FullReads

THERESE.
Oh, talk about something else.–Tell us rather what we are going to eat and drink today. For that matter, it’s a lie; he didn’t kiss me.

DURAND.
It isn’t a lie. In Heaven’s name, didn’t I see it happen?

THERESE.
Prove it.

DURAND.
Prove it? With two witnesses or–a policeman! [To Annette.] Annette, my child, will you tell me the truth?

ANNETTE.
I didn’t see anything.

DURAND.
That’s a proper answer. For one should never accuse one’s sister. How like your mother you are today, Annette!

ANNETTE.
Don’t you say anything about mother! She should be living such a day as this!

[Adele comes in with a glass of milk, which she puts on table.]

ADELE
[To Durand].

There’s your milk. What happened to the bread?

DURAND.
Nothing, my children. It will continue to come as it always has up to the present.

THERESE
[Grabs the glass of milk from her father].
You shall not have anything, you who throw away money, so that your children are compelled to starve.

ADELE.
Did he throw away money, the wretch? He should have been put in the lunatic asylum the time mother said he was ripe for it. See, here’s another bill that came by way of the kitchen.

[Durand takes the bill and starts as he looks at it. Pours a glass of water and drinks. Sits down and lights his briar pipe.]

ANNETTE.
But he can afford to smoke tobacco.

DURAND
[Tired and submissively].

Dear children, this tobacco didn’t cost me any more than that water, for it was given to me six months ago. Don’t vex yourselves needlessly.

THERESE
[Takes matches away].

Well, at least you sha’n’t waste the matches.

DURAND.
If you knew, Therese, how many matches I have wasted on you when I used to get up nights to see if you had thrown off the bedclothes! If you knew, Annette, how many times I have secretly given you water when you cried from thirst, because your mother believed that it was harmful for children to drink!

THERESE.
Well, all that was so long ago that I can’t bother about it. For that matter, it was only your duty, as you have said yourself.

DURAND.
It was, and I fulfilled my duty and a little more too.

ADELE.
Well, continue to do so, or no one knows what will become of us. Three young girls left homeless and friendless, without anything to live on! Do you know what want can drive one to?

DURAND.
That’s what I said ten years ago, but no one would heed me; and twenty years ago I predicted that this moment would come, and I haven’t been able to prevent its coming. I have been sitting like a lone brakeman on an express train, seeing it go toward an abyss, but I haven’t, been able to get to the engine valves to stop it.

THERESE.
And now you want thanks for landing in the abyss with us.

DURAND.
No, my child, I only ask that you be a little less unkind to me. You have cream fur the cat, but you begrudge milk to your father, who has not eaten for–so long.

THERESE.
Oh, it’s you, then, who has begrudged milk for my cat!

DURAND.
Yes, it’s I.

ANNETTE.
And perhaps it is he who has eaten the rats’ bait, too.

DURAND.
It is he.