HOST. Yes, do tell us, Henri--where is your wife? Where have you left her? HENRI. Oh, I have no qualms about her. She will not die of it. Whether it is this man or that man, what do the women care? There are still a thousand other handsome men running about Paris--whether it is this man or that man-- BALTHASAR. May it fare thus with all who take our wives from us. SCAEVOLA. All who take from us what belongs to us. COMMISSAIRE (to HOST). These are seditious speeches. ALBIN. It is dreadful ... the people mean it seriously. SCAEVOLA. Down with the usurers of France! We would fain wager that the fellow whom he caught with his wife was another again of those accursed hounds who rob us of our bread as well. ALBIN. I propose we go. SEVERINE. Henri!--Henri! MARQUIS. But, Marquise-- SEVERINE. Please, dear Marquis, ask the man how he caught his wife--or I will ask him myself. MARQUIS (after resisting). Tell us, Henri, how did you manage to catch the pair? HENRI (who has been for a long while sunk in reverie). Know you my wife, then? She is the fairest and vilest creature under the sun. And I loved her! We have known one another for seven years--but it is only yesterday that she became my wife. In those seven years there was not one day, nay, not one day, in which she did not lie to me, for everything about her is a lie--her eyes and her lips, her kisses and her smiles. FRANCOIS. He rants a little. HENRI. Every boy and every old man, every one who excited her and every one who paid her--every one, I think, who wanted her--has possessed her, and I have known it! SEVERINE. Not every one can boast as much. HENRI. And all the same she loved me, my friends. Can any one of you understand that? She always came back to me again--from all quarters back again to me--from the handsome and from the ugly, from the shrewd and from the foolish, from ragamuffins and from courtiers--always came back to me. SEVERINE (to ROLLIN). Now, if only you had an inkling that it is just this coming back which is really love. HENRI. What I suffered ... tortures, tortures! ROLLIN. It is harrowing. HENRI. And yesterday I married her. We had a dream--nay, I had a dream. I wanted to get away with her from here. Into solitude, into the country, into the great peace. We wished to live like other happy married couples--we dreamt also of having a child--- ROLLIN (softly). Severine. SEVERINE. Very good! ALBIN. Francois, that man is speaking the truth. FRANCOIS. Quite so; the love-story is true, but the real pith is the murder-story. HENRI. I was just one day too late.... There was just one man whom she had forgotten, otherwise--I believe--she wouldn't have wanted any one else.... But I caught them together ... it is all over with him. ACTORS. Who?--who? How did it happen? Where does he lie? Are you pursued? How did it happen? Where is she?