Fear of De Sade

BARON: I didn’t have time to deflower her.

VOICE: Who can swear to that? You don’t remember anything. And who can swear the count didn’t rape her before he killed her?

BARON: No! Martine! I hear her voice saying ‘I’m on my way. I want to give myself’, in the carriage, with the countess’s dress, without knowing that the count was waiting there to punish her. It’s as if I’d set a trap for her! As if I’d betrayed her!

VOICE: Doesn’t it seem strange to you that the count and the baroness have taken all the trouble to come all the way from wherever it was . . .

BARON: From Bordeaux.

VOICE: . . . from Bordeaux to punish a maid?

BARON: You can see how strong her desire for vengeance for her condition was. For them, it was unthinkable that a maid . . .

VOICE: A maid . . .

BARON: That she should give herself to me, and dressed as the countess to boot. You should have seen when she came into what was left of the salons in the château, after the count, and with her head lowered. She was even more beautiful when she was punished. The count robbed me of that pleasure, and that’s unpardonable too.

VOICE: It seems you’re getting closer to the truth. They came all the way from Bordeaux not to participate in one of your orgies, but because they were determined not to let you punish the maid. They sent you to sleep so you couldn’t deflower her. Are you following me, baron? They came all the way from Bordeaux because they were worried about her. By that logic, they had no reason to kill her. That would be a contradiction. So, you’re the guilty one. You killed her!

BARON: No! How could I have killed her if I was asleep?

VOICE: And who said you were?

BARON: I’m telling you!

VOICE: That’s not enough.

BARON: They’re lying! They didn’t come all the way from Bordeaux to the château to save her from me. They couldn’t have cared less. Aristocrats, even when they’re reformed, don’t care about maids!

VOICE: Ah, now you’ve got where I wanted.

BARON: What are you talking about?

VOICE: Aristocrats don’t care about maids.

BARON: But I swear to you I was in love. With me, she would discover pleasure.

VOICE: Aristocrats don’t care about maids. They’ve got other things to do.

BARON: What are you suggesting? I’ve told you I loved her.

VOICE: I can say the same about the count and the baroness.

BARON: What do you mean?

VOICE: Why couldn’t they love the maid too?

BARON: Come on, where are you trying to take me with your syllogisms? You know very well they couldn’t love her as I did.

VOICE. Why not?

BARON: You want to tell me . . . You’re insinuating that the two of them, my cousin and my own chaste wife . . . that the two of them subjected the maid to bacchanalian orgies?

The Voice lets out an immense guffaw. The baron, embarrassed, puts on an unconvincing laugh, trying to go along with him.

BARON: Sorry, master, but I’ve had that vision again . . .

VOICE: How can you have visions if you can’t see beyond your nose? How many times am I going to have to repeat your own phrase, that nobles don’t concern themselves with maids, to make you understand at last? Nobles only concern themselves with other nobles. How many times must I repeat that to make you understand?

BARON: Understand what? The count was always on my side. It was he who introduced the baroness to me. They were friends. What are you hinting at now? Are you trying to say that the count and the baroness . . . ? Is that it?

VOICE: By the looks of things, you’re halfway there. I’m sorry to have to confirm that, from what I could see in the refectory, they really are together, the count and the baroness, together as man and wife, and probably they always have been. Why did the count introduce you to the baroness? Because it suited him. And her too.

BARON: What are you trying to say?

VOICE: Why did she disappear for seven months straight after she knew you, if she was in love as you say?

BARON: It was a way of seducing me!

VOICE: A way of seducing me! A way of seducing me!

BARON: She knew of my libertine past. She knew she had no chance with me unless she had a strategy. I wasn’t going to get married just like that, after so many years refusing marriage. It was an excuse she invented to convince me.

VOICE: Exactly. An excuse. Try to think of anything a woman might hide for seven months.

BARON: What are you trying to tell me now?

VOICE: The obvious. The thing only you don’t want to see.

BARON: But that’s not possible!

VOICE: Do the sums yourself.

BARON: It’s not possible!

VOICE: Fifteen years.

BARON: My God! Fifteen years!

VOICE: That’s what always happens. When things get tight, they appeal to God.

BARON: A child!

VOICE: Seven months and then fifteen years.