The Stepmother, A Drama in Five Acts

Ramel

You needn't go on; I understand. You have been reviving Romeo andJuliet– in the heart of Normandy.

Ferdinand With this difference, that the hereditary hatred which stood between the two lovers of the play was a mere trifle in comparison with the loathing with which the Comte de Grandchamp contemplates the son of the traitor Marcandal!

Ramel Let me see! Mlle. Pauline de Grandchamp will be free in three years; she is rich in her own right – I know this from the Boudevilles. You can easily take her to Switzerland and keep her there until the General's wrath has had time to cool; and then you can make him the respectful apologies required under the circumstances.

Ferdinand Do you think I would have asked your advice if the only difficulty lay in the attainment of this trite and easy solution of the problem?

Ramel

Ah! I see, my dear friend. You have already married your

Gertrude – your angel – who has become to you like all other angels, after their metamorphoses into a lawful wives.

Ferdinand

'Tis a hundred times worse than that! Gertrude, my dear sir, is now

Madame de Grandchamp.

Ramel

Oh, dear! How is it you've thrust yourself into such a hornets' nest?

Ferdinand In the same way that people always thrust themselves into hornets' nests; that is, with the hope of finding honey there.

Ramel Oh, oh! This is a very serious matter! Now, really, you must conceal nothing from me.

Ferdinand Mlle. Gertrude de Meilhac, educated at St. Denis, without doubt loved me first of all through ambition; she was glad to know that I was rich, and did all she could to gain my attachment with a view to marriage.

Ramel

Such is the game of all these intriguing orphan girls.

Ferdinand But how came it about that Gertrude has ended by loving me so sincerely? For her passion may be judged by its effects. I call it a passion, but with her it is first love, sole and undivided love, which dominates her whole life, and seems to consume her. When she found that I was a ruined man, towards the close of the year 1816, and knowing that I was like you, a poet, fond of luxury and art, of a soft and happy life, in short, a mere spoilt child, she formed a plan at once base and sublime, such a plan as disappointed passion suggests to women who, for the sake of their love, do all that despots do for the sake of their power; for them, the supreme law is that of their love —

Ramel The facts, my dear fellow, give me the facts! You are making your defence, recollect, and I am prosecuting attorney.

Ferdinand While I was settling my mother in Brittany, Gertrude met General de Grandchamp, who was seeking a governess for his daughter. She saw nothing in this battered warrior, then fifty-eight years old, but a money-box. She expected that she would soon be left a widow, wealthy and in circumstances to claim her lover and her slave. She said to herself that her marriage would be merely a bad dream, followed quickly by a happy awakening. You see the dream has lasted twelve years! But you know how women reason.

Ramel

They have a special jurisprudence of their own.

Ferdinand Gertrude is a woman of the fiercest jealousy. She wishes for fidelity in her lover to recompense her for her infidelity to her husband, and as she has suffered martyrdom, she says, she wishes —

Ramel To have you in the same house with her, that she may keep watch over you herself.

Ferdinand She has been successful in getting me here. For the last three years I have been living in a small house near the factory. I should have left the first week after my arrival, but that two days' acquaintance with Pauline convinced me that I could not live without her.

Ramel Your love for Pauline, it seems to me as a magistrate, makes your position here somewhat less distasteful.

Ferdinand My position? I assure you, it is intolerable, among the three characters with whom I am cast. Pauline is daring, like all young persons who are innocent, to whom love is a wholly ideal thing, and who see no evil in anything, so long as it concerns a man whom they intend to marry. The penetration of Gertrude is very acute, but we manage to elude it through Pauline's terror lest my name should be divulged; the sense of this danger gives her strength to dissemble! But now Pauline has just refused Godard, and I do not know what may be the consequences.

Ramel I know Godard; under a somewhat dull exterior he conceals great sagacity, and he is the most inquisitive man in the department. Is he here now?

Ferdinand

He dines here to-day.

Ramel

Do not trust him.

Ferdinand If two women, between whom there is no love lost, make the discovery that they are rivals, one of them, I can't say which, is capable of killing the other, for one is strong in innocence and lawful love; the other, furious to see the fruit of so much dissimulation, so many sacrifices, even crimes lost to her forever.

(Enter Napoleon.)

Ramel You alarm me – me, the prosecuting attorney! Upon my word and honor, women often cost more than they are worth.

Napoleon Dear friend! Papa and mamma are impatient about you; they send word that you must leave your business, and Vernon says that your stomach requires it.

Ferdinand

You little rogue! You are come eavesdropping!

Napoleon

Mamma whispered in my ear: "Go and see what your friend is doing."

Ferdinand Run away, you little scamp! Be off! I am coming. (To Ramel) You see she makes this innocent child a spy over me.

(Exit Napoleon.)

Ramel

Is this the General's child?

Ferdinand

Yes.

Ramel

He is twelve years old?

Ferdinand