The Step-Daughter. Vile? There they were in a pale blue envelope on a little mahogany table in the back of Madame Pace's shop. You know Madame Pace – one of those ladies who attract poor girls of good family into their ateliers, under the pretext of their selling robes et manteaux.
The Son. And he thinks he has bought the right to tyrannize over us all with those hundred lire he was going to pay; but which, fortunately – note this, gentlemen – he had no chance of paying.
The Step-Daughter. It was a near thing, though, you know! [Laughs ironically. ]
The Mother [protesting ]. Shame, my daughter, shame!
The Step-Daughter. Shame indeed! This is my revenge! I am dying to live that scene . . . The room . . . I see it . . . Here is the window with the mantles exposed, there the divan, the looking-glass, a screen, there in front of the window the little mahogany table with the blue envelope containing one hundred lire. I see it. I see it. I could take hold of it . . . But you, gentlemen, you ought to turn your backs now: I am almost nude, you know. But I don't blush: I leave that to him. [Indicating FATHER.]
The Manager. I don't understand this at all.
The Father. Naturally enough. I would ask you, sir, to exercise your authority a little here, and let me speak before you believe all she is trying to blame me with. Let me explain.
The Step-Daughter. Ah yes, explain it in your own way.
The Father. But don't you see that the whole trouble lies here. In words, words. Each one of us has within him a whole world of things, each man of us his own special world. And how can we ever come to an understanding if I put in the words I utter the sense and value of things as I see them; while you who listen to me must inevitably translate them according to the conception of things each one of you has within himself. We think we understand each other, but we never really do. Look here! This woman [Indicating the MOTHER.] takes all my pity for her as a specially ferocious form of cruelty.
The Mother. But you drove me away.
The Father. Do you hear her? I drove her away! She believes I really sent her away.
The Mother. You know how to talk, and I don't; but, believe me, sir [To MANAGER.], after he had married me . . . Who knows why? . . . I was a poor insignificant woman . . .
The Father. But, good heavens! It was just for your humility that I married you. I loved this simplicity in you. [He stops when he sees she makes signs to contradict him, opens his arms wide in sign of desperation, seeing how hopeless it is to make himself understood. ] You see she denies it. Her mental deafness, believe me, is phenomenal, the limit: [Touches his forehead. ] deaf, deaf, mentally deaf! She has plenty of feeling. Oh yes, a good heart for the children; but the brain – deaf, to the point of desperation
The Step-Daughter. Yes, but ask him how his intelligence has helped us.
The Father. If we could see all the evil that may spring from good, what should we do? [At this point the LEADING LADY who is biting her lips with rage at seeing the LEADING MAN flirting with the STEP-DAUGHTER, comes forward and says to the MANAGER.]
Leading Lady. Excuse me, but are we going to rehearse today?
Manager. Of course, of course; but let's hear them out.
Juvenile Lead. This is something quite new.
L'Ingénue. most interesting!
Leading Lady. Yes, for the people who like that kind of thing. [Casts a glance at LEADING MAN.]
The Manager [to FATHER]. You must please explain yourself quite clearly. [Sits down. ]
The Father. Very well then: listen! I had in my service a poor man, a clerk, a secretary of mine, full of devotion, who became friends with her. [Indicating the MOTHER.] They understood one another, were kindred souls in fact, without, however, the least suspicion of any evil existing. They were incapable even of thinking of it.
The Step-Daughter. So he thought of it – for them!
The Father. That's not true. I meant to do good to them – and to myself, I confess, at the same time. Things had come to the point that I could not say a word to either of them without their making a mute appeal, one to the other, with their eyes. I could see them silently asking each other how I was to be kept in countenance, how I was to be kept quiet. And this, believe me, was just about enough of itself to keep me in a constant rage, to exasperate me beyond measure.
The Manager. And why didn't you send him away then – this secretary of yours?
The Father. Precisely what I did, sir. And then I had to watch this poor woman drifting forlornly about the house like an animal without a master, like an animal one has taken in out of pity.
The Mother. Ah yes . . .
The Father [suddenly turning to the MOTHER]. It's true about the son anyway, isn't it?
The Mother. He took my son away from me first of all.
The Father. But not from cruelty. I did it so that he should grow up healthy and strong by living in the country.
The Step-Daughter [pointing to him ironically ]. As one can see.
The Father [quickly ]. Is it my fault if he has grown up like this? I sent him to a wet nurse in the country, a peasant, as she did not seem to me strong enough, though she is of humble origin. That was, anyway, the reason I married her. Unpleasant all this may be, but how can it be helped? My mistake possibly, but there we are! All my life I have had these confounded aspirations towards a certain moral sanity. [At this point the STEP-DAUGHTER bursts into a noisy laugh. ] Oh, stop it! Stop it! I can't stand it.
The Manager. Yes, please stop it, for heaven's sake.
The Step-Daughter. But imagine moral sanity from him, if you please – the client of certain ateliers like that of Madame Pace!
The Father. Fool! That is the proof that I am a man! This seeming contradiction, gentlemen, is the strongest proof that I stand here a live man before you. Why, it is just for this very incongruity in my nature that I have had to suffer what I have. I could not live by the side of that woman [Indicating the MOTHER.] any longer; but not so much for the boredom she inspired me with as for the pity I felt for her.
The Mother. And so he turned me out – -.
The Father. – well provided for! Yes, I sent her to that man, gentlemen . . . To let her go free of me.
The Mother. And to free himself.
The Father. Yes, I admit it. It was also a liberation for me. But great evil has come of it. I meant well when I did it; and I did it more for her sake than mine. I swear it. [Crosses his arms on his chest; then turns suddenly to the MOTHER.] Did I ever lose sight of you until that other man carried you off to another town, like the angry fool he was? And on account of my pure interest in you . . . My pure interest, I repeat, that had no base motive in it . . . I watched with the tenderest concern the new family that grew up around her. She can bear witness to this. [Points to the STEP-DAUGHTER.]
The Step-Daughter. Oh yes, that's true enough. When I was a kiddie, so so high, you know, with plaits over my shoulders and knickers longer than my skirts, I used to see him waiting outside the school for me to come out. He came to see how I was growing up.
The Father. This is infamous, shameful!
The Step-Daughter. No. Why?