Alexandre Dumas: The Princess of Bagdad: A Play In Three Acts

JOHN DE HUN.

NOURVADY.

GODLER.

RICHARD.

TRÉVELÉ.

A Commissary of Police.

LIONNETTE.

RAOUL DE HUN (six years).

A Lady's-Maid.

A Nurse.

ANTHONY.

A Footman.

A Secretary of the Commissary of Police.

Two Agents.

A large and very elegant drawing-room, looking out on a garden. French window with balcony at the lower extremity to the right. To the left a conservatory. To the right a door opening into the apartment of Lionnette. To the left a door opening into the apartment of John.

The Count de Hun is here.

I am quite at your service, Master Richard, but I regret that you have inconvenienced yourself to come.

Not at all; I live about two steps from here, and every evening, after my dinner, I take a short walk. Only, I am in a frock-coat, and you have friends.

Men only, some club friends. Lionnette is with them in the conservatory.

Muster all the courage of which you are master.

We are ruined?

Yes.

Poor Lionnette!

Alas! It is a little her fault.

It is the fault of her mother, who reared her in luxury and without order. It is my fault, too, who was not as rich as my love; who not only never knew how to refuse her anything, but who did not even allow her time to wish for it; who told her to buy whatever she might wish for.

And who also gave her by power of attorney – serious imprudence! – the right of buying, selling, of disposing of her property, and, in consequence, of yours, as it seemed fit to her. You owe one million, a hundred and seven thousand, one hundred and twenty-seven francs, fifty-two centimes. When I say, you owe, that is a figure of speech; your wife owes. In that amount there are only thirty-eight thousand francs of your own personal debts, and for which personally you have to be responsible, as you were married under the system of "separation of property."

I authorised my wife to make debts, these debts then are mine. In other words, as she has no money, it is I who have to pay. What are my assets?

There is this house in which we are, which is worth eight hundred thousand francs when one does not want to sell it, but which would be worth from five hundred and fifty to five hundred and eighty thousand, the moment one is obliged to part with it; it is mortgaged for four hundred and fifty thousand francs… Then there are the horses, the furniture, the laces, the jewels…

Very few jewels. A year ago Lionnette sold every jewel she had, with that heedlessness, that lightness of disposition, and that want of consideration, which are the basis of her character, and which you so well know.

Ah! well, when you have sold all that you can possibly sell, there will remain about four hundred thousand francs.

Of capital?

Of debts.

And the entail of my property?

Ten thousand pounds income, inalienable, and all in your own power, fortunately.

Is it impossible to realize the capital?

Utterly impossible. Your uncle foresaw what has happened, and, with the knowledge of your habits and the wishes of your mother, he was anxious to preserve to you always a crust of bread. There remains your sister.

Yes, my sister!

When you were married seven years ago, you know under what conditions, you had nothing more than what remained to you of the fortune of your father, about eight or nine hundred thousand francs. You made some legal interpellations against your mother in order to marry Lionnette – I call your wife Lionnette quite unceremoniously, as I knew her from her birth, – and your mother, even in her dying hour, did not pardon you. She has looked well after your sister's interest, and out of the 6,000,000 that she had she has left you only two, of which half went to pay the debts that you had already incurred. Your mother was a woman of clear perception…

Yes; but she ought to have understood…

It is not easy to understand or to excuse that which wounds us in our tenderest feelings and in our most sacred traditions. The Countess of Hun, your mother, was entirely against the marriage you made. She knew you to be a man led by a first impression, incapable of resisting the first impulse. These tendencies are dangerous, not only for him who has them, but also for those who surround him. My age authorizes me to speak in this way to you. Your mother has only done, then, what every prudent judicious mother, loving her son, would have done in her place. In spite of everything, you married Mademoiselle de Quansas. I do not say that you were wrong; I simply make, as a lawyer and friend, the summary of a moral and legal position, and, in face of the present difficulties, I try to find out what we can obtain from it. Your sister is married, and to a husband who is head of the community. She has five children; an inheritance invested at interest, the portion which ought to come back to you having been left and allotted by your mother to the minor children; your mother made your sister swear never to alter her disposition of the property. These are all excellent reasons for keeping her brother's money. I am a lawyer; I understand these legitimate scruples of conscience!

I start to-morrow for Rennes. I shall go to see my sister; she will yield, perhaps, for the honour of our name.

That name is no longer her's.

Nevertheless, I will try.

Let us hope, but do not rely upon it. Your wife also had hope to the last, and has made a last effort among the family of … her father: she has failed.

Yes.

There is still another plan.

And that is?

Call your creditors together, and offer them so much per cent.

Never.

Never! If we have a sum larger than or equal to our debts, we must pay them fully; if we have only a smaller amount, we must give it to them on account, and look for means to procure the remainder; if we are not able to do it, then we have robbed all these confiding tradesmen, and there is but one thing left for my husband and me to do, that is, to shut ourselves up in a room hermetically sealed, set light to a pan of charcoal, and die together.

I adore you.

Yes, it is very fine, but like a drama or a romance, it is not reality.