The Stepmother, A Drama in Five Acts

Автор

Оноре де Бальзак

Жанр

Зарубежная классика

Год написания книги

2017

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Pauline

You can read my heart, madame, for I am concealing nothing from you.

The General

Vernon, what in the name of everything are you doing?

(Faint murmurs are heard among the card players; Pauline casts a look at them.)

Gertrude (aside) The question point-blank does not do with her. (Aloud) How happy you make me! For this provincial joker, Godard, avers that you almost fainted when he prompted Napoleon to declare that Ferdinand had broken his leg. Ferdinand is a pleasant young fellow, our intimate friend for some four years; what is more natural than your attachment for the youth, whose birth and talents are both in his favor?

Pauline

He is my father's clerk.

Gertrude Thank God, you are not in love with him; I was a little anxious for the moment, for, my dear child, he is a married man.

Pauline

What! He is married? Why then does he make a secret of it? (Aside)

Married? That would be outrageous. I will ask him this evening. I will give him the signal on which we agreed to meet.

Gertrude (aside) Not a line of her face changed! Godard is wrong, or this child is more self-possessed than I am. (Aloud) What is the matter with you, my pet?

Pauline

Oh! nothing.

Gertrude (touching Pauline's neck) Why, you are quite hot! Do you feel so? (Aside) She loves him, that is plain. But the question is, does he love her? I suffer the torments of the damned!

Pauline I have been working too closely at this frame! And what, pray, is the matter with you?

Gertrude

Nothing. But you asked me why Ferdinand kept his marriage secret.

Pauline

Ah! yes!

Gertrude (rising, aside) If she is in love, she has a will of iron. But where can they have met? I never leave her in the daytime, and Champagne sees him all the time at the factory. No! it is absurd. If she does love him, it is without his knowledge, and she is like all other young girls, who begin to love a man in secret. But if they have come to an understanding, I have given her such a start that she will be sure to communicate with him about it, if only through her eyes. I will keep them both well in sight.

Godard

We have had wonderful luck, M. Ferdinand!

(Ferdinand leaves off playing and goes towards Gertrude.)

Pauline (aside)

I did not know that it was possible to suffer so much and yet live on.

Ferdinand (to Gertrude)

Madame, won't you take my place in the game?

Gertrude

Pauline, will you go instead? (Aside) I can't tell him that he loves

Pauline, that would suggest what may be a new idea to him. What shall

I do? (to Ferdinand) She has confessed all.

Ferdinand

Confessed what?

Gertrude

Why, all!

Ferdinand

I don't understand. Do you refer to Mlle. de Grandchamp?

Gertrude

Yes.

Ferdinand

And what has she been doing?

Gertrude

You have not been false to me? You do not want to kill me?

Ferdinand

Kill you? She? I?

Gertrude

Am I the victim of one of Godard's jokes?

Ferdinand