Barry Lindon

COUNTESS

It is only too possible. Love requires a mutual harmony which is difficult, and it is even more difficult to make it last.

RODERICK

I agree; but God put us on earth to take that risk.

COUNTESS

A man may need to do that, and find it amusing; but a girl is bound by other laws.

RODERICK

I believe you, and I see I must hasten to leave, for otherwise I shall become the unhappiest of men.

COUNTESS

How so?

RODERICK

By loving you, with no hope of possessing you.

She laughs.

COUNTESS

You want my heart?

RODERICK

It is my only object.

COUNTESS

To make me wretched in two weeks.

RODERICK

To love you until death. To subscribe to all your commands.

COUNTESS

The amusing thing is that you deceive me without knowing, if it is true that you love me.

RODERICK

Deceiving someone without knowing it is something new for me. If I do not know it, I am innocent.

COUNTESS

But you deceive me nonetheless if I believe you, for it will not be in your power to love me when you love me no longer.

Roderick laughs and kisses her.

COUNTESS

Be so good as to tell me with whom you think you are?

RODERICK

With a woman who is completely charming, be she a princess or a woman of the lowest condition, and who, regardless of her rank, will show me some kindness, tonight.

She laughs.

COUNTESS

And if she does not choose to show you some kindness?

RODERICK

Then I will respectfully take leave of her.

COUNTESS

You will do as you please. It seems to me that such a matter can hardly be discussed until after people know each other. Do you not agree?

RODERICK

Yes -- but I am afraid of being deceived.

COUNTESS

Poor man. And, for that reason, you want to begin where people end?

RODERICK

I ask only a payment on account today -- after that, you will find me undemanding, obedient and discreet.

She laughs. He kisses her again. They exit.

EXT. ROAD - SPA - NIGHT

Coach and four moves slowly along.

INT. COACH - NIGHT

They kiss. She gently struggles as he tries to undo her dress. He stops.

RODERICK

Will we always leave it at this?

COUNTESS

Always, my dear one, never any further. Love is a child to be pacified with trifles. A full diet can only kill it.

RODERICK

I know better than you do. Love wants a more substantial fare, and if it is stubbornly withheld, it withers away.

COUNTESS

Our abstinence makes our love immortal. If I loved you a quarter of an hour ago, now I should love you even more. But I should love you less if you exhausted my joy by satisfying all my desires.

RODERICK

Let us give each other complete happiness, and let us be sure that as many times as we satisfy our desires, they will each time be born anew.

COUNTESS

My husband has convinced me of the contrary.

RODERICK

Sir William Cosgrove is a man who is dying, and yet I envy him more than any man in Christendom. He enjoys a privilege of which I am deprived. He may take you in his arms whenever he pleases, and no veil keeps his senses, his eyes, his soul from enjoying your beauty.

She silences him with her fingertips.

COUNTESS

Shall I tell you something -- I believed what was called love came after the union -- and I was surprised when my husband, making me a woman, made me know it only by pain, unaccompanied by any pleasure. I saw that my imaginings had stood me in better stead. And so we became only friends, seldom sleeping together and arousing no curiosity in each other, yet on good terms for a while, as whenever he wanted me, I was at his service, but since the offering was not seasoned with love, he found it tasteless, and seldom demanded it.

RODERICK

O, my dearest love. Enough! I beg you. Stop believing in your experience. You have never known love. My very soul is leaving me! Catch it on your lips, and give me yours!

They kiss ardently.

RODERICK (V.O.)

To make a long story short, her ladyship and I were in love six hours after we met; and after I once got into her ladyship's good graces, I found innumerable occasions to improve my intimacy, and was scarcely ever out of her company.

EXT. COUNTESS' HOUSE - SPA - DUSK

Action as per voice over.

RODERICK (V.O.)

I shall never forget the astonishment of Sir William Cosgrove when, on one summer evening, as he was issuing out to the play-table, in his sedan-chair, her ladyship's barouche and four came driving into the courtyard of the house which they inhabited and, in that carriage, by her ladyship's side, sat no other than 'the vulgar Irish adventurer,' as she was pleased to call me.

Sir William makes the most courtly of bows and grins, and waves his hat in as graceful a manner as his multiplicity of illness permits, and her ladyship and Roderick reply to the salutation with the utmost politeness and elegance on their part.

INT. RODERICK'S APARTMENT - SPA - NIGHT

Making ardent love.

COUNTESS

Without you, my dearest, I might have died without ever knowing love. Inexpressible love! God of nature! Bitterness than which nothing is sweeter, sweetness than which nothing is more bitter. Divine monster which can only be defined by paradoxes.

RODERICK

Let me give a thousand kisses to that heavenly mouth which has told me that I am happy.

COUNTESS

As soon as I saw you loved me, I was pleased, and I gave you every opportunity to fall more in love with me, being certain that, for my part, I would never love you. But after our first kiss, I found that I had no power over myself. I did not know that one kiss could matter so much.

RODERICK (V.O.)

We then spent an hour in the most eloquent silence except that, from time to time, her ladyship cried out: 'Oh, my God. Is it true -- I am not dreaming?'

INT. GAMING ROOM - NIGHT

Roderick enters and approaches a table at which Sir William Cosgrove, who is drunk, is at play with several other jovial fellows.

RODERICK (V.O.)