Moral Part 12

STROEBEL [benevolently]. No doubt, it was a trifle hard.

HAUTEVILLE. It was terrible. They really do make me pay for discreetness.

STROEBEL. Your patrons are the very men who make it so hard for you.

They get you into trouble and then expect you to protect them. Isn't it so?

HAUTEVILLE. What an experience for me! To have my apartment raided at night and be simply dragged away myself.

STROEBEL. That is too much.

HAUTEVILLE. I was not even allowed to take along a change of underwear.

Then I am locked up with women who have every known variety of vermin.

STROEBEL. And with all that they expect you to remain silent!

HAUTEVILLE. When I want to comb my hair, the matron gives me a comb which these women have been using a whole week.

STROEBEL. That simply can't go on,

HAUTEVILLE. And the air! I never knew that such odors existed on this earth.

STROEBEL. Still you are to shield the others! After all, you know, I think that discreetness is just talk.

HAUTEVILLE. Talk?

STROEBEL. I mean if anybody ever had a moral right to give things away, fully and freely, you are that person; ... after all you have suffered.

HAUTEVILLE. That's right. I am that person.

STROEBEL. Well then; did somebody escape into that wardrobe?

HAUTEVILLE. Yes, somebody did escape into that wardrobe.

STROEBEL [eagerly]. Who? [Short pause.]

HAUTEVILLE. [laughs curtly]. Who?

STROEBEL [more sharply]. Who on Sat.u.r.day night at 10 o'clock escaped the search of the police by hiding in the wardrobe?

HAUTEVILLE. [laughs curtly]. It is quite unnecessary for me to tell you that.

STROEBEL [sharply]. Why?

HAUTEVILLE. You are certain to find it out ultimately.

STROEBEL. Ultimately?

HAUTEVILLE. Even if I wanted to I could not tell! Lord, when a person gets strictly accustomed to never mentioning any name, it is almost impossible to do it. I, believe that I would have to learn how first.

STROEBEL [shouting]. And you will learn it; I promise you that. You ...

HAUTEVILLE. Mais Monsieure!

STROEBEL [shouting]. No "Monsieur" about it. Here you'll talk good plain English.

HAUTEVILLE. But why are you getting so excited?

STROEBEL [to Reisacher]. I am nice to this person. I reason with her, and she says that she will first have to learn how to expose her crowd.

[Shouts.] Decency is what you'll have to learn and I'll teach it to you.

HAUTEVILLE. Oh, not this very minute.

STROEBEL. I know you. I know your sort! You want to gain time so that you can concoct the blackest lies.

HAUTEVILLE. [calmly]. That would be entirely superfluous. The cleverest lie could not help me half as much as the simple truth.

STROEBEL. Out with it!

HAUTEVILLE. It's better if you find it out through someone else.

STROEBEL. That's your opinion.

HAUTEVILLE. You would only be embarra.s.sed and I would be guilty of a breach of confidence.

STROEBEL [with contempt]. As though people confided in such as you.

HAUTEVILLE. I think that they rely upon the fact that our loyalty is not "just talk."

STROEBEL [again calm]. Listen to me. I do not think that you entirely understand your position. [Hauteville shrugs her shoulders.] No, I don't think that you know at all what is involved.

HAUTEVILLE. On the contrary it is far worse that you don't seem to realize who is involved.

STROEBEL [quickly]. In what?

HAUTEVILLE. In the wardrobe.

STROEBEL. Have you lost your senses? You are a prisoner here. Do you want to poke fun at us?

HAUTEVILLE. No.

STROEBEL. Then don't consider yourself so important with those meaning insinuations.

HAUTEVILLE. If I did, I'd soon lose my importance after eating that yellow broth from those rusty tin plates.

STROEBEL. And that will continue for some time.

HAUTEVILLE. [energetically]. No, it will not. I tell you right now that I will not spend another night in that dirty hole. I will not be mistreated any longer.