(He leaves. Charles and Homais go by.)
HOMAIS
The town hall was built on a design by an architect from Paris.
CHARLES
It’s imposing for the locality.
HOMAIS
And here’s the street lamp. I had elaborated a vast plan for lighting daily, by agglomeration, but my colleagues on the municipal council, still dominated by obfuscation, wouldn’t grant me the credits for a single street lamp, despite the arguments I advanced for two hours by the clock. Still, they don’t light it when there’s a clear moon.
CHARLES
Yes, yes, yes—
HOMAIS
My office.
CHARLES
Beautiful set-up.
HOMAIS
Your house is almost opposite. Down there where the serv ant enters. You see your patients don’t have a long journey to execute your orders.
CHARLES
It has a nice approach from what I can make out.
HOMAIS
It presents the most suitable—principally for a doctor. It has a gate which allows one to enter and leave without being seen.
(They pass. Léon and Emma enter.)
EMMA
Imagine—this is only the fourth time I’m going to sleep in a strange place. The day of my entry in the convent, that of my arrival in Tostes, and last Autumn at the château of Vaubyessard where we were invited to a ball. Each time it seems to me that a new phase of my life is opening up.
LÉON
I understand. One willingly understands that things cannot be found alike in different places.
EMMA
Yes, especially when one hasn’t been happy.
(They leave in silence.)
C U R T A I N
ACT I, SCENE 3
Homais’ salon.
Sunday soirée. Léon is singing, Emma accompanies him. Homais and Charles are seated at a game table.
LÉON
Alas, cover up the over-proud soul,
I was able to believe in this love.
But your lying promise, Malvina,
Didn’t last a day.
Toward his dwelling, joyous troupe
Direct your noisy echoes.
Name Fingal to the forgetful one,
Repeat to her my sad songs.
(Charles applauds)
HOMAIS
Hush! He’s not finished.
LÉON
During long months of silence
At the depth of a vale, I waited for her.
I broke my bow and my lance,
I took my lute, I left.
Here’s the cavernous gorge
Where your noisy echo died.
Flee, flee, joyous troupe
And leave me alone with my sad songs.
(Emma strikes a final chord and Homais applauds.)
HOMAIS
Didn’t I tell you that he brings out the best of the romance like a tambourine or a Lablache?
LÉON
I wish that Mr. Homais were right, so as to be worthy of the accompanist.
CHARLES
Doesn’t she play well? Imagine that she goes for months without opening her piano.
EMMA
When one cannot become an artist—
CHARLES
And her fingers run so quickly the whole length of the keyboard.
(Madame Homais enters, followed by Justin)
MADAME HOMAIS
Here’s the mixture. Perhaps you’d prefer something else, but Homais wants to convert everybody to his mixtures. Put it down there, Justin.
HOMAIS
It’s a decoction of tea, Tea Asiaticus. I introduced the custom into my home after the year of cholera. On the condition of not abusing it, you must see in it an exciting lightness, an agreeable taste, and with which I joined the happy influence of intellectual faculties. Allow me, to advise you, Madame, to sugar it with less parsimony. Pure sugar cane, Saccharum. I obtain it in the form of unrefined sugar and refine it myself in my laboratory.
EMMA
Thanks, thanks.
HOMAIS
Perhaps, Doctor, you’ll observe to me that Holland and England where this beverage has spread to the point of being an almost daily custom among a large number of the inhabitants is present at the time the two countries when there is the greatest quarrel.
CHARLES
Really, Holland and England?
HOMAIS
But I’ll reply to you that we can embellish this inconvenience by the addition of a sufficient quantity of milk, preferably not skim.—Allow me, Madame.
MADAME HOMAIS (to Justin who contemplates Emma.)
Well, are you going to remain standing there planted like a milestone? It’s almost ten o’clock. Go to bed. And look to see if the children are not uncovered while they slept.
HOMAIS
One can add either rum from the Antilles or elixir de Garus, but that cannot be done without damaging the aroma.
(Justin leaves)
MADAME HOMAIS
He’s a student in pharmacy, a distant cousin of Homais that we’ve taken in here from charity. Mr. Homais is good. Justin serves us, at the same time as a servant. He takes special care of the children.
EMMA
You have four, I believe?
LÉON
Napoléon, Franklin, Irma, and Athalia. Beautiful names, aren’t they?
HOMAIS
I was looking for names evoking a great man, an illustrious deed, or a generous conception. Napoléon represents glory, and Franklin, liberty. Irma, was chosen, I admit, from a concession to fashion, but Athalia is a homage to the most immortal masterpiece of the French stage.
LÉON
Eh, Mr. Homais, a play in which God is the main character! So you are not quite so much an enemy of the priests?
HOMAIS
My young friend, my philosophic convictions don’t interfere with my artistic admiration, and the thinker in me doesn’t suffocate the man of feeling.
MADAME HOMAIS
In any case, Athalia is a demon. Ah, Madame, what Christian-torment these children are! With them one is at the mercy of a thoughtless action, thus I beware myself, you can believe me. In our home the knives are never sharpened, the floors are never waxed, all the windows have grills, and until they’re at least four, I make our little ones wear cushioning pads around their heads.
HOMAIS