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Copyright translations © Peter Meyer 1978 and 1997
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PB ISBN: 9781870259705
E ISBN: 9781783192823
Cover design: Andrzej Klimowski
Cover Typography: Richard Doust
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INTRODUCTION
BETTER LATE
ONE MONTH EARLY
TAKE YOUR MEDICINE LIKE A MAN
DON’T WALK ABOUT WITH NOTHING ON
When Feydeau left school in 1879, he began to write monologues for performance by leading actors and actresses in salons and at charity concerts, but by 1882 he had progressed to the one-act play, which he continued to write throughout his career. The most successful were the four translated in this volume, written between 1908 and 1911 and which he always wished to see published together under the title From Marriage To Divorce. They were more or less based on the breakdown of his own marriage and indeed his son Jacques said the episode in On Purge Bébé was almost a direct account of an actual event.
In 1889 Feydeau had married Marianne Carolus Duran, the daughter of a fashionable portrait painter and three years later he had his first great success in the theatre. He then began to make a great deal of money, but incurred heavy losses, gambling on the stock exchange, and was forced to sell part of his wife’s dowry. She was a beautiful woman who bore him four children, but, at any rate in later years, he would spend the evening with friends, leaving her at home alone, so it is not surprising she was grossly extravagant. Although she had a difficult life, she too cannot have been an easy person to live with, to judge from the portrait he drew of her in these four plays.
In 1909, after a particularly violent quarrel, he left home and in 1914 Marianne sued for divorce, obtaining it eighteen months later.
In 1941 Feu La Mere De Madame was the first of Feydeau’s plays to be staged by the Comedie FranÇaise. Madeleine Renaud played the lead and it was no doubt her success in this which induced the Renaud-Barrault company to produce Occupe Toi D’Amélie in 1948. A critic then noted that Barrault, in using a classical company, had imposed upon the play a new style, which justified including it in repertory with Marivaux and Shakespeare. This is the style to which we have become further accustomed by the productions of the Comedie Francaise and the National Theatre and which have resulted in Feydeau being accepted as the greatest French comic dramatist since Moliére.
These translations were commissioned by BBC Radio and first broadcast in 1973. The director was Glyn Dearman and the chief characters were played by Jill Bennett and John Osborne. This was the first time he had acted on radio, and it should be recorded that there could not have been a nicer actor to work with.
Peter Meyer
London, 1998
YVONNE
LUCIEN, her husband
ANNETTE, their maid
JOSEPH, a manservant
YVONNE’s bedroom in Paris about 7910. A modest room with J. an attempt at elegance and comfort: cheap luxury, pleasant but valueless ornaments. On the wall, framed modern engravings, Japanese fans etc. In the back wall, a door into the hall. Midstage right, a doorway, with the door removed and replaced by a curtain. Midstage left, in a wall at an angle, the door of LUCIEN’s room. Downstage left, a fireplace with a mirror above it. Downstage right, a bed, extending towards the centre of the stage, with a stool, as long as the width of the bed, against its foot. At the head of the bed, downstage, a small table with a nightlight, which is burning and a medicine bottle. At the head of the bed, on the other side, an arm-chair. Against the wall, between the hall door and the door to LUCIEN’s room, a small lady’s bureau, open. On its right, a chair against the wall. Near the fireplace, almost in front of the proscenium, an armchair with its back slightly towards the audience: on this chair, a lady’s petticoat and vest. On the mantelpiece: a clock and candelabra; to the right, a tray with a carafe of water and an upturned glass on top; to the left, a spirit lamp and a box of matches. Right of the hall door, a sofa against the wall. In the corner, a small table, placed at an angle. A woman’s dressing gown thrown across the foot of the bed. YVONNE’s heel-less slippers on the floor, downstage of the bed: LUCIEN’s slippers on the other side. In the ceiling, a chandelier, operated by a switch on the left of the hall door.
When the curtain rises, the stage is in semi-darkness, lit only by the nightlight next to the bed. YVONNE is in bed, sleeping deeply: her light, regular breathing can be heard. Five seconds after the curtain has risen, the front door bell rings, off. This does not wake YVONNE but slightly disturbs her: she utters a long sigh and stirs under the sheets. Ten seconds after the first ring, the bell rings again. YVONNE, who is sleeping on the left side of the bed, opens her eyes, which are swollen with sleep, and raises her head.
YVONNE: What on earth’s that?
(The bell rings again.)
(Angrily.) I suppose that’s Lucien! Forgotten his key!
(Throwing back the bedclothes) It’s ridiculous, scaring the life out of you like this! (She jumps out of bed, wearing a nightdress.)
(The bell rings again, twice)
(Furious.) Coming! (She snatches up her dressing gown and quickly slides her feet into her slippers)
(The bell rings repeatedly)
YVONNE: I said I’m coming! (Not having time to put on her dressing gown, she throws it round her neck like a scarf. She then goes into the hall, to the front door of the flat. Roughly) Who’s there?
LUCIEN: (Off, woefully, like a naughty child, frightened of being scolded) It’s me… I’ve forgotten my key.
YVONNE: (In the hall) Oh! Naturally! (She opens the door; the noise of the lock can be heard) Just what I needed!
(She comes back into the room and moves downstage) Come along! Come on in!
(Arriving downstage right, she climbs into bed on her knees, with her back to the audience. While she is doing this, LUCIEN has closed the front door and can be heard fixing the safety chain. As YVONNE says “Come in”, he appears. He is wearing a Louis XIV costume under a raincoat, buttoned up to the top and only coming down to his buttocks. The collar is turned up and a scarf tied round his neck. His white gloves are soaking wet. His shoes are covered with mud and so are his stockings, up to the calf The back of his raincoat is one large, wet stain. When he enters, he has his hands tangled up with a lighted candle, his Louis XIV cane and his umbrella. His sword catches in the door, as he comes through)
YVONNE: (In bed) Well? What are you waiting for? Tomorrow?
LUCIEN: Here I am!… I’m sorry. (He switches on the chandelier.)
YVONNE: (Angrily) You’re sorry! Why can’t you remember your key? Do you think I like being jolted awake when I’m fast asleep?
LUCIEN: (Embarrassed.) I woke you?
YVONNE: (Icily) Of course you woke me! You don’t think I waited up for you till this hour?
LUCIEN: (Very sincerely, as if relieved, as he turns towards the mantelpiece to put down his candle) Oh! Good!
(He is about to blow out the candle, but stops at the sound of YVONNE’S voice.)
YVONNE: Good! You’re glad you woke me?
LUCIEN: No! I meant good… because you hadn’t waited up.
(He blows out his candle, puts it on the mantelpiece, stands his cane in the corner of the fireplace and then, with his umbrella under his arm, half open and dripping water, goes towards the bed, shaking his frozen hands in his wet gloves)
YVONNE: Really! What a time to come home!
LUCIEN: (Taking off his gloves.) I couldn’t find a cab. And the weather! The only buses were going in the opposite direction. There’s never a bus going the right way!
YVONNE: I can’t think what time it is!
LUCIEN: (Without conviction) Oh no, it’s hardly…
(At this precise moment the clock on the mantelpiece begins to strike four)
YVONNE: (Cutting him short) Wait!
(They both listen, LUCIEN with a wry face)
YVONNE: (Tight-lipped) Ten past four.
LUCIEN: Ten past?
YVONNE: (Sharply) Of course! The clock’s ten minutes slow.
LUCIEN: It can’t be, it must be wrong. Just now when I passed the Gare St Lazare…
YVONNE: Yes, yes, I know! It was midnight!
LUCIEN: Midnight, no, but…
YVONNE: Yes, yes! It’s a well-known fact. When husbands start sleeping in other beds, their wives’ clocks are always wrong.
LUCIEN: (Going to the bed) Oh! You’re exaggerating! I’m sleeping in other beds now! (Sitting on the foot of the bed) It was agreed I’d be home late, as I was going to the Four Arts Ball. I couldn’t leave before it started…
YVONNE: (Irrefutably.) You shouldn’t have gone in the first place! It’s not meant for you! What they must have thought of you at the Four Arts… You, a married man!
LUCIEN: (Who has still not put down his umbrella, tracing designs with it on the carpet, as if with a stick in sand) Oh, nobody bothered about me!
YVONNE: (Suddenly giving him a blow in the buttocks with her knee underneath the bedclothes) Do be careful!
LUCIEN: (Leaping off the bed.) What?
YVONNE: (Shouting) Your umbrella! You’re flooding the carpet!
LUCIEN: Me! (Instinctively he lowers his head to assess the damage, so that a stream of water escapes from the brim of his hat)
YVONNE: (Shouting louder) And your hat!… It’s pouring water!
LUCIEN: (Completely stunned, rushing towards the door, to put his hat and umbrella in the hall.) Oh!… I’m sorry!
YVONNE: Can’t you see the brim’s full?
LUCIEN: (Going out) Brimful! I wish I was!
YVONNE: (Raging) Oh, yes! Be witty!
(LUCIEN has re-entered and stopped woefully between the door and the bureau. He pulls clumsily at one end of his scarf, to get it out of his raincoat collar. YVONNE looks at him pityingly)
Oh! Just look at yourself!
LUCIEN: It’s the rain!
YVONNE: A fine sight! Look at those stockings!
LUCIEN: (Woefully) They are rather muddy!
YVONNE: Rather muddy! Oh!!!… (Sharply.) Take off your coat! You’re not going to bed in it, are you?
LUCIEN: (Having decided to make every concession) Quite right!
(He turns his back to the audience and takes off his coat, which he puts on the chair at the right of the door. Then he draws his sword with a broad sweep of his arm and stands it up against the mantelpiece)
YVONNE: I must say!
(LUCIEN has come back downstage centre and shivers)
(Nagging) What’s the matter?
LUCIEN: (Indicating with his head that it’s nothing; then.) I’m cold!
YVONNE: (Sarcastically) You’re cold! I suppose you want me to feel sorry for you!
LUCIEN: (With signs of impatience.) No. You asked me, so I told you.
YVONNE: That will teach you to go out enjoying yourself!… (Pityingly.) What are you doing in the fireplace?
LUCIEN: (Still at the fireplace, very simply) I’m trying to get warm.
YVONNE: There’s no fire!
LUCIEN: (Repeating automatically) There’s no… eh?
(Casting a look at the grate.) Oh! Yes… habit, you know!
When there is a fire, I put my… so, without thinking…
YVONNE: Pah!
LUCIEN: (Pathetically) You’re not very charitable, destroying my illusions. I was starting to get warm!
YVONNE: Your illusions keep you warm, do they? Well, in future… when you want a fire…
LUCIEN: (Irritated, shrugging his shoulders as he goes upstage) Oh… Rubbish!
YVONNE: (Returning to the charge) We’ve only been married two years and you abandon me to go to the Four Arts Ball!
LUCIEN: Now listen! I’m tired, you can make a scene tomorrow!
YVONNE: Oh!… I’ll have you know I’m not making a scene!
LUCIEN: (Coming downstage a little) Can’t you understand, if a man’s not going to turn into a fossil, he must see everything, know everything… to form his mind…
YVONNE: (With the utmost scorn) Oh, no!… No! Just listen to him! You’re a cashier at the Galeries Lafayette. What do you have to know about the Four Arts Ball?
LUCIEN: (Offended) I’m not only a cashier. I’m a painter.
YVONNE: (Shrugging her shoulders) A painter! Those daubs!
LUCIEN: (Annoyed) Daubs!
YVONNE: Precisely! If you don’t sell them, they’re daubs. Have you ever sold one?
LUCIEN: No, I haven’t. Of course I haven’t. It’s unkind to say that. I haven’t sold one… because nobody’s bought one… otherwise…
YVONNE: You’ve only once painted anything successfully.
LUCIEN: (Happy with this concession) Ah!
YVONNE: My bath!
LUCIEN: (Annoyed, reaching the fireplace.) Oh! Very funny! Very witty! Carry on! (Coming back towards the bed) I’m a better artist than you think. So, as an artist, it’s only natural I should look for artistic excitement.
YVONNE: All right! Say you’re looking for excitement! But don’t talk about art!
LUCIEN: (Giving up the possibility of arguing) Oh! You’re just attacking me.
(He goes to the fireplace and stands in front of the mirror, about to take off his jabot)
YVONNE: No! (She jumps out of bed, then runs barefooted to LUCIEN and turns him round to face her) If I’m attacking you, give me one example! One example of your artistic excitement!
LUCIEN: Yes, definitely!
YVONNE: (Icily) That’s no answer! Give me an example!
(She comes back downstage)
LUCIEN: (Coming downstage after her) There were lots… For instance, the entrance of Amphitrite. (Looking at her with a slightly scornful smile) You’ve probably never heard of Amphitrite.
YVONNE: Oh, haven’t I? I’ve never heard of Amphitrite! It’s a stomach disease.
LUCIEN: (Dumbfounded) What?
YVONNE: Precisely!
LUCIEN: (Bursting out laughing) A stomach disease! She’s the goddess of the sea.
YVONNE: (Taken aback.) Oh?… (Bad-tempered) I confused her with enteritis.
LUCIEN: They’re totally different.
YVONNE: Anyone can make a mistake.
LUCIEN: Yes. Well, when the procession made its entrance, that was an artistic excitement. A superb model, completely naked, in a shell of mother-of-pearl, borne by tritons and sirens!
YVONNE: (Stiffly) A woman completely naked!
LUCIEN: Completely naked!
YVONNE: Very proper!
LUCIEN: (Very deliberately.), That’s precisely where you’re wrong. There was nothing improper about it.
YVONNE: Yes? Well, I’ll do the same… (As she speaks, she arrives downstage right and climbs into bed.)
LUCIEN: (Raising his arms to heaven.) For heavens sake!…That’s a ridiculous thing to say!
YVONNE: (In bed, squatting.) Why? Either a thing’s improper or it isn’t.
LUCIEN: It isn’t when it’s a model… And this one!…What a figure!… And her breasts, ah… I’ve never seen such breasts! (He goes to the fireplace.)
YVONNE: (Acknowledging with a nod: then, stiffly.) Thank you very much!
LUCIEN: (Turning round, taken aback.) What?
YVONNE: How very polite!
LUCIEN: (After raising his eyes to heaven.) All right, you want to take offence again. I wasn’t referring to you. Of course yours are very pretty… but they’re not the breasts of a model! (He turns round to the mirror to undo his jabot.)
YVONNE: Oh, really? (She throws back the bedclothes and jumps out of bed to rush at LUCIEN, hurriedly undoing the ribbons of her nightdress.) Well… well… (When she reaches him, she turns him round to face her.) What’s wrong with them? (Facing him, with her back to the audience, she plants herself in front of him, the front of her nightdress open and held wide apart with both hands.)
LUCIEN: (Completely dumbfounded) Eh? I don’t know… Well, there, for instance… (He points.)
YVONNE: (Slapping his hand and leaning back) No! Don’t touch me! Go and touch hers, as they’re better than mine!
LUCIEN: Oh! Don’t be silly!
YVONNE: (Returning to the charge.) Go on, tell me! What’s wrong with them?
LUCIEN: (Confined between the right edge of the lefthand door frame and YVONNE who is close up to him) Oh! Practically nothing!… Underneath they’re fine! You see I’m being fair. But on top, well, they’re slightly concave.
YVONNE: (Indignant) Concave!
LUCIEN: (Illustrating it with a gesture) Which makes them rather like coathooks.
YVONNE: (Quickly tying up the ribbons of her nightdress) Coathooks! That’s too much! (She seizes him by the left arm and sends him whirling to the centre of the stage)
LUCIEN: (Not knowing what’s happened to him) Oh! What is it?
YVONNE: (Having opened the door, which she has thus cleared, calling) Annette!… Annette!
ANNETTE: (Off, sleepily) Mm?
YVONNE: Annette! Get up!
LUCIEN: (Surprised) Annette?
YVONNE: Did you hear what I said?
ANNETTE: (Off) Eh?
YVONNE: Come along! On your feet!
ANNETTE: (Off) All right!
LUCIEN: Annette? Annette’s in my room?
YVONNE: (Passing in front of him to go and sit on the stool at the foot of the bed) Yes, of course she is!
LUCIEN: This is too much! You make the maid sleep in my bed?
YVONNE: Perhaps you’d rather I stayed in the flat alone, while you’re out on the town enjoying yourself? No, thank you very much! (Leaning her left arm on the iron rail at the foot of the bed) I’d be too frightened.
LUCIEN: This is the limit! The maid in my bed! Where am I going to sleep?
YVONNE: Well… There! (She points to the door, left.)
LUCIEN: With the maid?
YVONNE: The maid, the maid! Now you’re home, Annette will go up to her room and you’ll have your own bed.
LUCIEN: Certainly not. In her sheets!
YVONNE: They’re not her sheets, they’re yours.
LUCIEN: She’s slept in them, that’s enough for me!
YVONNE: (Rising and climbing into bed.) Oh, of course! If you had to sleep in the sheets of a completely naked model, you wouldn’t be in the least disgusted…
LUCIEN: (Rather excited at the thought) Mm!
YVONNE: (On her knees on the bed, busily shaking the pillows as she talks, and turning round towards him) What did I say? (Moving on her knees to the middle of the bed) You’d prefer that, wouldn’t you? (Continuing to the end of the bed) You’d prefer that, say so… you beast! (She lies down again in bed)
LUCIEN: (Losing all patience) Oh!!!… Shut up! (He reaches the fireplace.)
(ANNETTE enters left. She is wearing a coarse linen nightdress, gathered and cut low across the chest and back, with short flared sleeves coming down to her biceps: a woollen petticoat underneath, hanging below it. Her bare legs are in felt slippers. Her hair is untidy, in bandeaux at the front and in two tight pigtails, sticking up in the air, at the back. She comes forward, only half awake, her eyes swollen with sleep)
YVONNE: (Jumping out of bed and running towards her) Come here! Do you know what he said?
ANNETTE: (Yawning) No.
YVONNE: He said I’ve breasts like coathooks.
ANNETTE: (Not caring, half asleep.) Oh?… Very good, Madame.
LUCIEN: (Sarcastically) You got the maid up to tell her that?
YVONNE: Precisely! I want her to say what she thinks about my breasts, to show you everybody doesn’t share your opinion. (To Annette) What did you say about them the other morning?
ANNETTE: (Painfully opening her eyes) I don’t know.
YVONNE: (Emphasising each part of her sentences with a tap on Annette’s arm or chest.) Of course you do! When I was getting dressed, I said “Look, there aren’t many women with breasts as firm as that”. And what did you say?
ANNETTE: (Making an effort.) Ah, yes! I said “That’s right. Next to them, mine look like old sacks.”
YVONNE: There! You hear?
LUCIEN: (Seizing Annette sharply by the arm and making her pass across.) All right! What does that prove? I’ve never denied you’ve a rare bosom. But there’s still a margin between the rare and the unique. (ANNETTE, waiting for them to end their argument, has sat down on the chair near the fireplace and begun to doze off.)
YVONNE: Really? Well, from now on, you can say goodbye to my bosom.
LUCIEN: (Putting his hand forward to answer.) Now look…
YVONNE: (Misunderstanding his gesture and slapping his hand.) Hands off!
LUCIEN: (Furious.) For heavens sake!
YVONNE: I’ll keep it for others… who can appreciate it.
(She has come downstage right and climbs into bed.)
LUCIEN: (Furious, walking up and down, his hands in his trouser pockets.) Fine! Keep it for others! Keep it for anyone you like! The Pope, if you want to! Oh!!! You need the patience of a… (Without looking, he collapses into the chair where Annette is dozing.)
ANNETTE: (Woken up with a start and yelling.) Oh!
LUCIEN: (Jumping up, furious.) Oh! Go to bed!
ANNETTE: (Grumbling, as she goes upstage) Is this why you got me up?
LUCIEN: (Upstage of bed.) I didn’t get you up. My wife did.
ANNETTE: You could just as well have let me go on sleeping.
YVONNE: All right, Annette! Nobody asked for your opinion.
(ANNETTE was going out, but stops at the sound of YVONNE’S voice)
As you’re up, you can go to your own room and give that one back to my husband.
(ANNETTE once again goes towards the door, but stops as before, this time at the sound of LUCIEN’s voice)
LUCIEN: (Peremptorily.) No! No! She’s got it, she can keep it. I’ll sleep here.
YVONNE: With me? Oh, no!
LUCIEN: (As before.) All right! You can sleep where you like. This is our bed, I’ve a right to sleep in it.
YVONNE: Very well! But if you’re hoping for anything, you’re making a big mistake.
LUCIEN: (Shrugging his shoulders.) I’m not hoping for anything. (He goes upstage of the bed and, with his back to the audience, sits down and begins to take off his shoes.)
YVONNE: (Rearranging the bedclothes.) I’m glad to hear it.
LUCIEN: (Sharply to Annette, who is asleep on her feet against the doorframe, lef.) Get to bed, you!
ANNETTE: (The victim.) Yes, sir.
LUCIEN: Go on, Mona Lisa, go on!
ANNETTE: What a hole!
(ANNETTE goes out, shrugging her shoulders.)
YVONNE: It’s too much! Going off and getting excited about another woman and then making do with me! I’m no understudy.
LUCIEN: (Fed up.) Now please! You can tell me in the morning. I’m tired.
YVONNE: (Burying herself in the bedclothes with her back to him.) You’re right! Instead of arguing, I’d do better to get some sleep.
LUCIEN: That’s it. Go to sleep!
(A pause.)
YVONNE: (Half sitting up and talking over her shoulder.) I Must say, I’m glad the maid settled your nonsense!
LUCIEN: (Standing up, furious and pointing to the door with a slipper.) Listen!… Do you want me to go?
YVONNE: (With her head on the pillow, completely unconcerned.) Go, if you like!
LUCIEN: (Exasperated, hobbling up and down with one foot in a slipper.) Oh! Oh! Oh! (Coming back to the foot of the bed.) In the first place, what does the maid know? (Putting on his other slipper, without sitting down.) obviously if she’s only got her breasts to compare them with, I agree that between hers and…
YVONNE: (Jumping up to a sitting position) Oh! You want a more expert opinion? All right! Tomorrow the head of the scent department at the Galeries Lafayette is coming to dinner. And Monsieur Bonhomme. I’ll show them my bosom. They can say what they think of it.
LUCIEN: (Scandalized.) You must be mad!
YVONNE: Why? You’ve just said it’s not improper.
LUCIEN: (Forcefully) It’s not improper if you’re completely naked.
YVONNE: (Quickly) Then I’ll be completely naked.
LUCIEN: (Dumbfounded) She’s mad! Completely mad!
YVONNE: (Quietly, as she buries herself under the bedclothes again) Breasts like coathooks, have I? We’ll see about that!
LUCIEN: (Going to the foot of the bed, his hands clasped) Now, please stop! Please!
YVONNE: (Raising herself half up: scornfully) Well… Go to bed! What are you waiting for? You’re not going to stay dressed up as the Sun King all night?
LUCIEN: (Faintly, tapping his stomach gently with his finger-tips.) No.
YVONNE: (Looking at him pityingly, nagging) What’s the matter now?
LUCIEN: (Wretched) I’ve a stomach ache.
YVONNE: Marvellous! Something else! (She throws back the bedclothes and jumps out of bed)
LUCIEN: I wish Annette would make me some camomile tea!
YVONNE: (Putting on her slippers) All right! You can have your camomile tea! (She goes towards the door, left.)
LUCIEN: (Standing in her way) Who asked you to get up? I can do it.
YVONNE: (Pushing him away) Oh, no! No! (Coming back to him) I’m not going to have you saying I let you die. No!… I know my duty… And I do it!
LUCIEN: (In the same tone as YVONNE) Good! Fine! I’m glad to hear it. (He goes and sits on the stool)
YVONNE: (Going to the door, left, and calling) Annette!
ANNETTE: (Off, fed up.) Oh!!!
YVONNE: Annette! Get up!
ANNETTE: (Off) What! Again!
YVONNE: “Again”! Yes, again! What do you mean, again? Make my husband some camomile tea! (She goes to the mantelpiece and strikes a match to light the spirit lamp)
(ANNETTE can be heard grumbling. A pause)
LUCIEN: (With a scornful laugh) The way you pester that girl!
YVONNE: (Turning round, the match box in one hand, a match in the other) What? That’s the limit! I’m pestering her? (Going to him and speaking straight into his face) Now listen! Is the camomile tea for me? Eh? Is it for me?
LUCIEN: (Almost shouting) My supper’s lying on my stomach!
YVONNE: (At the same pitch as LUCIEN) Yes, it always does! (Going back to the mantelpiece to make the tea: lighting the lamp and pouring water from the carafe into the saucepan) This is what he comes home with! Indigestion from gallivanting round the town! His wife’s not good enough for his evening’s entertainment, but quite good enough to be his sick nurse!
(LUCIEN has not been listening to this diatribe, thinking only about his stomach ache. He struggles against it, tap-ping the pit of his stomach with his finger tips. He then rises and comes up behind her)
LUCIEN: Darling?
YVONNE: (Curtly, without turning round) What?
LUCIEN: Is it nearly ready?
YVONNE: Give it time!… It has to boil first!… You know that!
LUCIEN: (Resigned) Yes. (A pause, hiccups, in pain.) Oh!
YVONNE: (Turning half round.) What?
LUCIEN: (Leaning on her; plaintively) I want to be sick!
YVONNE: (Pushing him sharply away and moving across.) Oh, no! No! You’re not going to be sick! I didn’t marry you for that!
LUCIEN: No, no! I said I want to, not I’m going to. You know I never can.
YVONNE: (With contempt.) Yes, I know!… Very sad! (She goes back to the bed and climbs into it)
(ANNETTE enters, carrying a packet of camomile and a bowl of sugar. She has put on a white dressing jacket and stockings, which are falling down over her ankles)
ANNETTE: (Sulkily as she puts the camomile in the boiling water) Nothing else you want, while I’m here?
YVONNE: (In bed, arranging the bedclothes round her) Ask him, Annette! He’s the one who’s ill.
LUCIEN: (Exhausted) I’ve stomach ache.
ANNETTE: (As before, without turning round) If he didn’t go out all night…
LUCIEN: (Getting angry) Oh, no! No! Don’t you start!
ANNETTE: (Unconcerned) I only meant…
LUCIEN: Yes, all right! Go to bed!
ANNETTE: (Not needing to be told twice) I’d be glad to.
LUCIEN: (To YVONNE) Oh, no…
ANNETTE: (Thinking he is talking to her.) Oh, yes!
LUCIEN: (Furious) I’m talking to my wife!
ANNETTE: Oh!
(ANNETTE goes out.)
LUCIEN: No! I’m not having the servants interfering too!
YVONNE: (With a wry smile) I can’t think why you got angry with her. She’s right. If you hadn’t had supper…
LUCIEN: That may be. But it’s no business of hers. If I have to start explaining to her…! (He sits on the stool) I had supper because I was hungry… And because I was with Monsieur Bonhomme and the Spink brothers; they suggested having something to eat. Is that a crime?
YVONNE: No, it’s not a crime. Of course it isn’t. But it’s silly eating so much, you get indigestion. Having to have supper!…
(A long pause)
(Icily and scornfully) Who paid?
LUCIEN: (Shrugging his shoulders) Nobody.
YVONNE: What do you mean, nobody?
LUCIEN: Well, everybody. Their own share.
YVONNE: I’m surprised it wasn’t you. Showing off as usual!
LUCIEN: Me!
YVONNE: Yes, you! You’re a miser in your own home. But as soon as there’s anyone else around… megalomania!
LUCIEN: (Rising and going upstage in a circular movement) I’ve megalomania! Marvellous! I’ve megalomania!
YVONNE: (Going straight on, as he stops.) I only have to look at you. I only have to look at you! What do you dress up as? The Sun King! I ask you! The Sun King!… In a thunderstorm! It’s ridiculous!
LUCIEN: (Sitting on the chair next to the bureau) You’re the one who’s mad!
YVONNE: (Not giving in) You love strutting about as Louis the Fifteenth!
LUCIEN: (After looking at her in scornful mockery, shrugs his shoulders: then, unconcerned) Fourteenth.
YVONNE: Fourteenth what?
LUCIEN: The Sun King was Louis the Fourteenth.
YVONNE: (Taken aback.) Oh?… (Getting angry)(Sharply)