ROSALIE: The Duc de Mirecourt telephoned not long ago to find out if Madame is back home.
FRANÇOISE: No, I've gone to the country, I haven't got back yet.
Silence.
HENRI: Is it true that you went to the country?
FRANÇOISE: No.
Rosalie goes out, then comes back in.
FRANÇOISE: What are those orchids?
ROSALIE: They were sent by the Duc de Mirecourt just now.
FRANÇOISE: Take them away.
ROSALIE: There was a note for Madame.
FRANÇOISE: Indeed.
ROSALIE: Doesn't Madame wish to see it?
FRANÇOISE: No, there's no point.
Rosalie goes out holding the bunch of flowers to which a letter is attached.
HENRI: Poor chap, it must be so miserable for him wondering if he will see you or not.
FRANÇOISE: What do you expect me to do about it?
HENRI: See him.
FRANÇOISE: Oh no!
HENRI: Aren't you going to be entertaining this evening?
FRANÇOISE: Yes, those who are coming.
HENRI: Excepting him.
FRANÇOISE: Naturally.
HENRI: But he's the most intelligent of your friends, maybe the one you love the most.
FRANÇOISE: When he didn't love me. [three illegible words]
HENRI: He tells you that he loves you all the time.
FRANÇOISE: All the time? I tell you I hardly ever see him.
HENRI: Every time he sees you.
FRANÇOISE: Not a bit of it. Because he knows that it irritates me, one minute he tells me that he doesn't love me, or he's in love with somebody else, just to see if it will help him endure it better.
HENRI: Well that doesn't mean anything.
FRANÇOISE: No, and that makes it all the more odious.
HENRI: That is the device which all theatre hinges on though, the man who pretends that he is no longer in love and immediately someone falls in love with him.
FRANÇOISE: Well it is a very false device. A man who is in love with us is tainted with the smell of love, which makes his presence intolerable. Whether he says he is in love, whether he says he is not in love, it is of no importance. Do you think he could be deceiving us?
HENRI: You who are so smart?
FRANÇOISE: Also, all this is causing me a great deal of pain.
HENRI: It does no such thing. Otherwise you would receive him, instead of leaving him waiting like this.
FRANÇOISE: Oh no! That I cannot do. But I assure you that I have a lot of pity for him, and a lot of affection. Oh, if he were to ask a service of me I would do anything at all for him.
HENRI: Except the one thing that could make him happy.
FRANÇOISE: Henri!
HENRI: Oh, I'm not saying what you think I'm saying. Just to see him a little every day.
FRANÇOISE: Oh no, not that. I won't even see him any more, and that will be for his own good. My dear Henri, please give me a little advice, I need fifty thousand francs.
HENRI: But you already refused when I offered it to you.
FRANÇOISE: Do you really think I'd accept money from a friend?
HENRI: Better it be from a lover.
FRANÇOISE: In which case he would have to amuse me. But I want to give something in return.
HENRI: Ah well, I think old Zurgen would be inclined.
FRANÇOISE: He's utterly disgusting.
HENRI: That's true, let's think... What do you say to the Comtesse de Larive?
FRANÇOISE: Oh! dear Henri, don't let's complicate things. Let's stay with your own sex.
HENRI: But hold on, somebody who would be mad with joy and wouldn't even ask you to lower yourself in exchange if it displeased you so much, who would be more than happy to do you a service, to be materially at least something to you.
FRANÇOISE: (joyously) Who is it?
HENRI: The Duc de Mirecourt.
A short skit scribbled in the back of one of Proust's cahiers
containing his translation of Sésame et les Lys (NAF 16626,
40v-r, 39v-r), probably written at a later date. From À la
Recherche du temps perdu, Pléiade tome III, p.1637-1639.
Françoise and Henri also appear in Dialogue / Vacances but
there seems to be no obvious connection.
Created 02.08.20