The Love-Tiff Part 12

ACT IV.

SCENE I.--ASCANIO, FROSINE.

FROS. What has happened is very annoying.

ASC. My dear Frosine, fate has irrevocably decreed my ruin. Now the affair has gone so far, it will never stop there, but will go on; Lucile and Valere, surprised at such a strange mystery, will, one day, try to find their way amidst this darkness, and thus all my plans will miscarry. For, whether Albert is acquainted with the deception, or whether he himself is deceived, as well as the rest of the world, if ever it happens that my family is discovered, and all the wealth he has wrongfully acquired pa.s.ses into the hands of others, judge if he will then endure my presence; for, not having any interest more in the matter, he will abandon me, and his affection for me will be at an end.

Whatever, then, my lover may think of my deception, will he acknowledge as his wife a girl without either fortune or family?

FROS. I think you reason rightly; but these reflections should have come sooner. What has prevented you from seeing all this before? there was no need to be a witch to foresee, as soon as you fell in love with Valere, all that your genius never found out until to-day. It is the natural consequence of what you have done; as soon as I was made acquainted with it I never imagined it would end otherwise.

ASC. But what must I do? There never was such a misfortune as mine. Put yourself in my place, and give me advice.

FROS. If I put myself in your place, you will have to give me advice upon this ill-success; for I am you, and you are I. Counsel me, Frosine, in the condition I am in. Where can we find a remedy? Tell me, I beg of you.

ASC. Alas! do not make fun of me. You show but little sympathy with my bitter grief, if you laugh in the midst of my distress.

FROS. Really, Ascanio, I pity your distress, and would do my utmost to help you. But what can I do, after all? I see very little likelihood of arranging this affair so as to satisfy your love.

ASC. If no a.s.sistance can be had, I must die.

FROS. Die! Come, come; it is always time enough for that. Death is a remedy ever at hand; we ought to make use of it as late as possible.

ASC. No, no, Frosine. If you and your invaluable counsels do not guide me amidst all these breakers, I abandon myself wholly to despair.

FROS. Do you know what I am thinking about? I must go and see the....

But here comes eraste; he may interrupt us. We will talk this matter over as we go along. Come, let us retire.

[Footnote: Frosine means by "the..." the woman who knows the secret of all this intrigue, and who is supposed to be the mother of Ascanio. This is explained later on in Act V., Scene 4]

SCENE II.--eRASTE, GROS-RENe.

ERAS. You have failed again?

GR.-RE. Never was an amba.s.sador less listened to. No sooner had I told her that you desired to have a moment's conversation with her, than, drawing herself up, she answered haughtily, "Go, go, I value your master just as much as I do you; tell him he may go about his business;" and after this fine speech she turned her head away from me and walked off.

Marinette, too, imitating her mistress, said, with a disdainful sneer, "Begone, you low fellow," and then left me; so that your fortune and mine are very much alike.

[Footnote: In the original it is _beau valet de carreau_. Littre, in his "Dictionaire de la langue francaise," says that this word which means literally "knave of diamonds," was considered an insult, because in the old packs of cards of the beginning of the seventeenth century, that knave was called _valet de cha.s.se_, hunting servant, a rather menial situation; while the knave of spades, _valet de pique_, was called, n.o.bleman's servant; the knave of hearts, valet de coeur, valet de cour, court servant; and the knave of clubs, _valet de trefle, valet de pied_, foot servant.]

ERAS. What an ungrateful creature, to receive with so much haughtiness the quick return of a heart justly incensed. Is the first outburst of a pa.s.sion, which with so much reason thought itself deceived, unworthy of excuse? Could I, when burning with love, remain insensible, in that fatal moment, to the happiness of a rival? Would any other not have acted in the same way as I did, or been less amazed at so much boldness?

Was I not quick in abandoning my well-founded suspicions? I did not wait till she swore they were false. When no one can tell as yet what to think of it, my heart, full of impatience, restores Lucile to her former place, and seeks to find excuses for her. Will not all these proofs satisfy her of the ardour of my respectful pa.s.sion? Instead of calming my mind, and providing me with arms against a rival who wishes to alarm me, this ungrateful woman abandons me to all the tortures of jealousy, and refuses to receive my messages and notes, or to grant me an interview. Alas! that love is certainly very lukewarm which can be extinguished by so trifling an offence; that scornful rigour, which is displayed so readily, sufficiently shows to me the depth of her affection. What value ought I to set now upon all the caprices with which she fanned my love? No! I do not pretend to be any longer the slave of one who has so little love for me; since she does not mind whether she keeps me or not, I will do the same.

GR.-RE. And so will I. Let us both be angry, and put our love on the list of our old sins; we must teach a lesson to that wayward s.e.x, and make them feel that we possess some courage. He that will bear their contempt shall have enough of it. If we had sense enough not to make ourselves too cheap, women would not talk so big. Oh! how insolent they are through our weakness! May I be hanged if we should not see them fall upon our neck more often than we wished, if it was not for those servilities with which most men, now-a-days, continually spoil them.

ERAS. As for me, nothing vexes me so much as contempt; and to punish her's by one as great, I am resolved to cherish a new pa.s.sion.

GR.-RE. So will I, and never trouble my head about women again. I renounce them all, and believe honestly you could not do better than to act like me. For, master, people say that woman is an animal hard to be known, and naturally very p.r.o.ne to evil; and as an animal is always an animal, and will never be anything but an animal, though it lived for a hundred thousand years, so, without contradiction, a woman is always a woman, and will never be anything but a woman as long as the world endures.

[Footnote: This pa.s.sage is paraphrased from Erasmus, _Colloquia familiaria et Encomium Moriae_, in which, after having called a woman _animal stultum atque ineptum verum ridiculum, et suave_, Folly adds, _Quemadmodum, juxta Graecorum proverbium, simia semper est simia, etiamsi purpura vestiatur, ita mulier semper mulier est, hoc est stulta, quamcunque personam induxerit_.]

Wherefore, as a certain Greek author says: a woman's head is like a quicksand; for pray, mark well this argument, which is most weighty: As the head is the chief of the body, and as the body without a chief is worse than a beast, unless the chief has a good understanding with the body, and unless everything be as well regulated as if it were measured with a pair of compa.s.ses, we see certain confusions arrive; the animal part then endeavours to get the better of the rational, and, we see one pull to the right, another to the left; one wants something soft, another something hard; in short, everything goes topsy turvy. This is to show that here below, as it has been explained to me, a woman's head is like a weather-c.o.c.k on the top of a house, which veers about at the slightest breeze; that is why cousin Aristotle often compares her to the sea; hence people say that nothing in the world is so stable as the waves.

[Footnote: Though "stable" is here used, it is only employed to show the confusion of Gros-Rene's ideas, who, of course, wishes to say "unstable."]

Now, by comparison--for comparison makes us comprehend an argument distinctly,--and we learned men love a comparison better than a similitude,--by comparison, then, if you please, master, as we see that the sea, when a storm rises, begins to rage, the wind roars and destroys, billows dash against billows with a great hullabaloo, and the ship, in spite of the mariner, goes sometimes down to the cellar and sometimes up into the garret; so, when a woman gets whims and crotchets into her head, we see a tempest in the form of a violent storm, which will break out by certain ... words, and then a ... certain wind, which by ... certain waves in ... a certain manner, like a sand-bank ... when ... In short, woman is worse than the devil.

[Footnote: This long speech of Gros-Rene ridicules the pedantic arguments of some of the philosophers of the time of Moliere. It also attributes to the ancients some sayings of authors of the day; for example, the comparison, from a Greek author, "that a woman's head is like a quicksand," is from a contemporary; the saying from Aristotle, comparing woman to the sea, is from Malherbe. Words very familiar look more homely when employed with high-flown language, and Gros-Rene's speech is no bad example of this, whilst at the same time it becomes more muddled the longer it goes on. There exists also a tradition that the actor who performs the part of Gros-Rene should in order to show his confusion, when he says "goes sometimes down the cellar," point to his head, and when he mentions "up into the garret," point to his feet.]

ERAS. You have argued that very well.

GR.-RE. Pretty well, thanks to Heaven; but I see them coming this way, sir,--stand firm.

ERAS. Never fear.

GR.-RE. I am very much afraid that her eyes will ensnare you again.

SCENE III.--eRASTE, LUCILE, MARINETTE, GROS-RENe.

MAR. He is not gone yet, but do not yield.

LUC. Do not imagine I am so weak.

MAR. He comes towards us.

ERAS. No, no, madam, do not think that I have come to speak to you again of my pa.s.sion; it is all over; I am resolved to cure myself. I know how little share I have in your heart. A resentment kept up so long for a slight offence shows me your indifference but too plainly, and I must tell you that contempt, above all things, wounds a lofty mind. I confess I saw in you charms which I never found in any other; the delight I took in my chains would have made me prefer them to sceptres, had they been offered to me. Yes, my love for you was certainly very great; my life was centred in you; I will even own that, though I am insulted, I shall still perhaps have difficulty enough to free myself. Maybe, notwithstanding the cure I am attempting, my heart may for a long time smart with this wound. Freed from a yoke which I was happy to bend under, I shall take a resolution never to love again. But no matter, since your hatred repulses a heart which love brings back to you, this is the last time you shall ever be troubled by the man you so much despise.

LUC. You might have made the favour complete, sir, and spared me also this last trouble.

ERAS. Very well, madam, very well, you shall be satisfied. I here break off all acquaintance with you, and break it off for ever, since you wish it; may I lose my life if ever again I desire to converse with you!

LUC. So much the better, you will oblige me.

ERAS. No, no, do not be afraid that I shall break my word! For, though my heart may be weak enough not to be able to efface your image, be a.s.sured you shall never have the pleasure of seeing me return.

LUC. You may save yourself the trouble.

ERAS. I would pierce my breast a hundred times should I ever be so mean as to see you again, after this unworthy treatment.