  (Gilberte and Jean.) JEAN You know all, do you not? GILBERTE Yes. And I have been deeply wounded. JEAN I hope you do not accuse me of lying or of any other dissimulation. GILBERTE Oh, no! JEAN Do you blame me for having left you this evening? GILBERTE I blame no one who does his duty. JEAN You did not know this woman—and she is dead. GILBERTE It is just because she is dead that she troubles me thus. JEAN Impossible; you must have another reason. [With hesitation.] The child? GILBERTE [quickly] No, no! don't deceive yourself. The poor little darling! it is not his fault. No, I suffer from something which is peculiar to myself, which can come only from me, and which I cannot confess to you. It is a sorrow deep in my heart, so keen, when I felt it spring to birth under the words of my brother and your uncle, that, should I ever experience it again when living with you as your wife, I should never be able to dispel it. JEAN What is it? GILBERTE I cannot tell it. [Sits L.] JEAN [stands] Listen to me. It is necessary that at this moment there should not be between us the shadow of a misunderstanding. All our life depends upon it. You are my wife, but I admit that you are absolutely free after what has happened. I will do as you wish. I am ready to agree to everything you desire, even to a divorce if you demand it. But what will happen to me after that I do not know, for I love you so that the thought of losing you after winning you will throw me mercilessly into some desperate resolve. [Sees Gilberte moved.] I do not seek to soften you, to move you—I simply tell you the naked truth. I feel, and I have felt during the whole night, through all the shocks and horrible emotions of the drama that has just been enacted, that you hold for me the keenest wound. If you banish me now, I am a lost man. GILBERTE [much moved] Do you really love me as much as that? JEAN With a love that I feel is ineffaceable. GILBERTE Did you love her? JEAN I did indeed love her. I experienced a tender attachment for a gentle and devoted girl. [In a low voice, with passion.] Listen: that which I am going to tell you is unworthy, perhaps infamous, but I am only a human being, feeble as anyone else. Well, just now, in the presence of this poor, dying girl, my eyes were filled with tears and my sobs choked me—all my being vibrated with sorrow; but at the bottom of my soul, in the depths of my being, I thought only of you. GILBERTE [rises quickly] Do you mean that? JEAN [simply] I cannot lie to you. GILBERTE Well, do you know what made me suffer just now when my brother told me of this intrigue and death? I can tell it to you now. I was jealous! It was unworthy of me, wasn't it? Jealous of this poor, dead woman! But he spoke so well of her as to move me, and I felt that she loved you so much that you might find me perhaps indifferent and cold after her, and that hurt me so! I had so much fear of experiencing that that I thought of renouncing you. JEAN And now?—Gilberte! Gilberte! GILBERTE [extends her hands] I am here, Jean! take me! JEAN Ah, how grateful I am. [Kisses her hands; then immediately after, with emotion.] But here another anguish seizes me. I have promised this poor woman to take and cherish this child in my own home. [Gilberte makes a movement.] That is not all. Do you know what her last thought, her last prayer was? She entreated me to commend the child to you. GILBERTE To me! JEAN To you, Gilberte. GILBERTE [profoundly moved] She did this, the poor woman? Did she believe that I would take— JEAN She hoped it, and in that hope her death was made easier. GILBERTE [in exalted mood, crosses R.] Yes, I will take it! where is it? JEAN At my house. GILBERTE At your house? You must go to it immediately. JEAN What! leave you now, at this moment? GILBERTE We will go together, since I was to have accompanied you to your house this evening. JEAN [joyously] Oh, Gilberte! But your father will not let us go. GILBERTE Well, do you know what we must do, since my packing is finished, and my maid awaits me at your house? You must carry me off. JEAN Carry you off? GILBERTE Give me my cloak and let us go. All can be explained tomorrow. [Shows the cloak that she had left upon the chair in the first act.] My cloak, please. JEAN [picks up the cloak quickly and throws it over her shoulders] You are the most adorable creature! [Gilberte takes his arm and they go toward door R.]
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