We fade into Verdoux’s Paris apartment over a furniture store. After they enter he discovers that the girl has a little stray kitten concealed in her raincoat.
VERDOUX: You like cats, eh?
GIRL: Not particularly, but it was all wet and cold. I don’t suppose you have a little milk you could give it?
VERDOUX: On the contrary, I have. you see, the prospects are not as gloomy as you think.
GIRL: Do I sound that pessimistic?
VERDOUX: You do, but I don’t think you are.
GIRL: Why?
VERDOUX: To be out on a night like this, you must be an optimist.
GIRL: I’m anything but that.
VERDOUX: Up against it, eh?
GIRL [sarcastically]: Your faculties of observation are remarkable.
VERDOUX: How long have you been at this game?
GIRL: Oh… three months.
VERDOUX: I don’t believe you.
GIRL: Why?
VERDOUX: An attractive girl like you would have done better.
GIRL [superciliously]: Thanks.
VERDOUX: Now tell me the truth. You’re just out of a hospital or a jail… which is it?
GIRL [good-naturedly but challengingly]: What do you want to know for?
VERDOUX: Because I want to help you.
GIRL: A philanthropist, eh?
VERDOUX [courteously]: Precisely… and I ask nothing in return.
GIRL [studying him]: What is this… the Salvation Army?
VERDOUX: Very well. If that’s the way you feel, you’re at liberty to go on your way.
GIRL [laconically]: I’m just out of jail.
VERDOUX: What were you in for?
GIRL [shrugs]: What’s the difference? Petty larceny, they called it… pawning a rented typewriter.
VERDOUX: Dear, dear… couldn’t you do better than that? What did you get?
GIRL: Three months.
VERDOUX: So this is your first day out of jail.
GIRL: Yes.
VERDOUX: Are you hungry?
She nods and smiles wistfully.
VERDOUX: Then while I tend to the culinary operations, you can help to bring in a few things from the kitchen. Come.
They exit into the kitchen. He starts preparing scrambled eggs and helps her to put supper things on a tray which she carries into the sitting-room. The moment she exits he looks cautiously after her, then quickly opens a cabinet and takes out poison which he pours into a bottle of red wine, then corks it, placing it on a tray with two glasses, then exits into living-room.
VERDOUX: I don’t know whether this will appeal to your appetite or not… scrambled eggs, toast and a little red wine.
GIRL: Wonderful!
She puts down a book she has been reading and yawns.
VERDOUX: I see you’re tired, so immediately after supper I’ll take you to your hotel.
He uncorks bottle.
GIRL [studying him]: You’re very kind. I don’t understand why you’re doing all this for me.
VERDOUX: Why not? [pouring the poisoned wine into her glass]: Is a little kindness such a rare thing?
GIRL: I was beginning to think it was.
He is about to pour the same wine into his own glass, but makes an excuse.
VERDOUX: Oh, the toast!
He disappears with the bottle into the kitchen, where he quickly changes it for another bottle, gathers up toast, and starts towards sitting-room again. In the sitting-room he enters and puts toast on table (‘Voilà!’) and from the changed bottle he pours himself a glass of wine.
GIRL [baffled]: You’re funny.
VERDOUX: Am I? why?
GIRL: I don’t know.
VERDOUX: However, you’re hungry, so please go ahead.
As she starts to eat he sees the book on the table.
VERDOUX: What is that you’re reading?
GIRL: Schopenhauer.
VERDOUX: Do you like him?
GIRL: So-so.
VERDOUX: Have you read his treatise on suicide?
GIRL: Wouldn’t interest me.
VERDOUX [hypnotically]: Not if the end could be simple? Say, for instance, you went to sleep, and without any thought of death there was a sudden stoppage… wouldn’t you prefer it to this drab existence?
GIRL: I wonder…
VERDOUX: It’s the approach of death that terrifies.
GIRL [meditating]: I suppose if the unborn knew of the approach of life, they’d be just as terrified.
Verdoux smiles approvingly and drinks his wine. She picks up her poisoned wine and is about to drink it, but pauses.
GIRL [considering]: Yet life is wonderful.
VERDOUX: What’s wonderful about it?
GIRL: Everything… a spring morning, a summer’s night… music, art, love…
VERDOUX [contemptuously]: Love!
GIRL [mildly challenging]: There is such a thing.
VERDOUX: How do you know?
GIRL: I was in love once.
VERDOUX: You mean you were physically attracted by someone.
GIRL [quizzingly]: You don’t like women, do you?
VERDOUX: On the contrary, I love women… but I don’t admire them.
GIRL: Why?
VERDOUX: Women are of the earth… realistic, dominated by physical facts.
GIRL [incredulously]: What nonsense!
VERDOUX: Once a woman betrays a man, she despises him. In spite of his goodness and position, she will give him up for someone inferior… if that someone is more physically attractive.
GIRL: How little you know about women.
VERDOUX: You’d be surprised.
GIRL: That isn’t love.
VERDOUX: What is love?
GIRL: Giving… sacrificing… the same thing a mother feels for her child.
VERDOUX [smiling]: Did you love that way?
GIRL: Yes.
VERDOUX: Whom?
GIRL: My husband.
VERDOUX [surprised]: You’re married?
GIRL: I was… He died while I was in jail.
VERDOUX: I see… Tell me about him.
GIRL: That’s a long story… [a pause]. He was wounded in the Spanish Civil War… a hopeless invalid.
VERDOUX [leans forward]: An invalid?
GIRL [nods]: That’s why I loved him. He needed me… depended on me. He was like a child. But he was more than a child to me. He was a religion… my very breath… I’d have killed for him.
She swallows her tears and is about to drink the poisoned wine.
VERDOUX: Just a moment… I believe there is a little cork in that wine Let me get you another glass.
He takes her wine and puts it on the sideboard, then takes a clean glass and from his bottle fills it with pure wine. For a moment they drink in silence. Verdoux then gets up from chair.
VERDOUX: It’s very late, and you’re tired… Here…[giving her money] this will tide you over for a day or so… Good luck.
She looks at the money.
GIRL: Oh, this is too much… I didn’t expect…[buries her face in her hands and weeps]. Silly… carrying on this way. I was beginning to lose faith in everything. Then this happens and you want to believe all over again.
VERDOUX: Don’t believe too much. This is an evil world.
GIRL [shakes her head]: That isn’t true. It’s a blundering world, and a
