He Who Gets Slapped

of speaking with you quite familiarly, quite simply. Briquet Ha! ha! ha! Slightly threatening. Really!⁠— Mancini Never mind my joke. What if they did dare attack me⁠—ever seen this, Briquet? He draws a stiletto out of his cane and advances it silently. Useful little thing. By the way, you have no idea of the discovery I made yesterday in a suburb. Such a girl! Laughs. Oh, well! all right, all right⁠—I know you don’t like that sort of sport. But look here, you must give me a hundred francs! Briquet Not a sou. Mancini Then I’ll take away Consuelo⁠—that’s all⁠— Briquet Your daily threat! Mancini Yes, my threat! And you would do the same, if you were as shamefully hard up as I am. Now look here, you know as well as I do that I have to live up to my name somehow, keep up the family reputation. Just because the tide of ill-fortune which struck my ancestors compelled me to make my daughter, the Countess Veronica, a bareback rider⁠—to keep us from starving⁠—do you understand⁠—you heartless idiot! Briquet You chase the girls too much! Some day you’ll land in jail, Mancini! Mancini In jail? Oh, no! Why, I have to uphold our name, the splendour of my family, laughs haven’t I? The Mancinis are known all over Italy for their love of girls⁠—just girls! Is it my fault if I must pay such crazy prices for what my ancestors got free of charge? You’re nothing but an ass, a parvenu ass. How can you understand Family Traditions? I don’t drink⁠—I stopped playing cards after that accident⁠—no, you need not smile. Now if I give up the girls, what will be left of Mancini? Only a coat of arms, that’s all⁠—In the name of family traditions, give me a hundred francs! Briquet I told you no, I won’t. Mancini You know that I leave half of the salary for Consuelo⁠—but⁠—perhaps you think I do not love my child⁠—my only daughter, all that remains to me as a memory of her sainted mother⁠—what cruelty! Pretends to cry, wipes his eyes with a small and dirty lace handkerchief, embroidered with a coronet. Briquet Why don’t you say, rather, that she is foolish enough to give you half her salary. You make me sick⁠— Enter Zinida, the lion tamer; burningly beautiful, her self-confident, commanding gestures at first glance give an impression of languor. She is Briquet’s unmarried wife. Zinida To Mancini. Good morning. Mancini Madame Zinida! This barbarian, this brute may pierce me with his dagger, but I cannot control the expression of my love! Kneels facetiously before her. Madame! Count Mancini has the honour of asking you to be his wife.⁠ ⁠… Zinida To Briquet. Money? Briquet Yes. Zinida Don’t give him any. Sits down wearily on a torn sofa, shuts her eyes. Mancini gets up and wipes his knees. Mancini Duchess! Don’t be cruel. I am no lion, no tiger, no savage beast which you are accustomed to tame. I am merely a poor domestic animal, who wants, meow, meow, a little green grass. Zinida Without opening her eyes. Jim tells me you have a teacher for Consuelo. What for? Mancini The solicitude of a father, duchess, the solicitude and the tireless anxiety of a loving heart. The extreme misfortunes of our family, when I was a child, have left some flaws in her education. Friends, the daughter of Count Mancini, Countess Veronica, can barely read! Is that admissible? And you, Briquet, heartless brute, you still ask why I need money! Zinida Artful! Briquet What are you teaching her? Mancini Everything. A student had been giving her lessons, but I threw him out yesterday. He had the nerve to fall in love with Consuelo and stood there meowing at the door like a cat. Everything, Briquet, that you don’t know⁠—literature, mythology, orthography⁠— Two young actresses appear, with small fur coats thrown over their light dresses. They are tired and sit down in the corner. Mancini I do not wish my daughter⁠— Zinida Artful! Briquet You are stupid, Mancini. What do you do it for? In a didactic tone. You are fearfully stupid, Mancini. Why does she need to learn? Since she is here she need never know anything about that life. Don’t you understand? What is geography? If I were the government I would forbid artists to read books. Let them read the posters, that’s enough. During Briquet’s speech, the two clowns and another actor enter. They sit down wearily. Briquet Right now, your Consuelo is an excellent artist, but just as soon as you teach her mythology, and she begins to read, she’ll become a nuisance, she’ll be corrupted, and then she’ll go and poison herself. I know those books, I’ve read ’em myself. All they teach is corruption, and how to kill oneself. First Actress I love the novels that come out in the newspaper. Briquet That shows what a foolish girl you are. You’ll be done for in no time. Believe me, my friends, we must forget entirely what is happening out there. How can we understand all that goes on there? Mancini You are an enemy of enlightenment, you are an obscurantist, Briquet. Briquet And you are stupid. You are from out there. What has it taught you? The actors laugh. If you’d been born in a circus as I was, you’d know something. Enlightenment is plain nonsense⁠—nothing else. Ask Zinida. She knows everything they teach out there⁠—geography, mythology⁠—Does it make her any happier? You tell them, dear. Zinida Leave me alone, Louis. Mancini Angrily. Oh! Go to the devil! When I listen to your asinine philosophy, I’d like to skin you for more than a paltry hundred francs⁠—for two hundred⁠—for a thousand. Great God! What an ass of a manager! Yes, right before every one of them I want to say that you are a stingy old skinflint⁠—that you pay starvation wages. I’ll make you give Consuelo a raise of a hundred francs. Listen, all you honest vagabonds, tell me⁠—who is it draws the crowd that fills the circus every