KATHIE: (Becoming herself again, but still lost in her memories) Going to bed … that got boring too, like going to the Waikiki and all those parties.
ANA: (To SANTIAGO) In other words you behaved just like the sort of person you claimed to loathe so vehemently: like a good middle-class man. Didn’t you use to say that it was the most despicable thing in the world? Have you already forgotten what you used to teach me? All those lectures you gave me to make a free, liberated, emancipated woman of me.
(SANTIAGO declaims very seriously, to ANA, who listens to him fascinated. KATHIE, who has now become Adèle, puts on nail varnish and looks at him mockingly from time to time.)
SANTIAGO: It’s not passionate love, but love based on mutual understanding. That’s what our relationship will be, Anita. Passionate love is a sham, a bourgeois swindle, a fraud, an illusion, a trap. A relationship founded solely on sexual attraction, in which everything is justified in the name of pleasure, spontaneity and natural impulse, is bound to be false and ephemeral. Sexual desire isn’t everything nor should it ever be, it isn’t even what fundamentally binds us together. No partnership can possibly last if it’s reliant solely on lust.
(KATHIE, still Adèle, bursts out laughing, but ANA nods, trying to understand.)
KATHIE: (Smiles; returning to being herself) And yet, it was nice to begin with, when we used to hug each other every night and you used to say those naughty things to me, Johnny darling. I used to go quite puce with embarrassment, it made me dizzy, it was lovely. It seemed everything was going to be as I’d always dreamt, that I’d find meaning to life, that I’d be happy and fulfilled.
SANTIAGO: In a relationship based on mutual understanding, sex is just one component amongst many and it isn’t even the most important, either. Such a relationship is founded on a sharing of ideals, a spirit of selflessness, a struggle for common causes, mutual participation in work, and a feeling of moral, spiritual and intellectual empathy.
ANA: (To SANTIAGO) I tried to please you. I did everything you asked me to do so that this special relationship you described could flourish. Well, did I or didn’t I? Didn’t I give up my job in the boutique? Didn’t I take up sociology, as you suggested, instead of interior design which was what I really wanted to do?
JUAN: (From his surfboard) Am I or am I not as good in bed as I am on the surfboard, Kathie? Am I or am I not better than Victor Hugo, Adèle?
KATHIE: You are, Johnny darling. That’s why so many young girls are always throwing themselves into your arms. Blondes, brunettes, redheads, yellowheads. That’s why you’re unfaithful to me in so many different languages and on so many different continents, Johnny darling.
ANA: (To SANTIAGO) Didn’t I try to please you by wearing what you wanted me to wear? I stopped putting on lipstick, nail varnish, and make-up, because you said it was frivolous and bourgeois. And what did I gain by trying to please you? I stopped pleasing you, that’s what.
SANTIAGO: (To KATHIE, all sweetness and flattery) You know, you’ve got very pretty hair, Adèle.
(KATHIE is transformed into Adèle; she seems to coo and croon.)
KATHIE: So that it stays that way — soft, shiny, wavy and bouncy, I give it one of my special treatments twice a week. Shall I tell you what it is, professor? But you mustn’t breathe a word about it to the other girls in the faculty. Promise? You take one egg yolk, an avocado pear and three teaspoonfuls of oil. You put them all in the liquidizer for half a minute, then you daub the paste all over your hair and leave it to dry for three-quarters of an hour. You then wash it with a good shampoo and rinse it. It looks nice, don’t you think?
SANTIAGO: (Entranced) Very nice indeed: soft, shiny, bouncy and wavy. You’ve get pretty hands too, Adèle.
KATHIE: (Looking at them, showing them off) To stop them from getting rough and the skin from getting hard, and so that they look smooth and silky like two little Persian kittens, I’ve got a little secret for them too. Or rather, I’ve got two little secrets. Every morning for ten minutes I give them a good rub with lemon juice and, every night, for another ten minutes with coconut milk. They look nice, don’t they?
SANTIAGO: (Entranced) Yes, as smooth and silky as two little Persian kittens. Whenever I catch a glimpse of them in the lectures, they remind me of two tiny white doves, fluttering across the desks.
KATHIE: Ah, what a poetic little compliment! Do you really like them that much, professor?
SANTIAGO: I like everything about you, your hair, your nose, your eyes … Why do you call me ‘professor’? Why are you always making fun of me?
KATHIE: Well, aren’t you my professor? It’s a question of respect. What would my fellow students say if they heard me call the first-year lecturer in Golden Age Literature, Mark — Mark Griffin?
SANTIAGO: Is that why you address me so formally?
KATHIE: You should always address older people formally.
SANTIAGO: In other words you think I’m ancient.
KATHIE: Not ancient, no. Just an older man. Who’s married, with two little daughters. Do you have a photo of them in your wallet that you can show me?
SANTIAGO: You know you’re very wicked, Adèle?
KATHIE: A lot of people like me for it.
SANTIAGO: Yes. I do, for one. I like you very much. You know that, don’t you?
KATHIE: It’s the first I’d heard of it. And what is it you like most about me?
SANTIAGO: You’re such a flirt.
KATHIE: Do you really think I’m a flirt?
SANTIAGO: The very devil in person.
KATHIE: Now tell me what you don’t like about me.
SANTIAGO: The fact that you refuse to go out with me.
KATHIE: You crafty old thing, professor.
SANTIAGO: Seriously though, Adèle, why won’t you? Bourgeois prejudice? What’s wrong with going to the cinema together, for instance? Or listening to a little music?
KATHIE: All right, I accept. But on one condition.
SANTIAGO: Whatever you want.
KATHIE: That we take your wife and two little girls with us. And now, I’m going off to study. I don’t want you giving me bad marks. If you behave yourself, I’ll let you into another secret some time: I’ll tell you how I keep my teeth sparkling and my eyes shining, how I stop my nails from breaking, and why I never get freckles or a double chin. Ciao, professor.
SANTIAGO: Ciao, Adèle. (To himself) She’s so gorgeous, so delicious, so exciting.
ANA: And I stopped being gorgeous, delicious and exciting because you said it was frivolous and bourgeois.
SANTIAGO: (Pensively) Well, it was. (Discovering ANA) It is, Anita. Am I to blame if it’s the frivolous, bourgeois women that happen to turn me on? Is it my fault if all these free liberated women are so earnest and sober that they leave me absolutely cold, Anita? A leopard can’t change his spots. Moral principle and political persuasion carry no weight at all when it’s a matter of basic human nature.
ANA: But how come? Didn’t you teach me there was no such thing as human nature?
SANTIAGO: (Pontificating) It doesn’t exist. Human nature doesn’t exist, Anita. It’s just another piece of bourgeois trickery to justify the exploitation of the masses, Anita.
ANA: You miserable cheat! You liar!
SANTIAGO: (Magisterial) Man is made of malleable stuff, Anita. Everyone makes of himself what he chooses, Anita! Only thus can one have faith in the progress of humanity, Anita! You really must read Jean-Paul Sartre, Anita!