THE ACTRESS Oh, we will rearrange the parts! [DE VARDES _folds his letter and rises from the table_. DE VARDES We’ll play, Though all the world is sliding ‘neath our feet! DE BUC The world’s a stage— THE NUN _De profundis clamavi Ad te Domine!_ _Enter the_ ABBÉ JEAN DE BARBASAN, _pale, wounded, and with disordered dress_. MLLE. DE CHÂTEAU-GUI Monsieur l’Abbé! DE VARDES Ah! De Barbasan, we feared for you! THE ABBÉ Morbleu! I am reprieved! Lambertye proved my friend! It seems that once I saved the villain’s life!— Pure accident!—stumbled on him in a ditch, Played the Samaritan!—so now I’m spared, Come forth like Daniel from the lions’ den, That Judgment Hall of theirs across the way! Lions! They are not lions, they are wolves, Hyenas, tigers, and baboons. Faugh! DE BUC So! They are hungry yet? THE ABBÉ Oh, they are portents! And portents are the folk that fill that hall! Not women they who sit aloft and knit; Not men, those scarecrow visages below; For robed judges, wolves at Lammas tide, And Nantes the winter forest for the pack!— But ah, the deer at bay, the little lambs!— The earth gives ‘neath their feet, they face the Loire! [_A confused sound from the square without the window; voices, menacing and execrating, a cry, then silence._ DE VARDES One has not gained the Loire! THE ABBÉ Ah, oftentimes, They fall before they reach the Judgment Hall! There in the street, before that fatal door— Both youth and age, fair women and brave men. Their blood cries to another judgment seat! From yonder window you may see it all! THE MARQUISE We will not look! COUNT LOUIS Fie, fie, De Barbasan! There is a time for everything! Not now, Nor in this place is’t meet or debonair To speak of ravening wolves or stricken deer! To work, my friend! You find us much concerned About this play of Molière’s! We give _Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme_. THE MARQUISE You’ll play Jourdain? Béjart had promised us, but then he went. He’s not returned. THE ABBÉ