Go find him for me.
Baptiste
Right away, monsieur.
(Baptiste goes out back left. As he does, he opens his Voltaire and continues to read.)
Durandin (alone)
My nephew is indeed the son of my brother. It’s the same disordered spirit. Vocation! Art! Genius! And the father died leaving debts the son is ready to double. The arts! The arts! Doesn’t he have a beautiful history and pretty job? But I am here—and soon I will have our charming auxiliary flanked by 40,000 francs income, and I really hope—but if, to the contrary, Monsieur Poet, the dreamer resists, if he refuses his luck—so much the worse for him! He can go to the devil!
Rodolphe (entering, very eccentric)
Is that why you made me come, uncle?
Durandin
Ah, there you are, hothead.
Rodolphe (gaily)
Hello, Uncle Million. You’re in a bad mood. I am going to recite a sonnet for you, jolly fellow, that’s going to cheer you up and cool you down.
Durandin
Would you talk reasonably for a minute?
Rodolphe
Willingly? Willingly, my uncle, but not more, you quite understand. The minute is gone. Let’s talk of something else.
Durandin
You’re settled on it, right? You don’t wish to understand anything?
Rodolphe
My uncle, I understand nothing about business. You do it, as much as you like, I am not preventing you.
Durandin
Truly? And as for you, you’ll write odes to the moon, right? And you will curse the egoistic century that refuses to nourish you for doing nothing.
Rodolphe
Wrong, my uncle, grave mistake! I am not seated at the banquet of life with the intention of cursing fellow guests over dessert. By dessert, I’m rolling under the table, and my muse, a good fat wench with an insolent eye and a turned up nose picks me up, leads me stumbling to my lodging, and we spend the night laughing at those who’ve paid us to dine. It’s ingratitude if you like, but it’s amusing.
Durandin
And is this what concerns you?
Rodolphe
What concerns me? Absolutely nothing for the moment. But that will concern me later. You’ve studied men and you speculate on the telegraphs. You live by your enterprise. As for me, I want to live by my imagination. I will do whatever they wish—sad, gay, pleasant, grave. I will feel like fasting and jesting loudly after dinner—(striking his head) My capital is here. A superb enterprise under the direction of Piochage and Company. Social capital—courage, wit, and gaiety.
Durandin
But, truly, I am really glad to hear that from you. Madame de Rouvre is coming today—in an hour.
Rodolphe
You did quite well to warn me, my uncle. I’m going out right away.
Durandin
Not another step or I’ll disinherit you.
Rodolphe
Damn! I ask to sit down.
Durandin (sitting on the bench with his nephew)
Listen, my boy, in the past you paid court to Madame de Rouvre, you pressed her assiduously for an entire winter.
Rodolphe
I cannot deny it, uncle.
Durandin
In the Spring, we spent a month at her country estate—and, between us, those walks in the solitary alleys of her park—
Rodolphe
Hush! Be as discreet as I am, uncle.
Durandin
I’m not reproaching you. On the contrary, you did well, it was a masterful stroke—for she’s very rich and she loves you.
Rodolphe
She loves me?
Durandin
I’m sure of it.
Rodolphe
She’s a woman of wit, she will understand that I don’t want to marry her.
Durandin
You don’t want to marry her?
Rodolphe
I never promised her that.
Durandin
Promised—this lad is a bit conceited.
Rodolphe
Why no, uncle, I wish to remain a bachelor, that’s all.
Durandin
But, wretch, Madame de Rouvre is pretty.
Rodolphe
I know it, uncle.
Durandin
Well?
Rodolphe
Well! So much the worse for the others.
Durandin
By marrying her, you would have from your wife’s side alone, forty thousand francs of income. You would have a calm, quiet position. You would have children.
Rodolphe
Yes, that’s right, many children and rabbits. Thanks, that doesn’t suit me. I need air, freedom, a picturesque life, tempestuous, if you like, free not to dine every day—that’s all the same with me—in the days of feasting, I will eat for a month.
Durandin
You will never do anything in your life. You will follow in the tracks of your father.
Rodolphe
Ah, uncle, let’s not speak of that, let’s not rake up the ashes.
Durandin
That’s very well, but nonetheless, it is true that my brother also didn’t want to do anything except as he pleased, and when he died, he owed everybody.
