EText by Dagny
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C 2003
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CHARACTERS:
MADAME TRISTAN
JAVOTTE
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The action takes place in Paris.
JAVOTTE: Madame, shall I follow you?
MME TRISTAN: It's not necessary.
JAVOTTE: What will I tell your husband?
MME TRISTAN: Nothing.
JAVOTTE: But, not to displease you,
May I tell you that your husband
Though he appears very open, is not known by you?
As soon as you leave, he gets excited, agitated,
He scolds, he pesters, he swears. I have to avoid him,
If not, I endure a hundred insults.
Yesterday, he threatened to scratch out my eyes
If I didn't inform him where you had gone.
He treats me with trickery and dissimulation.
And other villainous names which you can well guess
Because I assure him that I know nothing of it.
Indeed, I was unaware where you had gone;
As for him he taxes you with being at some place
That you want to hide for good reasons.
And I warn you that it is not with suspicions
That he blames you when he loses sight of you.
You listen to this without seeming moved,
And you respond only with a disdainful smile.
But some annoying outburst must await you
If you don't reconcile your humor with is.
Are you forgetting that he's of the Italian race,
In consequence, jealous, on the alert day and night,
Clever ,tricky, defiant, especially vindictive?
Never forgiving the slightest offense,
He pretends to forget it to extract vengeance.
It's his sweetest inclination, his favorite sin;
And with such a husband you must fear everything.
MME TRISTAN: A woman of honor never has anything to fear.
Far from letting an unjust spouse force me to constrain myself.
My heart is ulcerated by his jealous suspicions
And it gives me pleasure to brave his wrath.
I know my duties, I follow them to the letter'
But what is permitted to me, I dare to permit myself,
And will be permitted them despite all the uproar
Of a suspicious husband who doesn't understand me.
Finally, I am French and I hate slavery.
It's not despite myself that I wish to be good,
I am so by principle. An imperious heart
Outraging all my sex, and not feeling secure
Of being exempt from wrongs it constantly suspects,
Finds no other way but to enslave purity.
But he is abused! Purity, enchained
From opportunity alone is dragged;
It is supported only by liberty
And in the end degenerates into captivity.
JAVOTTE: You say true, madame, and long live your maxims!
Our good Parisians find them legitimate.
They are honest folk who make themselves a rule
Of abandoning us to our honest faith.
So my conscience would be opposed to deceiving them.
You win a good heart only through confidence.
No sooner suspected ,than agitated, embittered;
And then the stupidest find sufficient wit
To sooner or later dupe the most clever man.
Those who would put us in chains so as to assure themselves
Seek to force our heart and end by making themselves detested.
And this rebellious hear seeks to satisfy itself.
I've remonstrated with your spouse
But in vain: nothing can conquer his suspicions.
The title of tyrant doesn't frighten him;
Far from blushing for it, he wants to take it as an honor.
Some furious fit may finally take him.
You know, he is a man capable of anything
To avenge himself on you, if he feels offended.
And that's something you may not have thought of.
MADAME TRISTAN: You are mistaken, Javotte, now I am thinking
of it.
But he loves me and fears me; and the spirit of vengeance
Which often tries to excite him against me.
He doesn't know how to resist these two passions.
I've achieved such a vast empire over his mind
That face to face he never dares to contradict me.
I understand his genius; he wants to be brave,
Or rather not to see himself captivated.
They told me the story of his late wife;
She found her glory in humoring him.
This submission far from winning his heart
Produced in him only an excess of severity.
She couldn't put up with it, and justly outraged,
Was separated from him by a court decree.
So as not to expose myself to this extremity
I first made him submit to my authority.
I knew how to take advantage of his foible for me,
And maintained myself with so much courage
That I won a powerful ascendancy over him,
That today he dares not openly subvert.
Moreover, my relatives, whose power he fears
Keep him in respect. An illustrious birth,
My friends, my conduct, in the end a million reasons
Shield me from his cowardly suspicions
And give me the right to pretend to empire
And to live at my whim, no matter what he can say.
JAVOTTE: That's very well reasoned; but in the end I fear
Some unforeseen trait of his malign character.
What he cannot do by force, he can do by cleverness.
He is most dangerous at the moment he is caressing.
That is when he fires up and appears in a fury.
I hate dreamers, they always frighten me.
I prefer a madman who says all he thinks
To these gloomy folks obstinate in silence
Or who say nothing which cannot be measured,
And burning within, have a frigid exterior.
In the end, beware all lean faces,
Under a scowling, somber and melancholy face;
They are sure signs of a bad animal.
Folks who are always thinking are always thinking ill.
MADAME TRISTAN: That may be true; but whatever may happen
I intend to be free, and not fearful.
My husband must adjust to my manners:
And the surest way of curing his suspicions
Is to display no uneasiness about them.
I intend, willy nilly, that he get used to
Being proud of me. I know how to make myself loved
I shall come, perhaps, to make myself esteemed.
JAVOTTE: My word, I doubt it very much, Be sure, madame,
That he cannot ever esteem a woman,
No matter how much good they say of you in all places
MADAME TRISTAN: (proudly) Eh! why, if you please?
JAVOTTE: Because he is born jealous.
Ergo, very suspicious. Esteem and jealousy.
To my way of thinking, keep company.
So don't hope for it.
MADAME TRISTAN: Well then, we shall see.
He's got to make himself over or we will part.
That's my decision and I say it fearlessly.
I am going out, and I'm going to dine with my Aunt;
After that, we must go to the opera.
That's what you will tell him when he seeks me.
(Exit Madame Tristan.)
JAVOTTE: (alone) Now there, on my word, is a wife-mistress;
And god owes her to us. In the depths of my soul,
I approve with a good heart the path she is taking
To avenge the deceased and master the tyrant.
As for me, to contribute to putting him to the torture
I wish to be an accomplice to so pious a design.
By feigning to pity him and enter into his feelings;
I am going to hurl the most piercing darts at him.
All that shames him he is prompt to believe;
And to vex such a man is a meritorious work.
END OF THE VINDICTIVE