statues
there are a decided improvement. [Catching sight of PASQUINOT]
How are you? [No answer.] How are you? How are you? [PASQUINOT
raises his head.] Well?

PASQUINOT. My friend, why ask that? We see each other all the time!

BERGAMIN. Oh, very well. [Seeing BLAISE arranging the plants]
_Will_ you take those plants back?! [BLAISE, not knowing what to
do, takes them back immediately. PASQUINOT raises his eyes, shrugs
his shoulders, and then resumes his reading. BERGAMIN walks back
and forth, and finally sits down near PASQUINOT. There is a pause.]
I used to come here every day, in silence--

PASQUINOT. [Laying aside his paper] I, too--it was most amusing!

BERGAMIN. And our secret!

PASQUINOT. The very danger was amusing.

BERGAMIN. And the things we had to say of each other--!

PASQUINOT. Very amusing.--Bergamin?

BERGAMIN. Pasquinot?

PASQUINOT. Something's lacking now.

BERGAMIN. The idea! [After a moment's reflection] Yes, I agree
with you. Funny--are you losing your sense of the romantic? [He
looks at PASQUINOT and says, aside] His waistcoat often lacks a
button! It's disgusting! [He rises and walks back and forth.]

PASQUINOT. [Looking over his paper--aside] He looks like some
immense beetle. [He pretends to be reading as BERGAMIN passes him.]

BERGAMIN. [Aside] See the ridiculous way he reads! [He whistles
as he walks away up-stage.]

PASQUINOT. [Aside] Whistling! Oh, Heavens! Don't do that,
whistling makes me nervous.

BERGAMIN. [With a smile] Remember the mote in your neighbor's
eye. You, too, get on my nerves sometimes.

PASQUINOT. I?

BERGAMIN. You tell the same story twenty times a day.

PASQUINOT. Why, I--

BERGAMIN. And when you sit down you swing your foot like a
pendulum. At meals you roll your bread in a most disgusting manner.

PASQUINOT. Ha, you take me to task for my irritating mannerisms!
But let me tell you, you are no less unpleasant. You are ridiculous
and thoroughly selfish. I know now what the trouble is: the wall--
with it, we were happy, now we don't live at all.

BERGAMIN. We didn't do this for ourselves, did we?

PASQUINOT. No, we did not!

BERGAMIN. It was for our children.

PASQUINOT. For our children, yes. Let us therefore suffer in
silence, and regret our former liberty.

BERGAMIN. Sacrifice is the lot of parents.

[SYLVETTE and PERCINET appear at the left, up stage, arm in arm.]

PASQUINOT. Sh