SCENE:  Paris, in the house of Mercadet

Time:  About 1845

MERCADET

ActI

Scenefirst

(A drawing-room.  A door in the centre.  Side doors.  At the front, to the left, a mantel-piece with a mirror.  To the right, a window, and next it a writing-table.  Armchairs.)

Justin, Virginie and Therese

Justin (finishing dusting the room) Yes, my dears, he finds it very hard to swim; he is certain to drown, poor M. Mercadet.

Virginie (her basket on her arm)
Honestly, do you think that?

Justin He is ruined!  And although there is much fat to be stewed from a master while he is financially embarrassed, you must not forget that he owes us a year’s wages, and we had better get ourselves discharged.

Therese Some masters are so frightfully stubborn!  I spoke to the mistress disrespectfully two or three times, and she pretended not to hear me.

Virginie Ah!  I have been at service in many middle-class houses; but I have never seen one like this!  I am going to leave my stove, and become an actress in some theatre.

Justin
All of us here are nothing but actors in a theatre.

Virginie Yes, indeed, sometimes one has to put on an air of astonishment, as if just fallen from the moon, when a creditor appears:  “Didn’t you know it, sir?”—­“No.”—­“M.  Mercadet has gone to Lyons.”—­“Ah!  He is away?” —­“Yes, his prospects are most brilliant; he has discovered some coal-mines.”—­“Ah!  So much the better!  When does he return?”—­“I do not know.”  Sometimes I put on an expression as if I had lost the dearest friend I had in the world.

Justin (aside)
That would be her money.

Virginie (pretending to cry) “Monsieur and mademoiselle are in the greatest distress.  It seems that we are going to lose poor Madame Mercadet.  They have taken her away to the waters!  Ah!”

Therese And then, there are some creditors who are actual brutes!  They speak to you as if you were the masters!

Virginie There’s an end of it.  I ask them for their bill and tell them I am going to settle.  But now, the tradesmen refuse to give anything without the money!  And you may be sure that I am not going to lend any of mine.

Justin
Let us demand our wages.

Virginie and Therese
Yes, let us demand our wages.

Virginie
Who are middle-class people?  Middle-class people are those who spend a
great deal on their kitchen—­

Justin
Who are devoted to their servants—­

Virginie
And who leave them a pension.  That is how middle-class people ought to
behave to their servants.

Therese
The lady of Picardy speaks well.  But all the same, I pity mademoiselle
and young Minard, her suitor.

Justin M. Mercadet is not going to give his daughter to a miserable bookkeeper who earns no more than eighteen hundred francs a year; he has better views for her than that.