Comedy of Marriage and Other Tales

Автор

Ги де Мопассан

Жанр

Зарубежная классика

Год написания книги

2017

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Perhaps!

JACQUES DE RANDOL

And what about to-morrow?

MME. DE SALLUS

I do not know.

JACQUES DE RANDOL

Is it nothing to you to have one who is yours, body and soul? MME. DE SALLUS [shrugs her shoulders]

Yes, mine to-day.

JACQUES DE RANDOL [vehemently]

And to-morrow!

MME. DE SALLUS [shrugs her shoulders again]

Yes, the to-morrow that follows to-night, but not the to-morrow of a year hence.

JACQUES DE RANDOL [emphatically]

You shall see. But how about your husband?

MME. DE SALLUS

Does he annoy you?

JACQUES DE RANDOL By heaven —

MME. DE SALLUS

Hush! [Archly.] My husband has fallen in love with me again.

JACQUES DE RANDOL

Is it possible?

MME. DE SALLUS [indignantly]

What do you mean by such an insolent question, and why should it not be possible?

JACQUES DE RANDOL

A man falls in love with his wife before he marries her, but after marriage he never commits the same mistake.

MME. DE SALLUS

But perhaps he has never really been in love with me until now.

JACQUES DE RANDOL

It is absolutely impossible that he could have lived with you – even in his curt, cavalier fashion – without loving you.

MME. DE SALLUS [indifferently]

It is of little importance. He has either loved me in the past, or is now beginning to love me.

JACQUES DE RANDOL

Truly, I do not understand you. Tell me all about it.

MME. DE SALLUS

But I have nothing to tell. He declares his love for me, takes me in his arms, and threatens me with his conjugal rights. This upsets me, torments me, and annoys me.

JACQUES DE RANDOL

Madeline you torture me.

MME. DE SALLUS [quickly]

And what about me? Do you think that I do not suffer? I know that I am not exactly a faithful woman since I received your addresses, but I have, and shall retain, a single heart. It is either you or he. It will never be you and he. For me that would be infamy – the greatest infamy of a guilty woman, the sharing of her heart – a thing that debases her. One may fall, perhaps, because there are ditches along the wayside and it is not always easy to follow the right path. But if one falls, that is no reason to throw oneself in the abyss.

JACQUES DE RANDOL [takes her in his arms and kisses her]

I simply adore you!

MME. DE SALLUS [melts]

And I, too, love you dearly, Jacques, and that is the reason why I fear.

JACQUES DE RANDOL

But, tell me, Madeline how long has it been since your husband reformed?

MME. DE SALLUS

Possibly fifteen days or three weeks.

JACQUES DE RANDOL

Without relapse?

MME. DE SALLUS