BARON: How could I have been so blind? Seven months were enough. She never emigrated, minx! She’d have gone to the guillotine if she’d returned. She never left France. She hid her pregnancy in some convent or other, just as she did the child, who ended up escaping before the mother superior could use her. And if it hadn’t been for that sudden refusal of sex after the marriage, I’d have found out.
VOICE: They hid the girl for fifteen years.
BARON: The same little breasts pressed together by the silver corset.
VOICE: You weren’t that blind, in the end.
BARON: What a nightmare!
VOICE: That’s the same thing I heard the mother say in the refectory.
BARON: The minx!
VOICE: You also saw the revenge in the girl’s eyes.
BARON: No wonder!
VOICE: That’s right. Fifteen years.
BARON: Why didn’t I see it before?
VOICE: It was better that way. There were other things too you didn’t understand.
BARON: I’ve understood everything. I’ve been used by the count. He saved me from the Revolution because he needed me. Now I know why they appeared at the château.
VOICE: Do you understand?
BARON: But of course. They couldn’t let the revenge be carried out. When she submitted to me, Martine would avenge us both at the same time. How is it I didn’t understand at the time that she’s decided to give herself up as a sacrifice for such a valiant cause? What pleasure it would have been to deflower her for a cause like that! She wanted to avenge herself for the humiliation that they’d imposed on the two of us for the fifteen years when they kept her hidden with the nuns and then as a maid, and kept me as a blind clown. And all because of a rotten morality. Everything’s beginning to make sense.
VOICE: Everything?
BARON: Everything the count did for me. All the advice he gave me. Why he was never with the countess and why the baroness was never with me in those fifteen years. Why I never knew of Martine’s existence until that day. Why she accepted my proposal so promptly. Why she wanted to come to the château. To avenge herself. And why they appeared so soon after. Why the baroness wanted to take part in one of my orgies for the first time. Why she wouldn’t allow any prostitute to take part. Why the count persuaded me to obey the baroness’s sudden whims. Why they brought what they called an aphrodisiac!
VOICE: Why?
BARON: They wanted to get rid of the two of us at the same time, accusing me of the murder. That’s what they call the love of a father and mother? They’re monsters! They’ve killed their own daughter! My God!
VOICE: How many times must I repeat that the name of God only serves lazy people who end up getting lost on that shortcut to unreason?
BARON: And aren’t they monstrous assassins?
VOICE: Certainly.
BARON: Their own daughter!
VOICE: In the refectory, I heard the count say to the baroness that now the girl was a long way away, there was no way back. It’d be better to forget!
BARON: She’s in heaven! She’s an angel!
VOICE: Everyone sees what they want to.
BARON: What are you hinting at this time? Let’s have a minimum of respect for the dead! She was a virgin. And then there’s the scandal of her revenge. If I’d deflowered her, she’d have given me the chance to revenge myself for everything they’ve done to me. How they’ve used me. (horrified) Master!
VOICE: I’ve already asked you not to call me that. Now what is it?
BARON: The vision, again.
VOICE: And what do you want me to tell you?
BARON: That it’s not true.
VOICE: What?
BARON: What I thought I saw.
VOICE: Everyone sees what they want to.
BARON: I must be hallucinating. It must be normal. After all, they killed their own daughter just to incriminate me. And how can anyone fail to react to that? They’re capable of anything. They couldn’t allow her to take her revenge on them, the more so in the way she’d thought up, using me as an accomplice. Their pride is greater than their love. They had no pity. How horrible!
VOICE: They had no pity. That’s the least you can say.
BARON: And she had to pay for what they’d done, for the responsibility they’d never admitted to!
VOICE: She must be feeling very lonely.
BARON: What do you mean?
VOICE: Wasn’t it you who said just now that she’s in heaven? And that she was an angel? An angel among so many sinners?
BARON: This is no time for irony.
VOICE: It seems you still haven’t realised that you don’t set the time here.
BARON: How could I be so stupid? Why did I accept the pastilles? I could have saved the girl. How did I fall into such a simple trap? I should have suspected as soon as they appeared at the château. They wouldn’t have come all the way from Bordeaux for nothing.
VOICE: Everyone sees what they want to.
BARON: (yelling) But I can’t see anything here! I want to get out of here at once! Where are they? They’ll pay for what they’ve done! For the first time in their lives, they’ll pay! Get me out of here at once! Get me out of here!
VOICE: Don’t be silly. There’s no point in shouting. I’m here at your side; I can hear you.
BARON: But someone needs to do something! I need to tell the court what happened.
VOICE: They already know.
BARON: And why? Why don’t they let me out of here?
VOICE: Because they can’t.
BARON: But I’m innocent!
VOICE: That’s what they all say.
BARON: I want to see them!
VOICE: You can’t, I’ve already said.
BARON: I know, I know! They’re under observation. Waiting for what?
VOICE: What everyone’s waiting for.
BARON: Will they be executed, then?
VOICE: I wouldn’t go that far.
BARON: But that’s what they deserve for killing their own daughter. And if the baroness says it’s a nightmare, it’s maybe because she’s repentant. Perhaps she’ll confess the crime. And then they’ll have to free me.
VOICE: I doubt it.
BARON: And they’re going to leave me here for the rest of my life?
VOICE: I wouldn’t necessarily put it that way.
BARON: And how would you put it if you were in my place? Come on! How?
VOICE: There are things you still haven’t understood.
BARON: Don’t be condescending. I might have been stupid and blind once, but now everything’s quite clear.
VOICE: Really?
BARON: And anyway, what does it matter, now that she’s dead?
VOICE: Dead?
BARON: I could have saved Martine.
VOICE: Now, she’s far away. It’s irreversible.
BARON: Like the angels in heaven.
VOICE: I’m trying to be patient, but your blindness is irritating.
BARON: If at least there was a little light in here. I’m tired.