"A CURTAIN RAISER" "Based on Un Incompris by Henry de Montherlant" "Thirty minutes late!" "In the 8 months I've known her, she's been at least 45 minutes late for every rendez-vous." "It's diabolical." "How inelegant, how un-French, to deplore a woman for her lateness!" "What kind of woman arrives on time?" "A sexless monster, fit for stoning, like the hermaphrodites of antiquity." "Everyone's late in Paris." "No one complains." "I do!" "When someone's late, your next appointment gets delayed!" "And the next." "One pest's tardiness can botch a serious affair." "Such pests are wise to fear manic timekeeping!" "They'd rather leave it to others." "That's what sickens me." "Their lateness states the world is divided between those who care and those who don't!" ""Put yourself out for me, but I won't put myself out for you."" "If you were waiting for the executioner, his tardiness would upset you more than the prospect of dying!" "I'd sooner be attacked from the front, or even betrayed." "Bad manners are the cruellest insult." "Personally, I'm too sure of myself to crave respect, especially from my lovers." "The only attentions I require of them are indescribable, even in this bachelor flat." "Thirty years ago people talked of free love, but all love is servitude." "Not for me." "Pretentious little fool!" "I pretend to be no one but myself." "With such ideas, you'll have to forego both love and friendship." "What power you give to others, if their lateness enrages you so!" "It's true." "In the end I prefer solitude." "I've an idea." "Abolish for all time your watches and clocks." "You won't know if people are late." "Better still, you'll be late yourself." "You'll redress the balance and fit in!" "Sadly, punctuality is a terrible disease." "I couldn't be imprecise if I tried." "I can't help it." "I could not merrily become a cad." " A cad for such a little thing?" " Yes, a cad!" "It was different in the past." "If an actor was late for a performance, it was customary for him to apologise to the audience." "On bended knee." "Bended knee!" "Did you teach Rosette that?" "In 8 months, she's been late 2,177 minutes." "That's 36 hours." "36 wasted hours." "Plus the first 20 minutes of each meeting, when I berated her!" "Rosette has stolen 36 hours of my life." "Hugo penned Tristesse d'Olympio in 6 hours." "In the time Rosette has cost me" "I could have written 6 such poems!" "Have you told her?" "No." "Last time I said," ""This has gone on for 8 months." "Next time you're late, it's over."" "I made no bones about it." "And what was her reply?" "She laughed in my face." "Of course." "Endure it 8 months, you'll endure it forever." "She won't laugh if she arrives past 5.45." "I'll stick to my guns." "It'll be like a Greek tragedy!" "I'm impervious to your mockery." "I know I'm right." "To be right... in love!" "Why can't one be right in love?" "Must love always reduce justice, wisdom and pride to ridicule?" "When love assumes the face of justice, wisdom and pride, it cuts a bad figure." "It dons a carnival mask." "By arriving late," "Rosette occupies your thoughts all the more." "So what, if I think only ill of her?" "Sometimes I enjoy it when a lover is late." "While waiting, I imagine he's lost interest." "And realise how much he means to you?" "No, how indifferent I'd be to losing him." "But I love Rosette." "Therein lies my pain." "Tell me, does she give reasons for being late?" "How does she explain it?" "She has all the good reasons those with bad ones have." "And the endless details provided by those who lie." "The time before last, supposedly, as she left home, heavy rain broke the glass roof of the library." "She had to help her family save books from the flood." "Do you believe the roof broke?" "I find it odd." "That's why I believe it." "Anyway, her last excuse was that lateness runs in her family." "The family is sacred, my lips are sealed!" "Only 5 minutes left." "If she arrives in 6, it's over forever." "O, Plutarchian hero!" "Your noble debate will elevate the human race!" "Everything is suddenly transformed!" "As by a scene change in the theatre!" "She's here..." "My world is restored to me." "I'm here to read the gas meter." " I don't have gas." " I thought..." "Damn!" "He certainly looked as if he thought so!" "In 2 minutes" "I'm getting dressed and we're going." "Or rather, I'll ask you to wait for her." "If Rosette finds a locked door, she might not understand." "She may have forgotten my ultimatum." "She has to learn her lesson." "Lesson?" "You're taking yourself too seriously." "I'll wait for Rosette and explain your behaviour, but in my own way." "What date should I set for your next rendez-vous?" "There won't be one." " What's that?" " Water." " Water?" " The toilet flushing." " By itself?" " By itself." "Rosette's bound to ring now." "I'll open the door a crack." "It's unbearable!" "Complain to the owner." "I did!" "He says noise adds gaiety to a flat." "I'm sorry to have to say this, dear boy, but all this is unwon'thy of a great passion." "What are you enacting here?" "A drama or a farce?" "Nothing more than a curtain raiser." "But it's disconcerting." "The public likes a clear-cut genre." "No!" "It's the critics who like clear-cut genres." "They say the author hesitates between genres, when in fact it's life that hesitates between genres." "5.45." "It's over." "I'm getting dressed." "If she rings, you know what to do." "Is that your final word?" "Do you still doubt it?" "How childish!" "A man at the mercy of his nerves." "Nerves?" "You understand nothing." "I'd just advise you to maintain some generosity of spirit!" "One last time!" " It's you!" " Hello." "Where's Bruno?" "I kept him company while he waited for you." "But it's 5.50." " He left 5 minutes ago." " Left?" "Didrt he warn you if you were late again, he'd be merciless?" "I don't remember." "He may have said that." "You should've taken him at his word." "Don't you know Bruno?" "He's a principled young man from another era." "He went off, without waiting for me?" "What a cad!" "He did wait 45 minutes!" "And lost patience in your company?" "He was a cad to you too!" "True, that hadrt occurred to me!" "And to think we'll be apart for 3 months!" "My mother's changed her mind." "We're going on holiday tomorrow." "Bruno and I won't see each other for a long time." "My dear girl, you won't see our friend at all." "He's returning you to your mother." "Your tardiness infuriates him." "And he did give you proper warning." "After all, he is a gentleman." "A gentleman?" "You're both crazy!" "I brought him some plums!" "The plums made me late!" "If he has a change of heart, where can he reach you?" "We leave in 2 days." "We must pack." "Mother won't let me out." "She watches me like a hawk." "So I see." "For here you are." "Your departure changes everything." "All is not lost." "Bruno, did you hear?" "Rosette's leaving in 2 days for 3 months." "Come out of there." "He's in there?" "After 45 minutes of lofty verbiage in the worst possible taste, he went to dress." "Now he's coming out." "Come on, Bruno!" "Come out of there." "He's not coming out." "The cad!" "Did you hear?" "Rosette called you a cad." " What do you want?" " Your happiness!" "I make a heroic sacrifice and I'm a cad?" "You're so misunderstood!" "Let me go!" "I'm coming out." "I'm coming out of the bathroom, but I remain inflexible." "I'm slipping away." "I know you won't back down in front of me." "But when you two are alone you'll sort things out." "Goodbye, Rosette." "What's this scene about?" "You've gone too far." "It's over." "Just because I was late?" "Because you're always late." "Verily, what love!" "I love you to the extreme, even at this moment." "But if love means being slighted by the one you love, it's not won'th much." "I've always heard the contrary." "That it's easy to bear small things from the one you love." "I'd tolerate no more from a mistress than a minister or a housemaid." "It's my way of respecting love." "You talk of being slighted." "Have I slighted you?" "I know how sweet you are." "You're a little hand-reared bird." "But maybe unconsciously, by persisting in being late, you're trying to force me to live at your pace." "Trying to bring me to heel, dominate me." "That's what I cannot forgive." "I'm trying this, I'm trying that!" "Isn't there something you'd like to try?" "With a woman you love and who loves you?" "You know very well the power you have over me!" "If you were thoughtful, you'd refrain from abusing it." " Take a plum and kiss me." " I won't take a plum or kiss you!" "We've fallen out." "Maybe we have." "But you can still have a plum." "I will have it." "I won't deprive myself of both." "But make no mistake!" "This plum commits me to nothing." "I'm so happy to see you're not too stupid!" "I'm so sad to see you losing your best friend through stupidity." "I didn't know there were 3 of us in this flat." "Throw it away." "Along with our love, worm-eaten by your tardiness." "See?" "You didn't tell me to eat the worm with the plum." "Forget my lateness!" "Now come and kiss me." "Why shouldn't I, since I love you?" "It's so good." "Not even dying could be so good." "Let me smell your neck, your breath, your hair..." "After that long wait, when I thought I'd lost you." "Last night I saw a shooting star." "But I'm so silly, I couldn't think of a wish to make." "Just before it burned out, I said your name." "Very quickly, just your first name, thinking the good Lord would understand." "Your arms, warm in winter and cool in summer..." "You were always just right." "All our long, tireless conversations..." "Our hearts drawing nearer and touching like hands." "And then the madness of that other world..." "You, arching back, full of delicious cries..." "Every kindness, every perfection." "And in 8 months, you never once asked me to marry you!" "And now it all seems far away." "Shrouded, blurred." "I'm gazing at our reflection in the bottom of a well." "How strange it is, to make oneself suffer, to create one's own unappiness." "Having blithely stabbed others, do we yearn to feel the blade ourselves?" "Is there pleasure to be gained?" "When we press certain wounds, do we not feel both pleasure and pain?" "What pleasure?" "What pain?" "You talk and talk..." "You blather on." "Or perhaps you're joking." "If I stopped talking for a second" "I'd feel sadder still." "Sad?" "But why?" "It's as if you're talking in a dream." ""O, name too beautiful to speak except within a dream!"" "Name?" "What name?" "Yours." "Rosette." "Why don't you love me?" "You asked me that, coquettishly, whenever I most proved I loved you." "And now you're asking me seriously." "Kiss me again." "Reassure me!" "You're behaving so strangely today." "Poor child." "Whenever my eyes meet yours, you smile." "Whenever I kiss you, you smile." "Your lips turn as white as an olive tree swept by the wind." "You won't understand either till the very end." "Go now, Rosette." "Leave." "Let's not prolong this misunderstanding." "Go?" "Have you forgotten what I said when you arrived?" "You're still thinking about that?" "I never stopped." "So you've put on an affectionate act for an hour, only to toss me aside like a cheap slut?" "Pierre says sincerity never rings true in people's ears." "He's right." "For the last time, I love you." "Can't you see it in my face?" "I love you, but I suppose I love myself more." "I'll lose my self-respect if I let you go on slighting me." "So, with head held high, I'll choose pain over shame-faced happiness." "Enough of this hypocrisy!" "I don't believe a single word, a single reason you've given me!" "You're bored." "You want no more of me." "That's your right." "No explanations." "Explanations are indeed useless." "Alas, I am young." "How will I live in a world where my motives are as obscure to my peers as they would be to an ox?" "Or a horse?" "Are you crying?" "Don't touch me!" "Close the curtains." "I don't want you to see me cry." "I'll cry too, when you've gone." "But go, Rosette." "I can't bear it any longer." "I'm going." "You vaunt your pride." "Don't you think I have mine?" "Do you think I'll come back when you call?" "Go." "Have you really thought about this?" "Do you know what you're losing?" "What I lose with you I'll gain elsewhere." "If you only knew how you disgust me!" "I understand that." "My reasons obviously escape you." "But I'm swayed by them." "I admire myself tremendously." "You admire yourself tremendously?" "No mars ever done what I'm doing!" "And all for a few late arrivals." "So?" "Adieu." "Adieu, then." "I'm sick of being with a madman!" "Oh, Pierre!" "I was in the cafe." "I couldn't take my eyes off your door." "I imagined you in each other's arms, and then out came Rosette in tears." "You're upset, too." "There's still time, say the word and I'll go after her!" "No." "Two souls blissfully collide, a miracle happens, then one of them ruins it, through absurdity and obstinacy." "We know philosophers are fools." "I had to learn along the way that men of character are fools, too." "Now you're bound to her by the wrong you've done her." "She'll prey on your mind eternally." "You'll eternally wonder if you were right or wrong." "Her tears will eternally flow within you." "If you return to her, it will be in shame." "If you don't, it will be with remorse." "Those are the rewards of your mock heroics." "What am I saying?" "Is there any question of you not returning to her?" "Two days from now, as you awake, her explanations will suddenly seem so simple and plausible that your trumped-up case against her will collapse." "You'll find nothing more to reproach her for." "The grounds for your severity will be lost to you, like a dream." "And when she comes back, you'll fall into her arms." "It will end in delicious kisses apologies given and accepted." "The classic lovers' tiff, which leads to passionate reconciliation, just as losing an object leads to the joy of finding it." "We begin in the sublime, and descend into the ridiculous." "So all my courage will be wasted?" "Courage is always wasted." "We'll see."