Woman on Her Own, False Gods and The Red Robe Three Plays By Brieux

SCENE:--_Therese's studio at the bookbinding workshops of Messrs. Feliat and Gueret at Evreux. Strewn about are materials for binding books: patterns, tools, and silks. A glazed...

SCENE:--_A Louis XV sitting-room. To the right a large recessed window with small panes of glass which forms a partition dividing the sitting-room from an inner room. A heavy cu...

SCENE:--_A sitting-room at the offices of "Woman Free." The door at the back opens into an entrance hall. The general editorial office is to the right, Monsieur Nerisse's room t...

SCENE:--_The first inner court of the house of Rheou. At the back between two lofty pylons the entrance leading up from below. Through the columns supporting the hanging garden...

RHEOU [_after some reflection_] Come, it is time you learned the truth, that you may repeat it all. In the countries whither he went Satni learned many things--great things. Com...

SCENE:--_The yard in front of the potter's hut. On the right from the middle of the back of the scene to the footlights, the walls of the dwelling made of beaten clay. Two unequ...

_Columns, huge as towers and covered with hieroglyphics. On the left the Sanctuary; in the foreground in a little nook, invisible to the faithful, but visible to the audience is...

MADAME VAGRET. I will forgive you all the more readily since I'm told you have had such a success to-day as will make all the advocates of the district jealous of you.

MOUZON [_to the recorder_] Recorder, write. [_Very quickly, stuttering_] In the year nineteen hundred and ninety-seven, etc. Before me, Mouzon, examining magistrate, in the pres...

_The statues of the gods are set up again, in their places, facing them a throne has been erected on which the High Priest is seated. Rheou, Satni, Mieris, Yaouma, Sokiti, Nourm...

MOUZON. Step forward. Now, Madame, I shall not administer the oath to you, since you are the wife of the accused. But none the less I beg you most urgently to tell the truth. I...

VAGRET. A dreadful thing happened to me in the course of my indictment. While I, the State Attorney, the official prosecutor, was exercising my function, another self was examin...

YANETTA. Oh, how I wished I could have told you everything! Oh, how many times I began that dreadful confession! I never had courage enough. I was always afraid of your anger, P...

THE PRESIDENT [_in red robe_] I've been in a blue funk lest these brutes would make me lose my train. I'm going shooting to-morrow on the Cambo Ponds, you see, my dear fellow, a...

MADAME VAGRET [_still tearful_] My poor darling! I know very well it isn't your fault; you do your best. Your only failing is that you are too scrupulous, and I am not the one t...

_The curtain rises, revealing Madame Vagret in evening dress; she is altering the position of the chairs to her own satisfaction. Enter Bertha, also in evening dress, a newspape...

YANETTA. Pierre! To see you here--my Pierre--a prisoner--like a thief! My poor husband--my poor husband! Oh, prove you haven't done anything! Tell his worship--tell him the trut...

MOUZON [_seated, gives a brief to the recorder_] Make out an order of non-lieu in the Labastide case and the order for his immediate release. You can do that during the interrog...

BUNERAT. He will be a little late. He wants to get away early to-morrow morning, and he has a mass of documents to sign. You must remember the Court has barely risen. When we sa...

ATTORNEY-GENERAL. Sit down. [_Mouzon does so_] A report has come to my office from Bordeaux--which concerns you, Monsieur! [_Feeling in his portfolio_] Here it is. [_Reading_] M...

MONDOUBLEAU. I'm delighted to see you. I've come from Paris. I had lunch yesterday with my friend the Keeper of the Seals. The Government is badly worried just at the moment.

OLD MADAME ETCHEPARE. No, sir. I know so well that they cannot condemn my son that what they say in there doesn't interest me in the least. I am waiting for him. I have come bec...

RECORDER. Madame, the jurymen were looking at that fellow Etchepare, that thug, in a way that made my blood run cold. As Monsieur Vagret went on with his speech you felt they wo...

MOUZON. Well--in consideration of the time you have been in custody, I am willing that you should be set at liberty--provisional liberty. I may, perhaps, even withdraw my compla...

VAGRET. A whole series of facts--the attitude of the accused--certain details which had escaped me--have given rise, in my mind, to a doubt as to the guilt of this man.

MOUZON. Well, you know, it is partly a matter of temperament. The searching for a criminal is an art. I may say that a good examining magistrate is guided less by the facts them...

MOUZON [_smiling and closing his brief_] My dear deputy, an examining magistrate, as you know, is always busy. But it gives one a rest--it does one good--to see a welcome caller...

THE PRESIDENT. It's my constant fear--I am thinking of nothing else all the time counsel are speaking. I always have the Manual of the President of Assizes wide open in front of...

OFFICER. I have heard a witness, the girl Gracieuse Mendione, to whom Etchepare used the words, "It is really too stupid to be forced to pay money to that old swine."

RECORDER. Probably. [_While speaking he arranges his cup, saucer, sugar basin, etc., in a drawer. He then goes to his own place, the desk at the back. Mouzon enters. The doorkee...

DELORME. Yes. You see, my dear fellow, I'm too old to adapt myself to the customs of the day. I'm a magistrate of the old school, just as you are. I inherited from my father cer...

VAGRET. What's this? The Basque paper--the _Eskual Herria_--an article marked with blue pencil. [_He reads_] "Eskual herri guzia hamabartz egun huntan--" How's one to make head...

ETCHEPARE. For ten years I've lived with that thief--that wretched woman! How she lied! Ah! When I heard that judge say to her, "You were convicted of theft and complicity with...

MOUZON [_to the recorder_] What a rogue, eh? One might have taken him in the act, knife in hand, and he'd say it wasn't true! A crafty fellow too--he defends himself well.

YANETTA. Ah, you are angry, aren't you--furious--because you haven't got your way! Although you've done everything, everything you possibly could, short of killing us by inches!...

LA BOUZOLE. Come, come, Monsieur Benoit, shake hands with me. From to-day I'm no longer a magistrate; my dignity no longer demands that I shall be impolite to my inferiors. How...

RECORDER. That was my opinion. I hesitated a long time between him and his Honor the President, and I decided it would be Monsieur Vagret. But now I think I am wrong.

ETCHEPARE. Things like that, Monsieur--a Basque never forgives them. It's as though a thunderbolt had struck me to the heart. And all the misfortune that's befallen us--it's she...

PLACAT. No, no--I have just been speaking to the accused. An uninteresting story. He just keeps on denying--that's all. He agreed to be interrogated without me. [_Laughing_] I w...

_The office of the District Attorney. A door to the left, set in a diagonal wall, gives on to a corridor. It opens inwardly, so that the lettering on the outside can be read: "P...

_In the office of Mouzon, the examining magistrate. A door at the back and in the wall to the right. On the left are two desks. Portfolios, armchairs, and one ordinary chair._