Woman on Her Own, False Gods and The Red Robe Part 21

MADAME CHANTEUIL. Well, I'll bring it up. I shan't be the first. Women do it. It happens to one in every five in Paris. Ask Mademoiselle de Meuriot, the old maid, if she wouldn't be glad to have one now? When one grows old it's better to have had a child in that way than not to have had one at all. Ask her if I'm not telling the truth. Ask her if she's happy in her loneliness.

MADEMOISELLE DE MEURIOT. Oh, it's true--it's true! Sometimes--

_She bursts into tears. Therese goes to her and takes her in her arms._

THeReSE. Oh, Mademoiselle, dear Mademoiselle!

MADAME CHANTEUIL [_between her teeth_] Good-bye, Mademoiselle. Good-bye, Therese.

MADEMOISELLE DE MEURIOT [_to Madame Chanteuil_] Wait, wait. I'm going with you. I am not going to leave you just now.

_Mademoiselle de Meuriot goes out with Madame Chanteuil.

Therese, left alone, buries her head in her hands and thinks. Then she takes the two books that Madame Nerisse has handed her, and with a determined swing sits down and starts working. After a moment Monsieur Nerisse comes in._

NeRISSE. My dear child, I have news for you. Pleasant news, I think.

THeReSE [_rather grimly_] Have you?

NeRISSE. One little smile, please, or I shall tell you nothing.

THeReSE. I a.s.sure you smiling is the last thing I feel like.

NeRISSE. If you only knew what I've been doing for you, you wouldn't receive me so unkindly.

THeReSE. _You_ can do nothing for me. Will you please leave me alone?

NeRISSE. I don't deserve to be spoken to like that, Therese. Listen; we must come to an understanding. I know you're angry with me still about what happened last month. I promised you then I would say no more. Have I kept my word?

THeReSE. Yes, you have.

NeRISSE. Will you always be angry? Is it quite impossible for us to be friends? I am constantly giving you proofs of my friendship. I've done two things for you quite lately. The first was that letter to the editor you're going to see to-morrow, and the second is what I've done now with our new backer. It's this. They wanted to sack you or to offer you humiliating conditions. I said if you didn't stay I wouldn't stay either. I gave in on other points to get my way about this. I shall have their final answer to-morrow, and I know I shall succeed if I stick to my point.

THeReSE. But what right had you to do such a thing? We agreed to forget altogether that you had dared to make love to me. D'you really not understand how that makes it impossible I should ever accept either a.s.sistance or protection from you?

NeRISSE. I have still the right to love you in secret.

THeReSE. Indeed you have not, and you've kept your secret precious badly. Madame Nerisse suspects, and I can see quite well that she's jealous of me. I owe her a great deal; she gave me my first start and got me my place here. I wouldn't make her unhappy for anything in the world. As soon as she hears of what you've done what d'you suppose she'll think?

NeRISSE. I don't care a rap what she thinks.

THeReSE. But I care very much. You've compromised me seriously.

NeRISSE [_sincerely contemptuous_] Compromised you! Aha, yes, there's the word! Oh, you middle cla.s.s girls! Always the same! What are you doing here then? What d'you know about life? Nothing. Compromised! Then all your dreams of elevating humanity, all your ambitions, your career, the realization of yourself--you'll give up all that before you'll be what you describe by that stupid, imbecile, middle cla.s.s word, compromised. When you shook yourself free of your family you behaved like a capable woman. Now you're behaving and thinking like a fashionable doll. Isn't that true? I appeal to your intelligence, to your mind, to everything in you that lifts you out of the ordinary ruck.

Your precious word compromised is only the twaddle of a countrified miss. Don't you see that yourself?

THeReSE [_very much out of countenance_] Ah, if I were only certain that you are hiding nothing behind your friendship and your sympathy!

NeRISSE [_with perfectly genuine indignation_] Hiding? You said hiding?

Is that what you throw in my face? You insult me? What d'you take me for?

THeReSE. I beg your pardon.

NeRISSE. What kind of a.s.surance do you want me to give you? Do you believe in nothing? Is it quite impossible for you to feel frankly and naturally, and to say "I have confidence in you, and I accept your friendship"--a friendship offered to you perfectly honestly and loyally?

It really drives one to despair.

THeReSE [_without enthusiasm_] Well, yes. I say it.

_She puts her hands into the hands Monsieur Nerisse holds out to her._

NeRISSE. Thank you. [_A silence. Then he says in a low voice_] Oh, Therese, I love you, how I love you!

THeReSE [_s.n.a.t.c.hing her hands away_] Oh, this is abominable. You set a trap for me, and my vanity made me fall into it.

NeRISSE. I implore you to let me tell you about myself. I'm so miserable and lonely when you're away.

THeReSE [_trying to speak reasonably_] I know quite well what you want to say to me, and it all amounts to this: you love me. It's quite clear, and I answer you just as clearly: I do _not_ love you.

NeRISSE. I'm so unhappy!

THeReSE. If it's true that you're unhappy because I don't love you, that is a misfortune for you; a misfortune for which I am not in any way responsible, because you certainly cannot accuse me of having encouraged you.

NeRISSE. I don't ask you to love me--yet. I ask you to allow me to try and win your love.

THeReSE [_almost desperate_] Don't dare to say that again. If you were an honorable man, you couldn't possibly have said these things to me to-day when my living depends upon you. You know the position I'm in, and you know that if I don't stay here, there are only two courses open to me--to go and live at the expense of my G.o.dmother, which I will _not_ do, or to take the chances of a woman alone looking for work in Paris.

Don't you understand that speaking about your love for me to-day is the same as driving me into the street?

NeRISSE. If you go into the street, it is by your own choice.

THeReSE. Exactly. There's the old, everlasting, scandalous bargain. Sell yourself or you shall starve. If I give in, I can stay; if I don't--

NeRISSE. _I_ didn't say so. But clearly my efforts to help you will be greater if I know that I'm working for my friend.

THeReSE. You actually confess it! You think yourself an honorable man, and you don't see that what you're doing is the vilest of crimes.

NeRISSE. Now I ask you. Did I wait for your answer before I began to defend you and to help you?

THeReSE. No, but you believe I shall give in through grat.i.tude or fear.

Well, don't count upon it. Even if I have to kill myself in the end, I shall never sell myself, either to you or to anyone else. [_In despair_]

Then that's what it comes to. Wherever we want to make our way, to have the right to work and to live, we find the door barred by a man who says, Give yourself or starve. Because one's on one's own, because they know that there's not another man to start up and defend his _property_!

It's almost impossible to believe human beings can be so vile to one another. For food! Just for food! Because they know we shall starve if we don't give in. Because we have old people, or children at home who are waiting for us to bring them food, men put this vile condition to us, to do like the girls in the streets. It's shameful, shameful, shameful. It's enough to make one shriek out loud with rage and despair.

NeRISSE [_speaking sternly_] I've never asked you to sell yourself. I ask you to love me.

THeReSE. I shall never love you.

NeRISSE [_as before_] You'll never love. Neither me nor others. Listen--

THeReSE [_interrupting_] I--