Comedy of Marriage and Other Tales. Guy de Maupassant

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СКАЧАТЬ de Sallus and M. Jacques de Randol.)

      M. DE SALLUS

      My dear fellow, you will do me the greatest service if you will pass the whole evening here.

      JACQUES DE RANDOL

      But I have told you that I cannot.

      M. DE SALLUS

      Is it altogether – absolutely – impossible?

      JACQUES DE RANDOL

      Absolutely.

      M. DE SALLUS

      I most earnestly ask you to remain.

      JACQUES DE RANDOL

      And why?

      M. DE SALLUS

      For the best of reasons – because – because I want to make peace with my wife.

      JACQUES DE RANDOL

      Peace? Is there a rupture between you?

      M. DE SALLUS

      Not a very great one, but you know what you have seen this evening.

      JACQUES DE RANDOL

      Is it your fault or hers?

      M. DE SALLUS

      Oh, mine, I suppose.

      JACQUES DE RANDOL

      The devil!

      M. DE SALLUS

      I have had annoyances outside, serious annoyances, and they have made me bad-tempered, so much so that I have been unpleasant and aggressive in my behavior toward her.

      JACQUES DE RANDOL

      But I don’t see how a third party can contribute toward peace between you.

      M. DE SALLUS

      My dear fellow, you will enable me to make her understand in an indirect manner, while avoiding all indelicate and wounding explanations, that my ideas concerning life have altogether changed.

      JACQUES DE RANDOL

      Then you wish to be – to be – reconciled to her altogether?

      M. DE SALLUS

      Oh, no, no, no – on the contrary —

      JACQUES DE RANDOL

      Pardon me, I do not understand you.

      M. DE SALLUS

      Listen: I wish to establish and maintain a status quo of a pacific neutrality – a sort of Platonic peace. [Laughs.] But I am going into details that cannot interest you.

      JACQUES DE RANDOL

      Pardon me again. From the moment that you ask me to play a part in this very interesting affair, I must know exactly what part I am to play.

      M. DE SALLUS

      Why, just a conciliatory rôle.

      JACQUES DE RANDOL

      Then you wish to conclude a peace without restrictions for yourself?

      M. DE SALLUS

      Now you have it.

      JACQUES DE RANDOL

      That is to say, that, after the disappointments and annoyances of which you have just told me, and which I presume are ended, you wish to have peace at home and yet be free to enjoy any happiness that you may acquire outside.

      M. DE SALLUS

      Let me go farther. My dear fellow, the present situation between my wife and myself is very much strained, and I never care to find myself alone with her altogether, because my position is a false one.

      JACQUES DE RANDOL

      Oh, in that case, my dear fellow, I will remain.

      M. DE SALLUS

      All the evening?

      JACQUES DE RANDOL

      All the evening.

      M. DE SALLUS

      My dear De Randol, you are indeed a friend! I shall never forget it.

      JACQUES DE RANDOL

      Oh, never mind that. [A short silence.] Were you at the Opéra last night?

      M. DE SALLUS

      As usual.

      JACQUES DE RANDOL

      So it is a good performance?

      M. DE SALLUS

      Admirable.

      JACQUES DE RANDOL

      The Santelli scored a great success, didn’t she?

      M. DE SALLUS

      Not only a success, but a veritable triumph. She was recalled six times.

      JACQUES DE RANDOL

      She is good, isn’t she?

      M. DE SALLUS

      More than admirable. She never sang better. In the first act she has a long recitative: “O God of all believers, hear my prayer,” which made the body of the house rise to their feet. And in the third act, after that phrase, “Bright heaven of beauty,” I never saw such enthusiasm.

      JACQUES DE RANDOL

      She was pleased?

      M. DE SALLUS

      Pleased? She was enchanted.

      JACQUES DE RANDOL

      You know her well, don’t you?

      M. DE SALLUS

      Oh, yes, for some time back. I had supper with her and some of her friends after the performance.

      JACQUES DE RANDOL

      Were there many of you?

      M. DE SALLUS

      No, about a dozen. You know she is rather particular.

      JACQUES DE RANDOL.

      It is pleasant to be intimate with her, is it not?

      M. DE SALLUS

      Exquisite! And then, you know, she is a woman in a million. I do not know whether you agree with me, but I find there are so few women that are really women.

      JACQUES СКАЧАТЬ