Six Characters in Search of an Author

than a certain kind of remorse⁠—crocodiles’ tears, that’s what it is. The Manager Let’s come to the point. This is only discussion. The Father Very good, sir! But a fact is like a sack which won’t stand up when it is empty. In order that it may stand up, one has to put into it the reason and sentiment which have caused it to exist. I couldn’t possibly know that after the death of that man, they had decided to return here, that they were in misery, and that she Pointing to The Mother. had gone to work as a modiste, and at a shop of the type of that of Madame Pace. The Step-Daughter A real high-class modiste, you must know, gentlemen. In appearance, she works for the leaders of the best society; but she arranges matters so that these elegant ladies serve her purpose⁠ ⁠… without prejudice to other ladies who are⁠ ⁠… well⁠ ⁠… only so so. The Mother You will believe me, gentlemen, that it never entered my mind that the old hag offered me work because she had her eye on my daughter. The Step-Daughter Poor mamma! Do you know, sir, what that woman did when I brought her back the work my mother had finished? She would point out to me that I had torn one of my frocks, and she would give it back to my mother to mend. It was I who paid for it, always I; while this poor creature here believed she was sacrificing herself for me and these two children here, sitting up at night sewing Madame Pace’s robes. The Manager And one day you met there.⁠ ⁠… The Step-Daughter Him, him. Yes sir, an old client. There’s a scene for you to play! Superb! The Father She, the Mother arrived just then.⁠ ⁠… The Step-Daughter Treacherously. Almost in time! The Father Crying out. No, in time! in time! Fortunately I recognized her⁠ ⁠… in time. And I took them back home with me to my house. You can imagine now her position and mine: she, as you see her; and I who cannot look her in the face. The Step-Daughter Absurd! How can I possibly be expected⁠—after that⁠—to be a modest young miss, a fit person to go with his confounded aspirations for “a solid moral sanity”? The Father For the drama lies all in this⁠—in the conscience that I have, that each one of us has. We believe this conscience to be a single thing, but it is many-sided. There is one for this person, and another for that. Diverse consciences. So we have this illusion of being one person for all, of having a personality that is unique in all our acts. But it isn’t true. We perceive this when, tragically perhaps, in something we do, we are as it were, suspended, caught up in the air on a kind of hook. Then we perceive that all of us was not in that act, and that it would be an atrocious injustice to judge us by that action alone, as if all our existence were summed up in that one deed. Now do you understand the perfidy of this girl? She surprised me in a place, where she ought not to have known me, just as I could not exist for her; and she now seeks to attach to me a reality such as I could never suppose I should have to assume for her in a shameful and fleeting moment of my life. I feel this above all else. And the drama, you will see, acquires a tremendous value from this point. Then there is the position of the others⁠ ⁠… his.⁠ ⁠… Indicating The Son. The Son Shrugging his shoulders scornfully. Leave me alone! I don’t come into this. The Father What? You don’t come into this? The Son I’ve got nothing to do with it, and don’t want to have; because you know well enough I wasn’t made to be mixed up in all this with the rest of you. The Step-Daughter We are only vulgar folk! He is the fine gentleman. You may have noticed, Mr. Manager, that I fix him now and again with a look of scorn while he lowers his eyes⁠—for he knows the evil he has done me. The Son Scarcely looking at her. I? The Step-Daughter You! you! I owe my life on the streets to you. Did you or did you not deny us, with your behaviour, I won’t say the intimacy of home, but even that mere hospitality which makes guests feel at their ease? We were intruders who had come to disturb the kingdom of your legitimacy. I should like to have you witness, Mr. Manager, certain scenes between him and me. He says I have tyrannized over everyone. But it was just his behaviour which made me insist on the reason for which I had come into the house⁠—this reason he calls “vile”⁠—into his house, with my mother who is his mother too. And I came as mistress of the house. The Son It’s easy for them to put me always in the wrong. But imagine, gentlemen, the position of a son, whose fate it is to see arrive one day at his home a young woman of impudent bearing, a young woman who inquires for his father, with whom who knows what business she has. This young man has then to witness her return bolder than ever, accompanied by that child there. He is obliged to watch her treat his father in an equivocal and confidential manner. She asks money of him in a way that lets one suppose he must give it her, must, do you understand, because he has every obligation to do so. The Father But I have, as a matter of fact, this obligation. I owe it to your mother. The Son How should I know? When had I ever seen or heard of her? One day there arrive with her Indicating The Step-Daughter. that lad and this baby here. I am told: “This is your mother too, you