BRIGNAC. I don’t understand. LUCIE. I was a penniless girl, and so I had no offers of marriage. When you proposed to me I was tired of waiting, and I didn’t want to be an old maid. I accepted you, but I knew you only came to me because the women with money wouldn’t have you. I made up my mind to love you and be loyal. BRIGNAC. Well? LUCIE. But when my first baby came you deceived me. Since then I have only endured you, and you owe my submission to my cowardice. It was only my first child I wanted, the others you forced upon me, and when each was coming you left me. It’s true I was unattractive, but that was not my fault. You left me day after day in my ugliness and loneliness, and when you came back to me from those other women, you were full of false solicitude about my health. I begged for a rest after nursing. I asked to be allowed to live a little for myself, to be a mother only with my own consent. You laughed at me in a vain, foolish way. You did not consider the future of your children or the life of your wife, but you forced upon me the danger and the suffering of bringing another child into the world. What was it to you? Just the satisfaction of your vanity. You could jest with your friends and make coarse witticisms about it. Fool! BRIGNAC. That’s enough, thank you. You’re my wife— LUCIE. I’ll not be your wife any longer, and I won’t have another child. BRIGNAC. Why? LUCIE. Because I’ve just found out what the future of my poor, penniless little girls is to be. It’s to be Annette’s fate, or mine. Oh, to think I’ve been cruel enough to bring three of them into the world already! BRIGNAC. You’re mad. And be good enough not to put on these independent airs. They’re perfectly useless. LUCIE. You think so? BRIGNAC. I am sure of it. If you have had enough of me, get a divorce. LUCIE. But you would keep the children? BRIGNAC. Naturally. And let me tell you that as long as you are my wife before the world, you’ll be my wife really. LUCIE. And you will force me to have a child whenever you please? BRIGNAC. Most certainly. LUCIE. My God! They think a woman’s body is like the clay of the fields; they want to drag harvest after harvest from it until it is worn out and done for! I refuse this slavery, and I shall leave you if you turn out my sister. BRIGNAC. And your children? LUCIE. I will take them with me. BRIGNAC. And their food? LUCIE. I will work. BRIGNAC. Don’t talk nonsense. You couldn’t earn enough to keep them from starving. It’s late: go to bed. LUCIE [_her teeth clenched_] And wait for you? BRIGNAC. And wait for me. Precisely. [_He goes out_]. LUCIE [_rushing to the door on the left_] Annette! Oh, Annette! There’s nobody to help us! ACT III