RODERICK
I believe you, and I see I must hasten to leave, for otherwise I shall become the unhappiest of men.
COUNTESS
How so?
RODERICK
By loving you, with no hope of possessing you.
She laughs.
COUNTESS
You want my heart?
RODERICK
It is my only object.
COUNTESS
To make me wretched in two weeks.
RODERICK
To love you until death. To subscribe to all your commands.
COUNTESS
The amusing thing is that you deceive me without knowing, if it is true that you love me.
RODERICK
Deceiving someone without knowing it is something new for me. If I do not know it, I am innocent.
COUNTESS
But you deceive me nonetheless if I believe you, for it will not be in your power to love me when you love me no longer.
Roderick laughs and kisses her.
COUNTESS
Be so good as to tell me with whom you think you are?
RODERICK
With a woman who is completely charming, be she a princess or a woman of the lowest condition, and who, regardless of her rank, will show me some kindness, tonight.
She laughs.
COUNTESS
And if she does not choose to show you some kindness?
RODERICK
Then I will respectfully take leave of her.
COUNTESS
You will do as you please. It seems to me that such a matter can hardly be discussed until after people know each other. Do you not agree?
RODERICK
Yes -- but I am afraid of being deceived.
COUNTESS
Poor man. And, for that reason, you want to begin where people end?
RODERICK
I ask only a payment on account today -- after that, you will find me undemanding, obedient and discreet.
She laughs. He kisses her again. They exit.
Coach and four moves slowly along.
They kiss. She gently struggles as he tries to undo her dress. He stops.
RODERICK
Will we always leave it at this?
COUNTESS
Always, my dear one, never any further. Love is a child to be pacified with trifles. A full diet can only kill it.
RODERICK
I know better than you do. Love wants a more substantial fare, and if it is stubbornly withheld, it withers away.
COUNTESS
Our abstinence makes our love immortal. If I loved you a quarter of an hour ago, now I should love you even more. But I should love you less if you exhausted my joy by satisfying all my desires.
RODERICK
Let us give each other complete happiness, and let us be sure that as many times as we satisfy our desires, they will each time be born anew.
COUNTESS
My husband has convinced me of the contrary.
RODERICK
Sir William Cosgrove is a man who is dying, and yet I envy him more than any man in Christendom. He enjoys a privilege of which I am deprived. He may take you in his arms whenever he pleases, and no veil keeps his senses, his eyes, his soul from enjoying your beauty.
She silences him with her fingertips.
COUNTESS
Shall I tell you something -- I believed what was called love came after the union -- and I was surprised when my husband, making me a woman, made me know it only by pain, unaccompanied by any pleasure. I saw that my imaginings had stood me in better stead. And so we became only friends, seldom sleeping together and arousing no curiosity in each other, yet on good terms for a while, as whenever he wanted me, I was at his service, but since the offering was not seasoned with love, he found it tasteless, and seldom demanded it.
RODERICK
O, my dearest love. Enough! I beg you. Stop believing in your experience. You have never known love. My very soul is leaving me! Catch it on your lips, and give me yours!
They kiss ardently.
RODERICK (V.O.)
To make a long story short, her ladyship and I were in love six hours after we met; and after I once got into her ladyship's good graces, I found innumerable occasions to improve my intimacy, and was scarcely ever out of her company.
Action as per voice over.
RODERICK (V.O.)
I shall never forget the astonishment of Sir William Cosgrove when, on one summer evening, as he was issuing out to the play-table, in his sedan-chair, her ladyship's barouche and four came driving into the courtyard of the house which they inhabited and, in that carriage, by her ladyship's side, sat no other than "the vulgar Irish adventurer," as she was pleased to call me.
Sir William makes the most courtly of bows and grins, and waves his hat in as graceful a manner as his multiplicity of illness permits, and her ladyship and Roderick reply to the salutation with the utmost politeness and elegance on their part.
Making ardent love.
COUNTESS
Without you, my dearest, I might have died without ever knowing love. Inexpressible love! God of nature! Bitterness than which nothing is sweeter, sweetness than which nothing is more bitter. Divine monster which can only be defined by paradoxes.
RODERICK
Let me give a thousand kisses to that heavenly mouth which has told me that I am happy.
COUNTESS
As soon as I saw you loved me, I was pleased, and I gave you every opportunity to fall more in love with me, being certain that, for my part, I would never love you. But after our first kiss, I found that I had no power over myself. I did not know that one kiss could matter so much.
RODERICK (V.O.)
We then spent an hour in the most eloquent silence except that, from time to time, her ladyship cried out: "Oh, my God. Is it true -- I am not dreaming?"
Roderick enters and approaches a table at which Sir William Cosgrove, who is drunk, is at play with several other jovial fellows.
RODERICK (V.O.)
Sir William Cosgrove, with his complication of ills, was dying before us by inches. He was continually tinkered up by doctors, and, what with my usual luck, he might be restored to health and live I don't know how many years. If Cosgrove would not die, where was the use of my pursing his lady? But my fears were to prove groundless, for on that very night, patient nature would claim her account.
SIR WILLIAM
Good evening, Mr. James, have you done with my lady?
RODERICK
I beg your pardon?
SIR WILLIAM
Come, come, sir. I am a man who would rather be known as a cuckold than a fool.
RODERICK
I think, Sir William Cosgrove, you have had too much drink. Your chaplin, Mr. Hunt, has introduced me into the company of your lady to advise me on a religious matter, of which she is a considerable expert.
Sir William Cosgrove greets this line with a yell of laughter. His laugh is not jovial or agreeable, but rather painful and sardonic, and ends in a violent fit of coughing.
SIR WILLIAM
Gentlemen, see this amiable youth! He has been troubled by religious scruples, and has flown for refuge to my chaplin, Mr. Hunt, who has asked for advise from my wife, Lady Cosgrove, and between them both, they are confirming my ingenious young friend in his faith. Did you ever hear of such doctors and such a disciple?
RODERICK