less
dear to you.
ABEL: (Dryly.) I don’t know about that. Had she guessed with
what impatience I resigned myself to remain her friend? At certain
times, I believe she did; but who knows if she didn’t take as temporary
effervescence that boiling over of a love incapable of containing itself
with no outlet. Little by little, as strange as it may seem, I reconciled
myself to the idea that Viviane would never belong to me. Only you
will never guess where I found the courage to accept this. And here
comes the most awful part of my story. My poor mother, how you
look at me! (With sadness.) It’s a real novel I’m telling you, one of
those stories that you don’t like because of its complications. Well,
it was actually here, one evening that I received a sort of revelation.
She was a very private person and I didn’t realize exactly what she felt
for Jacques. Suddenly I saw that she loved him passionately. It was a
terrible blow.
MADAME RENAUDIER: I don’t know what you’re trying to
say. Viviane was a perfect companion for Jacques as she was an ideal
mother for their children, irreproachable.
ABEL: Mother, I sense too clearly that you don’t understand. Why did
you pry from me a confidence so unfit for your ears? More complicated
souls, you see, find resources where other more balanced folks don’t
suspect there are any. The cruel jealousy I felt changed imperceptibly
into an entirely different feeling which was primarily an act of will. It’s
difficult for me to describe my feelings, that spring from deep secret
levels to which I’m not sure you could follow me. I don’t deny the
fact that this was a sort of morbid sentiment not appreciated except
by someone who like me has lived only in his thoughts.
MADAME RENAUDIER: If only you weren’t so proud of these
complications! Ah! How right I was to worry years ago when I saw
you gradually become estranged from religion and engulfed by all
those dangerous doctrines.
ABEL: It’s not a question of doctrine; at most it’s a question of
method.
MADAME RENAUDIER: You always win an argument because I
use everyday words, not your technical terms. Still in this matter I’m
so sure of the truth.
ABEL: Poor mother, if it were only a question of the truth.
MADAME RENAUDIER: What do you mean?
ABEL: It’s not a question of having a right or wrong opinion, don’t
you see; it’s a question of what one is. One’s being! And when you
reproach me, my intellectual satisfactions, you forget that they have a
terrible shadow side. I came to the point of thinking of their love, not
just their affection, but their love, without revulsion. I would observe
Jacques with the idea of finding him absolutely worthy of being loved,
and I succeeded. Jacques is handsome; I recognized that for the first
time. I mastered my own bursts of ego sufficiently so that I could see
in him the presence of all the admirable qualities that I lacked, his
natural grace, his confident manner the lack of which a woman never
pardons. I saw myself as I really was, and I perceived that in loving
me, Viviane would lower herself.
MADAME RENAUDIER: Basically then, if I understand what
you’re saying, Viviane seemed to you incapable of loving anything
other than Jacques’ physique. That’s unfair even to Jacques.
ABEL: (Without answering.) You see, I reasoned lucidly, at least I
thought I did, without letting myself be tortured by desires that I
thought could never be fulfilled. Perhaps at the beginning I experienced
some pride about this victory over myself. With pride I enjoyed this
power I had to love Viviane passionately, all the while, associating
her with Jacques in a feeling that blended admiration, jealousy, and
a studied resignation whose secret I sought for a long time. Did she
perceive any of this? Did she guess what forbidden paths my heart
was exploring? It’s terrible to say, but I don’t know. We often had long
passionate discussions, but when we were together we never discussed
ourselves. You knew her, mother; you remember her face, her intel-
ligent expression, that mysterious light which sparkled in her bright
eyes. When I want to analyze that mysterious soul, all I have is the
memory of that look.
MADAME RENAUDIER: But her death…
ABEL: My loss didn’t matter. At first I thought I’d found in Jacques’
grief the sacred mourning that her departure should leave in the heart
of the one she’d chosen as her life partner. I recall the conversation
we had the evening after the funeral. Jacques shared confidences with
me, even read some of her letters. It was as if he understood. But I
entertained no illusions on this point; Jacques is not intelligent, still
even if he were, but we became closer, he implied he could never find
consolation not even diminishment of the pain of his loss. He planned
to live from then on in solitary recollection. I had increasingly the
impression of a three-way communion, an ideal trinity. She was still
there; she presided over us, but from afar, from above. Yes, without a
doubt, the physical desire lasts one’s entire life. Dreams that I’d for-
gotten wove a terrible agony the months following her demise. One
night, I found myself on the bank of the Seine, in the wine soaked
odor of warehouses. I still see myself leaning over the railing…
MADAME RENAUDIER: Good heavens!
ABEL: Shortly thereafter I left for Russia, and it was in Moscow
one day in December that I received a letter from Jacques informing
me that he was going to marry again. I burnt that letter, but unfortu-
nately I know it by heart. I shall spare you the details, just know that
beneath a thin veil of sentimental and hypocritical logic he could not
hide a heart longing for contemptible and mediocre consolations.
MADAME RENAUDIER: Now, Abel!
ABEL: With what indescribable heartache I read that letter. This was
the man before whom, in complete sincerity of heart, I had effaced
myself, the man with whom I was honored to share a noble sorrow!
I delayed my reply for a long time. Then I sent a curt reply, a polite
formula of congratulations, four lines. That should have revealed my
disgust and shown him in no uncertain terms that our friendship was
finished. But no, he found out the time of my return, and showed
up at the station to meet me; his face radiant with a smile that edi-
fied even me. He hadn’t understood a thing, didn’t suspect a thing.
It was too much to expect that this spoiled child, clinging cowardly
to moral consolations, could live as a recollected widower. Someone
else, no worse at heart, but less cynical and less addicted to “proper
ways” would have gone to brothels; he remarried.
MADAME RENAUDIER: You’re out of your mind! Look here,
Jacques’ second marriage had the unanimous and complete approval
of all of us who’d known and loved Viviane. Even Viviane’s sister did
not disapprove; you can see that for yourself.
ABEL: Will we ever know what that one thinks!
MADAME RENAUDIER: His first duty was to provide a mother
for those little children.
ABEL: Oh yes, that sentence was surely in his letter.
MADAME RENAUDIER: It’s only too obvious, if he’d closed
himself off in his sorrow that would have been an egotistical way of
interpreting his duty.
ABEL: Don’t forget that Madeleine is pregnant. You may say he
wept at the critical moment. That is possible.
MADAME RENAUDIER: That remark is revolting. You don’t
think their marriage should be purely formal, do you?
ABEL: It’s all the same to me. Socially even morally it may have
been right for him to remarry. But for me, those points of view don’t
exist. We know what those so-called social responsibilities amount
to. They are a cover up for a cowardly fear of living alone and prob-
ably for sexual tensions justifying hydrotherapy. It’s easy to invoke all
that: the children, society. But he had contracted a huge debt toward
the two of us, he doesn’t seem to understand. He didn’t expect with
Viviane dead, I would still be here to protect her sacred rights.
MADAME RENAUDIER: You are out of your mind. Viviane
herself, if she had known she was going to die, would have begged
him to remarry.
ABEL: Oh! You think that she disdained him?
MADAME RENAUDIER: You only judge with your passion, but
for me who’s in my right mind…
ABEL: The measure of a man’s worth is the fidelity he is capable
of. I don’t recognize any other virtue. He was faithful for as long as
she was there to soothe his sensuousness. And when she was only a
light at the depth of a remembrance, he started to look elsewhere for
more, substantial gratification. No, don’t you see…
(Jacques and the children enter.)
JACQUES: (Wiping his forehead.) I’m dripping with perspiration.
You know we’re going to eat lunch soon.
ABEL: We’re coming.
ROGER: I won three games, Uncle Abel.
ABEL: Bravo, my friend.
(Jacques and the children leave.)
MADAME RENAUDIER: Why did you take the risk of going into
that child’s room during the night?
ABEL: Oh! You know about that?
MADAME RENAUDIER: Besides, no definitely, I cannot under-
stand your thinking. How could you accept to come here with me?
ABEL: You mustn’t forget Mother that this is the only place where
I’ve really lived. And about Roger, haven’t you noticed, he has Viviane’s
eyes, large and anxious, and her long Boticelli-like lips. Why should
I be cautious? What have I to fear? Tell me?
MADAME RENAUDIER: Well, if people were to imagine what
never happened! Just think. It would be frightful.
ABEL: For whom? I ask you to reflect a moment before answering
me.
MADAME RENAUDIER: Well really, Abel, for Jacques.
ABEL: Is it for Jacques? Suppose for a moment that he suspects we
betrayed him. Well, he doesn’t deserve to keep an untarnished image
of her; believe me an image only soils someone who is obsessed by
it; it only corrupts the one it tortures. Viviane is beyond the reach of
these demeaning attacks.
MADAME RENAUDIER: Don’t you understand? Florence believes
you’re guilty, she whom Jacques envisaged as a partner for you.
ABEL: You’d expect a stupid idea like that from him.
MADAME RENAUDIER: She demands that you leave. If not,
then she will go.
ABEL: Let her go. The departure of that sullen virgin won’t upset
anyone.
MADAME RENAUDIER: But how will Jacques interpret that
sudden end to her visit. She was supposed to stay here another month.
Abel, this situation is hopelessly entangled.
ABEL: I agree it is awkward, if people insist that Jacques keep the
platonic devotion he believes he owes Viviane, I agree it is awkward.
But the one who is unfaithful doesn’t deserve to keep a pure memory
of her intact in his heart. Peace of soul is a privilege; it must be mer-
ited. This man moved on in life like a good landowner. He’ll learn,
and we’ll at least find out what that colorless cantankerous Florence
is doing here.
MADAME RENAUDIER: Won’t you let me tell him?
ABEL: I forbid you to tell him, do you hear?
ACT TWO
Two days later. A small living room with French doors to the right
that open onto the garden. Opposite the French doors an upright piano
stands against the wall. Above the piano hangs the portrait of a woman.
At the back there is a door opening onto a corridor. It’s three o’clock in the
afternoon; but the day is rainy, and the lamp on the piano is lit. As the
curtain rises, Florence is playing a nocturne by Fauré. Abel enters noiselessly
through the French doors that are open. Florence doesn’t look around or
see that he has come into the room. He sits on a couch next to the French
doors and listens, his head in his hands. He nods his head with a sort of
convulsive heaving of his shoulders. Suddenly he’s startled.
ABEL: (Suddenly.) No! You struck a false note.

(Florence turns around and sees him; she rises and stands with her
back to the piano, her lips pursed her breathing heavy, her gaze fixed.)
(A silence.)
ABEL: (With curt politeness he has stood up.) I beg your pardon; I
am sorry to have interrupted you in such a gross manner, but I know
that nocturne so well. Continue playing, please.
(Florence does not continue.)
JACQUES: (Entering from the door on the left.) Why did you stop,
Florence? I like that piece so much. It’s by Chopin, isn’t it?
FLORENCE: (Exploding the word.) Fauré, my favorite.
JACQUES: (To Abel.) Viviane played it often. I miss hearing the
sound of music here. When I think, do you remember, every night,
sometimes until midnight; Chopin, Schumann, everyone.
ABEL: Most of the time you didn’t seem to be listening.
JACQUES: It was like an atmosphere that enveloped me. I didn’t
need to listen. Besides, when I begin to pay attention to music, it tires
me. It has to remain accompaniment.
ABEL: In that case, you have no reason to be demanding about
performance, does your wife…?
JACQUES: Madeleine isn’t exactly a musician. Besides…
(He stops.)
ABEL: Go on!
JACQUES: She would find it difficult to play Viviane’s piano.
ABEL: (In a neutral tone.) Oh!
JACQUES: That’s quite natural.
ABEL: It’s only natural.
FLORENCE: One doesn’t know where to go this afternoon. It’s
stifling outside, but it’s no better in here. It’s like a steam bath.
JACQUES: (Looking out the window.) It won’t be this evening that
we’ll see our project succeed.
FLORENCE: What project?
JACQUES: A moonlight stroll.
ABEL: You’re really set on that agenda aren’t you? It’s the tenth time
you suggested a moonlight walk since the day before yesterday.
JACQUES: (Hurt.) I was only thinking of you. As for me I assure
you I’m blasé about moonlight strolls in the forest. Besides you were
with us in the past when we walked to the Diamond Pond.
ABEL: Shh!
JACQUES: Why?
FLORENCE: Don’t you find it stifling in here?
(She opens the French doors wide, and walks outside.)
JACQUES: But it’s raining; Florence, it’s crazy to go out bare headed
in this weather!
FLORENCE: (From outside.) Let me be. I’m not a sugarplum.
(She leaves.)
JACQUES: Well what’s the matter with you two?
ABEL: What do you mean?
JACQUES: Florence and you, what’s going on?
ABEL: There is Florence; and then there is me. What do you mean
“you two”?
JACQUES: My friend, let’s not split hairs! When I came in just a
minute ago you were looking at each other so strangely!
ABEL: You make me laugh.
JACQUES: What’s more for the last two days I can’t figure out
what’s happening.
ABEL: I ask you now, what do you think is happening? We are
leading a peaceful family life that you have invited us to share with
you for several days. We eat, we go for walks, we sleep, and my mother
plays bridge with your wife’s parents.
JACQUES: All that’s a facade, but behind that façade?
ABEL: (With irony.) Oh I see; you believe in a secret life?
JACQUES: One fact is obvious; Florence is entirely different since
your arrival.
ABEL: A secret life! What a joke. I beg your pardon.
JACQUES: You’re saying that sincerely?
ABEL: That “feminine mystique” for worldly women makes me
sick.
JACQUES: Feminine mystique? Well, what the devil! We’re not
fools.
ABEL: Are you sure of that?
JACQUES: Absolutely.
ABEL: You are lucky. (A silence.)
JACQUES: The truth is that since the day before yesterday I feel
strangely uncomfortable.
ABEL: Uncomfortable?
JACQUES: It’s like an oppressive heaviness.
ABEL: Years ago you never felt well when there was a storm brew-
ing.
JACQUES: You’re making fun of me?
ABEL: No, it’s true, consult a doctor.
JACQUES: You know I’ve always been sensitive to the atmosphere.
(Vague gesture from Abel.) You don’t understand what I mean? Say, for
example, as soon as there was some latent tension between my parents,
I’d feel it without their mentioning it.
ABEL: Very strange.
JACQUES: It’s a kind of; intuition.
ABEL: (Sarcastically.) You wouldn’t by any chance be a medium
would you?
JACQUES: Abel!
ABEL: One of these evenings we must try and levitate a table. It’s
wonderful after dinner entertainment.
JACQUES: That’s enough, please.
(A silence.)
ABEL: I’m sorry if I angered you, but to get back to your uneasi-
ness.
JACQUES: You’re not speaking naturally.
JACQUES: I’ve asked myself these days if you haven’t adopted an
attitude, if you are not playing some sort of role.
ABEL: What kind of role, what attitude?
JACQUES: I don’t know.
ABEL: So?
JACQUES: With Florence.
ABEL: How; to please her?
JACQUES: Or to not please her, and no, I don’t understand.
ABEL: Well, what exactly are you complaining about, that the young
lady doesn’t like me or that she gets on my nerves?
JACQUES: She gets on your nerves?
ABEL: It’s you who seem to think so. And besides, what does it
matter to you?
JACQUES: I had thought, perhaps having the two of you here
together.
ABEL: Ah! Ah!
JACQUES: It was not by accident that I invited you both to come
here at the same time.
ABEL: Oh! (A silence.) You couldn’t be content just to organize
walks.
JACQUES: You must see that I’m speaking very seriously. My heart
was set on the idea.
ABEL: (In an ambiguous tone.) Very unwise of you, if you ask me.
JACQUES: How is that?
ABEL: Damn it, because…
JACQUES: What was so imprudent about this plan?
ABEL: One never knows.
JACQUES: But what was I risking, anyway? Why don’t you answer
me?
ABEL: First of all, it’s obvious that trying to get people together is
at best a delicate task.
JACQUES: And then?
ABEL: What do you mean, “and then?”
JACQUES: It was you who said: “first of all.”
ABEL: I don’t know; but what’s obvious is that you can’t forgive us
for not falling in line with your fantasies.
JACQUES: It’s not a fantasy. I know both of you well.
ABEL: You think you know me?
JACQUES: Yes, I think I do.
ABEL: Ah!
JACQUES: I love you both very much; and I’m convinced that you
are…
ABEL: Made for each other? Too bad we don’t seem to see it that
way at all.
JACQUES: Even your faults complement one another. So that
animosity from the first moment is incomprehensible. Basically she
just doesn’t know you very well yet. When she saw you here formerly,
she was still practically a child.
ABEL: Then, it’s she who is the problem? You abandon your sup-
positions?
JACQUES: Which ones?
ABEL: You accused me of adopting an attitude. You really are exag-
gerating. She doesn’t mean enough for me to bother that much.
JACQUES: It’s as if she had a grievance against you, but what griev-
ance?
ABEL: You’re trying to arouse my curiosity. Unfortunately I have a
principle never to worry about what others think, even those closest
to me. For example you, you assure me that you know me, which
means that you have a file card on me? I assure you I’m not interested
in consulting it.
JACQUES: (Following his own thought.) It’s as if she had a grievance
against you, but what grievance?
ABEL: You’re beginning to worry me seriously. The insinuated
warnings that person sends toward me…
JACQUES: She’s my sister-in-law.
ABEL: She was your sister-in-law.
JACQUES: Nothing can touch you without touching me in the
same blow.
ABEL: Thank you very much, but the imaginings of that young
lady cannot affect me.
JACQUES: Her imaginings! What imaginings?
ABEL: I have no idea, but it seems that she has invented some crazy
idea, some disagreeable story that she believes. If she actually has, as
you say, thought seriously of advancing her departure.
JACQUES: What do you mean?
ABEL: Yes, it’s you who just told me so.
JACQUES: Not on your life.
ABEL: Well then I must have misunderstood.
JACQUES: I had no idea.
ABEL: Oh! I beg your pardon, I remember now, it was the chamber
maid whom I overheard telling the cook, “Mademoiselle Florence is
leaving now, she told me to get her trunk down from the attic?”
JACQUES: But then?
ABEL: She has changed her mind.
JACQUES: How come?
ABEL: In order not to… as a matter of fact, I have no idea.
(Madeleine enters.)
MADELEINE: It’s clearing; I’m going to take the children out for
a while now.
ABEL: Madame, come to my aid instead.
MADELEINE: What’s the matter?
JACQUES: Nothing at all.
ABEL: I never would have thought he’d get so upset over such
nonsense. It’s unbelievable. My friend, I leave you with your wife; I’m
sure she’ll have no trouble helping you settle the affair. I’m off now,
see you later.
(He leaves.)
MADELEINE: Jacques! Is it about what you discussed with me
yesterday evening?
JACQUES: Yes.
MADELEINE: So what has happened, dearest?
JACQUES: Let’s just drop it.
(A silence.)
MADELEINE: A little while ago, Roger made me laugh. We were
talking about the Good Lord; I forget just how it came up.
JACQUES: (Nervous.) Don’t say “the Good Lord”, Madeleine, it
sounds syrupy. It makes me sick.
MADELEINE: And he said to me: “Don’t you think God is very
nosy to be always watching everybody? Me, there are times when I
want to be sure no one’s watching me, not even God.”
JACQUES: Anyway it surprises me that you don’t have any hesita-
tion to talk to the children about God, when you yourself don’t have
any religious faith.
MADELEINE: You really are funny; it’s you yourself who asked
me to do it.
JACQUES: I only said I didn’t want them to grow up as I did, in
complete ignorance of whatever pertains to religion.
MADELEINE: Well then! What is your concern?
JACQUES: Between that and lying.
MADELEINE: I don’t think I lied.
JACQUES: Well, when you talk about what God does, and what
God doesn’t do.
MADELEINE: Once again, you yourself…
JACQUES: I never asked you to go against you own conscience.
What kind of person do you take me for?
MADELEINE: (Gently.) Obviously I misunderstood what you
expected of me.
(A silence.)
JACQUES: (Bitterly.) I wonder then, if it’s so easy for you to pretend,
if you don’t sometimes put on an act when you’re with me.
MADELEINE: Pretend, with you?
JACQUES: You know very well what I mean. Perhaps in the depth
of your soul?
MADELEINE: Listen; what you call the depths of my soul, it’s my
love for you.
JACQUES: Your pity, perhaps but then, to think that when you
are alone, when you talk to yourself?
MADELEINE: (Painfully.) No need to worry. I never talk to
myself.
JACQUES: But you do, everyone does. Perhaps you think I’m
fooled. That idea is intolerable to me; if it were true (in a half-whisper)
I could no longer live with you.
MADELEINE: Jacques! It is I who should have the right to be angry
with you; if I didn’t see how upset you are. (She stops.)
JACQUES: Why don’t you finish what you were saying?
MADELEINE: I just don’t understand dearest! You are so difficult
today.
JACQUES: Sometimes it seems to me that you understand all too
well what’s going on inside me.
MADELEINE: But, if I didn’t understand, you’d be angry with me.
You really are not easy to please.
JACQUES: (Sharply.) Then you consider yourself a victim, don’t
you?
MADELEINE: (Struggling to hold back her tears.) Don’t be stupid.
(A silence; Jacques shakes his head sadly.) I’m going out now; I hope
that when I get back you’ll be in a better mood. That angers you too?
Decidedly today is not my day.
JACQUES: No, stay! You haven’t even asked me what happened
just a few moments ago.
MADELEINE: I suppose you wanted to sound out your friend as
to his feelings toward your sister-in-law, and that…
JACQUES: I didn’t have to.
MADELEINE: It seems to me, though, you’re attaching too much
importance to that disappointment. I know you were really set on
that idea, but since it doesn’t seem feasible; it was only an idea, just a
thought, that shouldn’t be so hard for you to give up.
JACQUES: (Harshly.) There you are! Right now, what you’re saying
doesn’t ring true. You know that what is upsetting me is not any disap-
pointment, as you say about Abel and Florence. Those two, they can
throw away their lives in whatever ways they please, I couldn’t care
less. Compared to the only thing that counts…
MADELEINE: The only being who counts.
(A silence.)
JACQUES: My poor Mad. I’m so sorry.
MADELEINE: Don’t call me Mad, please. That’s what you’d call a
buddy. I’m more than a buddy to you, aren’t I?
JACQUES: You deserve so much better than what I’ve given you!
Are you crying?
MADELEINE: No, dear, I’m not crying.
JACQUES: Sometimes I’m a monster.
MADELEINE: No, it’s not you, it’s not your fault; it’s life that is
so terrible.
JACQUES: And still it’s beautiful, that understanding among the
three of us.
MADELEINE: Jacques, it’s not you who has the right to say it’s
beautiful; perhaps it might be my right, but I can’t, I just don’t have
the strength.
JACQUES: (Tenderly.) Think of the future. When Steven will be
born…
MADELEINE: Yes, when Steven will be with us.
(A silence.)
JACQUES: Did you know that Florence almost left us?
MADELEINE: No.
JACQUES: Abel’s presence must have really upset her! You’re not
saying anything.
MADELEINE: You’re imagining.
JACQUES: Before Abel’s arrival, Florence was very happy; I’d never
seen her so lively.
MADELEINE: You’re exaggerating.
JACQUES: He must disgust her.
MADELEINE: Your mind is closed, there’s no use discussing it.
JACQUES: You lower your eyes when you say that, still your voice
gives you away; it lacks assurance. He is repulsive to her, but why? I
need to know, do you hear me, I must know.
MADELEINE: Listen to me Jacques; you have no right, not even
for a moment, to pursue that line of thought.
JACQUES: All the same, it’s occurred to you too, hasn’t it?
MADELEINE: It’s you who imposed it on me.
JACQUES: I never formulated it.
MADELEINE: You maintain that I can read you. It’s a crime against
the one who never abandons you.
JACQUES: (In a half-whisper.) For three days now, I no longer feel
her presence. When I call, the voices that answer come from within
me; I recognize them. Formerly, even when she was silent, she was
there; she filled the silence. But now…
MADELEINE: Isn’t it perhaps because you have doubted?
JACQUES: (Horrified.) I doubt? You think I doubted her? Oh! It’s
impossible, I would go mad.
MADELEINE: Give me your hands, now think of her; think of
your wife.
(A silence.)
(Roger enters.)
ROGER: (Coming in.) Mommy, aren’t we going to go out?
MADELEINE: Shh!
ROGER: Why is papa so still?
MADELEINE: Go on, Roger, I’ll catch up with you in a few min-
utes.
(Roger goes out.)
JACQUES: (Bitterly.) You watch over me. You solicitude embar-
rasses me. You wait for “it” to happen. Ah! (Abruptly.) I insist that you
question Florence.
MADELEINE: But, my dearest?
JACQUES: You must get the truth out of her, what ever it is, no
matter how terrible it is.
MADELEINE: That’s impossible; just think about it, she doesn’t
have to explain her dislikes to me. You’re acting like a child. When
there can be any number of reasons, perfectly simple explanations.
JACQUES: Give me one plausible explanation, I challenge you.
(He goes to the French doors and calls :) Florence! Where is she?
(He goes out. Madeleine remains alone, she goes over, leans on the
piano, and looks at the portrait of Viviane; a desperate expression
comes over her face.)
FLORENCE: (Coming in.) Jacques told me there is something you
want to ask me?
MADELEINE: Well that is, yes, he wanted me to ask you something.
It’s about his friend.
FLORENCE: What do you mean?
MADELEINE: Jacques has the impression; first is it true that for
a moment you were thinking of leaving us?
FLORENCE: (Her eyes lowered.) Yes.
MADELEINE: Jacques heard about this, and then…
FLORENCE: Get to the point, please.
MADELEINE: He cannot understand why his friend is so repulsive
to you.
FLORENCE: Decidedly here, you are forcing my hand, if people
have no sympathy…
MADELEINE: No, no, you know very well it’s not a question of
sympathy or antipathy, but rather of open hostility that you don’t even
try to hide.
FLORENCE: I don’t know how to deceive.
MADELEINE: That’s nothing to be proud of. That sort of blunt-
ness is not a virtue. (Movement of Florence.) Your talk about leaving
shows sufficiently…
FLORENCE: But since I’ve stayed?
MADELEINE: Listen, you don’t have to try and put me off the
track.
MADELEINE: I think I’ve guessed. (She stops, Florence looks at her.)
It’s atrocious, but these suspicions…
FLORENCE: They are not merely suspicions.
MADELEINE: Oh! Neither you nor I know the truth. It’s not
because he went in to the child’s bedroom to say good night?
FLORENCE: There are other proofs.
MADELEINE: (With passion.) I forbid you, do you hear me? Proofs,
you speak of evidence! Your sister is sacred to me because she’s all he
has. I will not allow you to insult her in my presence.
FLORENCE: I’m not following you.
MADELEINE: His faith in her, that’s all that matters. As for the
rest, your hypotheses, your suspicions, even your convictions…
FLORENCE: Would you kindly explain to me what you mean?
(A silence.)
MADELEINE: No.
FLORENCE: In that case… (She goes to leave.)
MADELEINE: Not yet, please! There is one thing; your attitude
has awakened in Jacques the worst uneasiness. I beg you to help me
get rid of it.
FLORENCE: Tell me how; there’s nothing I’d like better.
MADELEINE: You don’t quite understand. It’s not enough to be
willing. You’re going to have to invent some plausible explanation for
your behavior.
FLORENCE: How about his?
MADELEINE: What do you mean?
FLORENCE: What about Abel’s behavior? His disconnected
remarks, his tenseness ever since he arrived, the annoyance he shows
as soon as anyone brings up the past; all that will not be easy to
explain.
MADELEINE: Forget about these idiosyncrasies that neither you
nor I can decipher. As for what concerns you…
FLORENCE: What about me?
MADELEINE: Well was it indignation that made you want to
leave? You’ll have trouble convincing me of that.
FLORENCE: (Pale.) What do you mean?
MADELEINE: Even if you do know something, what business is
it of yours? Everything of the past is dead. What gives you the right
to stir up trouble all around you?
FLORENCE: It was only natural that I couldn’t control my feel-
ings.
MADELEINE: As a matter of fact, I do believe that is so.
FLORENCE: Anyway, since I’ve stayed.
MADELEINE: The reasons that kept you here are probably not
very different from the reasons that would have made you leave. Such
contradictions among lov…
FLORENCE: You insult me.
MADELEINE: If you don’t find an explanation that reassures
Jacques, then I shall tell him that you and…
FLORENCE: That I…
MADELEINE: Oh! You’ve understood. (To Jacques who has just
appeared at the French doors.) You can come in.
(Jacques enters.)
JACQUES: Well now, how’s it going?
MADELEINE: (With good humor.) I warn you that Florence is
furious with you.
JACQUES: Why is that?
MADELEINE: Because you’re meddling in things that are none of
your business.
JACQUES: (To Florence.) Is that so?
FLORENCE: Well, it seems to me…
MADELEINE: She promised she’d tell me the secret of the enigma,
provided you promise never to mention it to your friend.
JACQUES: What is it?
MADELEINE: But you have to promise on your honor, isn’t that
right Florence?
(Gesture of Florence.)
JACQUES: We’ll see afterwards.
MADELEINE: No, Jacques, we can’t tell you anything unless you
promise first.
JACQUES: If it’s a secret, of course I won’t betray it.
MADELEINE: (To Florence.) Too vague, don’t you think, Flor-
ence?
JACQUES: (In a half-whisper.) These playful manners astound me;
I’m not duped.
MADELEINE: (To Florence.) In that case, I know that in your place
I wouldn’t say anything.
JACQUES: (Beside himself.) All right! I agree. (A silence.) So
what?
MADELEINE: (To Florence.) Does his “O.K.” inspire your confi-
dence?
JACQUES: This just seems like a way of stalling for time.
MADELEINE: Well, when your friend went to Lyon several months
ago Florence learned that he had approached her father. That’s correct,
isn’t it? It was your father?
FLORENCE: (Indistinctly.) Yes.
JACQUES: What did you say?
FLORENCE: I said yes.
JACQUES: Approached your father? He asked for your hand?
MADELEINE: Not exactly, isn’t that right, Florence?
FLORENCE: (Very hesitatingly.) He told my father he was ready to
marry and he would be pleased…
JACQUES: That’s extraordinary. No, it’s almost impossible. When
I think of what he said just a while ago…
MADELEINE: You have to hear the rest of it; don’t get ahead of
the story. He told Florence’s father that he would like to get to know
her better.
FLORENCE: He came to our house for dinner.
MADELEINE: He let it be clear what his intentions were.
JACQUES: (His eyes constantly going back and forth between Madeleine
and Florence.) But you just said, he did not ask for her hand.
MADELEINE: Where’s the contradiction? Florence was naturally as
evasive as possible. She pointed out that they didn’t know each other
at all.
JACQUES: Why are you doing all the talking?
FLORENCE: You have no idea how painful all this is for me.
MADELEINE: Thereupon, Florence’s father learned indirectly, but
from a reliable source, that your friend had had an affair.
JACQUES: Abel, an affair? I can’t believe that?
FLORENCE: Then you doubt my word?
JACQUES: (With irony.) Is it your word?
FLORENCE: Mine, ours.
MADELEINE: You’re not infuriated that, under those circumstances,
he should ask the hand of a young lady?
JACQUES: You began by saying…
MADELEINE: Without even ending the affair, and what an affair!
An infamous woman, it seems.
JACQUES: This whole story seems to me… and for you to have
gone and invented this romantic novel…
FLORENCE: I wrote to him, you realize, to tell him what I thought
of his conduct.
JACQUES: A rather unusual approach.
FLORENCE: Apparently the tone of my letter infuriated him. That
explains his irony, his disdain, and his sarcasm and as for my feeling
of disgust, I would think…
(A silence. Jacques is reflecting.)
JACQUES: (Suddenly.) And you want to prevent me from verifying
this story?
MADELEINE: Jacques! You promised.
JACQUES: First of all, why did you demand that promise of me?
What’s wrong with my asking Abel for certain clarifications?
MADELEINE: Now Jacques please!
JACQUES: Oh! Obviously if it’s fiction, I can understand your
apprehensions.
FLORENCE: I don’t want to be the cause of a break between you
and him.
JACQUES: (With irony.) A break!
MADELEINE: In his present mood, it’s obvious that your friend
would be gravely offended by some strong words that you might say
to him.
JACQUES: I will just ask him the question matter of factly, without
saying anything else that might offend him.
MADELEINE: You can’t be sure of that. Besides, what reason would
you have to believe him?
JACQUES: Let’s not confuse the questions please.
MADELEINE: You’re lucky we’re even discussing it; remember you
promised.
(A silence.)
JACQUES: Well, after all, there are other ways to verify the story;
Florence’s father?
(Abel enters.)
ABEL: (Opening the door a crack.) Excuse me, Jacques; may I have
a word with you?
JACQUES: Come in.
ABEL: It can wait my friend I don’t want to interrupt you.
JACQUES: You’re not disturbing us at all. (To Madeleine.) I thought
you were just about to go out with the children.
MADELEINE: (Looking at the sky.) It’s going to rain any minute.
By the time we get ready…
JACQUES: In any event, it might be a good idea to go and see what
they’re up to.
MADELEINE: Florence, would you be so kind?
FLORENCE: Certainly, I’ll go.
MADELEINE: Although with Miss Bullfinch there is really no
reason to worry.
FLORENCE: I’ll see you later.
(She goes out.)
(A silence.)
JACQUES: (To Abel.) You don’t mind Madeleine being here?
ABEL: You must be joking.
JACQUES: (Looking at Madeleine.) You look very tired; you should
go upstairs and rest.
MADELEINE: In a little while.
JACQUES: Why not right now? (Madeleine gestures.)
ABEL: Well here it is; I’ve thought about the conversation we had
about an hour ago, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s better if
I leave.
JACQUES: You’re out of your mind.
ABEL: No, no, my friend. I assure you. I found that conversation
extremely unpleasant, and I’m afraid that if we talked again it would
be dangerous, even to our friendship.
JACQUES: First of all, there’s no reason that we’d have to repeat that
conversation and besides it was precisely for the sake of our friendship
that I wanted to clear up any possible misunderstanding.
ABEL: Are you sure we did that?
JACQUES: What do you mean?
ABEL: Yes, remember is not just a question of the two of us; there
is a third person.
JACQUES: (To Madeleine.) What shall I say? (A vague gesture from
Madeleine.)
ABEL: You wife is aware, I see.
JACQUES: I have no secrets from her.
ABEL: That’s just fine! In any event, if you got an explanation from
the interested party about her strange behavior that you referred to a
while ago I’d be very interested to hear it.
JACQUES: If it only depended upon me, I’d be delighted to tell
you.
MADELEINE: Jacques, you promised me!
JACQUES: (Bitterly.) You, you only stayed here to remind me of
my promise.
ABEL: You understand, even if I don’t put any faith in rumors, I
cannot remain indifferent if people tell shameful stories about me
here.
JACQUES: Shameful?
ABEL: I don’t know. Besides it would be very painful for my
mother.
JACQUES: Listen, it’s very simple; Florence told us what happened
between the two of you.
ABEL: How’s that?
JACQUES: Between you and her.
ABEL: Ah, between the two of us?
JACQUES: So?
MADELEINE: Jacques, I’m sick. Help me upstairs, I’m dizzy!
JACQUES: A well-timed fainting spell!
MADELEINE: How dare you!
JACQUES: I merely observe. I will call your mother. (He looks at
Madeleine and Abel.) Or rather, Abel, would you be so kind as to tell
my mother-in-law who is in the billiard room that Madeleine needs
her.
ABEL: Of course.
(He goes out.)
MADELEINE: (In a hushed voice.) I never would have thought you
capable of that.
JACQUES: Admit that you did lie.
MADELEINE: No.
JACQUES: That’s not even intelligent.
MADELEINE: Well if the truth were what you suspect, he would
latch onto the first story that showed him innocent. It’s obvious that
he’s not afraid.
JACQUES: Yes.
MADELEINE: So now what?
(Abel comes in at that moment with Madame Chazot.)
MADAME CHAZOT: Good heavens, what has happened? What
have you done to strain yourself now?
MADELEINE: Nothing, mother.
JACQUES: Would you be so kind as to take Madeleine upstairs
and help her get into bed?
MADAME CHAZOT: Come, my child, we’re going to go upstairs
with you, both of us.
JACQUES: No, I have business with Abel; I’ll join you in a few
minutes.
MADAME CHAZOT: Ah!
MADELEINE: (Begging.) Please come quickly. (She goes out leaning
on her mother’s arm, after having turned back and looked at the two men
with deep anguish.)
ABEL: If I understand correctly, you promised not to tell me what
they told you.
JACQUES: Yes, oh, anyway!
ABEL: I won’t ask. I’ll come back to what I just said. You yourself
must understand that such a situation can’t go on much longer. I’ll
let my mother know, I’ll tell her. As a matter of fact, what shall I tell
her? Well, I’ll just have to see. In any event, I thank you for not trying
to force me to stay.
JACQUES: (Abruptly.) But I don’t want you to go.
ABEL: Well, there’s something new.
JACQUES: If you left, I’d conclude…
ABEL: What?
JACQUES: (In a half-whisper.) that you are afraid.
ABEL: Afraid of what? Afraid of whom?
JACQUES: You know very well what I mean.
ABEL: Ah!
JACQUES: You certainly do. You know exactly what I mean.
ABEL: Without realizing it then.
JACQUES: Moreover, you won’t look me in the eye.
ABEL: You’re serious then? You think I’m afraid of you? That’s
incredible.
JACQUES: You’re bluffing; but if you think you’ve got me
fooled!
ABEL: My poor Jacques.
JACQUES: No, don’t give me that!
ABEL: It’s sad that a friendship like ours.
JACQUES: Our friendship!
ABEL: Since you promised not to tell me what they told you, per-
haps I shall write to Maurice Bréau to see if he can shed some light
on what you refuse to give up.
JACQUES: You are still on good terms with Florence’s brother.
ABEL: On the best of terms, I received a letter from him just the
day before yesterday. (A silence.)
JACQUES: In any event this is extremely awkward, the story they

invented saved you.
ABEL: You’ve got some strange expressions.
JACQUES: And you just annihilated it.
(Madame Renaudier enters.)
MADAME RENAUDIER: Madeleine is not feeling well?
JACQUES: It’s nothing, her mother is with her.
MADAME RENAUDIER: And you, poor boy, you look awful.
JACQUES: I didn’t sleep well. Abel, may I ask you to leave me alone
for a moment with your mother?
ABEL: Sorry old friend, but I refuse to be party to this new fan-
tasy.
MADAME RENAUDIER: Heavens, Abel, if Jacques?
ABEL: (To Jacques.) You’re not yourself at the moment, just look at
your hands. Mother is fragile.
MADAME RENAUDIER: (Terrified.) What has happened?
ABEL: I myself would be interested to learn.
JACQUES: He’s lying, he’s lying.
ABEL: Listen Jacques, an idea might have crossed my mind.
JACQUES: Ah!
ABEL: But don’t you dare!
JACQUES: Good God! Oh my God! (A knock at the door.) What
is it?
CHAMBERMAID: Madame Chazot asks Monsieur Delorme to
come upstairs immediately. Madame Delorme is not well.
MADAME RENAUDIER: Go to her, Jacques.
JACQUES: Madame could you, no, I don’t know, I’m too con-
fused.
(He goes out.)
MADAME RENAUDIER: What’s your part in all this? Oh, you
haven’t?
ABEL: What, mother?
MADAME RENAUDIER: I don’t know, deliberately upset him.
That would be, you’re not saying anything, so it’s true? Your deliberate
scheme to cause Jacques to…
ABEL: I can’t tell you anything. The way I feel now, “deliberate”,
“scheme”, such words just don’t make sense.
MADAME RENAUDIER: Have you no pity for him?
ABEL: I don’t know.
(A silence.)
MADAME RENAUDIER: If you don’t go to him immediately and
admit everything…
ABEL: Confess everything?
MADAME RENAUDIER: You know what I mean. I’ll tell him
everything you told me.
ABEL: No. Besides, do you think he’d believe you?
MADAME RENAUDIER: When one tells the truth, one finds the
words necessary to convince others.
ABEL: (With irony.) Ah?
MADAME RENAUDIER: Such cold cruelty!
ABEL: Mother, don’t take advantage of what I was led to confide in
you. I pitied your anguish, and I could not abide that your memory
of her be tarnished. Don’t force me to recognize that I was wrong.
FLORENCE: (Entering.) Excuse me; I thought Madame Delorme
was here.
MADAME RENAUDIER: She is in her room; she suddenly didn’t
feel well. Her mother and her husband are with her.
FLORENCE: (Sharply to Abel.) Oh! Why didn’t you leave yesterday
on some pretext or other? All this could have been avoided!
ABEL: I beg you pardon Mademoiselle, what could have been
avoided?
FLORENCE: You know perfectly well. The story we invented, I
saw right away that he didn’t believe it at all.
ABEL: The two of you worked on it together?
FLORENCE: If only you’d left yesterday, he wouldn’t be suspicious
now.
FLORENCE: Nobody is fooled now.
MADAME RENAUDIER: So you dare? On the basis of such flimsy
hints, you dare sully the memory of your sister.
ABEL: Mother don’t you realize how unworthy this scene is.
FLORENCE: He doesn’t even bother to defend himself.
MADAME RENAUDIER: He wants nothing better than to see
himself accused.
FLORENCE: How’s that?
ABEL: Mother!
ABEL: Be careful!
FLORENCE: Then why those disconcerting remarks, all those
double meanings, but why? What was your motive? Was it to make
amends?
MADAME RENAUDIER: I swear to you there is nothing to atone
for.
ABEL: I shall leave this house today, and, as I suppose you won’t
want to linger after I’m gone, it would be good if you began packing
right now.
MADAME RENAUDIER: But if you leave, Jacques will think, so
is it to abuse him completely (Movement by Florence.) that you want to
leave? No, I don’t care, I will not let you commit this crime; (pointing
to Florence) and what about her?
ABEL: (In white-hot anger.) Mother, what you are doing is danger-
ous!
MADAME RENAUDIER: Her sister, Abel; well?
FLORENCE: (Passionately, to Abel.) Why do you refuse to allow
her to exonerate you?
ABEL: (Deafly.) I don’t owe you any explanations.
FLORENCE: (To Madame Renaudier.) Speak; are you really afraid
of him?
ABEL: (At the door.) Mother, are you coming? (A silence.) All right,
then.
(He goes out by the French door.)
MADAME RENAUDIER: (Calling.) Abel! Abel! He didn’t look
back.
FLORENCE: Now that we are alone, tell me the truth.
MADAME RENAUDIER: You have basely maligned them.
FLORENCE: Explain.
MADAME RENAUDIER: Unjustly.
FLORENCE: I demand that you explain!
MADAME RENAUDIER: (Violently.) You demand? What right
do you have?
FLORENCE: I hurt.
(A silence.)
MADAME RENAUDIER: (With sharpness.) Ah! I remember what
your sister said about you. It was here one day. She was frightened to see
you so closed. She was sad not to have ever won your confidence.
FLORENCE: Did she try that much?
MADAME RENAUDIER: She said to me, “that younger sister of
mine, no one knows her.”
FLORENCE: And you, do you think you knew my sister?
MADAME RENAUDIER: “Does she have a heart? I don’t know.”
And I defended you, I mentioned your monotonous life in that sad
old house with two unimaginative men; she listened to me shaking her
head. I never suspected that one day you would harm us so badly.
FLORENCE: That’s a lie.
MADAME RENAUDIER: Even now, I see clearly, you think only
of yourself. And you may be ruining three lives.
FLORENCE: Me, ruin lives?
MADAME RENAUDIER: What does it matter to you; your griev-
ances, your dislikes, your jealousies?
FLORENCE: What are you saying?
MADAME RENAUDIER: Come now, I know your secret.
FLORENCE: (With passion.) You are only trying to humiliate me.
You say I think only of myself; and you, do other people count so
much for you? If you didn’t tremble before your son, if you didn’t
fear losing the crumbs of his confidences, wouldn’t you have cleared
up the terrible ambiguity in which he keeps me? However generosity
is a luxury that one can afford at your age better than at mine. Just
now, when to hurt me you evoked that silent individual who always
listened, you don’t realize the world of memories you stirred up in me.
One evening, I remember, I had come for several days. They invited
me so I could enjoy the good country air for Viviane treated me too
easily like an anemic child. We were there, the four of us, or more
exactly three were there, since I, I didn’t count. I was just there for
the fresh air. Abel was talking in that strange distant, singsong voice
he adopts when he’s explaining something. Jacques was smoking, his
mind elsewhere, I don’t know where; and she was listening her eyes
half closed, with the quivering of her nostrils that was so characteristic
of her. I can still see them. Gradually he faced her more and more,
and I could see that it was for her that he was speaking, only for her.
You can’t imagine what I felt at the moment. That dreadful evidence
broke my heart. Yes, you can believe I had a heart.
(A silence.)
(Abel enters.)
ABEL: (Very pale.) Haven’t you two finished yet? (Pause.) Mademoi-
selle, I don’t know what my mother could have said but you seem to
be at ease.
FLORENCE: She didn’t say anything to me.
ABEL: But if I have one piece of advice for you, it’s to not put too
much faith in these whitewashes and give up trying to understand;
I fear that may be a bit difficult. In any event, if you were going to
repeat a word of any of this to your brother-in-law?
FLORENCE: So it is actually Jacques whom you want to look
after?
ABEL: (Without letting her finish.) Terrible consequences could
follow.
FLORENCE: You’re no longer lying, thank you for that; thank you
I promise that I won’t question you any further.
ABEL: You seem to me to be a bit too reassured.
FLORENCE: Why do you regret that? And besides I don’t know
if I am reassured.
ABEL: I don’t want to talk about her anymore, neither to you, nor
to the others, nor to anybody.
FLORENCE: (With increasing kindness.) Don’t ask me anymore to
condemn you. That is too painful. Despite your efforts, despite the
rest, I want to trust you.
MADAME RENAUDIER: If that confidence doesn’t disarm
you…
ABEL: What words you use!
FLORENCE: You have already made me suffer a great deal. Oh,
I know! What right do I have to suffer because of you? Ah, you are
hard, you are cruel. It’s your great strength.
ABEL: All the same it’s astounding that some few words from my
mother succeeded in putting your suspicions to rest.
FLORENCE: It wasn’t that. My certitude is only a feeling, if I rea-
soned? (To Madame Renaudier.) Why are you giving me such a harsh
look?
MADAME RENAUDIER: I am suspicious of you, Mademoiselle;
that turnabout was too sudden. In the theater it would lack credibil-
ity.
FLORENCE: We aren’t in the theater.
MADAME RENAUDIER: Don’t you understand?
FLORENCE: Madame, say no more, please. ( A silence. Abel observes
them.)
ABEL: Mother your suspicions are wicked.
FLORENCE: No, they’re not evil; I don’t resent what she’s saying.
Anything is better than that prison where I lived.
ABEL: (With kindness.) I think you are hunting for some sort of a
dream, and when you awaken from it, well, you’ll find all your griev-
ances still there.
FLORENCE: Don’t keep reminding me so much of what condemns
you, since it is with my heart that I absolve you.
ABEL: (To his mother who leaves slowly.) Mother, why are you leav-
ing? (Madame Renaudier gestures not to detain her.)
(Madame Renaudier exits.)
ABEL: (Gently.) It appears that it is with your heart that you are think-
ing? Be careful, my poor child, you don’t realize!
FLORENCE: Oh, yes I do!
ABEL: Come now, I didn’t hear those words. Those words that you
just said, I won’t recall them, I promise you.
FLORENCE: You can remember them.
ABEL: You mustn’t feel ashamed when you think of them.
FLORENCE: I won’t feel ashamed; it was my first moment of
courage.
ABEL: You see if I weren’t convinced that you said these words in
a sort of dream, that you would disavow them tomorrow…
FLORENCE: I will never deny them.
ABEL: It would be terrible and wonderful, it would be…
FLORENCE: No, no, there was no need to respond. I preferred
your irony. It’s strange! Since you no longer accuse yourself, I seem
to distrust you even more, that letter?
ABEL: What letter?
(Jacques enters.)
JACQUES: (Entering abruptly.) Do you have your bicycle?
ABEL: No, I didn’t bring mine, why?
JACQUES: Madeleine is running a fever; a few minutes ago she
was delirious. I have to get a doctor and the car is out.
ABEL: Do you want me to go? (Jacques goes out without replying.)
What letter do you mean?
FLORENCE: It is one of her letters. (She takes a letter out of her
blouse.)
ABEL: A letter to whom? How did it come into your hands?
FLORENCE: I found it a while ago in the back of a drawer in the
room Viviane used about five years ago when Jacques had to leave
suddenly for England.
ABEL: I remember. The children stayed in Paris with their govern-
ess. Your sister went and stayed two weeks in Lyon, it was I who drove
her to the station; Jacques had asked me to take her to the train.
FLORENCE: She wrote you from Lyon.
ABEL: A post card with her signature.
FLORENCE: A letter.
ABEL: I never received it.
FLORENCE: (Painfully.) Why did I mention it to you?
ABEL: Show me that letter.
FLORENCE: Then I would be betraying her.
ABEL: It’s a bit late to think of that. Give me the letter.
FLORENCE: (After a long interior debate, Florence hands him the
letter.) Here it is.
ABEL: (He reads in a low voice.)
“My Abel, my love, (He rubs his forehead, Florence looks at him pain-
fully.) I write you from the sad old gray house of which I’ve spoken so
many times; you must see it some day. This is not the first love letter,
I’ve written, my dear; but I tore up all the others. Will I tear this one
up too? No, no, I shall mail it, and then, my heart leaps in my breast
at the thought of what will happen the first time that we meet after
you will have read this. It leaps with joy and with fear, an intoxicating
excitement. Yesterday when we were shivering on the platform of the
station at Lyon, those unforgiving lights, the anonymity of arrivals
and departures, this conviction of useless flight from everything.” (He
stops a moment, closes his eyes; in a low voice.) And when I saw her ten
days later I found her cold, distant, a bit ironical and this is what it
was! And I never guessed anything.
(He weeps in silence; the curtain falls slowly.)
ACT THREE
A small second floor sitting room next to Madeleine’s bedroom. Several
minutes after the end of the second act.
(Madeleine enters in her robe, leaning on her mother’s arm.)
MADAME CHAZOT: Why do you want to come in here? It’s another
risk you’re taking, and if you could just see yourself in a mirror.
MADELEINE: Now, if you will, please go see what the children are
up to. They must be playing croquet, but it’s late, and they could be
cold. It’s almost their supper hour; I don’t know what Miss Bullfinch
is thinking of? Then, on your way, promise me you won’t refuse me
this?
MADAME CHAZOT: What?
MADELEINE: Ask Monsieur Renaudier to come and see me here
immediately, there is not a minute to lose.
MADAME CHAZOT: What’s happening, for heaven’s sake?
MADELEINE: Hurry, go.
MADAME CHAZOT: You don’t have any confidence in me.
MADELEINE: (Nervous.) Mother, please, later, afterward!
MADAME CHAZOT: One would think you wanted to take
advantage of Jacques’ absence.
MADELEINE: Exactly.
MADAME CHAZOT: I cannot allow that. After all he is my son-
in-law.
MADELEINE: Don’t you realize you are harming me terribly?
MADAME CHAZOT: No one loves you as much as I do my child,
you know that.
MADELEINE: I’m going to call him myself. (She moves painfully
toward the window.) He is there, with Florence. He’s reading a letter.
Monsieur Renaudier! He can’t hear me. I have no strength. He’s
absorbed in the letter. Look how she’s staring at him! Mother!
MADAME CHAZOT: Since you insist. (She goes out shaking her
head.)
(Madeleine is exceedingly agitated, she mutters to herself con-
stantly.)
MADELEINE: He doesn’t hear her. Ah, he’s lifting his head; he
doesn’t understand. Will she insist? He’s getting up, five minutes
wasted. (She lights the lamp that is on the side table, Abel knocks at the
door.)
MADELEINE: Come in.
ABEL: It seems you want to speak with me, Madame.
MADELEINE: Yes, Monsieur, please sit down. (Abel sits.) It’s ter-
rible that, knowing what I do about you, I have to tell you what you
are about to hear. But I have no choice. This secret that I haven’t told
anyone, I must tell you. (She stops.)
ABEL: A secret, you say?
MADELEINE: Yes. Excuse me if it’s hard for me to talk, I don’t
need to tell you, do I, what Jacques thinks you are guilty of?
ABEL: He told you?
MADELEINE: He didn’t have to; he can’t hide anything from
me. It’s an idea that has developed in him like a sickness; I’ve done
everything I can to dispel it. But there was no way. And it seemed
that encouraging his suspicions you did your best to undermine my
efforts.
ABEL: Yes.
MADELEINE: How is that?
ABEL: Yes, I can understand how you have that impression.
MADELEINE: Was it intentional?
ABEL: No, continue.
MADELEINE: That pathetic story I tediously invented, you yourself,
oh, you must excuse me, you can’t expect me to express myself clearly,
my head hurts too much. But he found me out in my lie, and that lie
affirmed the very fear he dreaded. It’s as if I admitted that there was
something to be concerned about, isn’t that so?
ABEL: Then, what did he say?
MADELEINE: Nothing, nothing at all, he laughed; it was hor-
rible.
ABEL: Did he formulate the accusation?
MADELEINE: I told you no; why would he have? All he said was
that he did not understand your attitude.
ABEL: Oh yes, naturally!
MADELEINE: He still hopes it’s false, I assure you. If he no longer
hoped, that would be the end of everything.
MADELEINE: The end of my poor happiness, madness and prob-
ably death.
ABEL: I don’t understand why do you speak of your poor happi-
ness?
MADELEINE: My happiness, it’s rather special, one that would
not satisfy most people. Oh, that I must confide this to you!
ABEL: Listen to me.
MADELEINE: I have been spared nothing.
ABEL: Listen to me. We have not betrayed him, do you hear me? For
reasons that I cannot tell you, it may be that I am no longer Jacques’
friend, but you… (He takes her hand.)
MADELEINE: Why are you no longer Jacques’s friend? Why do
you presume to take hold of my hand?
ABEL: I don’t know what you’ll say to me; but I feel so strongly that
we will understand each other, and I shall help you. You don’t know
me. I’m not sure I know myself.
MADELEINE: It can’t be for lack of scrutiny.
ABEL: One is known only by ones acts; and I have never acted.
MADELEINE: We’re wasting time. Thank you, I believe you are
sincere, only… (She is upset and can no longer speak.)
ABEL: Compose yourself. You’re pathetic.
MADELEINE: It’s not a question of you or me. We are not impor-
tant. Jacques is all that matters, nothing else. If you don’t restore his
faith in her you might just as well have killed both of them.
(Madame Chazot enters.)
MADAME CHAZOT: The children are having supper. So there’s
no need for you to worry about them.
MADELEINE: That’s good, thank you, mother.
MADAME CHAZOT: You seem upset, Monsieur. My daughter
hasn’t yet had an opportunity to tell me why she asked you to come;
but I feel I should remind you that she needs to be treated gently. You
know, of course, that she’s expecting a baby.
MADELEINE: Mother, please!
MADAME CHAZOT: You know Jacques can return from one
minute to the next. Now what did I say that was wrong?
MADELEINE: Won’t you please leave us?
MADAME CHAZOT: What are all these secrets about?
(She goes out after having looked at Abel distrustfully.)
ABEL: You were saying something I didn’t understand just as your
mother came in.
MADELEINE: If I had known that it would be this difficult, I
think I never would have had the courage. When you came to see us
after your return from Russia, I remember the first look you gave me.
It was a strange, hostile, disdainful look that hurt me. I understood
immediately that you had no idea of the circumstances in which our
marriage was agreed upon. Moreover Jacques didn’t hide from me
the fact that he never dared tell you about it. I was grateful to him
for that, however. I read you correctly, didn’t I? Besides all that was
so long ago. More useless words forgive me. My head really aches. So
here’s the way it is, I don’t know if you suspected it, since the death
of his wife Jacques lives a great deal in the beyond.
MADELEINE: It was difficult for him to go on living. It seems in
the early days you helped him a great deal to, to carry on, and I loved
you for that even before I met you. I think, even though he never said
so, that he often wished he could just die. And then, little by little, it’s
hard to explain, even I don’t understand exactly. It’s something one
has to actually experience, gradually the realization dawned on him,
first the feeling, then the certitude that his wife was still here, that she
observed him; that she watched over him.
ABEL: (Indistinctly.) Continue.
MADELEINE: So then, it seemed to him that a sort of exchange
developed between him and her. Yes, I have to say it was more than a
feeling of intimacy it was also a real interaction. Why do you look at
me with that frightened air? At such moments he was almost happy,
with a serene happiness that was very calm, (Her voice trembles.) very
pure, that, I can still visualize. It seems to me that he wanted it to
always be there. But she didn’t agree, at least what he believed to be
her, because we don’t actually know. Gradually that sort of presence
became more and more rare, and he didn’t understand why and so he
became inconsolable and one day, she once again, shall I say, “mani-
fested” herself to him? He reproached her for abandoning him, and
she replied that that was not the kind of fidelity she wanted because
it was an egotistical fidelity. I can’t continue if you keep looking at
me like that. She then told him the real way for him to prove that he
still loved her, would be to not continue living as a widower, but to
find a woman whom he would love, and who would be a mother for
his children.
ABEL: Ah!
MADELEINE: And to whom he would tell all this, because it would
not be right that such an important secret separate them. In the name
of his love, their love, she asked this sacrifice of him, because she knew
well that it would be a sacrifice. And she added that if he refused she
could no longer communicate herself to him, and they would be forever
separated by a sort of wall. He hesitated to promise, you understand,
because he couldn’t help but ask himself if this were not a phantom
of his imagination. However since she never came back, one day he
prayed for her to return, and he promised. It was then that we met,
and I was that woman.
ABEL: (To himself.) What have I done?
MADELEINE: And I know very well that for him it is she who
unites us; and she even told him that someday I too will know her,
and that she will watch over our happiness.
ABEL: Did she keep her promise?
MADELEINE: Not yet. Probably I will have to be more trusting
for that to happen.
ABEL: Yes.
MADELEINE: I only need to remember that this has to last; and
besides, I promised. The day he told me this story, he said to me:
“Will you be strong enough to always live with this?” I answered by
giving him my hand.
ABEL: He loves you now.
MADELEINE: (Painfully.) He loves me very much.
(A silence.)
ABEL: Why didn’t he ever tell me about this? Why didn’t he trust
me? That seed would not have fallen on sterile ground.
MADELEINE: These regrets are vain. Those words you said before,
I want to believe that they were more than mere words, think of him.
At this moment he’s coming back to me. Another fills his thoughts;
but that doesn’t matter. It’s fine this way.
ABEL: He doesn’t deserve you.
MADELEINE: He’s more important than I am, I know that for
sure. If I falter under the yoke, too bad for me, but if he loses faith
in her, that faith which brought us together, that faith by which he
lives, oh no, never that. I can just see it; try and you will see it as I do.
He is terribly alone. Life has no meaning for him. He feels terribly
betrayed. Everything is poor, shabby, and perishable. He’s ashamed
of himself, and I horrify him.
ABEL: Still who knows? Even if she were unfaithful during her life,
why couldn’t she, purified through death, guide him from above?
MADELEINE: (Indignant.) She’s a saint with whom he com-
munes.
ABEL: A saint with her halo. But isn’t there more joy in heaven?
No, you’re right, I see him now as you do, through your eyes. Night
has descended on him, and that night is darker and lonelier than ours,
since the voice that filled his night has become silent and the memory
of it has become agonizing.
MADELEINE: (With fervor.) Save him!
ABEL: (Looking at her steadily.) Are you sure that you want me to
reassure him?
MADELEINE: What do you mean?
ABEL: That hallowed saint does stand between you. The erasure of
this intrusive image is perhaps a victory for you.
MADELEINE: Why do you tempt me? I want him to live, and this
belief of his is his life.
ABEL: Yes, that’s called love.
MADELEINE: (Bitterly.) No, don’t admire me; perhaps at the
bottom of this sacrifice is basically a shrewd calculation. If she is a
phantom who has dropped him in my arms, can I hope that this
phantom disappears?
ABEL: He will be here soon. What shall I tell him? I cannot express
what I feel. That letter I just saw…
MADELEINE: What letter?
ABEL: And now these disclosures of yours. If to die is truly to be
born again, to wake up somewhere else, it must be something like
this. The meaning that my mind thought it grasped was unstable and
terrible, but at least it was mine and I controlled it. But this world is
different; I don’t know myself anymore.
MADELEINE: What are you trying to say?
ABEL: The irony that wounded you was nothing but the last resource
of a dying soul. I didn’t yet have the terrible sense of my nothingness.
One could say my life is in front of me like a corpse and I’m nothing
but an unseeing gaze.
MADELEINE: Even now, you are only thinking of yourself.
ABEL: (Fervently.) Forget perhaps that I am a miserable creature,
and pray for me.
MADELEINE: I’m not a believer.
ABEL: Then pray in the darkness.
(A Silence.)
MADELEINE: You must go. Jacques will be coming back soon,
and if he found you here…
ABEL: What do you expect me to do? What lies must I fabricate,
if sincerity is not enough? I will not know how to undo the knots I’ve
already tied.
MADELEINE: That you’ve already made?
ABEL: Yes I myself: my secret is torn to shreds. You can gather up
the remains of what was a will.
(Madame Chazot enters.)
MADAME CHAZOT: I can see your husband coming.
MADELEINE: Well, what do we do?
ABEL: He mustn’t find us here together. He mustn’t know that you
came to speak with me.
MADELEINE: Then I’ll leave you here?
ABEL: Yes, and I shouldn’t give the impression I’m trying to hide
from him.
MADELEINE: (To Abel.) All my hope is in you. (Abel makes a sign
with his head.)
MADAME CHAZOT: Come now, let’s go.
(Madeleine returns to her room to the right with her mother.)
(Abel remains alone seated at a writing table, he takes a piece of letter
paper and begins writing. Jacques appears at that moment. He crosses the
room without seeing Abel and goes to the door at the right.)
MADELEINE: (From inside her room.) Wait a minute; you can’t
come in just now.
JACQUES: I wasn’t able to reach a doctor! His maid promised that
he would come later this evening. How are you feeling?
MADELEINE: (As above.) Better, but still very tired.
JACQUES: I’ll come back in a little while… (Turning around he
notices Abel.) How long have you been there?
ABEL: As you can see I was writing. (He looks directly at Jacques.)
JACQUES: Why do you look at me like that?
ABEL: (Simply.) I assure you I didn’t know I’d looked at you in any
special way.
JACQUES: (In a different tone.) Let’s not start again with that game
we played earlier this afternoon. (To Abel who gets up.) No, please, why
are you leaving? I wanted to talk with you. We can just as well stay
here. It’s in this room that we’re the least likely to be disturbed.
ABEL: Your wife will hear us.
JACQUES: We can speak softly and then, good heavens, why do
you keep looking away?
ABEL: It’s your imagination.
JACQUES: Still you answer with a hesitant voice.
ABEL: First the look, then the voice, but between us, words alone
should have meaning.
JACQUES: And the silences that come into my memory? Don’t
they mean anything? They’re full of meaning, and you know it all too
well.
(Abel gestures he denies it.)
ABEL: All of that is hardly clear. Silences which return, looks which
reveal, come now my friend I beg of you a bit more simplicity.
JACQUES: This feigned good humor that you’ve gotten me unused
to, leaves me cold. It’s like your words a moment ago; you can’t fool
me, I can see through them. But what’s happening? Who are you?
(Grabbing him by the arm.) Who are you?
(Roger enters.)
ROGER: Daddy, can I say good night to mother? Odette is being
punished, so she won’t be coming.
JACQUES: I don’t know my boy, leave us alone.
ROGER: Tell me Uncle Abel; it’s not true is it that you are leaving
tomorrow?
ABEL: Yes, dear, it is.
ROGER: I thought you were going to stay a long time.
ABEL: Well, you see, it’s changed.
ROGER: Why? And besides why aren’t you staying for dinner?
JACQUES: Don’t tire us so with your questions. It’s time for you
to go to bed. Mommy is very tired, it’s surely better that you not go
in.
ROGER: Tell me Uncle Abel, what time are you leaving?
ABEL: Very early, dear, you’ll still be fast asleep when I leave.
ROGER: Daddy let me go to the station with him.
(Abel looks at Jacques anxiously; Jacques feels the look and turns his
head away from it.)
JACQUES: (Simply.) You would be too tired; but Uncle Abel will
come and kiss you in your bed like last night.
ROGER: You won’t forget, promise.
ABEL: No, my dear, I won’t forget.
(Roger goes to leave.)
JACQUES: Is that the way you say good night?
(Roger turns around and goes to kiss his father saying: “Good-night,
Daddy”, then he leaves.)
JACQUES: (With a trembling voice.) That child has a special affec-
tion for you.
ABEL: He is quite comfortable with me.
JACQUES: Why not admit that he loves you very much. What
harm can that do?
ABEL: Absolutely none.
JACQUES: It’s like beating one’s head against a wall. I came here
firmly resolved to have it out with you man to man, no matter what
the cost. And now my resolutions falter in the face of your unnatural
expression.
ABEL: Listen to me, Jacques, I’m not the same person I was this
afternoon; I assure you of that.
JACQUES: Well, what has changed?
ABEL: This explanation, I want it as much as you do.
JACQUES: Meanwhile, you have not answered me.
ABEL: The attitude of your sister-in-law offended me; wounded
me, but since then I have had a conversation with her that dissipated
all our misunderstandings.
JACQUES: That’s a tasteful word.
ABEL: Please, Jacques, in the name of everything that keeps us
close!
JACQUES: But what brings us together? I ask myself that now. It
seems to me as if all our intimacy was nothing but appearance. If I
could have known what you thought of me I’m sure it would have
made me sick. What have I been for you; a nice guy, not much more?
I remember now certain conversations; when I dared question some
of your ideas, how abruptly you changed the topic of conversation as
if to say: “Back off, such things are beyond you!” When it happened,
I was annoyed; but then I forgot about it. I was wrong.
ABEL: On the contrary, you were absolutely right; it was a ridiculous
shortcoming that no one should have paid attention to.
JACQUES: I’m not so sure.
ABEL: Then why would I have continued to see you?
JACQUES: A lifelong friend is not easy to drop. There were our
families. And then perhaps I clung to you.
ABEL: Still, you seem to forget what I was for you in certain cir-
cumstances.
JACQUES: It is rather delicate to recall that memory.
ABEL: You won’t deny though that at that time a profound com-
munion linked us.
JACQUES: In fact yes. Only in light of what I perceive now, the
memory of that communion is, as you say, perhaps not the most reas-
suring.
ABEL: Now, Jacques, that ridiculous, it’s outrageous, it’s…
JACQUES: That litany of words fails to impress me. There’s not
one of your gestures, not one of your reflections that isn’t contrived.
At certain moments today, I asked myself if perhaps you weren’t trying
to upset me; now you’re doing your utmost to placate me, that’s all.
ABEL: What must I do?
JACQUES: There are words, gestures that don’t deceive.
ABEL: Teach me the secret of knowing them.
JACQUES: Ah, that’s just it!
ABEL: Do you believe in heartfelt appeals?
JACQUES: There are some expressions that don’t lie, but yours! I’ll
never forget that sad and controlled face.
ABEL: (Strongly.) You must forget it.
JACQUES: That’s easy to say.
ABEL: I’m telling you again, I wasn’t myself, this afternoon! An
obsessive idea, a morbid desire, inspired my words and even went so
far as to dictate my silences.
JACQUES: You agree. I dispense you from explaining the particu-
lars. We’ve already wandered around the truth enough. If you have
loved, then you understand that it’s not me I am speaking of now,
in the name of that sentiment! It’s obviously careless to evoke that,
perhaps you even find that it’s grotesque but walking earlier, I relived
the past. There were hours here that couldn’t lie, privileged hours
when we understood each other, all three of us; in the name of those
hours that must be sacred to you as they are to me, don’t refuse me
the light.
ABEL: What can I say? Arguing against such suspicions can become
a way of nourishing them.
JACQUES: (With gentleness.) Yes, but, you see, it’s only one sentence;
a sentence that is not very clear. (A silence.) And when I think of the
past, Abel, I can assure you that never for one instant did I ever stop
being your friend. I even admired you; naturally I didn’t tell you. I
remember the joy I felt, the first time she praised you. Before that I
was afraid she didn’t like you. There are some of your character traits
she had a hard time getting used to.
ABEL: (Weakly.) Oh.
JACQUES: She found you too sarcastic; she criticized your lack
of simplicity. But then little by little, it’s only now that I realize it,
she began to resemble you. Her smile in that portrait, you know, she
didn’t have that look in the early years of our marriage. I remember
noticing it for the first time when I returned from England.
ABEL: Yes?
JACQUES: It’s so strange that I can talk to you about her like this;
still one might say it gives me peace. I remember I got back in time
for dinner. She was very affectionate, as always, inquiring about all
the details of my trip, yet somehow I remember now having had the
distinct impression that she had a secret preoccupation. All during
dinner, I felt that she would tell me something after our meal was fin-
ished. I was neither worried nor intrigued. I was on the verge of asking
her what she was concerned about, but then after dinner someone
dropped in, my impression vanished and I forgot. But it was during
that absence wasn’t it, that things got started?
ABEL: You’re mistaken, I swear it.
JACQUES: One day, much later, when I alluded to that trip to
England, it seemed to me that reference troubled her.
ABEL: You must realize that all this gets distorted now in your
imagination.
JACQUES: Is that all you can muster as a reply?
ABEL: What else can I say?
JACQUES: Alas!
ABEL: (With effort.) Jacques, you know very well that it’s not true.
She never would stoop to anything like that. You have no right to
suspect her.
JACQUES: No, I’m sure of nothing; that woman is only dust
now.
ABEL: Jacques!
JACQUES: She’s only dust now. There is nothing left of her that
can pass over into me, nothing that can sustain my life. I will only
know whatever I can find myself. Reread old letters, compile, and
collate. The work of an archivist, isn’t it? That’s all there is left for me.
Naturally you won’t tell me anything, your role is difficult. I’ll grant
you that. And besides, why should I believe whatever you say? Even if
you confessed, I’d never know if it were really true. She is dead. Dead!
And what’s so awful is the fact that I don’t hate you. If I wanted to kill
you at least that would be something I could do. But no, is it because
you, you still represent a part of her? And then, the moment that one
dies, for good… Don’t try and understand. Leave it. It only makes
sense to me.
ABEL: (With dread.) No, I can tell what you’re thinking. For the first
time you believe in death and that belief is going to kill you. Jacques
what unites us is still so strong; I know what you’re saying, but it’s not
true, for I too, have never stopped being your friend.
JACQUES: My eyes aren’t sharp enough to see that.
ABEL: That horrible deed, of which you accuse me, I might have,
in my thoughts alone…
JACQUES: Even if only in your thoughts!
ABEL: But she never suspected it. Don’t you understand? Dear God,
how can I convince you?
JACQUES: Little by little you are succeeding; we’ve come quite a
ways since a while ago. You see, Abel, I believe that at this moment,
you pity me; and because of that what you say, can’t really convince
me.
ABEL: Jacques, calm down! Be silent within. Listen to her speak to
us from the depth of the past that is so dear to you. Listen to her deep
clear voice. I didn’t know that all of that remained sacred for you, I
feared you had become forgetful, I…
JACQUES: (Distrustful.) Who set you straight?
JACQUES: Who told you how it was? Has Madeleine also betrayed
me?
ABEL: Madeleine? Why it was you who set me straight. I see your
sorrow, I see your reverence and it’s to that genuine love that I appeal.
Remember how forcefully she would condemn disloyal people? You
can’t imagine that she herself would be a disloyal soul?
JACQUES: But I remember also that one day I found her in tears,
and as I kept pressing her with questions, she ended up by saying:
“We women, centuries of slavery have deformed us, we can no longer
live according to the truth.”
ABEL: That wasn’t her style, your memory deceives you.
JACQUES: No, no. And all those moments of sadness that came
over her without cause, sometime quite suddenly.
ABEL: Jacques, you know that for quite a while she saw her death
approaching from a long way off.
JACQUES: That’s not true. (A silence.) Or, did she confide in you
things that she never shared with me?
ABEL: Of course she told me about some of her fears that she care-
fully kept from you; that only proves that she wanted to spare you
until the last possible moment the anguish that was consuming her.
JACQUES: (Exploding.) So, it’s true? Aha! This time you gave
yourself away. She confided her fear of death to you! That agony that
I had a right to share, she reserved for you.
ABEL: Only once did she speak to me of that fear. I found her alone
in her sitting room; she was arranging flowers in a vase. She was pale,
and her thoughts were far away. When I came in, she didn’t even greet
me; and then, after a minute, in that brusque tone she sometimes used,
she said to me: “Does death frighten you? It frightens me, terribly. I’m
horribly afraid, and I feel death is near.”
JACQUES: (Feverishly.) So she did talk to you about death? What
did she say? What did she believe?
MADELEINE: (From inside her bedroom.) Jacques!
JACQUES: What did she expect from death?
MADELEINE: Jacques, will you please come here an instant?
JACQUES: In a minute! Repeat to me faithfully everything she said
to you that day. You can’t imagine how important this is for me.
(He goes out.)
ABEL: Good God; to invent? Yes, perhaps.
(Abel recollects himself. Jacques’s voice is heard from the bedroom,
“They’ll ring when the Doctor gets here. Yes, Abel’s still there. Don’t worry
about that. Yes, I understand.” Jacques reenters the sitting room.)
JACQUES: Well, what is it?
ABEL: Please understand, I can’t recall her words exactly, but the
sense of them is branded on my mind.
JACQUES: Why have you never ever spoken of this before?
ABEL: I feared it might have been too painful for you to learn that
she knew she was going to die. Besides she forbade me to tell you.
JACQUES: Then why are you telling me all this now?
ABEL: To explain to you those sudden moments of sadness that
occurred with no apparent cause. (A silence.) She said something like
this to me: “Yes, I know I’m soon going to die. Sometimes all I feel
in the face of death is a sort of strange religious curiosity.”
JACQUES: What did she mean by that?
ABEL: She said, “At other times I tell myself that to die is merely to
not know anything anymore, become a thing, and not even have the
awful satisfaction of recognizing that everything is only an illusion.
But sometimes I pray with abandon, and there follows the feeling that
my prayers give birth to a new life in me that will perhaps last.”
JACQUES: (With eager hopefulness.) She said that to you? She
prayed? She already believed in the sovereign power of prayer?
ABEL: What do you mean “already”?
JACQUES: It doesn’t matter.
ABEL: Explain.
JACQUES: Sometime later on, perhaps.
ABEL: (Encouraged.) “Sometimes even”, she added, “and this may
seem like superstition to you, but sometimes I think that others in
praying for me, could help to weave the fabric of that new life.” (He
anxiously watches Jacques who doesn’t move.) “Even when I shall no
longer be there, it seems to me that those who loved me can still do
something for me, and that I too, by a sort of mystical exchange…”
JACQUES: She actually spoke of an exchange?
ABEL: “I will be able to work for their happiness.”
JACQUES: Why didn’t she ever say anything about that to me?
ABEL: She thought you wouldn’t understand and then it would
have upset you too much. She went on to talk to me about you with
an almost maternal concern. She said, “I know he will be profoundly
unhappy and perhaps he will never get over his grief. But I also know
he cannot go on living alone with the children. It would be too hard
on him. When he comes home tired, he needs to find a smiling face
that will encourage him, like when a tired child comes home from
school. If ever the power were given to whatever of me survives, to
inspire his thoughts and to guide his acts.”
JACQUES: (Breathless.) Can you swear to me that she said that to
you? No, not yet. Recollect yourself in order to be absolutely sure. It’s
too, decisive. In a little while after dinner, we will get together, and
you will have had a chance to reflect. Shh! Not another word, we’ll
talk later.
(He leaves closing the door gently. Abel left alone collapses into an
armchair. Madeleine not hearing anything more enters quietly.)
MADELEINE: Well what happened?
ABEL: (Overwhelmed with dismay.) He’s saved and I am
wretched.
ACT FOUR
The same evening after dinner; the same setting as Act Three.
MADAME RENAUDIER: Would you dare swear to him?
ABEL: Can I refuse him that? Oh, it’s only another sentence I pro-
nounce. If he attaches some sacred significance to it, that’s his fault.
MADAME RENAUDIER: You really are irreligious?
ABEL: (Bitterly.) Do you think so? What is religion anyway if it isn’t
a spirit of fidelity?
MADAME RENAUDIER: Blasphemy!
ABEL: How you misunderstand me. You have no idea of the horror
this lie causes me. Certainly, it’s not what you would call remorse; no,
nothing like that fortunately.
MADAME RENAUDIER: You trample God’s law underfoot.
ABEL: I suppose for you, a law is only divine so long as it is
incomprehensible. Christian humility! After all, perhaps it is to be
admired.
(A silence.)
MADAME RENAUDIER: You are leaving tomorrow morning, is
that definite?
ABEL: Yes.
MADAME RENAUDIER: You will have dinner at home?
ABEL: No. I’ll probably have dinner on the train. I plan to leave
Paris tomorrow evening.
MADAME RENAUDIER: Where can you go?
ABEL: To Moscow, and from there… (A vague gesture.)
MADAME RENAUDIER: Russia again? That country that did
you such harm! The letters that you wrote me from there! Will that
nightmare start all over again?
ABEL: You have no idea what Russia is like, mother. One dives in,
one gets lost there; it’s the only place on earth that teaches one how
to die.
MADAME RENAUDIER: In fact, you think only of death. This
is not a departure, it’s a suicide. That’s what life holds for me.
ABEL: Don’t be unjust toward life. It seems to me that on balance
life has not treated you that badly. You’ve had a few disappointments
but surely paradise is worth the price.
MADAME RENAUDIER: You always directed your ironies either
against my Catholic faith or your father’s irreligion.
ABEL: Alas! (A silence.) It’s all too much, don’t you see. I played the
avenger, the sword bearer, and now, I’m not talking about the harm I’ve
done, that will come up later, what overwhelms me is an unexpected
discovery. A word not only expresses, it acts; one who has lied will
never find his betrayed thought intact when he wants to reconsider it.
Everything escapes me. Is this how the spirit of fidelity rewards those
who served it too zealously?
MADAME RENAUDIER: So, when your thoughts should be
focused on Jacques?
ABEL: Be careful, it’s pity for Jacques that counsels contemplating
the oath that your religion forbids. That invented story from the other
side of the grave stands between us like a loathsome third thing that
finally imposes itself as necessary. I hate it. Still it only perpetuates
into the beyond, those qualities I adore. Oh, I don’t know anymore.
That fabrication has too much power. Minute by minute it pushes
further into the shadows the mysterious face that I only glimpsed in
the light of that letter. An unknown face! Ah! I’ll have to reconstruct
all the past now that I have the key to it. But will this cherished past
that I love too much; will it allow itself to be renewed? No, it wants
to remain intangible. So in that case what: fidelity to a lie; idolatry?
FLORENCE: (From outside.) Madame, are you there?
MADAME RENAUDIER: Come in, please.
(Florence enters and draws back on seeing Abel.)
FLORENCE: I didn’t know…
MADAME RENAUDIER: Was there something you wanted to
tell me?
FLORENCE: Yes, but…
ABEL: Should I leave?
FLORENCE: No, you can stay. Perhaps it is better this way.
MADAME RENAUDIER: He told me everything.
FLORENCE: Even about the letter!
MADAME RENAUDIER: Yes.
FLORENCE: I came to ask your mother to forgive me. I am ashamed
of myself now. That revelation that I had no right to make…
ABEL: You couldn’t have suspected that it would be a revelation for
me. It’s obvious that if you had realized that I didn’t know, you would
not have said anything. And nothing would have happened. I don’t
hold it against you, you see; I’m not giving you any explanation. I
don’t know if you could have guessed part of the truth. It’s unfortunate
that this letter fell into your hands.
FLORENCE: (In a low voice.) Yes.
ABEL: And I also believe that it’s unfortunate that I read it.
FLORENCE: But I would have thought…
ABEL: Alas!
FLORENCE: I don’t even have the consolation of having put,
of course without having intended it, some tenderness into your
thoughts.
ABEL: You see that letter showed that she struggled, suffered as I
did, and that is what I never suspected.
FLORENCE: Yes.
ABEL: And that’s not all there is to it.
FLORENCE: If it were only what you say, perhaps I could reassure
you. Between her and me, there never was any closeness. However I
believe I knew or sensed that despite this letter, I don’t think she was
unhappy. Forgive me if I speak frankly. It seems to me that in that
struggle, Viviane, who was proud, must have found a certain pleasure.
A plain and simple life with Jacques, or even with you, wouldn’t have
been enough for her. There’s a kind of simple happiness to which she
never could have resigned herself. She must have long enjoyed a sort
of strong and bitter joy in that forbidden love that she never spoke of
to you. (Animatedly.) In writing that letter, believe me, she knew very
well, that she would not send it.
ABEL: (Profoundly.) If you knew her so well, how could you have
been so mistaken about her?
FLORENCE: (Blushing suddenly.) I don’t know. One doesn’t always
see clearly. Something misled me.
ABEL: (Profoundly.) I am not worthy of this regard Florence, I am a
very limited man. And besides when I look at the balance sheet of my
life. (He shakes his head.) Yes, of course, I sowed some ideas, awakened
some intellects, and then what?
FLORENCE: You’re not giving yourself due credit.
ABEL: Tonight I feel a passionate desire to find myself guilty. Except
for me, she would have been happy with Jacques.
FLORENCE: Still when I recall the slightly condescending affection
with which she sometimes spoke of him.
ABEL: As a rule she was very tender with him. Remember coming
back from our walks, the two of them hung back walking slowly,
and if anyone interrupted their conversation, she seemed vexed. One
evening…
FLORENCE: All the same, we don’t know what that tenderness
was made of. A lucid friendship…
ABEL: That’s true. Viviane always was strangely lucid. I remember
how deeply her eyes shone when she would say, “I like to understand.”
But as for him, didn’t he deserve something infinitely better than
friendship? Oh, life is wicked!
FLORENCE: (To Madame Renaudier.) What is happening to
him?
MADAME RENAUDIER: I don’t know.
ABEL: Again I see her, as she would come to sit with him after
having silently closed the piano. She would put her hand on his
shoulder fondly yes it’s true. One day when he was going to praise
what she had played, it was the Andante of Dukas’ Sonata I recall,
and she gently put her hand on his mouth. He piously caresses these
memories, and inhales their deceiving perfume!
FLORENCE: Is it for Jacques that your heart bleeds?
ABEL: One’s soul instinctively clings to what tortures it. There is
a savoring that comes only gradually and that nothing replaces. You
don’t know how ferociously our sentiments resist new images that
might alter them, and it is perhaps those sentiments, where suffering
has settled in slowly, that are the most tenacious and rebellious. The
woman you revealed to me is someone I didn’t know; the woman I
knew lived only for Jacques, and if ever she suspected what she meant
to me, she at least never showed any sign of it. Yes perhaps she was all
the more precious to me as I was sure of loving her with no return.
I accustomed myself to this sad monotonous horizon; and here you
come to trouble me by suggesting the image of a different person.
MADAME RENAUDIER: (Pointing to Florence.) How can you
express all these morbid sentiments in front of her?
FLORENCE: (To Madame Renaudier.) Permit me to see in these
confidences, even if I am wrong, a proof of friendship that I scarcely
deserve. Yet I can understand the uneasiness of a disoriented heart.
(To Abel.) Yes, I excuse you and I feel sorry for you, as my sister would
have done in my place.
ABEL: Do you think then, that she would have understood?
FLORENCE: Remember her love of sincerity above all else?
ABEL: Yes, that’s true. She would have excused because she would
have understood. Excused? That hardly says enough. Her intelligent
heart would have been able to understand where others would merely
pardon. I can see what would have been her ironic, tender and painful
smile. The other, the one who is in heaven…
FLORENCE: What are you trying to say?
ABEL: It’s not my secret, and I can’t answer you. With one word,
the significance of which you can’t measure, you have awakened an
obsession that will not leave me. I can imagine her, her head tilted
slightly to one side, listening pensively to all this strange dialectic
without becoming indignant. All these dissonances of a soul out of
tune, she would have known how to accept them and blend them
into harmony. Oh, why, why so late?
FLORENCE: (Painfully.) Now your dream is going off in other
directions. This cruel fantasizing of yours now animates an image that
previously appeared unclear and enigmatic to you.
ABEL: You see I was right; all you can expect from me is insult and
deception. Happy those who have known how to share their affection!
Pity the man who has only one love. Passion is merely an obsession.
FLORENCE: Good-bye. We will probably never see one another
again. You will hardly be tempted to come to Lyon to find memo-
ries that you will not have the strength to bear, as for me, I… Don’t
formulate some well wishing platitude that would only wound me.
Don’t hope to erase the imprint you have left on my destiny since…
excuse me; I was going to say that I forgive you.
(They shake hands in silence. Florence leaves.)
ABEL: (Painfully.) She loves me, and that love will remain sterile.
Oh, when I think of all that tenderness, strewn uselessly in this world!
If only one could conceive of a marvelous flowering of all that, if one
could!
MADAME RENAUDIER: She loves you as you are, even though
she knows the worst of you. You’ll never find anything worth more
than a love like that. Jacques’ idea was right!
ABEL: How ironic!
MADAME RENAUDIER: Basically that’s what you’ve been missing
from your life up until now. You never felt loved for yourself.
ABEL: It’s you who say that, Mother, you who have always idolized
me? Still it seems you are right. Excessive pride in me allied itself with
humility, the bitter sadness of mattering so little to others, and alas
rightly so.
MADAME RENAUDIER: Let me tell you something, Abel; you
know I don’t claim to enter completely into your pain. It’s just because
you describe it so well that it remains for me a bit, impenetrable.
ABEL: (With a smile.) Are you too now suffering from the contagion
of subtlety?
MADAME RENAUDIER: (With ardor.) But what I know is that
there is only one way for you to put an end to this sickness that is
destroying you. Jacques was right, she alone could save you. Don’t
think I can’t understand your cult for Viviane. But she herself, if…
ABEL: She would give me the same advice as for Jacques? It would
be that same easy social wisdom. Oh, let’s not call upon the dead! Don’t
insist; you can’t know what I’m experiencing, you said so yourself, I’m
too alone.
(Jacques enters.)
MADAME RENAUDIER: Jacques, you were right. Florence let
her true feelings show and Abel…
ABEL: (With a glint of madness in his eyes.) Mother, be careful.
JACQUES: (With joy.) So Florence has agreed to be his wife? Of
course I acted like a fool. Abel, forgive…
MADAME RENAUDIER: Yes, you can ask his pardon.
JACQUES: (Timidly.) You know everything now.
MADAME RENAUDIER: Yes. May Viviane also forgive you!
JACQUES: (In a low voice.) I shall pray that she forgive me.
ABEL: (To his Mother in an ambiguous tone.) Mother, would you
kindly leave us for a moment, I think Jacques has something he wants
to ask me.
MADAME RENAUDIER: Oh!
JACQUES: What is it?
MADAME RENAUDIER: (Standing up.) I’m going to leave you
now. Abel, come and say good night to me when you come upstairs.
Surely I won’t have gone to sleep yet.
ABEL: It will be late, (in a softer tone) but I will certainly have
something to tell you.
MADAME RENAUDIER: (Leaving.) In the name of heaven!
ABEL: (Under his breath.) I told you I was not someone completely
without religion. Thank you for having reminded me.
JACQUES: What are you whispering about?
ABEL: Something about Paris that my Mother was afraid of forget-
ting.
(Madame Renaudier leaves.)
ABEL: All right. I’m ready to hear what you have to say.
JACQUES: (Embarrassed.) No, I’ve thought it over. It would be cruel
of me to insist; surely you told me what she said as you remembered
it, and I have no right to ask any more.
ABEL: You’re absolutely right. Still I would have refused to swear
to it; the very idea is shocking, as you yourself say. Besides it’s been
such a long time I can no longer be sure of her exact words.
JACQUES: Yes.
ABEL: I remember distinctly we had spoken of you and she had
told me she just couldn’t see you being a widower for a long time.
JACQUES: How’s that?
ABEL: Moreover, she thought it absolutely natural, if you will, that
you remarry; she accepted the idea.
JACQUES: (Very upset.) She was resigned to it?
ABEL: No, she didn’t say that, she meant simply that it was
normal.
JACQUES: (Very softly.) Yes.
ABEL: She understood men, you know. You especially, she knew
you very well, and she was not one to ask the impossible.
JACQUES: (Still very softly.) But that’s not what you told me
before dinner; you quoted her as saying, “I know he will be terribly
unhappy.”
ABEL: Yes, of course. She knew how you loved her, that’s obvious,
you proved it.
(Jacques stares at him.)
JACQUES: You said she added, “If the power were given to me.”
ABEL: (Nonchalantly.) Yes, it seems that she did say something like
that, “If it were possible for me when I’m no longer of this world, I
would be the first to give him this advice.”
JACQUES: Was that just a passing thought or something she seemed
to feel deeply?
ABEL: Since I’m not absolutely sure she said it…
JACQUES: Oh!
ABEL: What’s so important about it anyway? Do her exact words
mean so much to you?
JACQUES: But, you must have realized that is was only after a long
period of terrible hesitations that I resolved to marry Madeleine. My
letter, the one I wrote to you in Moscow which you responded to so
tersely, didn’t it reveal something of my agony.
ABEL: (Moved.) No, I don’t believe so.
JACQUES: Thus, I cherish, as most precious, whatever can confirm
me in my belief that she is not angry with me.
ABEL: (Gently.) Yes, I understand.
JACQUES: Honestly, can’t you make yourself remember her exact
words?
ABEL: No, I assure you. Besides…
JACQUES: What?
ABEL: It’s only the feeling that really matters.
JACQUES: That’s not true.
ABEL: (Strongly.) She would not have resented what you did, you
can be sure of that.
JACQUES: Abel.
ABEL: What, my friend?
JACQUES: It’s crazy what I’m about to ask you, but alas the night
is dark, and after all you are more reflective than others.
ABEL: (With dread.) What can you want to ask me?
JACQUES: Do you think that all we can say is: “She would not
have been angry with you!” Do you think it is madness to speak of
the dead in the present?
ABEL: Good God! Why do you ask me that?
JACQUES: Suppose I have reasons to think, well to imagine, that
everything is not ended; that everything of our relationship has not
ceased. For you, would that necessarily be an illusion?
ABEL: No, why should it be since we don’t know anything for
sure?
JACQUES: You see that sentence that she pronounced, or that
perhaps she said…
ABEL: Ah!
JACQUES: It’s something that would sort of confirm, don’t you
think so?
ABEL: (Tortured.) I don’t know.
JACQUES: We are so much in the dark.
I can’t explain exactly what happened. These are things that I don’t
even have the right to speak about to others.
ABEL: Yes, Jacques.
JACQUES: Actually there are some days when it seems that it is
all so solid and I have no remaining doubt at all. On those days, it’s
wonderful to live. But then there are other days when everything
crumbles horribly and then I’d prefer it were all over. Either I’d be
reunited with her, or there would be nothing at all. Oh, obviously
none of that shows. I probably look like a contented man. Especially
when compared with you who always seem to harbor a secret anguish.
But appearances can deceive. Therefore that sentence, try to remember
it. (He buries his face in his hands.)
ABEL: Listen, no, I can’t.
JACQUES: One would say you’re holding back.
ABEL: (To himself.) At this depth, one can no longer lie.
JACQUES: Naturally, who’s talking about lying?
ABEL: I no longer know what courage calls for. I don’t know any-
thing. You, at least, you can pray, call out! Me, oh, it’s… (Suddenly he
gestures desperately.) Dear friend, you mustn’t cling to that sentence; I
am certain she never said it.
JACQUES: Oh!
ABEL: Then think, what would that change, even if she had said
it? Would that be a guarantee? Think, a guarantee? It would only be
a coincidence.
JACQUES: Then, why did you put words in her mouth?
ABEL: (Stuttering.) But you must understand, I believed…
JACQUES: You are upset.
ABEL: Not at all, but…
JACQUES: It’s not just by chance that you made it up and when
you said to me: “for the first time you believe in death.” For the first
time! That phrase gave you away. (Harshly.) You knew everything!
ABEL: You’re mad, come now.
JACQUES: And it’s not something you saw; that’s not possible.
ABEL: How could I have guessed?
JACQUES: You didn’t guess. Madeleine told you everything. That’s
why I found you in that little room where you never go. She dragged
herself there to inform you, to beg you to humor me, as someone who’s
sick. Oh, I can’t breathe! Help! Help me! (He collapses. Abel holds him
in his arms; a silence.)
MADELEINE: What’s the matter? He called out. What’s happen-
ing? Why are you holding him?
ABEL: Shh!
JACQUES: (Reopening his eyes.) What happened? (To Madeleine.)
Ah! You’re here, you too? You betrayed me!
MADELEINE: Dearest, forgive me! I believed I had to. You don’t
know what that cost me. (To Abel.) But you, what have you done?
ABEL: What could I do? There is a point in human suffering where
truth breaks through. It’s something more powerful than we are. When
I wanted to go back to what I’d said earlier, I no longer could.
MADELEINE: Go back to what you’d said earlier?
JACQUES: When you were alone with me and I saw that awful
smile.
ABEL: First I felt that if I deceived you any longer I would be
betraying her, and then a terrible feeling of pity took hold of me.
JACQUES: (To Madeleine.) You planned all this together.
ABEL: No, no. You’re mistaken.
JACQUES: Any means were permissible to blind me. And now, I
no longer believe in anything. I don’t believe anyone. There is noth-
ing. (To Madeleine.) It was just an illusion that put you on the path
of my life; a trick of nature. (To Abel.) There you are! Am I beginning
to sound more reasonable again?
MADELEINE: (Profoundly.) I envy that woman.
JACQUES: Perhaps she would never have pardoned me.
ABEL: (Passionately.) Jacques, listen to me.
JACQUES: I’ve already heard too much. What new face do you
have to show me?
ABEL: At this moment, Jacques, it’s I who speak to you, and there
is no deception behind these words. You see, at the end of this fright-
ful day all those haunting obsessions have left me, for one blessed
moment. Pity performed that miracle. Unfortunately maybe all that
will come back, but I am speaking to you now from the depth of my
soul and as if she heard us. Perhaps she does hear us. I swear to you
this oath; she would have forgiven you. She does pardon you, because
in a sense she is surely here!
JACQUES: (Bitterly.) In our thoughts!
ABEL: (Strongly.) No Jacques not merely as an idea.
JACQUES: Is it she who spoke to me?
ABEL: We have not understood her, neither you nor I, and very
likely she did not understand herself clearly.
JACQUES: There is nothing, mere phantoms in the night, that’s
what we are.
ABEL: That’s not true, since we suffer.
JACQUES: Everyone has lied to me.
ABEL: These errors, these lies are a ransom.
JACQUES: Words, only words.
ABEL: The terrible ransom for our reality.
JACQUES: Nothing but words.
ABEL: Perhaps it’s only at the cost of erroneous straying that the
soul finally finds itself.
JACQUES: (Bitterly.) The soul!
ABEL: (Solemnly.) Our living soul, our eternal soul!
JACQUES: Was it Viviane who spoke to me?
ABEL: We have wandered in the shadows of darkness, but now for
a few seconds this past so full of errors and suffering appears to me in
a light that cannot deceive. From all this confusion it seems an order
emerges. Oh, not a lesson, a harmony!
JACQUES: There can be no rest for me if I do not know that she
hears me.
ABEL: (Strongly.) No Jacques, even if it is true, even if she has spoken
to you, it is not in this one precarious interview, a dubious dialogue,
that you will find the assurances for which your heart thirsts.
JACQUES: (Passionately.) To see, to hear, to touch…
ABEL: A temptation that does not deceive the truest part of your-
self. Come now, you could not be satisfied long in a world devoid of
mystery. That’s the way we humans are.
JACQUES: What do you know about humanness?
ABEL: Believe me; knowledge exiles to infinity whatever it claims to
grasp. It is perhaps mystery alone that reunites. Without mystery, life
would be suffocating! (He turns toward Madeleine who has remained
seated, motionless, staring into space.) And then, don’t you see, we don’t
have the right, no, we do not have the right.
MADELEINE: (Very softly, in a pleading voice.) Be quiet.
ABEL: Ask her pardon, humble yourself; there is no other wisdom.
(With a sort of sob.) The judges, the iconoclasts, life itself will confound
them. Life or He who is beyond our words, it is late; my mother is
waiting for me. She may be getting worried. Let me embrace you. (He
gives Jacques a brotherly embrace and goes toward Madeleine to whom
he says in a whisper :) Be confident. Trust love. (He leaves. A very long
silence.)
JACQUES: (In a hushed voice.) Order, harmony…
(Curtain)
THE POSTHUMOUS JOKE
A Three Act Play
by
GABRIEL MARCEL
Paris, 1923
Cast of Characters
In Order of Appearance
JACQUES FAUCONNEAU: Temporary Nursing Home
Patient
ROBERT CARTERON: Nursing Home Resident, Emile
Favier’s Uncle
EDWARD: The Waiter
EMILE FAVIER: Robert Carteron’s Nephew
LOUISE FAVIER: Emile Favier’s Wife
SUZANNE FAVIER: Emile and Louise Favier’s Daughter
DOCTOR’S VOICE: (Off Stage)
ALPHONSINE: The Favier’s Maid
MADAME SORBIER: The Faviers’ Landlady
CORBIGNY: Emile Favier’s Gentlemen’s Club Colleague
MADAME THOMASSET: Charles Thomasset’s Mother
CHARLES THOMASSET: Suzanne Favier’s Suitor
PUPIL’S VOICE: (Off Stage)
PLANTUREUX: School Superintendent
MADAME PLANTUREUX: Superintendent’s Wife
CLEMENCE FAIRFIELD: Boarding House Director
POKROVSKI: Boarding House Guest
MONTCHABERT: Boarding House Guest
The Posthumous Joke 103
ACT ONE
The action takes place in a private nursing home, on the outskirts of Laus-
anne, Switzerland in 1923. The scene is a spacious lounge, part living room
and part hall, with a large bay window overlooking Lake Geneva.
FAUCONNEAU: (Ending a speech in a moralizing voice.) On this
point, Keynes is correct. No doubt about it. All my colleagues at
the Bureau of Finance are of the same opinion. What’s more, a very
interesting article on the subject was published in Peoples’ Life.
CARTERON: Thank you very much, Monsieur. That’s a very
instructive exposé. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll take a short walk. I’m sup-
posed to exercise, and I see the rain has just stopped.
FAUCONNEAU: I won’t follow your lead. The ground is still
wet.
CARTERON: I’ll see you later then, Monsieur.
(He goes out.)
FAUCONNEAU: (Alone.) In five minutes it will be raining again.
(He taps the barometer and nods his head.) We’re stuck with this weather
for the day! What luck! (He goes to the door at the left.) Oh well, and
my hot chocolate? (From off stage is heard, “Right away, Monsieur”.)
(Having nothing to do he picks up a newspaper from a table in the middle
of the room, and immediately tosses it onto an armchair. Brusquely, he goes
to the telephone, near the door on the right, grabs the phone book from a
side table and holding it flops into an armchair and closes his eyes.) Page
fifteen, sixth name from the top. (He opens the phone book.) Damn! It’s
a hotel that’s no fun. (He closes his eyes again.) Page eighteen; third name
from the bottom. (He opens the phone book again.) A funeral home!
Oh no! (Same routine as before.) Page eight. Last line at the bottom
of the page. (He opens the phone book.) Guillot. (He makes a gesture of
not recognizing that name at all.) Here we go! (He picks up the receiver.)
Operator, Lausanne 48, please. To whom am I speaking? Monsieur
Guillot himself? Monsieur, don’t you recognize my voice? Oh come
now, try to remember, just guess! (In a different tone.) A joke in poor
taste? Me, a bad joke? But my friend, you speak to me in such a tone.
(Visibly disconcerted, he hangs up, shouting.) We’ve been disconnected!
(During this time, Carteron has quietly come in and seated himself at
an obscure angle where Fauconneau cannot see him. Fauconneau picks
up the phone book again, opens it at random, and puts his finger in the
middle of the page; he picks up the receiver and says) Ninety seven, at
Montreux, please. (Imitating a woman’s voice.) It’s me. (Pause.) You
think my voice has changed? This telephone is no good. (Pause.)
You’re counting on me for this afternoon? Not before five p.m. Yes.
Poor Bertrand, hmm? How’s that? (Pause.) Yes, Ferdinand, that’s what
I said, Ferdinand? Ah! What’s that you’re asking me? (His expression
shows that it would be very difficult for him to continue. He hurriedly
hangs up; however Carteron, astonished by the falsetto voice, is standing
on his tip toes. Fauconneau, in hanging up the phone, notices Carteron,
and steps back a stride.) I don’t know what’s wrong with people these
days. (Very embarrassed.) I was mistaken for a woman!
CARTERON: Imagine that!
FAUCONNEAU: But Monsieur I assure you, we were taught in
acoustics…
CARTERON: Forget it; distractions are few and far between here
at Val Fleury.
FAUCONNEAU: But once again Monsieur…
CARTERON: And this one is inoffensive.
FAUCONNEAU: If my colleagues…
CARTERON: They’ll never know. I’m terribly sorry I interrupted
you, but it’s raining again, a downpour.
FAUCONNEAU: What will you think of me?
CARTERON: Haven’t they spoken to you about the Japanese
doctor?
FAUCONNEAU: No, Monsieur.
CARTERON: Who treats patients with leaps and jumps?
FAUCONNEAU: With jumps?
CARTERON: This exotic scientist thinks we all suffer from repressed
frolicking.
FAUCONNEAU: I beg your pardon?
CARTERON: We are all on a tight rein, on edge all day long.

When we walk, for example (he takes several steps), see how restrained
we are. Neither you nor I can, without troublesome risks, simply start
to wiggle, to twist and turn in whatever directions our body might
like, so it seems. But consider at what cost such decency. Unnamed
illnesses, secret desires, neuroses. Such neuroses! So my Japanese doctor
brings together in a drained pool ambassadors, university professors,
and cabinet members and invites them to jump in what ever ways
they please, to pretend they are big cats of prey.
FAUCONNEAU: I don’t see…
CARTERON: But of course you do. Our minds suffer from a similar
constraint. There isn’t anyone who doesn’t aspire, perhaps without
realizing it, to some secret relaxation. (Pointing to the telephone.) Yours,
is the telephone!
FAUCONNEAU: Monsieur, how intelligent you are!
CARTERON: (In a different voice.) I don’t think so, Monsieur. If I
had been intelligent… (A silence.)
FAUCONNEAU: Dare I ask if you yourself…?
CARTERON: (Dryly.) I’ve never had a telephone at my house.
FAUCONNEAU: Monsieur, I don’t know if you’ve ever felt the
desire on a trolley for example, when you see certain people, to yell
something crazy at them, or holler an indecent question, like, “Hey!
How long have you been one?” or, “When are you going to run off
with the cash box?” It’s torture.
CARTERON: No, Monsieur, it’s not torture. (A silence.) Age, or, yes
it’s age that has made me more exacting and more creative. (Faucon-
neau pulls his chair up closer.) On the whole, these little games, even
when they’re not imaginary, seem rather harmless.
FAUCONNEAU: (Mortified.) Obviously…
CARTERON: And I was always afraid they might be a bit, disap-
pointing.
FAUCONNEAU: Good heavens!
CARTERON: When you’ve had your fun surprising someone, don’t
you feel very refreshed, relaxed?
FAUCONNEAU: Ugh!
(Edward, the waiter, comes in carrying a tray.)
FAUCONNEAU: You’ve decided to bring me my lunch, Edward?
It’s none too soon.
THE WAITER: We made fresh hot chocolate just for you Monsieur.
It took time to heat up. (Fauconneau settles down with his tray.)
FAUCONNEAU: You’re not…?
CARTERON: A cup of hot water when I wake up is all they allow
me in the morning.
FAUCONNEAU: A cup of hot water?
CARTERON: With some kind of powder to spoil the taste.
FAUCONNEAU: Things go from bad to worse. However my
mother, who like me, is here for a treatment . . .
CARTERON: She’s just starting?
FAUCONNEAU: Her treatment?
CARTERON: Or her illness? Curiously, it amounts to the same
thing.
FAUCONNEAU: That’s funny. What are you still doing here,
Edward?
THE WAITER: I’m waiting for Monsieur to finish so I can take
away his tray.
FAUCONNEAU: (Grumbling.) That’s not very pleasant.
CARTERON: (Coming close.) That all looks very tasty.
FAUCONNEAU: If you’d like some?
CARTERON: (Dryly.) Thank you. (To the waiter.) Do you know
if the doctor has started his rounds?
THE WAITER: And is he ever in a bad mood! Eighteen people left
yesterday evening when the exchange rate rose.
CARTERON: (Anxious.) Then he’s having one of his bad days.
FAUCONNEAU: Tell me, Edward; is it true that someone has died
at Les Fleurs Nursing Home? (Carteron jumps.)
THE WAITER: I don’t know, Monsieur; but that would surprise
me. Ordinarily they manage things better than that. (He gives a sign
toward Fauconneau.)
FAUCONNEAU: (Who hasn’t seen, says to Carteron.) I must say to

die in a Nursing Home. Brrr!
CARTERON: (In a lifeless voice.) I’m going to take a look
around.
FAUCONNEAU: Don’t you think that dying in a hospital?
(Carteron has gone out.)
FAUCONNEAU: (To the waiter.) Say, what is that man’s name? He
knows who I am, but I don’t even know his name.
THE WAITER: That is Monsieur Carteron. (Softly.) I wanted to
tell you that the poor old guy is unraveling; that’s why I didn’t want
to seem, à propos of Les Fleurs. He gets upset very easily, he can’t help
it. (Proudly.) But the two deaths they had this week, that’s rotten bad
luck, isn’t it?
FAUCONNEAU: So this poor Monsieur Carteron isn’t well?
THE WAITER: They’ve even told the cleaning lady on his floor
not to bother cleaning his room thoroughly. They figure he’ll be gone
by next week.
FAUCONNEAU: Under what pretext? (The waiter gestures his
ignorance.)
THE WAITER: They’re used to handling that sort of thing.
FAUCONNEAU: He’ll notice that they’re not cleaning his room.
THE WAITER: Oh, a man living alone is disorderly; he won’t
notice.
FAUCONNEAU: What does Monsieur Carteron do?
THE WAITER: Seems he had a wallpaper factory. He sold his busi-
ness when he had enough money to retire. Still he hasn’t had much
pleasure in life, poor old man. The elevator attendant told me. He’d
seen him here before the war.
FAUCONNEAU: The elevator operator is only sixteen years old.
THE WAITER: He was sixteen then too.
FAUCONNEAU: You mean he’s always sixteen?
THE WAITER: He has to be, to keep that job. If he gets any older,
they’ll fire him. In those days Monsieur Carteron was here with his
wife.
FAUCONNEAU: He’s a widower?
THE WAITER: Seems so. Apparently she was very disagreeable,
even rather bitchy, to tell the truth. She went so far as to read him
the riot act in front of the staff, and that’s something to avoid at all
costs. But he was always gentle, polite, never raised his voice.
FAUCONNEAU: How about that!
THE WAITER: Two years ago, I was here then, he came back with
someone who wasn’t… well, I don’t mean anything bad, but that person
wasn’t very refined. He probably hoped they’d have some good times.
Well, just the opposite. He just didn’t know how to pick them. They
found his girl with a colleague.
FAUCONNEAU: A colleague?
THE WAITER: Yes, one of mine. That wasn’t flattering.
FAUCONNEAU: For whom?
THE WAITER: For my colleague! A young man from a good family,
I told him off. But he answered: «What do you expect? The clients
are skimping on the tips; you have to get fringe benefits somehow.» I
tell you, Monsieur, that’s not how I think.
FAUCONNEAU: So what about Monsieur Carteron?
THE WAITER: I don’t know if Monsieur is like me, but I wouldn’t
have hesitated, I’d have given her a good slap. Instead he took her to
the jewelers. I don’t call that goodness, that’s just stupidity! (Carteron
comes back in at that moment.) Has Monsieur finished? May I take the
tray now?
FAUCONNEAU: (Embarrassed.) Of course, of course, I don’t know
what you were waiting for.
(The waiter goes out.)
(Fauconneau can’t help but look at Carteron in an uncomfortable
manner.)
CARTERON: (Dryly.) So what now?
FAUCONNEAU: Nothing, nothing at all. Have you seen the
doctor?
CARTERON: Not yet, he’s delayed on the first floor.
FAUCONNEAU: Monsieur, just now you intrigued me, I can’t hide
the fact, these distractions, these amusements, couldn’t we try one?
CARTERON: Ah! But it seems to me that you don’t exactly fulfill

the necessary conditions.
FAUCONNEAU: Are there requisite conditions?
CARTERON: Damn! Yes, look there, for example, without this
button that lets you hang up at will…
FAUCONNEAU: Yes?
CARTERON: I’m not sure that you would have dared…
FAUCONNEAU: (In a lively manner.) Never, Monsieur, that’s
obvious!
CARTERON: Well, it’s the same thing with the practical jokes that
I sometimes plan in my head, just for the pleasure of it.
FAUCONNEAU: What do you mean?
CARTERON: There too, it’s indispensable that one can “hang up”.
But in my game, it’s once and for all.
FAUCONNEAU: Ah! Good heavens! “Hang up”! Do you by any
chance mean…?
CARTERON: It’s an ingenious way of saying…
FAUCONNEAU: (Shivering.) Yes, yes, quite ingenious.
CARTERON: At your age it’s a long way off.
FAUCONNEAU: Oh! One never knows who’s to live and who’s
to…
CARTERON: Nor who’ll “hang up”.
FAUCONNEAU: And one has to have…
CARTERON: Then it only becomes funny, afterwards.
FAUCONNEAU: Funny, a joke, amusing for whom? Because actu-
ally…
CARTERON: Come now.
FAUCONNEAU: Once you’ve “hung up” you’re no longer in a
position to really enjoy the spectacle. Either one has “to be or not to
be”, isn’t that the question?
CARTERON: You’re well read, I can see, Monsieur. Admittedly
there is a risk, but what can we do? After all, even if the curtain falls,
(with a slight shiver), for good there still are the others.
FAUCONNEAU: You’re not one of those who think…
CARTERON: “Peace in my time?” No, Monsieur, I think a great
deal about others. I owe them that.
FAUCONNEAU: You’re a good one.
CARTERON: You flatter me; I have some memory left, that’s about
all, and this occurred to me of late, perhaps too late, it’s rather curi-
ous. As for your fear, in no way do I share that. The world we live in
seems to be intelligently ordered. Don’t you believe that? I have the
impression that one waits, in the wings behind the scenes or at least in
the corridors backstage so that when the play ends one has earned the
right to hope for a curtain call. Just long enough to catch a glimpse,
or have a quick look.
FAUCONNEAU: You may think I’m meddling in what is none
of my business, but if I were in your place, well, if I wanted to get
revenge on someone, I’d rather not wait.
CARTERON: Revenge? Who said anything about wanting ven-
geance?
FAUCONNEAU: I thought I understood?
CARTERON: But you’re mistaken. Me, seek revenge? Good heav-
ens, first of all against whom, and then what for? And do you think
that would amuse me? No more than receiving a bill. We were talking
about entertainment; vengeance is very unpleasant business. Besides,
I’ll tell you a secret, it’s only random chance that I find exciting. It
always seemed so remarkably intelligent to me.
FAUCONNEAU: But when you were bragging about your
memory?
CARTERON: Let’s suppose someone owes me a debt, but the
debtor’s name is unknown. Now when you open up the phone book,
you open it at random, and if I ever decided to play my little joke, I
would proceed exactly like that.
FAUCONNEAU: To amuse yourself, but what about the others?
CARTERON: My concern would be rather to instruct them.
FAUCONNEAU: To teach by teasing?
CARTERON: I beg your pardon. To teach in a way that amuses
me is not the same as teaching by amusing them.
THE WAITER: (Coming in, to Carteron.) Monsieur, it’s those people

who came yesterday while you were out.
CARTERON: Oh! That’s just fine. Show them in. (The porter goes
out.) (To Fauconneau.) Who knows? Perhaps the phone directory has
just opened.
(Emile, Louise and Suzanne Favier are shown in.)
EMILE FAVIER: Hello.
LOUISE FAVIER: Hello, Uncle. We apologize for coming so early
in the morning but our train leaves at noon.
CARTERON: How can that be? You must be joking! You just got
here. Let me introduce Monsieur Fauconneau, one of the youngest
inspectors of Finance. (The Faviers bow.) Monsieur Favier, Professor at
the University, Madame Favier, Mademoiselle Favier. (Greetings.) I was
terribly sorry to have missed your kind visit, and I would have asked
you to join me for dinner except that I remember that Alphonsine has
spoiled you, serving you only the best meals. That’s her name, isn’t it,
Alphonsine?
LOUISE FAVIER: Oh! Uncle, you remember Alphonsine?
SUZANNE FAVIER: We must tell her.
CARTERON: I remember her plum pie.
LOUISE FAVIER: That’s Uncle Robert!
SUZANNE FAVIER: Always a compliment to make others feel
good.
CARTERON: In those days, I could still eat fancy desserts.
EMILE FAVIER: How are you now, Uncle?
CARTERON: Hmph! Hmph! Not so well.
EMILE FAVIER: Sugar still high?
CARTERON: Like the exchange rate for Swiss Francs.
LOUISE FAVIER: That’s awful.
CARTERON: Is this the first time you’ve come to this part of the
world?
EMILE FAVIER: Louise and I came here on our honeymoon, on
the way back from Venice but for Suzanne it’s new territory.
CARTERON: (To Suzanne.) And do you like it here, Suzanne?
SUZANNE FAVIER: Oh! Uncle, I was just saying to mother: it’s
like a picture postcard.
CARTERON: Is that a complement? (Suzanne, who doesn’t under-
stand, laughs nervously. Fixed in his concentration, Carteron turns toward
Favier.) Well, Emile, still no prospects on the horizon for a change of
situation for you?
EMILE FAVIER: For heaven’s sake, you know how it is; we’ve been
at Nowairsville for ten years now, long enough to become set in our
ways.
LOUISE FAVIER: Besides Emile is not one to be ambitious.
EMILE FAVIER: I enjoy my work, I admit. Oh! I know that’s no
longer fashionable to say.
LOUISE FAVIER: (Laughing.) No, my dear, you certainly are not
the latest model.
CARTERON: (Reflecting.) Oh well! That’s just fine, just fine. (To
Fauconneau who, out of boredom, has picked up the phone directory.)
My friend if you want to phone, don’t hesitate.
FAUCONNEAU: (Annoyed.) Thank you so much.
LOUISE FAVIER: What’s more, at Nowairsville, everyone’s our
friend.
CARTERON: Only friends? (During all this part of the scene, Carteron’s
tone of voice shows that he is pursuing an idea, thinking about something
else. Fauconneau observes him.)
EMILE FAVIER: Oh, it’s just a manner of speaking; women always
exaggerate.
CARTERON: That’s all fine, just fine.
LOUISE FAVIER: After all Emile, you haven’t got a single enemy,
you can’t deny that.
SUZANNE FAVIER: Uncle Robert, you look skeptical.
CARTERON: Oh no, not at all.
LOUISE FAVIER: Fortunately, Emile won’t have anything to do
with politics.
CARTERON: Bravo! And besides if you did have any enemies,
most likely you wouldn’t know about it. (A silence.)
THE WAITER: (Coming in.) Madame Fauconneau, your mother,

has asked that Monsieur come immediately; the doctor is with her.
FAUCONNEAU: (Getting up.) Please excuse me, but my mother is
very nervous. Mesdames, Monsieur, it was a pleasure. (He goes out.)
CARTERON: Well now! I’m delighted with all you tell me. Emile
is right not to be ambitious.
SUZANNE FAVIER: Still, a person should have some ideals, don’t
you think, Uncle?
LOUISE FAVIER: (Excitedly.) And by any chance does your father
lack them? And professional responsibility, don’t you think that’s
important?
SUZANNE FAVIER: There’s no connection. I meant don’t you
think, Uncle that a man like papa should be teaching in Paris?
CARTERON: I suspect the young lady would like to see what’s
fashionable, go to plays…
SUZANNE FAVIER: For intellectuals, Paris is the place to be.
LOUISE FAVIER: You can’t find an apartment. And the cost of
living there is sky high.
CARTERON: Your financial situation could change.
EMILE FAVIER: (Only half sincerely.) I can hardly see how…
LOUISE FAVIER: Besides, neither Emile nor I like going out
evenings.
SUZANNE FAVIER: There are others besides you. Oh! Uncle,
I assure you, if you ever lived with us, you would find our life so
boring.
LOUISE FAVIER: Wait until you hear her ambitions!
EMILE FAVIER: We offered her a nice trip. Do you think she was
satisfied with that?
SUZANNE FAVIER: There is no connection.
CARTERON: Of course! The child has needs, and we will remember
that.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Uncle, you are so kind; we say that so often,
don’t we, Emile?
CARTERON: (Dryly.) Let’s not talk about me.
LOUISE FAVRIER: We worry about you when we think that you
are here all alone.
CARTERON: (More and more dryly.) I am not alone. And what’s
more, solitude is very restful.
EMILE FAVIER: Uncle Robert doesn’t like people to pity him.
CARTERON: I even hate it.
LOUISE FAVRIER: If Aunt Naomi were still alive…
CARTERON: (More and more impatient.) No, no, it’s better this
way. (Trying to recover.) The poor women already had enough burdens,
if she had had to care for me?
LOUISE FAVRIER: (To her husband.) Mark my words! If I had
passed on, you wouldn’t be expressing such feelings!
EMILE FAVIER: (With a touch of uncertainty.) Perhaps, I don’t…
LOUISE FAVRIER: Uncle Robert, you really are special in our
family.
CARTERON: (No longer able to contain his nervousness.) Please
excuse me I’m a bit nervous I’m expecting the doctor any minute and
as he wants to review the test results with me himself.
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Who is thinking of school tests.) Test scores and
examination grades, here?
EMILE FAVIER: No, results of tests; clinical tests.
CARTERON: Yes. (A silence.)
THE WAITER: (Enters the room.) Doctor Wurm will see you now
Monsieur in room eighteen. (He leaves.)
CARTERON: (To the Faviers who have gotten up.) You can wait
here; it won’t take long.
LOUISE FAVRIER: We have to watch the time for our train.
CARTERON: No, don’t go. I’ll be back very soon. (He leaves.)
SUZANNE FAVIER: Mother, did you notice, he was certainly
alluding to…
EMILE FAVIER: (To his wife.) He really is a character.
LOUISE FAVRIER: And he has a heart of gold. You know, I’ve
always said that.
EMILE FAVIER: Must you always quote yourself?
SUZANNE FAVIER: Say, didn’t you get the impression…

LOUISE FAVRIER: Stop talking like that Suzy! I hope poor Uncle
Robert will have many more years to live.
SUZANNE FAVIER: Of course, I do too. But that has no connec-
tion.
LOUISE FAVRIER: What do you mean?
EMILE FAVIER: It’s a real habit, she’s says that all the time.
LOUISE FAVRIER: We’re not in school.
LOUISE FAVRIER: My child, you really are very disagreeable.
When I think what this trip cost us, what sacrifices we had to make,
your attitude is disgracefully insensitive and ungrateful.
SUZANNE FAVIER: But you are expecting a nice inherita…
LOUISE FAVRIER: You’re shameless, you who were speaking of
ideals!
SUZANNE FAVIER: There’s no connection? Oh! Shit! I can’t say
anything without…
LOUISE FAVRIER: When one has bad thoughts, it’s better not to
express them.
SUZANNE FAVIER: (In tears.) When I see Daddy working himself
to death with all his extra tutoring…
LOUISE FAVRIER: My child, is “working himself to death” the
appropriate expression?
SUZANNE FAVIER: Admit it, you’d much rather relax and read
your newspaper.
EMILE FAVIER: I’m not saying that it doesn’t demand an effort.
LOUISE FAVRIER: But that effort is its own reward.
EMILE FAVIER: (To his daughter.) There you are! (Suzanne, vexed,
has opened a magazine, and is leafing through it.) (To Louise, lowering
his voice.) It did seem to me that Uncle Robert…
LOUISE FAVRIER: In any case, I find it unpleasant to think
about.
EMILE FAVIER: (Naively.) It isn’t for me. (Movement by Louise.) I
thought for a minute that you were going to invite him to come and
live with us.
LOUISE FAVRIER: I really was considering it, but now…
EMILE FAVIER: You think it might appear as if . . .
LOUISE FAVRIER: Damn!
EMILE FAVIER: But what does it matter since it isn’t for that
reason? (A silence.) We can’t say it was to get in his good graces, since
we are already there.
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Embarrassed.) Listen!
EMILE FAVIER: You mentioned his solitude.
LOUISE FAVRIER: That’s just too bad.
EMILE FAVIER: Poor old guy! You sacrifice him for the sake of your
scrupulous conscience. That doesn’t strike me as good judgment.
(Fauconneau enters.)
EMILE FAVIER: This gentleman came in perhaps to telephone.
FAUCONNEAU: No, no Monsieur, not at all, thank you. I just
left my mother. The doctor is in a terrible mood today. He put her
on fasting for two days, she’s in tears.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Oh! But it must comfort her that you are here;
whereas our uncle who is here all alone….
FAUCONNEAU: I believe he has considerable inner resources.
EMILE FAVIER: I’m surprised.
FAUCONNEAU: In any event, his conversation is full of sur-
prises.
EMILE FAVIER: He went to a very good high school, but that was
years ago now.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Above all, he has a noble character, courageous
and resigned.
FAUCONNEAU: (Troubled.) Yes, that well may be.
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Annoyed.) No question about it, Monsieur.
(At that moment the voice of the Doctor can be heard coming from
the corridor.) “You French, you always want the pill sugarcoated. And
then, afterwards the family comes and complains that the patient
didn’t have time enough to prepare!”
CARTERON: (Who cannot yet be seen.) Yes, yes thank you. Thanks.
(He opens the door and appears to have lost his composure.)
EMILE FAVIER: (Following an impulse.) Uncle, if you would like,

if you are tired of this nursing home, we would be happy to have you
at our home in Nowairsville, we have a room for you.
CARTERON: (In a colorless voice.) In Breuil?
EMILE FAVIER: Think about it and make up your mind. We
would be so pleased; you could meet our friends.
CARTERON: (with an enigmatic smile.) Ah! Yes, that’s right; your
friends. Well! I will think about it, I will indeed. I’ll get in touch with
you later on.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Good-bye, Uncle.
SUZANNE FAVIER: Good-bye Uncle Robert. We’ll see you again
soon. (They go out after having nodded to Fauconneau.)
(A very long silence. Fauconneau spellbound waits. Carteron’s facial expres-

sion changes slowly. He takes on a hateful, sardonic, spiteful expression.)
CARTERON: (In a half whisper.) Why not them? (He goes to the
table, begins to write muttering indistinctly. All that can be understood
is:) My dear children, my dear children. (He’s obviously choosing his
words carefully. He gets up, wipes his forehead; his whole body shakes with
shivering.)
FAUCONNEAU: What are you doing?
CARTERON: (With a strident laugh.) Don’t you see? Now it’s my
turn to have fun. The joke will be on them. This time it’s I who will
telephone them and then hang up!
ACT TWO
Scene One
A year later, in Nowairsville, at the Favier’s home. The stage is divided
into two levels from downstage to upstage. (Upstage) At the back is a
vestibule that leads to a staircase. (Downstage) In the front is the living
room furnished in a tasteless fashion. Against the left wall is an upright
piano. The door between the vestibule and the living room is open when
the curtain rises. Alphonsine, her broom in her hands, is talking with
the landlady, Madame Sorbier, a little old lady, who looks like a maid
herself, is wearing big glasses and hair curlers.
MADAME SORBIER: Well, are your people going to replace the

broken attic window with a new pain of glass or not?
ALPHONSINE: They replaced it with a piece of cardboard.
MADAME SORBIER: A piece of cardboard! Don’t they have any
pride?
ALPHONSINE: For an attic window…
MADAME SORBIER: An attic window in MY house is like a
parlor in the house across the street. There’s not another like in all
Nowairsville, I assure you. You can tell them that.
ALPHONSINE: Fine!
MADAME SORBIER: And another thing, if I put a door mat at the
bottom of the stairs, it’s not for the tenants to wipe their feet on.
ALPHONSINE: Then why else is it there?
MADAME SORBIER: For show, of course! The metal boot-scrap-
per is obviously not for the cats and dogs. With all the feet that cross
this threshold, it will be worn out in less than six months. All those
school boys and girls. Why does your employer tutor?
ALPHONSINE: That’s not hard to figure out.
MADAME SORBIER: (Thoughtful.) They can’t have much besides
his salary. That’s the problem with teachers. Otherwise they are no
trouble, no cat or dog, only one child at most. How will they manage
when I raise their rent? And their daughter, why isn’t she married? She
seems nice enough.
ALPHONSINE: She has a young man who comes to call every
week now.
MADAME SORBIER: Every week? (A silence.) Here I am talking
my time away; that won’t get my work done. See you later, girl.
ALPHONSINE: (Grumbling.) See you.
(Madame Sorbier leaves.)
LOUISE FAVRIER: (In her bathrobe.) I can’t stand people who
stand and talk in the vestibule.
ALPHONSINE: It’s not my fault, Madame. That woman always

wants to talk; it’s as if she wants to pick your brains.
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Shocked.) What’s that you say?
ALPHONSINE: She’s a real witch. (Favier arrives at that
moment.)
LOUISE FAVRIER: Did we get any mail, Alphonsine?
ALPHONSINE: (Talking a registered letter out of her pocket.) The
postman brought this. He didn’t have time to wait for a signature,
and you weren’t up yet. He said he’d stop back later today.
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Taking the letter.) That’s fine. “Office of
Attorney Lescoe”. What does this mean! More papers! (She goes into
the living room with Emile and closes the door behind her.)
EMILE FAVIER: Give it to me. (Louise hands him the letter which
he opens.) “I have the honor.”
LOUISE FAVRIER: Good heavens! A letter from Uncle Robert.
EMILE FAVIER: Yes! A posthumous letter. (He pronounces the words
complacently.)
LOUISE FAVRIER: A farewell note. But why leave it with the
lawyer?
EMILE FAVIER: Besides it should have come with the inheritance;
and look at this: “Excuse me for having omitted the enclosed”. Those
paper shufflers are so negligent. No professional conscience.
LOUISE FAVRIER: My friend…
EMILE FAVIER: It’s true; that really annoys me. (He adjusts his
eyeglasses. Louise opens the second envelope with a paper cutter.)
LOUISE FAVRIER: Good heavens! Look at that handwriting! See
how shaky it is?
EMILE FAVIER: He must have already been very sick.
LOUISE FAVRIER: I’d never be able to decipher that.
EMILE FAVIER: (Reading.) “My dear children”. (To Louise who is
weeping.) Please don’t get so upset.
LOUISE FAVRIER: It’s the first time he’s written “My dear chil-
dren”; before it was always “My dear Emile, my dear Louise.” It’s so
kind of him.
EMILE FAVIER: He would have done better…
LOUISE FAVRIER: To do what?
EMILE FAVIER: Nothing, I know what I mean.
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Shocked.) That’s ungrateful, Emile.
EMILE FAVIER: No it’s not. Suzanne and us, that makes two.
(Reading.) “When you will read this, I shall have ceased to graze on
this pitiable planet.” What chicken scratches! It’s worse than my school
boys, my word, “ceased to graze”…
LOUISE FAVRIER: He didn’t write “graze”?
EMILE FAVIER: Just take a look. (He shows her the letter.)
LOUISE FAVRIER: Right you are!
EMILE FAVIER: “… on this pitiable planet.”
LOUISE FAVRIER: What strange expressions.
EMILE FAVIER: He was a strange character.
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Mechanically.) With a heart of gold; you don’t
have to tell me.
EMILE FAVIER: Although I was a little surprised… well, let’s forget
it for now. “But I think of you, my poor children”…
LOUISE FAVRIER: He knew we would be very sad.
EMILE FAVIER: He certainly deluded himself, because after all…
“My heart aches when I think…” Well now, he really is exaggerating,
I can’t read what follows.
LOUISE FAVRIER: You’ll have to figure it out! It’s like a message
from the other side of the grave; I still can’t get over the shock.
EMILE FAVIER: “… the candor you displayed… “
LOUISE FAVRIER: What does that mean?
EMILE FAVIER: “… when you told me that you had only friends
in Nowairsville.”
LOUISE FAVRIER: Oh! Why that’s awful!
(Suzanne enters.)
SUZANNE FAVIER: What are you reading?
EMILE FAVIER: A letter from Uncle Robert.
SUZANNE FAVIER: How’s that?
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Solemnly.) Yes, a posthumous letter.
EMILE FAVIER: Further on, there is a sentence underlined.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Well read on.

EMILE FAVIER: I’m losing my eyesight, trying to read it. He could
have taken the trouble to write legibly.
LOUISE FAVRIER: This means he spent his last strength sending
us a tender message.
EMILE FAVIER: Just goes to show you that everyone should learn
to type.
LOUISE FAVRIER: A typewritten posthumous letter. You’re not
making sense.
SUZANNE FAVIER: Give it to me, Daddy. Where were you?
EMILE FAVIER: There. (He gives the letter to her.)
SUZANNE FAVIER: “When this message from the other side of
the grave…”
LOUISE FAVIER: Didn’t I just say that?
SUZANNE FAVIER: “reaches you, in… infamous rumors…”
LOUISE FAVRIER: Good heavens!
SUZANNE FAVIER: “… that some miserable creature, who greets
you politely, has spread about you…”
EMILE FAVIER: That’s not possible! It doesn’t say “infamous”,
does it?
SUZANNE FAVIER: Yes, he wrote “infamous,” just look. “…will
have inevitably reached your ears by now.” Here’s the underlined
sentence now. “I don’t want you to imagine for a moment that I gave
any credence to these terrible…”
EMILE FAVIER: “depraved acts.”
SUZANNE FAVIER: “… that I blush even to mention.” The next
sentence is underlined twice. “For my part, right up to the end, I held
you in the same affection, the same esteem.” The word “esteem” is
underlined four times.
EMILE FAVIER: That cuts us off at the knees!
LOUISE FAVRIER: Emile!
SUZANNE FAVIER: “It seems to me that you will find some
desolation”, no, “consolation in receiving from me this posthu…”
EMILE FAVIER: “posthumous.”
LOUISE FAVRIER: (To Suzanne.) Your hair looks awful today.
EMILE FAVIER: What a lesson!
SUZANNE FAVIER: There’s a post-script: “It goes without saying
that I never mentioned any of this to a living soul. Rest assured.”
LOUISE FAVRIER: Just like him, he still tried to reassure us.
EMILE FAVIER: (To his wife.) Well! What a lesson.
LOUISE FAVRIER: About what, Emile?
EMILE FAVIER: Never mind about what! I simply say it’s a
lesson.
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Without conviction.) Very well. (Another
Silence.) (Favier takes his collar off.) Is it choking you? Still it isn’t one
of the new ones.
EMILE FAVIER: No, it’s fantastic. It’s as if someone dropped a
bomb!
SUZANNE FAVIER: If you want my advice, don’t pay any atten-
tion to it. In a small town there are always gossips. That’s just shows
again that people like us belong in Paris.
EMILE FAVIER: Same old song! It’s becoming an obsession.
LOUISE FAVRIER: People like us! What’s so special about us?
SUZANNE FAVIER: We’re special, we’re intellectuals.
EMILE FAVIER: That child is stupid.
LOUISE FAVRIER: I always believed we had only friends here.
SUZANNE FAVIER: The proof! (Randomly.) Besides all you need
to do is open your ears.
EMILE FAVIER: So! Then you’ve heard something?
SUZANNE FAVIER: Well, I suppose.
EMILE FAVIER: No evasive answers!
SUZANNE FAVIER: Well for example, mother’s clothes.
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Furious) My clothes! Look who’s talking about
style!
EMILE FAVIER: There are “infamous rumors.”
SUZANNE FAVIER: Infamous, infamous, he confused his words;
he meant to say, of course, it’s not “infamous” it’s “famous”. (Favier
takes the letter and shrugs his shoulders.)
EMILE FAVIER: There is the faintly dotted “i” that can be clearly
seen. And then “famous rumors”, I ask you?
SUZANNE FAVIER: That’s what I’m saying; he wasn’t really in his
right mind.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Your uncle was a character, but I won’t let you
dismiss him as senile. That’s downright ungrateful especially when I
think of all he did for you!
EMILE FAVIER: I could have done without him, I’ll admit.
SUZANNE FAVIER: Ten thousand francs is very nice; but still you
must agree…
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Exasperated.) My dear child, please leave us;
your high pitched voice is giving me a migraine.
SUZANNE FAVIER: (To her father.) Come on, Dad, don’t let it
upset you. (She goes out.)
EMILE FAVIER: The child’s right, you know.
LOUISE FAVRIER: What are you saying?
EMILE FAVIER: It would be a mistake to get upset over so little.
(Louise moves.) We just have to remember that at the end he was…
(He taps his forehead.)
EMILE FAVIER: It’s something that could happen to anyone.
There’s no shame in that.
LOUISE FAVRIER: So that’s how you thank him for his last gesture
of thoughtfulness! And besides, just a minute ago, you thought there
was a lesson to learn from this.
EMILE FAVIER: No way.
LOUISE FAVRIER: That’s saying too much!
EMILE FAVIER: I simply said: what a lesson!
SUZANNE FAVIER: (From outside.) There’s no connection.
LOUISE FAVRIER: She’s eavesdropping. (A silence. Favier, really
annoyed, taps his fingers on the table.) Besides just to look at you…
EMILE FAVIER: I don’t want to make a scene. I will exercise self
control, that’s it, I will control myself.
LOUISE FAVRIER: You are right. And then, what we have to tell
ourselves…
EMILE FAVIER: What now?
LOUISE FAVRIER: Well, as long as our consciences are clear. (A
silence.) Don’t you agree?
EMILE FAVIER: (Irritated.) Well yes! Of course, that’s obvious!
Then what?
LOUISE FAVRIER: It’s a real comfort.
EMILE FAVIER: (Ironically.) Indeed. It’s frightening the number
of useless words you utter in one day.
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Wounded.) But, Emile, think what it would
be like if we did have something to reproach ourselves. That would
be really awful. (Favier stands at the window, drumming his fingers on
the window pane.) I’m amazed you don’t share my feelings.
EMILE FAVIER: What difference does it make whether I do share
them or not? The roof is falling in on our heads, and that’s no time
to split hairs.
LOUISE FAVRIER: How you vacillate.
EMILE FAVIER: Who me? These rumors, I, I, I spit on them.
LOUISE FAVRIER: But you say that in such a tone of voice. We
must remain calm, and try to clear all this up.
EMILE FAVIER: Clear up all this confusion!
LOUISE FAVRIER: Yes.
EMILE FAVIER: Another one of your famous phrases! How can
we clear it up?
LOUISE FAVRIER: We could, I don’t want to say, make inqui-
ries.
EMILE FAVIER: (Ironically.) Oh really?
LOUISE FAVRIER: Naturally; but we could cleverly ask around.
(Favier bolts.)
EMILE FAVIER: Are you crazy? Ask around? Have you lost your
mind completely?
LOUISE FAVRIER: It’s a question of tactfulness.
EMILE FAVIER: Go ahead, admit it; you think this is funny.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Who knows? Perhaps?
EMILE FAVIER: You’re out of your mind! (He points to the door
and says in a stage whisper.) Do you want to give her reason to be
suspicious?
LOUISE FAVRIER: Suspicious?
EMILE FAVIER: No! Everything is upside down and backwards
here.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Don’t shout dear, please; no telling what that
girl will think.
EMILE FAVIER: I don’t give a damn!
LOUISE FAVRIER: That’s not true. (She calls.) Alphonsine!
(Alphonsine enters.)
ALPHONSINE: (Coming in, a basket on her arm.) Madame
called?
LOUISE FAVRIER: Ah! You are going to the market to shop.
ALPHONSINE: Same as every Thursday, Madame.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Yes, yes, of course.
EMILE FAVIER: Very well then, Alphonsine, go along.
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Keeping her there.) Your reliability pleases us
very much, and Monsieur Favier and I have been thinking that come
January…
EMILE FAVIER: What’s that?
LOUISE FAVIER: Perhaps we can give you a bit of a raise, perhaps
300 francs a month.
EMILE FAVIER: We’ve thought about that but we’ll have to see,
we must consider, it will depend on a number of things.
ALPHONSINE: (Disdainfully.) Three hundred francs a month! I
was just about to tell Madame that it can’t go on like this.
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Excitedly.) You see we anticipated your desires.
You really are fortunate, Alphonsine. I hope you appreciate that.
ALPHONSINE: (Dryly.) I’m not complaining.
LOUISE FAVRIER: The more I think about it, the more I realize,
you really are lucky; People must tell you that, don’t they?
ALPHONSINE: Oh Madame, I don’t pay attention to what other
people say.
EMILE FAVIER: (Excitedly.) You pay no heed to what others say,
and you’re absolutely right to be that way.
LOUISE FAVRIER: But what do people say? (Movement by Favier.)
Let’s ask Alphonsine. Well?
ALPHONSINE: Well the maid, across the street, she gets four
hundred francs just for twiddling her thumbs.
EMILE FAVIER: (Whispering to his wife.) There, see what it gets
you!
LOUISE FAVRIER: But that young girl is working for someone
who’s not very reputable.
ALPHONSINE: All I know is that she has money.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Not a nice woman, whereas you, you work
for, well I don’t have to tell you.
ALPHONSINE: It seems she’s going to get a car.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Ill begotten money, Alphonsine, you’d want
no part of it.
ALPHONSINE: Oh! Madame, money doesn’t smell. People only
speak badly of it when they don’t have it. Oh! There’s the butcher who
always wonders why Monsieur and Madame take the cheapest cuts
of meat; he says, for that it’s hardly worth paying teachers the salaries
they get.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Alphonsine, do you know how much your
employer earns?
EMILE FAVIER: Shh! Shh!
LOUISE FAVRIER: The door bell rang. Go answer it. (Alphonsine
goes out.) That girl has a very bad attitude.
EMILE FAVIER: You can be sure that your questions put a bee in
her bonnet.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Listen to that, your choice of words.
EMILE FAVIER: She will spread it all over.
LOUISE FAVRIER: What? What will she tell?
ALPHONSINE: (Knocking at the door.) Monsieur Corbigny asks
if he may see Monsieur Favier.
EMILE FAVIER: Corbigny! Say I’m not at home.
LOUISE FAVRIER: A colleague! You’re not thinking.
EMILE FAVIER: All right then! Show him in.

LOUISE FAVRIER: But I don’t want him to see me dressed like
this. (She leaves, from the left.)
EMILE FAVIER: (Nervous.) Oh yes! That’s important, isn’t it?
(Corbigny enters.)
CORBIGNY: Hello, my friend; I hope I’m not disturbing you?
EMILE FAVIER: Why no, not at all.
CORBIGNY: (After having looked at him.) Well now, I imagine you
have some inkling of what brings me here.
EMILE FAVIER: No, I don’t.
CORBIGNY: I must admit I hesitated. But our colleagues said go
ahead, go right ahead and so…
EMILE FAVIER: And so?
CORBIGNY: But I must say I wasn’t enthusiastic about it.
EMILE FAVIER: But why? What are you talking about?
CORBIGNY: Oh! We mustn’t exaggerate things. I’m sure you’ll
respond to the situation in the proper way. So I won’t beat around
the bush.
EMILE FAVIER: Fine.
CORBIGNY: Besides, you know me well enough to realize I’m not
someone who circles for an hour before landing.
EMILE FAVIER: Out with it then!
CORBIGNY: All right then! I came to ask you… but, my friend,
don’t look at me like that.
EMILE FAVIER: Get it over with.
CORBIGNY: To withdraw!
EMILE FAVIER: Here we are, now it begins! I should withdraw?
CORBIGNY: You are a candidate?
EMILE FAVIER: Withdraw from being a candidate?
CORBIGNY: For election as President of the Gentlemen’s Club.
EMILE FAVIER: This is incredible!
CORBIGNY: Then you were not…
EMILE FAVIER: (Exploding.) I mean I considered the election a
mere formality.
CORBIGNY: Of course, if you stay in the race…
EMILE FAVIER: Good grief! I maintain my candidacy formally.
CORBIGNY: Listen to me a minute!
EMILE FAVIER: What do people think I am?
CORBIGNY: The presidency means that much to you.
EMILE FAVIER: You’re damned right!
CORBIGNY: That’s strange.
EMILE FAVIER: You really are beyond belief.
CORBIGNY: I would have thought that you were above such small
things.
EMILE FAVIER: Do you think that I want the office only for
myself? Why, it will only bring me tedious tasks.
CORBIGNY: So then, why?
EMILE FAVIER: It’s my duty. It’s a burden but I’ll carry it.
CORBIGNY: (Ironically.) Bravo!
EMILE FAVIER: Absolutely, I want it… No, I see you don’t know
me!
CORBIGNY: As a matter of fact, you’re right!
EMILE FAVIER: And may I ask, under what pretext?
CORBIGNY: What difference does it make?
EMILE FAVIER: Excuse me, but I want to know.
CORBIGNY: You have adopted such an attitude.
EMILE FAVIER: Please.
CORBIGNY: All right then! Huey and I thought that it would be
a charity to offer the presidency to poor old Villemot. He has always
dreamed of being president of something.
EMILE FAVIER: So what’s that to me?
CORBIGNY: They’ll replace him next year, or the following cer-
tainly.
EMILE FAVIER: And rightly so! He’s half senile now!
CORBIGNY: His life has been very sad. He’s had one son killed,
another seriously wounded.
EMILE FAVIER: But, Sir?
CORBIGNY: I say it again, it seemed cruel to us to deprive him

of this small satisfaction.
EMILE FAVIER: (Coldly.) I tell you that doesn’t work with me.
CORBIGNY: What do you mean, that doesn’t work?
EMILE FAVIER: You haven’t taken me in at all. A son killed, another
mutilated, why not add that he’s been cuckolded.
CORBIGNY: (Startled.) Oh come now!
EMILE FAVIER: You only have to look at him and you can tell.
CORBIGNY: Oh really!
EMILE FAVIER: Besides everybody knows it.
CORBIGNY: (Getting up.) Let’s leave it at that.
EMILE FAVIER: On the contrary, I demand an explanation. I’m
entitled to one.
CORBIGNY: An explanation?
EMILE FAVIER: How is it that you come, as you say in the name
of your colleagues (Movement by Corbigny) to ask me a, a favor that
is an insult (Corbigny raises his eyes to the sky) and you think that I am
just going to accept this, this affront?
CORBIGNY: We’re not even speaking the same language.
EMILE FAVIER: That’s because I like things to be said clearly, in
an outspoken manner; do you understand? I’m fed up with all these
insinuations.
CORBIGNY: What insinuations?
EMILE FAVIER: Don’t pretend to be innocent. It’s obvious what
you’re trying to do.
CORBIGNY: (Going out.) My friend, I’ll give you one piece of
advice, take your temperature.
(Corbigny exits.)
EMILE FAVIER: (Going to the door on the left.) Louise!
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Appearing at the door.) What is it?
EMILE FAVIER: Something amazing. Imagine that Corbigny had
the audacity to ask me to withdraw my candidacy and concede the
election to Villemot.
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Delighted.) What a wonderful idea!
EMILE FAVIER: What are you saying?
LOUISE FAVRIER: That way you’ll get rid of a burdensome job,
and at the same time you’ll make an old man happy.
EMILE FAVIER: But don’t you see that…
LOUISE FAVRIER: What?
EMILE FAVIER: There’s something else going on underneath it
all.
EMILE FAVIER: Well, it confirms that… it’s the result of those
rumors.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Are you crazy?
EMILE FAVIER: (Embarrassed.) I refused!
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Going to the window and opening it.) Fortu-
nately he’s still there.
EMILE FAVIER: He’s talking with the landlady. Heaven knows
what she’s telling him, that witch.
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Calling.) Monsieur Corbigny! Would you
come back upstairs again for a minute?
EMILE FAVIER: Then you want me to… but how will that make
me look?
LOUISE FAVRIER: That doesn’t matter.
EMILE FAVIER: I beg your pardon.
LOUISE FAVRIER: How did he interpret your refusal?
EMILE FAVIER: (Mumbling.) He thought I had a fever.
LOUISE FAVRIER: What did you say?
EMILE FAVIER: Nothing.
LOUISE FAVRIER: I’ll go to the door to greet him. (Louise
exits.)
EMILE FAVIER: Ah! But I don’t want it to appear that it was you
who made me change my mind, do you understand Louise! (She has
gone out. Favier paces back and forth.)
(Corbigny enters.)
EMILE FAVIER: Come in. Now here’s how it is. I’ve reflected.
CORBIGNY: (With great reserve.) Oh!
EMILE FAVIER: There’s plenty of food for thought in what you just
told me. Oh! I still maintain my point of view; that I do absolutely.
CORBIGNY: So?
EMILE FAVIER: Well out of consideration for poor old Ville-
mot…
Oh! I still think that you are asking me to shirk my duty; I am
usually not a quitter. What’s more you know how I think about these
matters. The common good…
CORBIGNY: If that’s the way you see things, then of course, but
in that case was it worth calling me back?
EMILE FAVIER: (Putting his foot in it.) But I didn’t… (Trying to
recover.) Yes indeed, most certainly. You might have thought that I
was influenced by personal motives, actually it’s quite simple: I really
didn’t want to stand for election.
CORBIGNY: Even so.
EMILE FAVIER: Peace at all costs. Now you are giving me a chance
to get off the ballot, and I accept, eagerly.
CORBIGNY: But just a moment ago?
EMILE FAVIER: There was a misunderstanding.
CORBIGNY: What misunderstanding?
EMILE FAVIER: It’s too long to explain. I… What’s more, you
were right, I’m not well. I should take it easy.
CORBIGNY: (Very politely.) Nothing serious, I hope?
EMILE FAVIER: Upset stomach. But you know, you can’t be sure,
it might be, it might be an angina, or again, it might not be anything
at all.
CORBIGNY: (To Louise who comes in at that moment.) Madame, I
am so sorry to hear that your husband has not been well.
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Astounded.) Emile, not well?
EMILE FAVIER: Come now, you know very well.
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Trying to correct herself.) Yes, yes that’s right.
Oh! Just minor upsets, like you get at the change of each season.
EMILE FAVIER: It’s easy for you to say that.
CORBIGNY: Well that’s good news. Good-bye, my friend.
EMILE FAVIER: So, tell them I am very happy; it’s one less
burden.
(Corbigny has gone out.)
EMILE FAVIER: Congratulations, you just made a real mess, I had
just told him that I was sick.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Why did you say that?
EMILE FAVIER: You don’t understand anything do you? (He goes
to the window and opens it.)
LOUISE FAVRIER: Are you going to call him back again?
EMILE FAVIER: (Shouting out the window.) I’m not taking back
anything I said about you know who.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Who are you talking about?
EMILE FAVIER: Villemot.
EMILE FAVIER: That he was cuckold.
EMILE FAVIER: Everybody knows it. Where there’s smoke there’s
fire.
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Shocked.) That can’t be.
EMILE FAVIER: (Realizing that he’s made a mistake.) There’s no
connection.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Madame Villemot is President of our Red
Cross Chapter.
EMILE FAVIER: (Who has picked up his newspaper that he reads fit-
fully while biting his nails.) All right then! Your president is a hussy.
LOUISE FAVRIER: You’re really not yourself today… I think I
should call Doctor Jobin to come and to see you.
EMILE FAVIER: That’s the last thing I need! I’m as strong as an
ox.
LOUISE FAVRIER: I’m not disappointed that young Vacarel isn’t
coming for his lesson today.
EMILE FAVIER: Isn’t coming?
LOUISE FAVRIER: His mother stopped by yesterday evening to tell
me that the child was sick.
EMILE FAVIER: He was in class yesterday. That’s too much.

LOUISE FAVRIER: What difference does it make to you, Emile?
EMILE FAVIER: It would have been a change of pace.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Well now it’s an hour of free time you hadn’t
counted on.
EMILE FAVIER: Well, what am I supposed to do with all this
“liberty?”
LOUISE FAVRIER: Come take a walk with me on the prom-
enade.
EMILE FAVIER: Oh no, thank you!
LOUISE FAVRIER: You’re not very affectionate, my dear; especially
for our anniversary.
EMILE FAVIER: (Exclaiming.) Is it really?
LOUISE FAVRIER: I know we agreed not to exchange gifts, but
you could at least be less disagreeable.
EMILE FAVIER: My Louie, I’m sorry! Let’s go for a short walk
anyway.
LOUISE FAVRIER: No, thank you.
EMILE FAVIER: And then, of course people will talk about it.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Since you brought it up. (Movement by Favier.)
While I was dressing, I thought it over. Well, Emile we have to either
forget that letter completely…
EMILE FAVIER: That’s easier said than done!
LOUISE FAVRIER: Or proceed methodically. Let me finish. In any
case we have to stop looking for confirmation in every thing that hap-
pens. As soon as we start looking for proof we find it everywhere.
EMILE FAVIER: That’s true.
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Encouraged.) It would be better to ask very
frankly what in our lives could have caused…
EMILE FAVIER: I haven’t done anything wrong.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Of course not.
EMILE FAVIER: Obviously, I can only speak for myself.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Oh!
EMILE FAVIER: And if by chance, there is someone up there, I
defy him to find anything reprehensible in my past.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Oh! That’s going too far!
EMILE FAVIER: (Raising his voice.) I dare him.
EMILE FAVIER: (Yelling.) I defy him, for heaven’s sake. (A
silence.)
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Coldly.)First of all, my friend, since you don’t
believe in God…
EMILE FAVIER: And I’m proud of that.
LOUISE FAVRIER: That dare doesn’t mean much.
EMILE FAVIER: I beg to differ.
LOUISE FAVRIER: A little humility please.
EMILE FAVIER: That’s hypocrisy, and you know it.
LOUISE FAVRIER: That’s too bad.
EMILE FAVIER: The bigot’s taking aim.
LOUISE FAVRIER: I am not a bigot.
EMILE FAVIER: Scratch the surface…
LOUISE FAVRIER: One thing I’m sure of, I don’t pretend to be a
know it all do I?
EMILE FAVIER: I’m not saying a word.
LOUISE FAVRIER: It’s easy to remember from your past…
EMILE FAVIER: Be precise.
LOUISE FAVRIER: an incident…
EMILE FAVIER: Tell me exactly.
LOUISE FAVRIER: It’s hardly the appropriate moment.
EMILE FAVIER: (Mopping his brow.) I’ve never been calmer.
LOUISE FAVRIER: All right, how about, during the war?
EMILE FAVIER: Go on.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Some people could have inferred?
EMILE FAVIER: Name them.
LOUISE FAVRIER: That if you had really wanted to serve?
EMILE FAVIER: You haven’t answered me.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Some men served whose health wasn’t as good

as yours.
EMILE FAVIER: So you are insinuating?
LOUISE FAVRIER: I’m not insinuating anything at all I’m not
claiming it was my opinion.
EMILE FAVIER: Great. That damned letter will at least have served
to uncork your flood of grievances so now I can do likewise.
LOUISE FAVRIER: You don’t want to understand.
EMILE FAVIER: And then I can tell you all my suspicions.
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Having difficulty controlling herself.) I am only
saying that the gossips…
EMILE FAVIER: Fine, fine, you’re covering your tracks. But it’s
too late. So the sacrifices I made for the two of you, what I did as a
dutiful father, well, that’s a bitter and unexpected blow!
LOUISE FAVRIER: What do you mean? Then you regretted
not…
EMILE FAVIER: Of course!
LOUISE FAVRIER: You would have liked to be on the front
line?
EMILE FAVIER: Certainly!
LOUISE FAVRIER: And I had no idea. I’m sorry, but you hid your
sadness so well.
EMILE FAVIER: It’s elementary.
LOUISE FAVRIER: It was for us? Oh dearest! (She kisses him.) But,
then how come you asked Monsieur “What’s His Name” you know, to
write a letter to the major, you remember? When in 1917 they were
reclassifying those who had medical exemptions?
EMILE FAVIER: So?
LOUISE FAVRIER: That too was for us?
EMILE FAVIER: Who else could it have been for?
LOUISE FAVRIER: I had thought it was because of your diarrhea,
your stomach problem.
EMILE FAVIER: My diarrhea!
LOUISE FAVRIER: Yes, at that time you complained quite a bit
otherwise I probably would not have advised you…
EMILE FAVIER: I beg you?
LOUISE FAVRIER: I would not have presumed to ask this sacrifice
of you.
EMILE FAVIER: That’s exactly why I did it without talking to you
about it. I’ve always abhorred attacks of generosity. (A long silence;
then with a vague uneasiness.) Aren’t you coming? The weather looks
good.
LOUISE FAVRIER: No thank you.
EMILE FAVIER: Just now it was you who wanted…
LOUISE FAVRIER: I forgot I had to straighten up the house.
EMILE FAVIER: (Going toward the door.) I’ll go alone.
LOUISE FAVRIER: You pretended (a flinching movement by Favier.)
that you were sick. If someone recognizes… (Favier does an about face.)
On the other hand you can’t hide all your life. (He does another about
face.)
EMILE FAVIER: (Furious.) So what?
LOUISE FAVRIER: Leave by the side door; that way you won’t
meet anyone.
(Favier goes out.)
SUZANNE FAVIER: (Opening the door a crack.) Mother, can I speak
with you a minute? You know, something occurred to me. (Louise raises
her eyebrows.) I can’t help it. It’s bothering me, I can’t help it. First of
all, Monsieur Charles…
LOUISE FAVRIER: Yes?
SUZANNE FAVIER: He still hasn’t declared his intentions. What
if by chance these rumors have gotten to him?
LOUISE FAVRIER: Don’t be silly! If he believed them, he wouldn’t
be calling so frequently. He hasn’t heard a thing.
SUZANNE FAVIER: But it’s so strange that he doesn’t propose.
LOUISE FAVRIER: He’s taking his time; he’s reflective, weighing
the pros and the cons.
SUZANNE FAVIER: It’s not very pleasant for me. And what do
you think about this: the maid whom we let go two years ago, the
one we caught drinking perfume in a cordial glass?
LOUISE FAVRIER: Felicity?
SUZANNE FAVIER: Didn’t you tell me she had said: “I’ll get even
with you?”
LOUISE FAVRIER: Never.
SUZANNE FAVIER: It happens all the time.
LOUISE FAVRIER: In cheap novels. You’re reading trash.
SUZANNE FAVIER: In real life too.
LOUISE FAVRIER: What do you know about life! Besides, just
listen to me, what could she have to tattle about us?
SUZANNE FAVIER: She could have made something up. Besides,
sometimes maids like that know little secrets. Remember Rosalie at
the Salaberts?
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Indignant.) Rosalie at the Salaberts! Well I’ll
tell you there are reasons why she knows the family secrets, more so
than poor Jane Salabert.
SUZANNE FAVIER: And it’s the same thing at the Paulets. Lucy
was telling me again yesterday.
LOUISE FAVRIER: What are you saying?
SUZANNE FAVIER: They have a cute little Italian maid, and by
damn Monsieur Paulet!
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Violently.) Are you implying that your
father?
SUZANNE FAVIER: (Cautiously.) I don’t know, but you under-
stand.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Your father has too delicate a conscience, he is
so sensitive. I noticed it again just now. Where did you ever get such
an idea? (She paces nervously.)
SUZANNE FAVIER: You know we don’t always choose our
thoughts.
LOUISE FAVRIER: That letter! Oh! If poor Uncle Robert could
have guessed, why he’d turn over in his grave! Your father, your father
who never caused me five minutes grief. It’s quite simple, I just don’t
know of any other marriage like ours.
SUZANNE FAVIER: Then why did he fire that maid?
(Favier comes in, followed by Madame Sorbier who is yelling at
him.)
EMILE FAVIER: (Turning around.) All right, all right, that’s
enough!
MADAME SORBIER: He hit me! He dared lay a hand on me! A
tenant who pays six thousand francs!
LOUISE FAVRIER: What’s happening here?
EMILE FAVIER: She had the gall to ask me when we’re going
to replace the broken window in the attic! She claimed the piece of
cardboard makes the front of the house look unsightly. What business
is that of hers?
MADAME SORBIER: Of course it’s my business. I don’t want
shabby, poverty stricken people in my house.
EMILE FAVIER: Don’t you remember; this is our home?
MADAME SORBIER: He’s going to strike me again, you’ll see!
EMILE FAVIER: I didn’t touch you. You’re too disgusting for
that.
MADAME SORBIER: And you a tenant who pays minimum rent!
But you’ll see, you piker, you’ll see. I’m going to the police station
right now!
LOUISE FAVRIER: Come, come, Madame, be calm, surely there’s
some misunderstanding. My husband was just telling me at lunch that
there was no one like you when it came to good house keeping.
MADAME SORBIER: You’ll see. (She goes out screaming.) It’s just
like Monsieur Corbigny was telling me!
EMILE FAVIER: Corbigny! Corbigny! What have those two been
stirring up?
(The crazed landlady is still yelling.) A tenant who pays minimum
rent! A tenant who pays minimum rent!
ACT TWO
Scene Two
Same Setting
MADAME THOMASSET: So, Madame Favier doesn’t see anyone

until after four o’clock?
ALPHONSINE: Sometimes Madame is here all afternoon, but as
for seeing people…
MADAME THOMASSET: (Looking at her watch.) And look at
what time it is.
ALPHONSINE: Well Madame surely won’t be long; I’m surprised.
There’s the bell! Well! There certainly are a lot of visits today! (She
goes out and comes back after a moment escorting Monsieur Charles in,
saying:) Monsieur Charles your mother has just arrived. (She closes the
door as she goes out.)
MADAME THOMASSET: What does this mean?
CHARLES THOMASSET: I confess I wasn’t at all reassured; you
have a way of beating people down when you set your mind to it.
MADAME THOMASSET: I want to put an end to a situation
which, by your fault, has dragged on too long. Charles, my son, it
was you yourself who first recognized it. But now I’m afraid I won’t
be able to stay. (She coughs.) By October the twenty fifth a respectable
home should have a fire going, and I don’t want to catch pneumonia,
anyway it’s better you settle this matter.
CHARLES THOMASSET: (Flabbergasted.) Then you think that I
will…
MADAME THOMASSET: You acted foolishly. It’s only just that
you suffer the consequences. Imagine there are people already saying
you are engaged!
CHARLES THOMASSET: But what am I going to tell her, the
poor thing?
MADAME THOMASSET: You just have to make her understand.
After all, you’re not engaged, at least not that I know. Are you?
CHARLES THOMASSET: But she must have the impression…
MADAME THOMASSET: That doesn’t matter.
CHARLES THOMASSET: I’ve come every week.
MADAME THOMASSET: Explain that you are very busy.
CHARLES THOMASSET: She’s very nice, a sweet girl.
MADAME THOMASSET: If you have a choice, you don’t marry a
teacher’s daughter. As decent as can be, and no doubt a good person,
but they all look like cooks who are over thirty years old. It’s a fact.
And then, just look at these rugs! (She lifts up a cushion and exclaims
with a triumph cry.) I knew it, a big hole!
CHARLES THOMASSET: If there were just some excuse, yes, like
if she had compromised herself!
MADAME THOMASSET: You’re too soft, and you’re too scru-
pulous, just like your father. Now a day’s ideas like that get you
nowhere.
CHARLES THOMASSET: I’m not ambitious.
MADAME THOMASSET: That’s where you’re wrong. (She looks at
her watch.) Five minutes after four; and they receive from four o’clock
on. A detail, but it’s significant. No manners.
CHARLES THOMASSET: Your watch is fast.
MADAME THOMASSET: It’s symbolic. (Charles looks at his mother
with admiration nuanced by irony; she opens the piano.) I bet it’s out of
tune. (She plays a chord.) What did I tell you?
CHARLES THOMASSET: Mother!
MADAME THOMASSET: They’re not our kind of people. What
do you expect? People like us just don’t marry people from families
like theirs.
CHARLES THOMASSET: People like us?
MADAME THOMASSET: Refined people, people with taste. You
realize full well it’s not money; do I consider money important? Do
I? Tell me? No, but there are people who are not fit for each other.
(Delighted with her discovery.) No one should marry beneath their
cultural level. It’s a spiritual incompatibility. Enough now, I must
go. Tell them that I was expected at the garden party after the dress
rehearsal but don’t do anything stupid. I warned you there could be
terrible consequences for you. You know very well, it’s for your own
good!
CHARLES THOMASSET: But what am I going to say to the poor
girl?
MADAME THOMASSET: Take her aside, in a quiet corner…
CHARLES THOMASSET: (Indicating the tiny room.) In a quiet
corner!
MADAME THOMASSET: You’ll find the words, in the style of
Racine.
CHARLES THOMASSET: I’d rather leave with you and never
come back.
MADAME THOMASSET: (Speaking with an English accent.)
Charles! Remember what your father said, always behave like a gentle-
man!
(She leaves.)
(Charles left alone moves various objects.)
ALPHONSINE: (Coming in.) Monsieur Charles is alone?
CHARLES THOMASSET: Yes, my mother didn’t have time to
wait any longer. (Alphonsine winks knowingly.)
ALPHONSINE: I’m amazed that Madame and Mademoiselle
Favier are not back yet. Fortunately Monsieur Charles is very patient.
If Monsieur Charles would like to look at the Monthly Review, it just
arrived. There’s a charming novel that began last week. That will surely
interest Monsieur Charles. It’s a love story.
CHARLES THOMASSET: (Dryly.) Thank you. (Alphonsine leaves.
Mechanically, Charles goes to the piano and begins to play with one finger,
humming vaguely “The Romance of Sybil”.)
(Favier comes in at that moment.)
CHARLES THOMASSET: (To himself.) That’s a huge mistake!
EMILE FAVIER: Ah! Ah! Very good! I didn’t realize you were a
musician. Please continue. I think my daughter will be home soon, my
wife too. They must be visiting our landlady who made a ridiculous
scene yesterday, and with the housing shortage these days. Please sit
down. (They have nothing to say to one another. Favier looks at Charles
smiling. Charles lowers his eyes.)
CHARLES THOMASSET: This morning I thought it was going
to rain.
EMILE FAVIER: (Always with the same smile.) Yes, yes.
CHARLES THOMASSET: And actually not a drop of rain has
fallen. That happens often at this time of year.
EMILE FAVIER: That right. (Charles raises his eyes and sees that
Favier is still smiling.)
CHARLES THOMASSET: (Getting up.) It’s getting late, I really
think…
EMILE FAVIER: (Forcing him to sit down again.) No, no. She’ll be
right back. Come now, you’ll survive.
(Suzanne enters.)
EMILE FAVIER: Oh! You see everything’s… Your fian… Monsieur
Charles had already begun to worry about you. (He looks at the time.) I
am going to ask you to excuse me; I’m expecting a student any minute
now.
SUZANNE FAVIER: Mother is always ready to argue with that
shrew. Oh! it’s not easy to pacify her.
EMILE FAVIER: See you later.
(He goes out.)
CHARLES THOMASSET: (To himself.) Racine-like sentences,
classic cadence sentences.
SUZANNE FAVIER: (With light laughter and light gestures.) What
does this mean! Papa leaves us all alone! What can he be thinking
of?
CHARLES THOMASSET: (Dryly.) It’s because he is waiting for a
pupil.
SUZANNE FAVIER: But nevertheless. I really don’t know.
CHARLES THOMASSET: Please, Mademoiselle. Do you like
Racine’s plays?
SUZANNE FAVIER: Of course! I like all the classics!
CHARLES THOMASSET: All the classics! Hmm! I don’t know
if you share my opinion, but I find that there are heart-rending situ-
ations in Racine’s plays. I have in mind, one play in particular; can
you guess which one it is?
SUZANNE FAVIER: I don’t know. Is it Esther or Athalie?

CHARLES THOMASSET: No. It was Bérénice that I was thinking
of.
SUZANNE FAVIER: (Uncertain.) Bérénice, that’s a lovely name,
don’t you think so?
CHARLES THOMASSET: Don’t you know Bérénice?
SUZANNE FAVIER: I know it’s performed often at the Comédie
Française.
CHARLES THOMASSET: So then it goes without saying invitus
invitam, you don’t understand? That’s nothing, it doesn’t matter at
all. (A silence.)
SUZANNE FAVIER: (Without effort.) It seems to me we haven’t
seen you as often as usual, recently.
CHARLES THOMASSET: And unfortunately you’ll see me even
less in the future.
SUZANNE FAVIER: Oh! That’s not good.
CHARLES THOMASSET: I’m going to be extremely busy.
SUZANNE FAVIER: But you’ll find a free moment now and
then?
CHARLES THOMASSET: I’m afraid that will be very difficult for
me.
SUZANNE FAVIER: Sundays?
CHARLES THOMASSET: Even Sundays.
SUZANNE FAVIER: (Greatly vexed.) Oh! All right; that’s just fine.
(A silence.)
CHARLES THOMASSET: (Embarrassed.) Mademoiselle, you
understand that there must be serious reasons, even exceptionally
serious.
SUZANNE FAVIER: What reasons?
CHARLES THOMASSET: I can’t disclose them to you. That would
be quite impossible.
SUZANNE FAVIER: Don’t you trust me, Monsieur Charles?
CHARLES THOMASSET: Of course I do, Mademoiselle. Oh
I do! It’s just that, (just for something to say), the human heart is so
complex.
SUZANNE FAVIER: Oh! Come now! I see what it is.
CHARLES THOMASSET: What do you see?
SUZANNE FAVIER: It’s not difficult, only you could have… Oh!
I know that there are other girls who are prettier.
CHARLES THOMASSET: That’s not true.
SUZANNE FAVIER: Who are rich, much richer. Oh! Money!
CHARLES THOMASSET: Do you believe I’m capable? Oh,
Mademoiselle!
SUZANNE FAVIER: Who is it? Tell me.
CHARLES THOMASSET: There’s no one else, I swear to you.
SUZANNE FAVIER: Why then?
CHARLES THOMASSET: (Randomly.) It’s a secret. I cannot tell
you.
SUZANNE FAVIER: You’re not allowed to?
CHARLES THOMASSET: (Very awkwardly.) Besides may I remind
you that there has never been, between us, a question of…
SUZANNE FAVIER: Oh! That’s dastardly, not worthy of you.
CHARLES THOMASSET: Mademoiselle?
SUZANNE FAVIER: I assure you, there could have been no mistak-
ing, but you say you haven’t the right, would that be perhaps because
of what people are saying?
CHARLES THOMASSET: People? I don’t understand what you
mean.
SUZANNE FAVIER: Oh! Don’t pretend you’re surprised! It’s just
what I was saying to Mother today. Good heavens! This is terrible!
(Louise enters.)
LOUISE FAVRIER: (She crosses the room and goes to the door on the
left.) Well, here I am, but oh, that wasn’t easy!
EMILE FAVIER: (His voice is heard. He’s in a bad mood.) Don’t you
see I have a pupil with me!
LOUISE FAVRIER: You’ll never guess what I had to agree to.
(She turns again toward Charles and Suzanne.) Oh! Good afternoon,
Monsieur Charles, I beg your pardon, but things here are enough to
drive anyone crazy. Emile! I had to invite her to dinner.
EMILE FAVIER: (Appearing.) That Sorbier woman!

LOUISE FAVRIER: Tonight.
SUZANNE FAVIER: But Mother, we are not alone!
LOUISE FAVRIER: Exactly. She said to me. “Your maid told me
that tonight you are having special guests.”
EMILE FAVIER: (Closing the door.) That’s just great! (He leaves.)
LOUISE FAVRIER: “You must invite me.” She argued that we owe
her at least that.
SUZANNE FAVIER: What will people say?
CHARLES THOMASSET: (In a muffled tone.) Once again, these
“people”.
LOUISE FAVRIER: My dear child, remember our lease expires in
two months! Were the two of you alone together when I came in?
SUZANNE FAVIER: Oh! Mother, if you only knew!
LOUISE FAVRIER: Well I can guess.
SUZANNE FAVIER: (Cutting her off.) Not at all! In fact, just the
opposite!
CHARLES THOMASSET: Mademoiselle!
LOUISE FAVRIER: What do you mean, just the opposite?
SUZANNE FAVIER: Monsieur Charles has come to say goodbye.
And I’m sure it’s because of those awful gossips.
CHARLES THOMASSET: Madame, I swear!
SUZANNE FAVIER: (To her mother.) Maman, please, tell him, tell
him!
LOUISE FAVRIER: Oh no, my child, that’s not possible. Remember
your dignity!
SUZANNE FAVIER: I assure you I couldn’t care less about dignity.
Dignity is a pre-war concept!
(She goes out.)
LOUISE FAVRIER: Monsieur Charles, you see I’m upset, even
overwhelmed. Since you’ve been coming here so often, I can’t help but
say that the idea has crossed my mind. I even thought I’d recognized
that you two cared for each other.
CHARLES THOMASSET: (In a lamentable tone.) I know,
Madame.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Some things my daughter has said gave me that
impression and then the fact that instead of spacing out your visits,
you have made them more and more frequent.
CHARLES THOMASSET: I know, Madame. However my last
visit was two weeks ago.
LOUISE FAVRIER: And I must say that my husband and I, we
both like you so much that if…
CHARLES THOMASSET: Thank you, Madame. You were right.
As a matter of fact, I had for quite a while cherished this. Oh, I must
call it a dream but, unfortunately it’s only a dream, I’m sorry!
LOUISE FAVRIER: But, excuse me, Monsieur, because with your
education, and then you are too kind to risk the heart of a young girl,
it’s so…
CHARLES THOMASSET: Yes, Madame, if…
LOUISE FAVRIER: A complication has arisen! You’re not answering
me. (She goes to the door on the left and that she opens a slit.) Emile!
EMILE FAVIER: (From the next room.) What now!
LOUISE FAVRIER: I think you’d better come in here.
EMILE FAVIER: (Happy.) Oh! Oh!
LOUISE FAVRIER: No, no, not at all, on the contrary there’s
trouble.
EMILE FAVIER: Shoot! (He slams the door violently.)
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Coming back in.) Young man, please tell me
the truth, whatever it is. My daughter seemed to believe…
CHARLES THOMASSET: But I don’t know; I didn’t under-
stand.
LOUISE FAVRIER: You’re not being sincere, Monsieur Charles.
CHARLES THOMASSET: Madame, I swear!
LOUISE FAVRIER: Why swear? The way you deny everything
shows for sure that those rumors have reached your ears.
CHARLES THOMASSET: What rumors? What rumors are you
talking about?
LOUISE FAVRIER: My poor husband.
CHARLES THOMASSET: (Vivaciously.) But, Madame, how could

you believe?
LOUISE FAVRIER: Then, they are about me?
CHARLES THOMASSET: Madame!
LOUISE FAVRIER: About my daughter, perhaps?
CHARLES THOMASSET: You’re joking.
LOUISE FAVRIER: There, you see! (A silence.) But what can people
say against us?
CHARLES THOMASSET: I have no idea.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Why? Monsieur Charles, are you trying to
spare me?
CHARLES THOMASSET: No, never!
LOUISE FAVRIER: I’m going to call him. (She goes to the door.)
Emile!
CHARLES THOMASSET: (To himself.) What a mess! Still I can’t
possibly…
LOUISE FAVRIER: (She goes to the door.) Emile! (Favier can be
heard storming around, giving the key a turn in the lock. She comes back
overwhelmed.) My husband hates to be interrupted when he’s giving
a lesson. Work, work, he lives only for his work that makes it very
hard.
CHARLES THOMASSET: But, Madame, do you think that it’s
because of these hearsay rumors?
LOUISE FAVRIER: What rumors?
CHARLES THOMASSET: That I had to give up, but there could
also have been other reasons. Suppose for example, it’s only a hypothesis
that I discovered I had…
LOUISE FAVRIER: Well, go on.
CHARLES THOMASSET: Some, some unusual needs, (very
quickly), that I need three cars, a yacht…
LOUISE FAVRIER: Come now, Monsieur Charles, what do you
take me for? You are such a fine young man, how could you be swayed
by such petty considerations?
CHARLES THOMASSET: What do you mean, petty? After all,
luxury…
LOUISE FAVRIER: (In a preemptory tone.) You care neither about
luxury, nor about comfort. You are like your mother. Oh! But such
generosity doesn’t surprise me coming from you. Come now, your
mother has made you a man of conscience, a person with soul, as she
likes to say.
CHARLES THOMASSET: (With hidden irony.) How well you
know her!
LOUISE FAVRIER: That doesn’t matter. What you have just done
now, it’s, it’s magnanimous. Only whatever they’re reproaching my
husband for, must be awful.
CHARLES THOMASSET: (To himself.) Obviously her mind’s
made up!
CHARLES THOMASSET: I didn’t say anything.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Terribly serious…
CHARLES THOMASSET: (Aside.) Here we go. (Aloud.) Good
heavens, Madame, it all depends…
LOUISE FAVRIER: But, in your opinion?
CHARLES THOMASSET: You are really embarrassing me.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Be honest.
CHARLES THOMASSET: It is difficult to evaluate.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Would you shake the hand of a man who had
done the things my husband is accused of? (Vague gesture from Charles.)
No? You’re saying no?
CHARLES THOMASSET: Let me…
LOUISE FAVRIER: Oh! I can read. But in order for you to take
that resolution, there must have been more than mere rumors. Admit
it, you were told the facts?
CHARLES THOMASSET: Not at all, not at all, no details!
ALPHONSINE: Madame, a package has arrived for you from the
frame shop. It’s eighty five francs. I have no money on me, and the
man wants to be paid right away.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Wait a minute. I’ll be right there. Excuse me,
Monsieur. (She goes out with Alphonsine.)
CHARLES THOMASSET: (Alone.) Oh! This isn’t funny at all.

What does she want me to say? No one realizes how… No way do I
want to go on trial for defamation of character. No! No! What a sticky
situation!
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Coming in, a huge package under her arm. She
unwraps it, and opens it so that it’s facing the audience, a large photograph
of Robert Carteron.) Here you are, young man, this is the portrait of
the most honest man I’ve ever known, my Uncle Robert. (Charles
bows.) Can you swear on his head? No, no, I beg your pardon. Are
there charges laid against my husband?
CHARLES THOMASSET: Good heavens, Madame, precise infor-
mation…
LOUISE FAVRIER: Will you help me to hang this picture, please?
It seems to me that, once my poor Uncle is here with us, we will be
able to see things more clearly. I’m not superstitious, young man, but
I believe that certain influences… (She goes to the door at the back and
opens it.) Alphonsine, bring me the tool box please. (She comes back
upstage.) You haven’t answered me. You are embarrassed. Obviously
you are in a very difficult position.
CHARLES THOMASSET: Worse than you could imagine,
Madame!
LOUISE FAVRIER: And you are so discreet. (To Alphonsine who
brings in a small tool kit.) Thank you, Alphonsine. Here, young man,
please hammer this nail into place. (Stopping.) But perhaps it’s not
right to ask you.
CHARLES THOMASSET: But of course, Madame, every day…
LOUISE FAVRIER: I can’t help but think of you as part of the
family; and then this, this secret. Right here, please. (Charles starts to
hammer the nail into the spot marked.) Now these things that people
reproach my husband for…
CHARLES THOMASSET: Don’t insist on knowing them.
LOUISE FAVRIER: (In a hushed tone.) Are they too shameful to
mention? (Charles pretends not to hear.) But then, the informers?
CHARLES THOMASSET: I don’t have the right to name them.
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Getting angry.) Don’t you see that you are
putting us in an impossible situation? How can he defend himself
against rumors he doesn’t even know?
CHARLES THOMASSET: If it were only a question of rumors!
LOUISE FAVRIER: I have complete confidence in my husband.
CHARLES THOMASSET: I don’t doubt that, Madame.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Complete, unlimited! Anonymous rumors
won’t do. Nor is discretion a worthy excuse.
CHARLES THOMASSET: I fear, Madame, that you are interpret-
ing my discretion in the wrong way.
CHARLES THOMASSET: Suppose it’s a matter of, after all there
are facts that in the presence of a lady. Oh! I’m not saying that it’s so
in this case; you notice I’ve revealed nothing at all.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Oh! Oh! (She moves toward the door.)
CHARLES THOMASSET: No, Madame. No confrontation, please!
But if your husband were to inquire of Monsieur Jacquinot, (boldly),
Victor Jacquinot, I have reason to believe that he could provide all
the details.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Victor Jacquinot! But he’s dead! I met your
mother at his funeral.
CHARLES THOMASSET: (With feigned surprise.) Oh dear! That’s
true! What a shame!
LOUISE FAVRIER: What bad luck! It’s unbelievable; everybody
who knows about it is dead. And this Monsieur Victor Jacquinot, he
hadn’t been out of his house for ten years. Does it all date back so
far?
CHARLES THOMASSET: It’s a terribly old story.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Perhaps his children?
CHARLES THOMASSET: (Strongly.) Not on your life. He was a
man of discretion, he too…
LOUISE FAVRIER: All the same, he spoke to you about it. But
now that I think about it, you have known for a long time.
CHARLES THOMASSET: I’m not saying that’s the case. I haven’t

said anything, not anything, but still there are those… Oh, the depths
of human nature! (He intentionally hits his thumb with the hammer.)
LOUISE FAVRIER: Oh! Did you hurt yourself?
EMILE FAVIER: (Coming in.) What’s all this racket? There’s no
way anyone can work here!
CHARLES THOMASSET: (To Louise.) No, no, it’s nothing. Only
I’ll be going home now. You understand it’s bleeding. I’d soil every-
thing.
(He makes his exit, his hand wrapped up in his handkerchief.)
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Calling) Monsieur Charles!
EMILE FAVIER: (Dumbfounded.) What? You had the photograph
of Uncle Robert enlarged? Oh, no! I don’t want him here in my house!
(He starts to take the portrait down.)
LOUISE FAVRIER: Emile, be careful!
SUZANNE FAVIER: (Coming in.) Monsieur Charles has left? But
Papa, what are you doing?
EMILE FAVIER: (Trying vainly to remove the nail.) The brute! I
don’t know how he did this! Oh well, I’m going to use the pliers. (He
hunts in his tool box.)
LOUISE FAVRIER: (To Suzanne.) Leave us alone for a moment,
will you please? Your father and I have something to discuss.
SUZANNE FAVIER: But tell me, what did he say?
LOUISE FAVRIER: Go on.
(Suzanne leaves.)
THE PUPIL: (From Offstage opening the door on the left a crack.)
Monsieur, is the lesson finished?
EMILE FAVIER: Of course, yes, go on now, off with you!
THE PUPIL: Thank you, Monsieur. (He goes out.)
LOUISE FAVRIER: How familiarly you speak to your students,
Emile (He’s in his shirt sleeves.)
EMILE FAVIER: So?
LOUISE FAVRIER: I thought it was rude.
EMILE FAVIER: Says who?
LOUISE FAVRIER: My dear, these last thirty six hours, I just don’t
know what’s got into you.
EMILE FAVIER: Well I recognize you; you are always the same,
always as bossy and crass as ever.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Listen to me, Emile.
EMILE FAVIER: What’s the matter with you?
LOUISE FAVRIER: First of all, would you let go of those pliers?
EMILE FAVIER: No.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Then you should put your jacket back on; it’s
my day to receive callers.
EMILE FAVIER: No one ever comes.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Nevertheless just a while ago I received a very
interesting visit.
EMILE FAVIER: Who was that? Oh yes, that dandy, Charles
Thomasset. Is he ever going to make up his mind yes or no?
LOUISE FAVRIER: He cannot ask for Suzanne’s hand.
LOUISE FAVRIER: He cannot ask for Suzanne’s hand.
EMILE FAVIER: Why not? Has he got the pox?
LOUISE FAVRIER: You’re very funny.
EMILE FAVIER: Thank you.
LOUISE FAVRIER: But perhaps it’s better to reserve these, these
witticisms for a more opportune moment. Listen to me, Emile!
EMILE FAVIER: Again!
LOUISE FAVRIER: Yesterday morning, reading that letter, I imme-
diately had the impression…
EMILE FAVIER: I beg your pardon; I’m the one who noticed…
EMILE FAVIER and LOUISE FAVIER: (together.) that you didn’t
seem as surprised as I.
EMILE FAVIER: What do you mean?
LOUISE FAVRIER: Would you repeat that please.
EMILE FAVIER: What did you just say?
LOUISE FAVRIER: That you did not seem as surprised as I.
EMILE FAVIER: It was I who just said that.

LOUISE FAVRIER: It was I.
EMILE FAVIER: What do you mean?
LOUISE FAVRIER: Then you have the audacity?
EMILE FAVIER: What nerve!
LOUISE FAVRIER: If heaven fell on my head…
EMILE FAVIER: A bomb! I said a bomb! (Going to the door.)
Suzanne, did I or did I not say a bomb?
SUZANNE FAVIER: (Entering.) You said it.
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Furious.) So you’re listening at keyholes again.
Off with you. (Suzanne goes out.) As for you, my dear, you don’t seem
to have the slightest idea of the charges being levied against you.
EMILE FAVIER: What does that mean?
LOUISE FAVRIER: Monsieur Charles told me every thing just a
while ago.
LOUISE FAVRIER: And what kinds of things!
EMILE FAVIER: About me? (Louise sighs.) Oh, I’ll kick that
twerp.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Violence has never proven anything.
EMILE FAVIER: (Exasperated.) No, but look at who’s putting on
airs!
LOUISE FAVRIER: And for your own good you’d do well to learn
to exercise some self control.
EMILE FAVIER: Nobody tells me what to do.
LOUISE FAVRIER: There’s a servant in the house.
EMILE FAVIER: If I feel like yelling, that’s my business.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Fine.
EMILE FAVIER: What a mess! Well, what did he say, that
bugger?
LOUISE FAVRIER: All right! First of all he said there were wit-
nesses.
EMILE FAVIER: Witnesses?
LOUISE FAVRIER: Eyewitness.
EMILE FAVIER: Witnesses who are alive?
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Lying.) I don’t know.
EMILE FAVIER: And for that matter, witness to what?
LOUISE FAVRIER: That, my dear friend, is what you must tell
me.
ALPHONSINE: (Announcing.) Superintendent and Madame
Plantureux. (She goes out.)
PLANTUREUX: (Pronounced accent from the south of France.)
Madame, my compliments. Good afternoon my dear colleague.
Madame Plantureux and I wanted to make our first official visit, to
the Dean of Professors at the Nowairsville School.
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Bowing.) Superintendent, we are very
touched.
PLANTUREUX: It’s just fortunate for us that you live on the first
floor, my dear colleague, because the delicate condition of Madame
Plantureux who is as you can see very pregnant.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Are you…?
PLANTUREUX: This is the fifth time I shall be indebted to
Madame Plantureux for giving me the joys of paternity. Yes, Madame
Plantureux, who was a nurse during the war…
MADAME PLANTUREUX: (Softly.) You exaggerate.
PLANTUREUX: …has the highest sense of her patriotic duty. In
spite of the hazards, she is again ready to face, and with what courage,
the pangs of giving birth.
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Feebly.) Do you like it here?
PLANTUREUX: Madame Plantureux is getting used to it here, she
gets used to it everywhere; but I, who am from Nice; I’m languishing
under this cloudy sky.
LOUISE FAVRIER: (As above.) Are you pleased with your living
quarters?
PLANTUREUX: You tell her, my dear for I pay no notice to such
things.
MADAME PLANTUREUX: Damn! There’s only one closet. What’s
more, at Draguignan, life was more interesting. Just imagine we were
across the street from the post office.
LOUISE FAVRIER: But your apartment overlooks the school

garden.
PLANTUREUX: Its shadows are ancient, Madame, and I must say
they are marvelous, having sheltered the dreams of many adolescents
but they trouble my rheumatism.
MADAME PLANTUREUX: I massage him morning and eve-
ning.
PLANTUREUX: A devoted wife showing every care, my good-
ness, a quotable quote! I’ll have to write that down. (He takes a small
notebook from his pocket. In a low tone.) It’s for a poem I plan to give
to her when she presents me with the baby. Oh yes! In the sunny
south, poetry blossoms as naturally as flowers. As I said to Madame
Plantureux the day I led her to the altar, oh don’t misunderstand, no,
it was an accommodation we had to make to tradition, I must tell you
that Madame Plantureux comes from an old family of judges from
the Île de France.
MADAME PLANTUREUX: (Blushing.) My father was a court
stenographer at Pontoise.
PLANTUREUX: Where was I? Oh yes, I think that we are, I must
say, an ideal couple. Madame is naturally romantic, and I am expan-
sive, she is modest and I am exuberant. Oh Henrietta, another poetic
phrase; I’m just getting warmed up. You’ll have to help me remember
if need be. I am from the North and, oh no, pardon me, she is from
the north and I am from the south. The two of us together, it seems
to me that in miniature we are all of France. (A silence. The speech falls
flat.)
MADAME PLANTUREUX: (Timidly.) Madame, I need to ask
your advice on a small point. I believe that you have a daughter who
is a young lady. She went to the college didn’t she? I too have two
little girls. Can I let them walk to school alone? There are such terrible
things happening these days.
PLANTUREUX: Again yesterday there were three exhibitionists.
People say that there is a lecher at Nowairsville.
LOUISE FAVRIER: (With no second thoughts.) Emile?
EMILE FAVIER: (Startled.) What?
LOUISE FAVRIER: What do you think?
EMILE FAVIER: (Exploding.) What do you mean? Why are you
looking at me? Well, what does all this mean?
LOUISE FAVRIER: My dear, I don’t understand you.
EMILE FAVIER: (Grabbing her by the shoulders.) Oh! I’m beginning
to be fed up, I demand an apology immediately. Yes, absolutely and
in front of them.
PLANTUREUX: Come, come now, dear colleague.
EMILE FAVIER: You, keep quiet!
MADAME PLANTUREUX: (Moaning.) You see, you see, we were
warned.
EMILE FAVIER: What do you mean! People warned you?
PLANTUREUX: No, no, no! She’s pregnant and easily upset she
doesn’t know what’s she’s saying. Come my dear, come.
(He leads her out.)
EMILE FAVIER: That’s unbelievable!
LOUISE FAVRIER: You wretched man, what came over you?
EMILE FAVIER: What came over me? You tell me, yes or no; didn’t
you act as if I were the lecher?
LOUISE FAVRIER: Me accuse you?
EMILE FAVIER: Oh! And what’s more, I saw the way you looked
at me.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Everything you saw in my eyes, you projected
there.
EMILE FAVIER: And I who haven’t set foot in a bordello since I’ve
known you! Oh! But I see through your little game. You accuse me so
you don’t have to defend yourself.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Defend myself!
EMILE FAVIER: Only you can’t fool me. (A silence.) Prove to me
that Suzanne is my child.
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Horrified.) Suzanne?!
EMILE FAVIER: That brings you up short, doesn’t it?
LOUISE FAVRIER: But Emile, you can’t be serious.
EMILE FAVIER: Oh! You think not? There’s no “but Emile, dear”.
I ask you for proof, and you won’t bother to give me any. Is that
natural? Only you won’t get away with it. Look, it’s this simple. I give
you two minutes to prove that my daughter is my child. Otherwise,
you’re out.
LOUISE FAVRIER: (With a shrill voice.) Bravo, just brilliant.
EMILE FAVIER: You’re wasting time.
LOUISE FAVRIER: If you think you can intimidate me!
EMILE FAVIER: Thirty seconds.
LOUISE FAVRIER: You’re that convinced, are you? Very well my
friend. As you like; you are not mistaken, Suzanne is not your child!
There, are you happy now?
EMILE FAVIER: Whose is she?
LOUISE FAVRIER: I don’t remember.
EMILE FAVIER: That’s fine, just fine, because for my part too I
had so many…
ALPHONSINE: (Coming in, beside herself.) Monsieur, Madame,
Please be careful. The guests are coming.
EMILE FAVIER: To hell with them!
(Louise leads him off to the left.)
(Madame Sorbier, ridiculous, dressed more for a carnival than a dinner
party, appears in the doorway and muffled voices of additional guests can
be heard behind her.)
LOUISE FAVRIER: Then you admit it!
EMILE FAVIER: Everything is true! Everything!
SUZANNE FAVIER: (In a quieter tone.) I beg you, please; the guests
are here.
LOUISE FAVRIER: What’s true?
EMILE FAVIER: Everything you suspect! Everything you’d like to
believe!
LOUISE FAVRIER: Exactly what do you mean?
EMILE FAVIER: You want to know exactly! Hold on, old girl, I’ll
curl your hair. All right! Yes, if you like, I’m the lecher! I molested
four little girls in one afternoon!! Did you hear? Four little girls in one
afternoon!
(Madame Sorbier, Alphonsine and the guests cry out in horror, and
run out.)
ACT THREE
(As the curtain rises the stage is in total darkness; figures emerge only
gradually. They are all seated, motionless around a table; their hands are
poised over a Ouija board. The scene is the office of the Director of a low-
class boarding house in Neuilly.)
(Before any sense can be made of the scene on stage, one hears voices
off stage)
CARTERON’S VOICE: Enough! Enough!
THE SECOND VOICE: Shh! Carteron!
CARTERON’S VOICE: I told you I’ve had enough of this.
THE SECOND VOICE: Keep quiet!
CARTERON’S VOICE: It’s no fun anymore. It’s not funny at all.
I want it to end. I want to tell them.
THE SECOND VOICE: Tell them what?
CARTERON’S VOICE: Eh! Well…
THE SECOND VOICE: You, you’re going to try to keep still.
They’re on the other side, so it’s none of your business.
CARTERON: It is my business. (Weaker.) It is my business. I’m
going to try, to try to (these last words are said in a ghostly voice.)
************
LOUISE FAVRIER: The silence is impressive.
SUZANNE FAVIER: That’s true; we can’t hear anything at all.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Suzanne child, you’re pushing.
SUZANNE FAVIER: No mother, I swear, I’m not moving anything.
Just look at my hands!
LOUISE FAVRIER: I can’t see a damned thing. (To Clemence, the
Director.) Just think! To have to leave like that at a moment’s notice,
from one day to the next! I tell you it’s not easy and now to be reduced
to living in a family hotel.
CLEMENCE: (Sternly, with a British accent.) This is not a hotel,
Madame; it is a residence for families.
LOUISE FAVRIER: But when we were used to living in our own

home.
CLEMENCE: (Acidly.) Well yes, you have had your troubles. It’s
the sort of thing that can happen to anyone. In the eighteen years that
I’ve been running our “Family House” I’ve seen greater misfortunes
than yours; more interesting ones.
POKROVSKI: (With a Russian accent.) A creaking in the wall, did
you hear it?
CLEMENCE: Oh! My heavens!
POKROVSKI: Some creatures are dying to reveal themselves.
SUZANNE FAVIER: I’m afraid.
POKROVSKI: (Dryly.) Of what?
SUZANNE FAVIER: Why, I don’t know.
POKROVSKI: Then be quiet. There it is again! (Snickering by
Montchabert.) If you laugh I shall oblige you to leave.
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Timidly.) Maybe it was a mouse.
CLEMENCE: There are no mice in Family House; such a thing
would be impossible.
POKROVSKI: If you are a skeptic, you’d better leave the room.
CLEMENCE: Madame has a bad aura, very bad.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Good heavens! And I who have so much good
will.
CLEMENCE: You need to have faith! Oh! This is getting much
more serious.
LOUISE FAVRIER: I think it’s my husband who’s dozed off. Emile!
(She pulls on his sleeve.)
EMILE FAVIER: (Sleeping.) Four little girls!
CLEMENCE: Why is he always talking about little girls?
SUZANNE FAVIER: The table moved.
POKROVSKI: That’s right.
SUZANNE FAVIER: That’s fantastic.
MONTCHABERT: (Crudely.) Well! If it moved, it’s because someone
pushed it. Don’t expect me to get all excited for nothing.
CLEMENCE: One more word and tomorrow you’re out of Family
House.
MONTCHABERT: Well! The Inquisition has returned. But I’ll
have you know, I am a member of the League of Human Rights. So,
what do you say to that!
POKROVSKI: Shh! (This time the table moved noticeably.)
CLEMENCE: (Ecstatic.) Oh, gracious! It’s speaking.
SUZANNE FAVIER: Is someone there?
CLEMENCE: Stupid girl! Of course someone’s… Will you tell us
your name? Tap once for yes, twice for no. (Pause.) It doesn’t want to.
Do you have a message for us? Yes? Oh, it’s speaking. Watch, s...l...
e...e...p......c...l...e... It says I must sleep! Oh! I am the medium! My
dream has come true!
POKROVSKI: (With decisiveness.) Listen to me! I am going to put
you to sleep. (Clemence lies down; Pokrovski, standing in front of her,
waves his hands over her.)
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Shaking her husband.) Emile! (Grumblings
from Favier.) He’s unbelievable.
SUZANNE FAVIER: What do you expect? It’s an ordeal at his
age.
LOUISE FAVRIER: And what about me, child! If anyone had
predicted this twenty five years ago! Then I had my choice of all the
eligible bachelors of Nontron.
SUZANNE FAVIER: It’s not you who is suffering the most.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Pardon me?
SUZANNE FAVIER: I’m the victim!
EMILE FAVIER: (Yawning and stretching.) Isn’t it time to go to
sleep?
LOUISE FAVRIER: You’ve already been asleep for an hour.
EMILE FAVIER: Not me! I haven’t slept.
POKROVSKI: Shh!
EMILE FAVIER: (Pointing to Clemence.) There, look at her; she’s
sleeping.
LOUISE FAVRIER: She seems to be the medium. (Favier goes back
to sleep.)
POKROVSKI: Sleep, you are in a deep sleep. (Favier snores.) No,

no, Monsieur, not you.
VOICE OF CARTERON: (Weakly, off stage.) To try to… must
try.
POKROVSKI: She wants to speak. She’s an incarnating medium.
For fifteen months I’ve suspected as much. She will affect the man-
ners, tone of voice, respiratory rhythms of the personality who wants
to communicate to us. (A silence.) She’s moving her lips.
MONTCHABERT: Speak? She’s going to throw up, yes, I’m going
to get a basin!
CLEMENCE: (In an altered voice.) Fk… Fk…
SUZANNE FAVIER: Oh, Mother!
CLEMENCE: Fk… Fk… Fokono.
POKROVSKI: What’s that?
CLEMENCE: (Whispering.) FOKONO.
POKROVSKI: Is that a name? (Clemence makes a sign that it is.)
It’s a very unusual name.
LOUISE FAVRIER: How do you spell it?
POKROVSKI: Excuse me, but it’s I who ask the questions. Can
you say how that is written? (She makes a sign to say no.) Using the
table perhaps? (The table makes some very feeble movements.) It must
be F-o-k-o-n-o-.
MONTCHABERT: It’s a Japanese name, like Motono.
SUZANNE FAVIER: What does Motono mean?
MONTCHABERT: Motono, Motono, everybody knows.
LOUISE FAVRIER: That’s strange that name sounds familiar as if
I’ve been introduced to someone by that name.
MONTCHABERT: (Doubling over with laughter.) Japanese people
are introduced to you in Nontron?
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Furious.) I didn’t spend my whole life at
Nontron, you know.
POKROVSKI: Somewhere else then? Think.
LOUISE FAVRIER: No, I guess not.
MONTCHABERT: Aha! Then you are making a mistake, you don’t
know any Fokono. That’s all it means.
POKROVSKI: (In front of Clemence.) She is shaking her head, no,

no.
MONTCHABERT: You see it must be someone from the Sino
Russian war.
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Who has stood up and she watches.) No, No,
that’s still not it.
MONTCHABERT: (Pretentious.) A samovar, no, I mean a samurai,
Fokono that sounds like kimono.
EMILE FAVIER: (Waking up with a bound.) Fauconneau!
MONTCHABERT: What? Fauconneau? Ah! Good! Where’s he
coming from, that one?
EMILE FAVIER: Fauconneau! Why I know him.
POKROVSKI: She’s making a sign yes, yes.
SUZANNE FAVIER: Yes, of course, you’re right.
MONTCHABERT: Now, she too . . .
SUZANNE FAVIER: It’s the gentleman we met at the hospital the
day we went to see Uncle Robert.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Exactly.
POKROVSKI: Yes, always yes.
MONTCHABERT: How’s that, for a bunch of crazies! But see here
my little lady. (He takes Louise by the arm.)
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Exasperated.) Monsieur I don’t permit anyone
such familiarity. It’s not because pitiless misfortune…
MONTCHABERT: (Joking.) You would think we were at the
Comédie Française.
LOUISE FAVRIER: What a jerk!
POKROVSKI: She’s going to speak.
CLEMENCE: I t- t- telephone: it’s I who t- telephone!
MONTCHABERT: (Bursts out laughing) Oh that! That’s interest-
ing! So you have telephones in the other world? Tell me then, are
there also bathrooms and even sewers too? (Pokrovski takes him by the
shoulders and throws him out the door. He comes back a minute later
without anyone noticing.)
CLEMENCE: I t- telephone: it’s I who t- telephone! (She laughs the
same strident laugh as Carteron at the end of Act One.)
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Astonished.) It’s Uncle Robert’s voice!
SUZANNE FAVIER: Mother!
LOUISE FAVRIER: Is it possible?
POKROVSKI: Everything is possible, Madame, it is perhaps a
sentence he spoke before he died in a moment of emotion. For some
strange reason or other, it’s engraved in his memory, like an obses-
sion.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Oh! Monsieur, ask him, that letter that he
wrote us… And then why does he speak of Monsieur Fauconneau?
Should we telephone him?
POKROVSKI: She is saying yes, nodding her head.
EMILE FAVIER: Telephone whom?
SUZANNE FAVIER: First of all, does he have a telephone?
LOUISE FAVRIER: I remember now they told us he was an Insur-
ance Inspector.
EMILE FAVIER: A Finance Inspector.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Let’s not quibble, I beg you. Where is the
phone book?
SUZANNE FAVIER: We’ll have to ask Madame Clemence.
POKROVSKI: There is no longer any Madame Clemence (The
others look at him dumbfounded.) I mean for the moment.
LOUISE FAVRIER: But the phone book? (She searches reaching here
and there with her hands.) Here it is. (She opens it.) Fauconneau…
MONTCHABERT: No! She thinks she is going to find him in the
phone book!
LOUISE FAVRIER: Jaques Fauconneau, Inspector of Finances, 21
boulevard Péreire.
MONTCHABERT: Then he really exists!
LOUISE FAVRIER: Of course. We’ve seen him!
MONTCHABERT: Now that’s remarkable! After this, I’m ready
to believe anything!
LOUISE FAVRIER: What a jerk!
EMILE FAVIER: Do you realize what time it is? It’s after mid-
night!
LOUISE FAVRIER: So, what difference does that make?
EMILE FAVIER: Wake up an Inspector of Finances!
LOUISE FAVRIER: Don’t underestimate me. (She picks up the phone.)
Hello? Wagram 88-17, please. Oh, all of a sudden I’m frightened! Let’s
hope nobody answers.
SUZANNE FAVIER: But look at the table! It’s gone crazy!
MONTCHABERT: (Sarcastically.) That does it! Now it’s the table
which is crazy.
EMILE FAVIER: What did you expect?
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Menacing.) Don’t you understand? Uncle
Robert could have confided in this Monsieur Fauconneau.
EMILE FAVIER: (Uneasy.) Confided what?
LOUISE FAVRIER: I can understand that such a prospect frightens
you.
EMILE FAVIER: So we’re at it again, that ridiculous charade. Oh
no! But then, don’t forget that you’re under suspicion too.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Good heavens! Someone’s answering. Hello,
who is there? Am I speaking with Monsieur Fauconneau? Yes, yes,
it’s very late; actually it’s very early. A joke? What do you mean a joke
Monsieur? I’m Madame Favier telephoning you from the Boarding
House 118 rue Léon-Benoit, at Neuilly. But of course, Monsieur, at
the clinic at Val Fleury, my Uncle Robert Carteron introduced us. C
as in crazy, A as in anarchy, R as in… Yes, that’s it. Yes Monsieur, some
information. We are more than anguished as the result of a letter, a
letter. (Favier pulls her from behind and forces her to let go of the receiver.)
Are you crazy, Emile!
POKROVSKI: She’s going to speak.
CLEMENCE: My- My- mystif…
EMILE FAVIER: What’s that mystification? There, you see, it wasn’t
worth the trouble to disturb that gentleman!
POKROVSKI: The medium is showing signs of fatigue; I’m going

to wake her. Shh!
LOUISE FAVRIER: All this is very disturbing.
MONTCHABERT: I’m not troubled at all. Oh, la di da! I’m not
amazed by such little things.
SUZANNE FAVIER: What a pin wheel!
MONTCHABERT: (To Favier.) I don’t buy any of this nonsense
because I, I’m a scientific thinker, you understand.
CLEMENCE: (Waking up.) Oh, fancy that! Did I communicate
some revelations?
MONTCHABERT: (Ironically.) Sensational!
CLEMENCE: I want to enter the Morning Mail contest.
MONTCHABERT: First of all, is everybody beginning to believe
that people come back from the dead and that there are spirits inhabit-
ing tables, and all that bull?
EMILE FAVIER: Careful, there are ladies.
MONTCHABERT: And to go from there to believing that God
exists isn’t a big step.
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Furious.) Of course God exists.
MONTCHABERT: I never argue with women, it’s against my
principles.
LOUISE FAVRIER: What an honor you pay us. There is a God,
but not for people like you.
EMILE FAVIER: You’re talking foolishly, Lou Lou.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Not for people who don’t deserve Him?
EMILE FAVIER: Well after all, why wouldn’t there be a God?
MONTCHABERT: (Moving to the front of the stage, to address
the audience.) Let me tell you, I believe only in what I see. Here (he
indicates the room.) There’s a wall. Don’t you agree? So then, I say:
“There is a wall”. It’s that simple. Now if you are going to try and
tell me that there are people looking at us, listening to us, who know
what we are thinking, but whom we can’t see, well, I’ll just reply that
you are ready for the funny farm.
POKROVSKI: (Seriously.) You’re nothing but a tadpole.
MONTCHABERT: What’s that?
POKROVSKI: I said a meager tadpole.
MONTCHABERT: And how about you? What are you, a toad? It
is true that you have frog’s eyes.
POKROVSKI: You flatter me, Monsieur. I am more evolved than
you, you just affirmed that. You say: “There is no one there, there is
a wall.” As for me, I say: “We are on stage; we are performing before
an invisible audience.”
MONTCHABERT: What foolishness!
POKROVSKI: You don’t even know you’re performing, I know that
much. That’s why you are only a tadpole and I am a frog.
CLEMENCE: (To Montchabert.) I’ve just prepared your bill. You
can check it, if you like. Tomorrow you leave the Family House.
(Montchabert is stunned.)
MONTCHABERT: (To Favier, with pathos.) Are you going to permit
this infamy to happen?
EMILE FAVIER: My good man, it is your turn to get thrown out.
(Montchabert staggers out; a silence.)
LOUISE FAVRIER: What are we waiting for?
EMILE FAVIER: I have no idea, but we’re surely waiting for some-
thing.
POKROVSKI: The entire human tragedy.
SUZANNE FAVIER: (Timidly.) In that case, maybe we’d better go
upstairs to bed.
POKROVSKI: The child has no poetic soul. (The doorbell rings.)
Did you hear that?
EMILE FAVIER: Another big joke!
CLEMENCE: Sacrilegious talk. But there may be another hooligan
there.
EMILE FAVIER: He wouldn’t ring.
CLEMENCE: Great reasoning! (She goes to the window and opens
it a crack.) Who’s there? What’s that you say?
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Who’s also moved closer to the window.) Faucon-
neau? It’s him. He’s come. Good heavens! He’s come here!
SUZANNE FAVIER: Then he’s the one we’re waiting for?
LOUISE FAVRIER: Of course.
CLEMENCE: (Through the window.) Can’t you talk to us from

where you are? I don’t like to let strangers in at this time of night. He
says it’s impossible. All right then, someone will open the door for
you. Suzanne!
SUZANNE FAVIER: Me? Open the door? (Feeling no one supports
her, she obeys.)
LOUISE FAVRIER: (To Favier.) Aren’t you excited?
EMILE FAVIER: Not at all.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Well there’s reason to be. Are you sure you
don’t want to tell me the truth now?
EMILE FAVIER: You’re getting on my nerves. And how about you,
aren’t you going to make up your mind?
LOUISE FAVIER: I might still have forgiven you.
EMILE FAVIER: I could say the same to you.
LOUISE FAVRIER and EMILE FAVIER: Too late! (Faconneau has
come in; he is wearing pajamas and an overcoat.)
POKROVSKI: First of all why don’t you take off your trench coat?
Your attire is not appropriate for this occasion. (He begins to unbutton
Monsieur Fauconneau’s raincoat.)
FAUCONNEAU: (Defending himself.) But… (He stands there in
his pajamas.)
POKROVSKI: All right, put it back on.
SUZANNE FAVIER: You’re going to make him lose his train of
thought.
CLEMENCE: (Delighted.) Isn’t it thrilling?
POKROVSKI: We are listening, (a silence), but we don’t hear you.
First of all, why did you come?
FAUCONNEAU: (Pointing to Louise.) Madame, I now believe that
you recog…
LOUISE FAVRIER: Perhaps you don’t recognize me, Monsieur;
I’ve aged a hundred years.
EMILE FAVIER: Come now.
LOUISE FAVRIER: A hundred years.
FAUCONNEAU: You spoke, if I heard you rightly, of a letter about
which you wanted to receive certain clarifications?
EMILE FAVIER: (Brusquely.) That letter needs no explanation.
SUZANNE FAVIER: He’s lying! Excuse me.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Look at what that letter has done to a model
family. For we were people…
SUZANNE FAVIER: Yes, that’s absolutely true! People…
LOUISE FAVRIER: People like every body else.
FAUCONNEAU: Well, your Uncle Robert Carteron was not a
man just like any body else.
LOUISE FAVRIER: No need to tell me, Monsieur? The proof is I
had his photograph enlarged.
FAUCONNEAU: He was a character.
LOUISE FAVRIER: A character?
FAUCONNEAU: Let’s say an eccentric individual, rather pecu-
liar.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Peculiar?
FAUCONNEAU: I’d even say a bit strange.
EMILE FAVIER: What do you mean by that?
LOUISE FAVRIER: Be careful of what you say, Monsieur. We
cherish my uncle’s memory.
EMILE FAVIER: Hmm!
LOUISE FAVRIER: Oh! Emile, you probably have your reasons.
EMILE FAVIER: Yes, I know what you’re up to.
LOUISE FAVRIER: What I’m up to?
SUZANNE FAVIER: Monsieur, if you only knew!
FAUCONNEAU: What?
LOUISE FAVRIER: How dare you Monsieur, it’s we who have
questions for you.
FAUCONNEAU: It doesn’t seem like it.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Unfortunately, I remember just now that, if
we can trust the terms of his letter, my uncle told no one.
FAUCONNEAU: That letter was posthumous, wasn’t it?
EMILE FAVIER: Couldn’t have been more so.
FAUCONNEAU: You don’t want to tell me what was in it?
LOUISE FAVRIER: But?
EMILE FAVIER: No way.

FAUCONNEAU: Well, I’ll be! That will teach me to listen to my
conscience.
EMILE FAVIER: Rather your curiosity.
FAUCONNEAU: Lovely! I imagined that you were perhaps tor-
mented by a few words …an old man let slip.
EMILE FAVIER: Hold on! Just a minute there!
LOUISE FAVRIER: My uncle was not an old man.
FAUCONNEAU: Very well then, this aging gentleman. Well, I don’t
know what’s in that posthumous letter, but I have reason to believe
that it must be a practical joke. (All three are taken aback.)
EMILE FAVIER: (In a thundering voice.) Monsieur, the door!
LOUISE FAVRIER: You scoundrel!
EMILE FAVIER: Out! Get out of here!
LOUISE FAVRIER: Insulting the dead!
EMILE FAVIER: (To his wife.) But then, when you think about
it.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Oh! My dear! (They have taken one another’s
hands.)
POKROVSKI: I remind you that just a while ago the medium
pronounced the word “mystification”.
EMILE FAVIER: Good heavens! He’s the practical joker. Ah, young
man, the finances of France are in good hands! I would bet that you
are one of those pathetic pranksters.
FAUCONNEAU: Monsieur!
EMILE FAVIER: Exactly, who use the telephone for; I won’t say
what, kinds of facetious amusement?
FAUCONNEAU: (Horrified.) Good heavens! What makes you
think that?
LOUISE FAVRIER: He’s admitted it! So Monsieur, that’s why you
came in pajamas?
EMILE FAVIER: At one o’clock in the morning.
LOUISE FAVRIER: You make fun of the living as well as the
dead!
FAUCONNEAU: (Backing out.) To tell the truth I should
have…
EMILE FAVIER: He calls that the truth! (A silence.) A jo…
LOUISE FAVRIER: A joke.
SUZANNE FAVIER: A joker.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Fortunately we’re not fooled.
EMILE FAVIER: Oh no! We’re not fooled.
LOUISE FAVRIER: You’d be happy if we were fooled.
EMILE FAVIER: And you wouldn’t be!
LOUISE FAVRIER: So, you lose nothing by waiting.
EMILE FAVIER: Nor you.
LOUISE FAVRIER: Besides I have an idea.
EMILE FAVIER: Me too.
LOUISE FAVRIER: (Going out.) As a young woman I stayed a
while with my aunt.
EMILE FAVIER: I remember a young man who had an eye for you.
(He goes out.)
SUZANNE FAVIER: (Throwing up her arms toward heaven.) They’ll
never run out of suspicion and doubts!
(She goes out.)
(CLEMENCE and Pokrovski remain alone; they have fallen asleep.)
*************
CARTERON’S VOICE: (Moaning.) Failed! Failed to get through!

THE SECOND VOICE: Come on! Don’t torture yourself. Eventu-
ally they’ll dig up some truth.
CARTERON’S VOICE: Oh! Oh! It sounds so hopeless!
THE SECOND VOICE: The truth they deserve!
AN ECHO THAT FILLS THE ROOM: The truth they deserve!
CURTAIN
REFLECTIONS
A Mystery of Love and The Posthumous Joke, each with its own tone
and mood, explore essential aspects of the presence of loved ones beyond
death. Each play, upon reflection, clarifies the essential features and
necessary conditions of possibility for such existential encounters.
The creation of the play, A Mystery of Love, grew from an encounter
with a gentleman in Switzerland who shared with Marcel that following
the death of his first wife, he no longer desired to live; but when he was
convinced that his first wife clearly communicated her insistence that
he should marry again, he did so, assured that he married the second
wife at the behest of the first. Marcel wondered how the second wife,
Madeleine, must have felt knowing she was espoused at the wish of
the first wife.
As Marcel lets the situation develop through his dramatic imagina-
tion, to provide an element of conflict, he added Abel, a friend who
had secretly loved Viviane, Jacques’ first wife. Out of loyalty to his
friend Jacques, Abel never revealed or gave open expression to that
love. When traveling in Russia, Abel learned of Jacques’ hasty second
marriage and judged his friend Jacques as disloyal and undeserving
of an untainted memory of Viviane’s faithfulness. So Abel proceeds
to sow seeds of suspicion about Viviane’s fidelity. The atmosphere
of angry suspicion intensifies in as much as Viviane’s sister has dis-
covered, concealed in Viviane’s writing desk, a letter professing her
love for Abel. Only after direct accusation and rude dismissal, does
she realize that Abel didn’t know the content of this letter for it was
never mailed.
Abel tries to undermine Jacques’ confidence in the after death com-
munications and ongoing communion with his first wife. But then
Madeleine, the second wife, warns Abel that Jacques’ confidence in
these communications is what enables him to go on living. So in order
to support Jacques’ trust in an ongoing communion, Abel fabricates
a lie saying that prior to her death Viviane had shared with him the
hope and wish that Jacques would remarry. Jacques is frightened and
confused. Abel finds he can’t let him base his future on a lie so he
begs him not to build a foundation on a few words remembered, but
to recognize that in his heart Jacques could not be content to live in
a world devoid of mystery. ( 10 )
So out of a situation of suspicion and anger, clouded by rash judg-
ment, resentment and half truths, Abel challenges Jacques to be open
to the experience of mystery that draws us to a horizon of light and
hope. The invitation is to found one’s hope, not on the words of
a verbal communication, but on a mysterious life dimension that,
renewed by moments of presence from loved ones after death, opens
onto a communion of love
Thus it is that A Mystery of Love lets us participate in a poignant
and suspenseful drama about a communion of love that transcends
death. Through the actor’s art we are able to experience this mystery
from within and witness the various attitudes toward the possibility
and nature of such communication. Finally we are moved to openly
consider the conditions where we too can participate in moments of
presence, breaching what would otherwise be a wall of despair.
The second play, The Posthumous Joke, is by contrast clearly a farci-
cal satire. Marcel admits that the idea for this play occurred when he
considered the irritation he felt upon meeting an excessively conceited
person on the Metro. “Wouldn’t it be amusing,” Marcel thought, “to
write him a letter referring to scandalous rumors that were supposedly
circulating about him, all the while assuring him of my absolute and
indignant refusal of ever believing these stories?” Thus the central idea
of the play was born; it had only to align itself to Marcel’s meta-psychi-
cal preoccupations. As the plot developed he decided to be effective,
and avoid confrontation or any direct inquiry, such a joke would have
to be played posthumously.
Much of the humor resides in the ridiculous situations that develop
out of the excessive and burlesque reactions of the various characters.
Uncle Carteron, the prankster, leaves all his worldly possession to the
Faviers, (his nephew and his nephews wife and daughter), relatives with
whom he has had a longstanding relationship. Carteron has also given
a letter for his lawyer to send posthumously to them. In it he affirms
esteem for the Faviers despite the scandalous rumors circulating about
them. This Carteron devised as a practical joke, like placing a prank
phone call and then hanging up, making it very difficult to trace and
recognize its rhyme, reason or humor.
Reflections 173
This prank becomes a “posthumous joke”, an “after death” com-

munication that influences. It was not a letter of love and genuine
concern, but one whose purpose was to sow confusion and suspicion
in the minds and lives of the Faviers. The Faviers then imagine all sorts
of scandalous situations and accuse one another of dreadful behaviors
trying to uncover what Uncle Carteron may have been referring to in
his letter. They undo their lives and relationships to no avail. Finally
they are reduced to living in a boarding house and agree to consult
a medium and hold a séance. Although a message is spoken, and
its partial deciphering leads to a summoning of an acquaintance of
Uncle Carteron, the Faviers are so crazed that they can not hear out
his explanation and chase him from the premises.
It is noteworthy that Marcel does not hesitate to poke fun at even
his most cherished ideas. In fact he affirms that his comedies show
the importance of introspective reflection that is essential to preserve
a spirit of truth without which humans too easily fall prey to senseless
notions and extreme behaviors.
Indeed Marcel had an instinctive and sometimes mischievous sense
of humor and his rich comic gifts punctuate most of his plays. His
humor is spontaneous yet, upon reflection, he notes that the comedy
in his work is often stop gap relief from tense moments, and at times
a break from characters that are just too good to be true. So he refers
to the comic in his theatre as the “yes, but…” inviting introspective
reflection upon one’s ambitions, especially one’s apparently noble and
righteous ones. Marcel’s Comedy also serves to show the danger in
a lack of reflective self criticism and in taking oneself too seriously. (
11 )
The Posthumous Joke’s burlesque character raises the question of
whether there could ever be a valid or sane communication to the living
from individuals beyond death. It highlights the flaws and excesses
that short circuit their attempts to decipher messages from beyond
the grave and it draws in broad brush strokes a satirical caricature of
the main features of the nature, and conditions of possibility, for such
communications.
The letter is not really posthumous; and it is not a genuine com-
munication or real expression of a communion of love. The uncle
knows that the Faviers only visited him for the sake of “having”, i.e.
assuring that he grant them his inheritance. The “Posthumous Letter”
is his revenge giving them an unsettling message and thus a troubling
inheritance of suspicion and confusion.
The final lines of The Posthumous Joke “can’t get through”…”the
truth they deserve” suggest that the Faviers’ feelings toward Uncle
Robert were only those of “desire”, a will for covetous “having”, not
feelings of generous, or other directed love, “hoping” for the well
being of Uncle Robert and “hoping” for ongoing communion or
loving communication with his spirit. This satirical farce lets us laugh
at our own and others’ shortcomings, and go on to critically clarify
our understanding of the nature and conditions of possibility for an
inter-subjective communion providing for renewed moments of pres-
ence of loved ones from beyond death.
All this farcical pandemonium is hilariously portrayed but in the
end the Faviers are very nearly ruined and tormented by anger and
distrust.
Marcel’s research, plus the experience of many, tells us that where an
“us” or close bond exists in this life, that this spiritual kinship endures.
The person from beyond death can communicate their light of truth
to one who invokes a gifted conferral of their distinctive presence
and welcomes it by way of inwardness and depth. It depends upon
the receiver to be open and permeable and invite this presence, yet
gratuity and otherness characterize its actual conferral. Such presence
from beyond death can ground and strengthen one’s personal acts; and
an incitement to create is always the distinctive mark of such gifted
moments of presence.
The after death communication in The Posthumous Joke is in no way
an active intervention in an ongoing relationship of faithful love, nor
a creative way of continuing to be with and for an “other”. Clearly the
message is communicated and does influence the thoughts, feelings,
and lives of the recipients. The Faviers certainly are open and permeable
to receive the message, expecting a gift but receiving instead a costly
practical joke. They take it very much to heart, amplifying suspicions
and increasing animosity, intensifying antagonism and unreasonable-
ness. They interiorize and exaggerate the grain of suspicion that the
letter has planted.
Reflections 175
Certainly, the acting out of suspicious accusations provides the

humor in the play but it also shows the danger of not being critically
introspective about one’s own convictions, revealing the excesses to
which uncritical thought and commitment can lead.
The final scene also exemplifies the consequences of failed com-
munication. The Faviers are so beside themselves that they refuse to
hear any reasonable explanation of the letter and its intended prank.
Uncle Carteron can’t get through to them now. The audience is left to
reflect on why? Is it because survival and communication after death
are not possible? Could it be for want of openness and permeability by
way of inwardness and depth? Or perhaps it is simply for the lack of
love, recognized since the time of Plato, as the sine qua non condition
for any commerce or communication between the gods and humans
or among humans themselves? The final reflection may very well be
this; will we, like the Faviers, get the truth that we deserve?
Both these plays suggest perspectives for a philosophic or second
level reflection. At the end of A Mystery of Love, as clouds of angry
suspicion and misjudgments disperse in the dawning light of truth, a
spirit of compassion and hope emerges as “desire” gives way to “hope”.
The ending of The Posthumous Joke, with a dismal failure to establish
communication or peace of mind, strongly suggests that the neces-
sary conditions for after death presence and communication are an
attitude of hope and other directed love, rather than merely coveting
the tangible inheritance a friend or relative could provide.
Marcel stressed that a central preoccupation of his was to conceive
how a transcendent, a subject which was in no way an object could
be present to him in his subjectivity. After his wife’s death (1947)
Marcel penned a critically reflective essay clarifying his understand-
ing of presence. This essay, originally entitled “Existential Premises
of Immortality” appeared in English in Presence and Immortality, a
volume containing: Marcel’s essay “My Fundamental Purpose” (1937),
“Journal Entries 1938-1943”, “Existential Premises of Immortality”
(1951) later entitled “Presence and Immortality”, and The Unfath-
omable (March 1919) a first act of an unfinished play, published by
Duquesne University Press in 1967. ( 12 )
And in this philosophical essay reflecting on the existential premises
of immortality, Marcel critically clarifies the nature of inter-subjec-
tivity through and beyond death, and identifies attitudes that are
requisite conditions for its occurrence. Although Marcel’s essay has
a conversational tone, it presents a critically reasoned explanation of
his position.
He there identifies two requisite conditions for clarifying the pos-
sibility of presence of loved ones from beyond. (1) One must recognize
that one’s notion of presence should not be modeled on the mode
of presence that characterizes relations between physical objects or
material things.
(2) Inter-personal presence should be conceived according to the
distinctive mode of being that human existence is. It is a co-presence,
co-constituted by a dialogue of freedoms. The dialogue involves an
appeal, a response that can create a gratuitous and reciprocal agreement
to be with and for one another. This communion of inter-subjectiv-
ity is a “co-esse”. Presence, especially presence from beyond death, is
essentially experienced as a spiritual influx, encountered by way of
inwardness and depth. Presence uplifts one’s spirit, and strengthens one’s
personalizing acts, such as hope, love, and creativity. It depends upon
one to be open, permeable, and to actively await and invoke presence,
but not in fact to summon it forth. Presence when it is conferred and
renewed occurs as a gratuitous event; and whenever presence occurs
it always brings an incitement to create. Inter-subjectivity is the mode
of presence proper to persons who can choose, through a dialogue of
freedom and grace, to create and preserve inter-subjectivity of being,
(a communion and communication of love).
Marcel recognizes that where there has been an inter-subjective
relation of being with, and for, each other in this life that bond of
spiritual kinship endures after death and is most likely to provide
renewed moments of presence continuing the fruitfulness of this inter-
personal relation. In simpler terms, for the loved one beyond death,
“to continue to live, is to continue to live for an ‘us’.” Moments of
presence will be experienced as renewed expressions of active involve-
ment in an ongoing bond of inter-subjectivity.
Marcel noted that when each person confronts the inevitability of
his or her own death, there is a natural aspiration to life, at least a
prenatal palpitation of hope, which none the less carries within it a
temptation to despair. Despair leans to abandon hope and precipi-
Reflections 177
tate the very downfall one dreads. Such wavering between free will’s
options of hope or despair Marcel sees as the struggle between love
and death.
He also observed that one’s grounds for hope, in personal or interper-
sonal survival, are stronger as one has increased experience of spiritual
dimensions in life - e.g. Milton’s immortality, the sacred enduring
quality of Mozart’s music, or the lasting nature of spiritual kinship
and faithful love. He sadly notes that the increasing deprivation of
such experiences in our times makes pessimism and the gravitation
toward despair increasingly prevalent. ( 13 )
Marcel stresses the importance of hope. He notes that as one grieves,
one mourns the loss of the familiar incarnate presence of the loved
one; yet the desire for “having” the benefits and advantages that the
loved one could provide, can give way to hope. Desire is covetous
when it focuses on “having”. Hope, by contrast, is an other-directed,
generous love, that is willing to let the other be in a transformed mode
of existence while still anticipating the future with assurance founded
on inter-personal grounds that lets us look forward to renewals of
presence and a “fullness of life for us”.
Hope’s well spring is liberty, and its expression is an act of free will.
Hope expresses itself in its intensity in situations that carry a tempta-
tion to despair. Hope looks forward to a fullness of life for us. Hope
enjoys an assurance of the essentials of that fullness of life without
being privy to its particular details. Marcel describes hope’s vision, as
a memory of the future, “as before…but as never before. If what we
hope for “as the essentials of a fullness of life for us”, deserves to be
hoped for and we hope for it with all our hearts, there cannot but be
some force within, being more powerful than ourselves, that hopes
with and for us. To Gabriel Marcel, hope in its most intense form
expresses itself as “I hope in Thee for us.” ( 14 )
Thank you for reading Ghostly Mysteries. I believe Marcel’s greatest
gift is his hope that we too experience the presence of our own loved
ones after death.
SOURCES
(1.)“Le Secret est dans les îles,» («The Secret is in the Isles») Preface to Le
Secret est dans les îles, Paris: Librairie Plon, 1967, p.8.
(2.)«The Invisible Threshold», Préface to Le Seuil Invisible, Paris: Bernard
Grasset, 1914, p.8.
(3.)“The Unfathomable” in Presence and Immortality, Pittsburgh, PA:
Duquesne University Press, 1967, pp. 277, and 280; “L’Insondable” pièce
inachevée (mars 1919) in Présence et Immortalité, Paris: Flammarion, 1959,
pp. 195 - 234.
(4.)“An Essay in Autobiography,” in Gabriel Marcel’s Philosophy of Exis-
tentialism, NY, Philosophical Library, Citadel Press, 1956, pp. 122-124,
128; “Postface” of “L’Horizon,” in “Percées vers un ailleurs, Paris: Librairie
Arthème Fayard, 1973, pp. 367 - 369 of 367 - 378.
(5.).”L’Audace en métaphysique,» in Percées vers un ailleurs, Paris: Librairie
Arthème Fayard, 1973, pp. 407 - 421.
(6.)«Existential Premises of Immortality» later entitled «Presence and
Immortality» in Presence and Immortality, Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne
University Press, 1967, pp. 230-231.; French, pp. 179 - 193.
(7.)“A Mystery of Love” is an English translation of a four act play originally
entitled “L’Iconoclaste”, (“The Iconoclast”) written Paris 1917, revised Sens
1921, and published in Paris, Librairie Stock, 1923, pp. 1 - 47.
(8.)“Drama of the Soul in Exile,” in Gabriel Marcel Three Plays, NY: Hill
and Wang, 1965, p. 29; Creative Fidelity, Ch. VIII, Creative Fidelity, NY:
Fordham University Press, 2002, pp. 149 - 154; Existential Background
of Human Dignity, Ch. III, Existence, Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univer-
sity Press, 1963, pp. 52 - 53; “Concrete Approaches to Investigating the
Ontological Mystery”, in Gabriel Marcel’s Perspectives on The Broken World,
Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1998, pp.178 - 183.
(9.)“The Posthumous Joke” is an English translation of “Le Divertisse-
ment Posthume,” pièce en deux actes avec prologue et épilogue, (1923),
published in Théâtre Comique, Paris: Editions Albin Michel, 1947, pp.
230 - 355.
(10.)«A Mystery of Love» is an English translation of «L’Iconoclaste» (The
Iconoclast), Paris: Stock, 1923, pp. 1-47. Cf. Creative Fidelity, Ch. VIII,
pp. 150 - 153; “The Drama of the Soul in Exile,” in Gabriel Marcel Three
Plays, pp. 28 - 30; The Existential Background of Human Dignity, pp.
50-53.
180 Gabriel Marcel
(11.)“From Comic Theatre to Musical Creation” a previously unpublished
essay by Gabriel Marcel, in Two Plays by Gabriel Marcel: The Lantern and
The Torch of Peace, Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1988,
(copyright 1997 K.R. Hanley), pp. xvii - xxii, esp., pp. xix, lines 5 - 20,
pp. xviii-xix, pp. xxi - xxii. Confer. Renascence, Essays on Values in Litera-
ture, Critical Perspectives on Gabriel Marcel, Milwaukee, WI: Marquette
University Press, Vol. LV, No. 3, Spring, 2003, pp. 243 - 244.
(12.)“An Essay in Autobiography,” in Gabriel Marcel’s The Philosophy
of Existentialism, New York: Citadel Press, 1956, p. 127; “Presence and
Immortality” in Presence and Immortality, Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne
University Press, 1967, pp. 230 - 244.
(13.)“Death and Immortality” in Searchings, NY: Newman Press, 1967,
Ch. IV, pp. 55 - 72. Auf der Suche nach Wahrheit und Gerichtigkeit, Freiburg
im Bresgau: Verlag Knecht, 1964, Editor: Wolfgang Ruf ,Chaplain of the
Catholic Student Community of Freiburg University, Germany.
(14.)“Sketch of a Phenomenology and a Metaphysic of Hope,” in Homo
Viator, An Introduction to a metaphysic of Hope (Le Peuch, January 1942),
Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith Publishers, 1978, pp. 29 - 67, translated
from the French “Esquisse d’une phénomènologie et d’une métaphysique
de l’espérance” in Homo Viator, Une Prolégomènes d’ une métaphysique de
l’espérence, (Philosophie de l’Esprit), Paris: Aubier- Editions Montaigne,
1944, pp. 35 - 124. Cf. “Concrete Approaches to Investigating the Ontologi-
cal Mystery”, pp. 183-190. Cf. also “Existential Premises of Immortality”
later entitled “Presence and Immortality” in Presence and Immortality, pp.
230 - 231.
GABRIEL MARCEL RESOURCES
(For Further Information about Marcel and His Works)
In French and English, www.gabriel-marcel.com
E-mail: courrier@gabriel-marcel.com
Présence de Gabriel Marcel, 21 rue de Tournon, Paris 75006,
France
Fax (33) (1) 43 54 53 42
Intérnationale Association Présence de Gabriel Marcel
85 boulevard de Port Royal, Paris 75013
In English Gabriel Marcel Society

www.lemoyne.edu/gms, hanleykr@aol.com
President: Prof. Brendan Sweetman, Rockhurst University, Kansas
City, MO 64110, E-mail: Brendan.Sweetman@rockhurst .com
Secretary/Treasurer: Prof. Teresa Reed, Rockhurst University,
Kansas City, MO 64110, E-mail: Reed@Rockhurst.edu
Newsletter Editor: Prof. Tom Michaud, Editor-GMS Newsletter, Dept.
of Philosophy, Wheeling Jesuit University, Wheeling, WV
26003. E-mail: tmichaud@wju.edu
For the new, or seasoned, Marcel admirer, we recommend the Marcel

“Live Theater” Audio CDs Dot the I & The Double Expertise, ISBN
0-09715192-0-X presenting a poignant drama and a light hearted
comedy; and The Lantern, ISBN 0-09715192-3-4, as well as the
books Gabriel Marcel’s Perspectives on The Broken World, ISBN
0-87462-617-X 1998, Marquette University Press, which includes
a four act play The Broken World and a profound reflection on the
haunting question: “Who am I?”, and its inseparable counterpart,
“Is Life Empty or Full?”, plus a bibliography and eight appendices,
Gabriel Marcel’s Autobiography, Awakenings, ISBN 0-84762-653-
6, Marquette University Press, 2002 and Creative Fidelity, ISBN
0-8232-2184-9, NY: Fordham University Press, 2002.
The two audio CDs of Marcel Plays, Dot the I & The Double Exper-
tise, and The Lantern, may be ordered by credit card at www.lemoyne.
edu/gms or by mail from K. R. Hanley, Marcel Studies, Philosophy
182 Gabriel Marcel
Dept., Le Moyne College, 1419 Salt Springs Rd., Syracuse, NY 13214.
Plays also available in English are Three Plays: A Man of God, Ariadne,
The Votive Candle, NY: Hill and Wang; The Unfathomable in Presence
and Immortality, Pittsburgh,PA: Duquesne University Press; Dot the I
& The Double Expertise, and The Lantern and The Torch of Peace , in
Two One Act Plays by Gabriel Marcel, and Two Plays by Gabriel Marcel,
(currently out of print but to be combined in a new volume for pub-
lication in 2005). Information about videos of The Lantern, Dot the
I, The Double Expertise, and The Rebellious Heart can be obtained at
www.lemoyne.edu/gms or by contacting hanleykr@aol.com.
ADDITIONAL READING
for
Gabriel Marcel’s Dramatic and Philosophic Perspectives
on Presence and Immortality
Belay, Marcel La Mort dans le théâtre de Gabriel Marcel, Paris: Vrin, 1980.
Chenu, Joseph Le Théâtre de Gabriel Marcel et sa signification métaphysique,
Paris: Aubier, 1948
Fessard, Gaston Théâtre et mystère, Introduction à Gabriel Marcel, Paris:
Tequi, 1938.
Hanley,Dramatic Approaches to Creative Fidelity: A Study in the Katharine
Rose Theatre and Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel (1889-1973), Lanham,
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Gabriel Marcel: A Mystery of Love and The Posthumous Joke by

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A Mystery of Love

A Drama in Four Acts

The Posthumous Joke

The Posthumous Joke

Introduction and Reﬂections by the Translator

Katharine Rose Hanley

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Marcel, Gabriel, 1889-1973.

© 2004 K.R. Hanley

About the Translator and Author (of Introduction and Reﬂections)..........9

A Mystery of Love ....................................................................................17

The Posthumous Joke .............................................................................101

Gabriel Marcel Resources .....................................................................181

Additional Reading ..............................................................................183

Now to enjoy the Ghostly Mysteries present in

(Published in the Original French as

A Play in Four Acts

In loving memory of my Grandmother

ABEL: (Suddenly.) No! You struck a false note.

JACQUES: In any event this is extremely awkward, the story they

A Three Act Play

CARTERON: We are all on a tight rein, on edge all day long.

FAUCONNEAU: (Who hasn’t seen, says to Carteron.) I must say to

CARTERON: Ah! But it seems to me that you don’t exactly fulﬁll

THE WAITER: (Coming in, to Carteron.) Monsieur, it’s those people

THE WAITER: (Coming in.) Madame Fauconneau, your mother,

SUZANNE FAVIER: Say, didn’t you get the impression…

EMILE FAVIER: (Following an impulse.) Uncle, if you would like,

(A very long silence. Fauconneau spellbound waits. Carteron’s facial expres-

MADAME SORBIER: Well, are your people going to replace the

ALPHONSINE: It’s not my fault, Madame. That woman always

LOUISE FAVRIER: Well read on.

EMILE FAVIER: All right then! Show him in.

CORBIGNY: I say it again, it seemed cruel to us to deprive him

EMILE FAVIER: He was in class yesterday. That’s too much.

LOUISE FAVRIER: Some men served whose health wasn’t as good

MADAME THOMASSET: So, Madame Favier doesn’t see anyone

SUZANNE FAVIER: I don’t know. Is it Esther or Athalie?

EMILE FAVIER: (Appearing.) That Sorbier woman!

CHARLES THOMASSET: (Vivaciously.) But, Madame, how could

CHARLES THOMASSET: (Alone.) Oh! This isn’t funny at all.

CHARLES THOMASSET: I’m not saying that’s the case. I haven’t

EMILE FAVIER: It was I who just said that.

LOUISE FAVRIER: But your apartment overlooks the school

LOUISE FAVRIER: But when we were used to living in our own

POKROVSKI: Sleep, you are in a deep sleep. (Favier snores.) No,

POKROVSKI: (In front of Clemence.) She is shaking her head, no,

POKROVSKI: The medium is showing signs of fatigue; I’m going

CLEMENCE: (Through the window.) Can’t you talk to us from

EMILE FAVIER: No way.

CARTERON’S VOICE: (Moaning.) Failed! Failed to get through!

This prank becomes a “posthumous joke”, an “after death” com-

Certainly, the acting out of suspicious accusations provides the

In English Gabriel Marcel Society

For the new, or seasoned, Marcel admirer, we recommend the Marcel

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