BRIGNAC [_shouting_] A victim! I tell you there’s only one victim here! Only one! And do you know who? LUCIE. You, I suppose. BRIGNAC. Yes; it is. Look here. Can’t you see the jokes that will be made about me, the ironical congratulations—me, the apostle of repopulation? Ha, they’ll say that if I don’t give an example myself, my family does! LUCIE. Julien, Julien, please! BRIGNAC. Just when I thought I had done with vegetating as a provincial lawyer, when my patience and ability had got me accepted as candidate! LUCIE. You might not have been elected. BRIGNAC. I should have been! Even if it were not me, our side would win. Once in the Chamber, I should have done with this wretched obscure existence. LUCIE. And then? BRIGNAC. Then? A deputy gets any amount of work, and wins his cases, too! Judges listen very differently to a man who any day may become Minister of Justice. It means something to them. And now this catastrophe! I tell you that here, at Chartres, it spells ruin. LUCIE. How you exaggerate! Who’s to know? BRIGNAC. Who’s to know? Next Sunday every person in the town’ll be talking of it. And my political opponents, do you think they’ll scruple? Not only them either. M. de Forgeau and his committee won’t give the electors the chance to turn me down. Within a week I shall be shewn the door. You see! It’ll be lucky if no one insinuates that I seduced the girl myself! LUCIE. Oh! BRIGNAC. This is a provincial town! This is Chartres! LUCIE. So when an unhappy woman is seduced by a scoundrel, her shame, if shame there is, falls on her whole family! Is that the system you uphold? BRIGNAC. Society must defend itself against immorality. Without the guarantee of social punishment, there would soon be hardly any except illegitimate children. LUCIE. If anyone is guilty, two are. Why do you only punish the mother? BRIGNAC. How should I know? Because it’s easier. LUCIE. But you can’t sit still and do nothing. You must do something! You’re the head of the family. BRIGNAC. Something! Something! What? The only logical thing I know is to take a pistol— LUCIE. Julien! BRIGNAC. And go coolly and put a bullet through the man’s head. No? A crime, is it? Ah, if we lived in an age with a little more guts! [_As if to himself_] No; I’m not sure it’s not my duty to go and do justice myself LUCIE. Julien, you’re not dreaming of that! BRIGNAC. And why not? LUCIE. Think of the scandal, and then—