The Goddess of Reason 34
DE BUC
So!
GRÉGOIRE
You are warned! Prepare!
Make your farewells—the time is very short!
[_Exit_ GRÉGOIRE.
DE BUC
Strike camp!
DE L’ORIENT
The open road!
COUNT LOUIS
Who goes?
LA FÔRET
Who stays?
MLLE. DE CHÂTEAU-GUI
Our comedy!—we cannot have it now!
THE ACTRESS
Oh, we will rearrange the parts!
[DE VARDES _folds his letter and rises from the table_.
DE VARDES
We’ll play,
Though all the world is sliding ‘neath our feet!
DE BUC
The world’s a stage—
THE NUN
_De profundis clamavi
Ad te Domine!_
_Enter the_ ABBÉ JEAN DE BARBASAN, _pale, wounded, and with
disordered dress_.
MLLE. DE CHÂTEAU-GUI
Monsieur l’Abbé!
DE VARDES
Ah!
De Barbasan, we feared for you!
THE ABBÉ
Morbleu!
I am reprieved! Lambertye proved my friend!
It seems that once I saved the villain’s life!—
Pure accident!—stumbled on him in a ditch,
Played the Samaritan!—so now I’m spared,
Come forth like Daniel from the lions’ den,
That Judgment Hall of theirs across the way!
Lions! They are not lions, they are wolves,
Hyenas, tigers, and baboons. Faugh!
DE BUC
So!
They are hungry yet?
THE ABBÉ
Oh, they are portents!
And portents are the folk that fill that hall!
Not women they who sit aloft and knit;
Not men, those scarecrow visages below;
For robed judges, wolves at Lammas tide,
And Nantes the winter forest for the pack!—
But ah, the deer at bay, the little lambs!—
The earth gives ‘neath their feet, they face the Loire!
[_A confused sound from the square without the window;
voices, menacing and execrating, a cry, then
silence._
DE VARDES
One has not gained the Loire!
THE ABBÉ
Ah, oftentimes,
They fall before they reach the Judgment Hall!
There in the street, before that fatal door—
Both youth and age, fair women and brave men.
Their blood cries to another judgment seat!
From yonder window you may see it all!
THE MARQUISE
We will not look!
COUNT LOUIS
Fie, fie, De Barbasan!
There is a time for everything! Not now,
Nor in this place is’t meet or debonair
To speak of ravening wolves or stricken deer!
To work, my friend! You find us much concerned
About this play of Molière’s! We give
_Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme_.
THE MARQUISE
You’ll play Jourdain?
Béjart had promised us, but then he went.
He’s not returned.
THE ABBÉ
Nor will, I think. But, yes,
I’ll take the part; I’ll speak in prose to you
To whom I else would speak in poetry!
THE MARQUISE (_with a curtesy_)
Monsieur Jourdain, your prose is ravishing!—
I’m Dorimène.
DE BUC
And I Dorante!
MLLE. DE CHÂTEAU-GUI
Lucille.
MME. DE MALESTROIT
Nicole!
THE ACTRESS
I am, Monsieur Jourdain, your wife!
LA FÔRET
Your son-in-law the Turk!
DE VARDES
Behold, monsieur,
Your fencing master!
DE L’ORIENT
Your _maître de danse_.
Imagine, pray, you hear my violin:
La, la—The minuet!—La, la, la!
[_He plays an imaginary violin. The prisoners hesitate,
laugh, then begin to step a minuet. The children
and the gaolers watch them._ DE VARDES _does
not dance. He leans against a pillar to the left_.
_Enter a turnkey_, CÉLESTE, ANGÉLIQUE, NANON, _and_
SÉRAPHINE.
SÉRAPHINE (_crossing herself_)
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