m a pure, a
heavenly love is something never to be realized. Men never believe
that they are loved by us, until they have brought us down into the
mire! And this is how he has rewarded me! He makes nocturnal
assignations with this stupid girl! Ah! He may as well pronounce my
sentence of death; and if he has the courage to do so, I shall have
the courage at once to bring about their eternal separation; I can do
it! But here he comes! I feel faint! My God! Why hast Thou made me
love with such desperate devotion him who no longer loves me!

SCENE SECOND

Ferdinand and Gertrude.

Gertrude
Yesterday you deceived me. You came here last night, through this
room, entering by means of a false key, to see Pauline, at the risk of
being killed by M. de Grandchamp! Oh! you needn't lie about it. I saw
you, and I came upon Pauline just as you concluded your nocturnal
promenade. You have made a choice upon which I cannot offer you my
congratulations. If only you had heard us discussing the matter, on
this very spot! If you had seen the boldness of this girl, the
effrontery with which she denied everything to me, you would have
trembled for your future, that future which belongs to me, and for
which I have sold myself, body and soul.

Ferdinand (aside)
What an avalanche of reproach! (Aloud) Let us try, Gertrude, both of
us, to behave wisely in this matter. Above all things, let us try to
avoid base accusations. I shall never forget what you have been to me;
I still entertain towards you a friendship which is sincere,
unalterable and absolute; but I no longer love you.

Gertrude
That is, since eighteen months ago.

Ferdinand
No. Since three years ago.

Gertrude
You must admit then that I have the right to detest and make war upon
your love for Pauline; for this love has rendered you a traitor and
criminal towards me.

Ferdinand
Madame!

Gertrude
Yes, you have deceived me. In standing as you did between us two, you
made me assume a character which is not mine. I am violent as you
know. Violence is frankness, and I am living a life of outrageous
duplicity. Tell me, do you know what it is to have to invent new lies,
on the spur of the moment, every day,--to live with a dagger at your
heart? Oh! This lying! But for us, it is the Nemesis of happiness. It
is disgraceful, when it succeeds; it is death, when it fails. And you,
other men envy you because you make women love you. You will be
a