The Forfeiture, Charles Dufresny [books to read this summer TXT] 📗

be lost. (Frontin puts on a brown coat and a black wig)

FRONTIN: It's necessary that I first be Senechal Groux. Wait for me upstairs at Aunt Araminte's. She's getting ready to leave. There I can go without fear and instruct you in everything.

VALERE: I am going there.

FRONTIN: I will rejoin you.

(Exit Valere)

FRONTIN: (to Lackey) I thought I'd have two days time at least. But both of them taking the money to the notary are going to discover the trick. We'll have to speed up the affair.

(Exit Lackey, enter Belise)

FRONTIN: Good. The prude is leaving. By having imitated trait for trait her insipidity, her cold gravity, I pleased her. There's no other way to please this foolish woman except by echoing her vapid whims.------- Madame

BELISE: Ah, Senechal. What! You are here. I see you again.

FRONTIN: You see? As for me, I see you again, too.

BELISE: Once more I see the happiness of an unfeeling woman.

FRONTIN: I see again the happiness of a fire-proof man.

BELISE: Who looks with frigidity on the most charming of men.

FRONTIN: Who views with disdain the most loveable object.

BELISE: Preceded by terror, considering my love. I am astonished to see this extreme change you've wrought in me in less than two weeks.

FRONTIN: I see with a kind of horror that you have effected a metamorphosis in me.

BELISE: Both of us, at the same time, think the same thing?

FRONTIN: The same thing, and always sympathy between us.

BELISE: What a coincidence! Oh, heaven! To take you for a spouse. That makes me tremble.

FRONTIN: I quiver, Madame, on account of the step I am going to take, by taking you for my wife.

BELISE: I, who by my example have kept my sister in the vow she made to guard her heart. She respected me as the most perfect. I must blush before my little sister.

FRONTIN: I who to my elders reprimanded passions, forcing even my sisters to celibacy, I who in history to distinguish my name would have gloried in the title of extinguisher of my race--

BELISE: I who abhorred even the name of marriage and would have become famous for it.

FRONTIN: I, Senechal Groux, caustic philosopher who jested at suitors, insulted them, apostrophized them.

BELISE: I called marriage a myth, a stumbling block.

FRONTIN: The prison of desires, the coffin of the living.

BELISE: (tenderly) The abyss. Now see what an unfeeling fondness--

FRONTIN: Towards the abyss, a slope--

BELISE: Yes, sweet--

FRONTIN: Imperceptible--

BELISE: Leads me to the brink--

FRONTIN: The foot slips and here I am.

BELISE: Here I am. But at least the world agrees I have chosen you from taste, from wisdom.

FRONTIN: Our marriage is the wisest type.

BELISE: But all my embarrassment is, that by marrying, I must--here's the trouble--, I must pay this forfeiture. What to do? This forfeiture note that I gave to Valere. That crazy sister of mine invented the forfeiture. We made two promissory notes to this cursed nephew. All falls on me, since I am marrying, so I will have to pay up all by myself, and I'm going to have to put up with all kinds of jesting from her. Blush to death.

FRONTIN: While our love remains secret, compose yourself and retrieve your promissory notes from Valere.

BELISE: That's my intention. I am going to my notary to take some money to my nephew. Without a doubt he will instantly return my promissory note to me. But if my sister should learn of it, oh, my heart palpitates. From reason and from shame, I avoid her carefully. After seeing you, I dare not see her.

(Exit Belise)

FRONTIN: We shall get to tap that money she's going to receive.

(Enter Lackey)

LACKEY: Sir, change clothes or hide yourself quickly. Araminte has returned.

FRONTIN: I ought to avoid her. But no. Let's pull it off! I am going to wait for her here. Time presses. Wait, take this wig. By knotting it this way, I will have the most comic look. Playful, negligent. It's the Chevalier Cique. To charm a madwoman you have to rave.

(Exit Lackey, enter Araminte)

ARAMINTE (assuming all passions, one after another) I run in thoughtless. They've just been plotting against me. I tremble; I still have a hundred things to say to you. And jests. First, I am going to make you laugh. But no. The serious is more pressing. My sister, seeing me there, passed by proudly. I was trembling. It's of this we will speak first. Let's begin by you admiring my conduct, the softness and complacency with which I hide my shame. Now, in secret, I hoped, but I fear. At the same time I sense an infinite joy. You are going to deliver me from the tyranny of my sister. And the more I hate that nephew, the more I going to settle everything for you on that score. But tell me first: what part should I take? Speak slowly, for I love to hear you. When you breathe I listen. Speak of your love and let me reply. Speak.

FRONTIN: If I am silent it's because the crowd of my passions is rolling in me, as in you, and are preventing me from speaking. For in vivacity, I dare equal you. But my love has reduced me to silence. I was unable to say a word, 'cause you were speaking.

ARAMINTE: You are all wit, although you are quiet. For you, your manners, your looks, all speak loudly. All speak your heart, my dear Chevalier de Cique!

FRONTIN: Everything in you is beautiful. All of me loves you. Everything in me, everything in you, a charming agreement that demands marriage.

ARAMINTE: It's true. But I fear this forfeiture which preoccupies me. And I fear still more this severe sister who believes that, alas, it is a crime to have a heart; she made me take a vow of indifference when I would have broken it in my childhood. That is to say from the age when my discernment had been able to distinguish you, to choose you for my lover. Yes, my dear Chevalier, yes, I repeat it to you, I love you, I love you too late. I regret without cease the years I have spent without knowing you.

FRONTIN: I'm only twenty five but I would have come into the world twenty years sooner to know you. Yes, time is dear to us, as it ought to be. Let us see quickly. Let's decide. Have you resolved?

ARAMINTE: I've looked, looked again, decided, determined, concluded. Ought I to be in fear of this savage sister who hates marriage for herself and for me? You will be my husband from tomorrow, from this evening.

FRONTIN: But to the essential. You must be able, before declaring our business to your sister, to get rid of those promissory notes to Valere. Reach an agreement with him. Is your money ready?

ARAMINTE: Yes, I've withdrawn everything. It is in my interest this forfeiture be taken care of, alas, before my sister learns of my marriage. I am prudent and wise.

FRONTIN: Haste! I am going to see my illustrious relatives to tell them the role I am taking.

(Exit Frontin)

ARAMINTE: Let's quickly send a lackey to Valere. But what do I see! My sister returning from the notary. She's going to be irritated about the money I've taken out. He's just informed her.

(Enter Belise. They don't speak to each other at first.)

BELISE: Yes, my sister is going to see the Notary. She's going to guess the mystery.

ARAMINTE: I see she's upset. Oh, I hear her rage. Where shall I tell her I intend to place the money?

BELISE: Ah, I see that she knows it. What it will cost me to say that this money is for my marriage?

ARAMINTE: Sooner or later my sister must confide in me.

BELISE: I tremble. Dare I make her my full confidante? Let's try. Let's talk to her.

ARAMINTE: (aloud) Sister.

BELISE: (aloud) Sister, I think-- (aside) Oh, fear seizes me!

ARAMINTE: (aside) Shame smothers my voice.

BELISE:(aloud) To put money when the law--

ARAMINTE: When one disposes of joint funds by oneself--

BELISE: One ought to warn of taking it, but one dares not--

ARAMINTE: One ought to confide in her sister.

BELISE: Yes, of course--

ARAMINTE: One ought--

BELISE: One is afraid--

ARAMINTE: It's I.--

BELISE: I admit it--

ARAMINTE: I was wrong.

BELISE: One ought to ask pardon--

ARAMINTE: A fault so huge--

BELISE: Yes, when one is promised--

ARAMINTE: Sister, I ask your pardon--

BELISE: Pardon, sister--

ARAMINTE: Pardon.

BELISE: Pardon.

ARAMINTE: What? We are asking each other for pardon?

BELISE: But truly, you ask me. What is your offense then?

ARAMINTE: I believe it was you who asked first. What have you done to me?

BELISE: But you, too, sister?

ARAMINTE: Tell me your secrets.

BELISE: Open your heart to me.

ARAMINTE: Oh, well. You will doubtless have learned from the notary that I have taken this money.

BELISE: Your business. You are right to take your wealth. For each can dispose of hers as she pleases.

ARAMINTE: To place it elsewhere, I thought I had the right to take it.

BELISE: You don't owe me any accounting. I have taken mine as well.

ARAMINTE: So much the better, sister, so much the better. On that account I calm my curiosity.

BELISE: You have good sense. You are not being irritating.

ARAMINTE: One is liberal with you because you are charming.

BELISE: Alas, I never irritated you about anything. Except about marriage and that was for your good. If boredom at being a maiden made you do it, I would be compassionate, like a tender sister--for a weakness.

ARAMINTE: You will never have such a weakness. If you come to that-- and the wisest have--far from condemning you I would be complaisant about it.

BELISE: Ah, be sure of my condescension.

ARAMINTE: Sometimes, we must be humane to each other.

BELISE: Alas, I, in getting married would authorize you to do so, without wishing you ill for it.

ARAMINTE: Yes, marry quickly, yes. I would be ravished, for then I could--

BELISE: What? Why?

ARAMINTE: But, sister--

BELISE: Could you have been capable of letting your heart be surprised?

ARAMINTE: And you?

BELISE: But you--

ARAMINTE: But you--

BELISE: Eh!

ARAMINTE: But yes.

BELISE: Me, too.

ARAMINTE: Embrace me, sis.

BELISE: Sis, how I love you. Yes, we are truly sisters today.

ARAMINTE: You know, good hearts are always made for love. You would have stayed a maid. What folly!

BELISE: Like you, I wonder how we made that imprudent vow thirty years ago.

ARAMINTE: The one you love, you have freely. Without doubt, dear sister, wise as you are, you have meditated over the choice that you've made.

BELISE: You whose taste is so fine, so exquisite, undoubtedly you made your choice with discernment.

ARAMINTE: Lively, playful, humorous. He's an amiable young man.

BELISE: The one that I love is young and yet respectable; wise, grave, self possessed.

ARAMINTE: Mine always has the air--

BELISE: A solidity--

ARAMINTE: Brilliant like a