Part 14 (1/2)

HE

You're blue, Mancini. [_Stretches._] Well, at my age, a hundred slaps--it seems pretty hard. So you're blue. How are things getting on with your girl?

MANCINI

Tss! Bad! Complications--parents--[_shudders_] Agh--

HE

Prison!

MANCINI

[_Laughing_]: Prison! Mustn't I uphold the glory of my name now, eh? HE, I'm joking--but there is h.e.l.l in my heart. You're the only one who understands me. But tell me how to explain this pa.s.sion? It will turn my hair grey, it'll bring me to prison, to the grave. I am a tragic man.

HE--[_Wipes his eyes with a dirty handkerchief._] Why don't I like things which are not forbidden? Why, at all moments, even at the very moment of ecstasy, must I be reminded of some law--it is stupid. HE, I am becoming an anarchist. Good G.o.d!--Count Mancini, an anarchist. That's the only thing I've missed.

HE

Isn't there a way of settling it somehow?

MANCINI

Is there a way of getting money, somehow?

HE

And the Baron?

MANCINI

Oh, yes! He's just waiting for it, the bloodsucker! He'll get what he's after. Some day, you'll see me give him Consuelo for ten thousand francs, perhaps for five!

HE

Cheap.

MANCINI

Did I say it was anything else? Do I want to do it? But these bourgeois are strangling me, they've got me by the throat. HE, one can easily see that you're a gentleman, and of good society, you understand me--I showed you the jewels which I sent back to him--d.a.m.n honesty--I didn't even dare change the stones, put false ones--

HE

Why?

MANCINI

It would have queered the game. Do you think he didn't weigh the diamonds when he got them back?

HE