The Stepmother, A Drama in Five Acts by Honoré de Balzac
page 41 of 201 (20%)
page 41 of 201 (20%)
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Ferdinand
Gertrude is a woman of the fiercest jealousy. She wishes for fidelity in her lover to recompense her for her infidelity to her husband, and as she has suffered martyrdom, she says, she wishes-- Ramel To have you in the same house with her, that she may keep watch over you herself. Ferdinand She has been successful in getting me here. For the last three years I have been living in a small house near the factory. I should have left the first week after my arrival, but that two days' acquaintance with Pauline convinced me that I could not live without her. Ramel Your love for Pauline, it seems to me as a magistrate, makes your position here somewhat less distasteful. Ferdinand My position? I assure you, it is intolerable, among the three characters with whom I am cast. Pauline is daring, like all young persons who are innocent, to whom love is a wholly ideal thing, and who see no evil in anything, so long as it concerns a man whom they intend to marry. The penetration of Gertrude is very acute, but we manage to elude it through Pauline's terror lest my name should be divulged; the sense of this danger gives her strength to dissemble! But now Pauline has just refused Godard, and I do not know what may be the consequences. |
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