Scene 9 by Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux Lyrics
9
EGLÉ, ADINE
EGLÉ: What’s that? It’s another person again!
ADINE: Ah! ah! What new thing is this? (She comes forward.)
EGLÉ: She’s looking at me all over, but not adoring me at all; it’s not an Azor. (She looks at herself in her mirror.) And it’s even less of an Eglé... However I think it’s making comparisons.
ADINE: I don’t quite know what to make of that as a look, I couldn’t say what it lacks exactly, there’s something insipid about her.
EGLÉ: She’s the sort of thing I don’t like the look of.
ADINE: Has she any conversation?... Let’s see... Are you a person?
EGLÉ: Most definitely; I’m my own person.
ADINE: Really. And have you nothing to say to me?
EGLÉ: No. I’m ordinarily more likely to be the topic of conversation than to start one.
ADINE: But you are charmed?
EGLÉ: By you? I’m the one charms people.
ADINE: So you’re not pleased to see me?
EGLÉ: Sadly neither pleased nor peeved — should I be?
ADINE: What an extraordinary thing! You stare at me, I let you, and yet you feel nothing. You must have been distracted; a little attention while you study me; there, how do you find me?
EGLÉ: What is it with all this ‘you’? Why’s it all about you? As I say, I’m the one gets looked at, I’m the one gets told how she looks, that’s the way things are done here, and you think I’m going to look at you while I’m around?
ADINE: Of course. In company, the loveliest present must wait, until she’s noticed and they’re struck.
EGLÉ: So be struck.
ADINE: You’re still not paying attention are you? The loveliest present must wait, as one said.
EGLÉ: As one replies, she’s waiting.
ADINE: Well if it isn’t me, where is she? All three other people in the entire world are struck dumb by me.
EGLÉ: I don’t know these people of yours, but I do know there are three who are rapt because of me and think I’m wonderful.
ADINE: And I know I am so beautiful, so beautiful, that I fascinate myself every time I look at myself, see what I mean?
EGLÉ: What’s that supposed to do for me? Every time I stare at myself I’m enchanted, every time, me, me who’s talking to you.
ADINE: Enchanted? You may be passable, and even quite... pleasant — I’m being polite now, unlike you —
EGLÉ (Aside.): I’d like to shove her politeness right down her throat —
ADINE: — but to imagine any comparison between yourself and myself, well, that would be preposterous, as one can see.
EGLÉ: One is seeing, and finding one quite ugly.
ADINE: In which case, it’s your jealousy is blinding you to my beauty.
EGLÉ: It’s your face that’s blinding me actually.
ADINE: My face! Oh! I’m not upset you know. I have seen it. You go and ask the water in any puddle what it’s like, you as Mesrin, he’s mad about me.
EGLÉ: The water in the puddle — which is having you on — would tell me, if asked, that I am the fairest of them all, in fact it’s already told me; I’ve no idea what a Mesrin is, but he wouldn’t even look at you if he’d ever seen me; I’ve got an Azor worth ten times him, an Azor that I love, he's almost as attractive as I am, and he says I’m his life; you, you’re not anybody’s life; and also I’ve also got a mirror which has confirmed everything my Azor and the puddle have told me; beat that.
ADINE (Laughing): A mirror! You’ve also got a mirror! Eh! And what do you use that for? Admiring yourself! ha! ha! ha!
EGLÉ: Ha! ha! ha! ... see, I knew I wouldn’t like her.
ADINE (Laughing): Here’s one works properly, take it; learn to recognize yourself and shut up.
(CARISE appears in the distance)
EGLÉ (Ironically): Take but a glance in this one; realize your true mediocrity, and the modesty appropriate in my presence.
ADINE: Go away: since you refuse to take pleasure in the sight of me, you are of no possible use to me, and I’m not speaking to you anymore.
(They stop looking at each other.)
EGLÉ: And I don’t even know you’re there.
(They keep their distance.)
ADINE (Aside.): She’s mad!
EGLÉ (Aside.): She’’s seeing things — what world is she from?
EGLÉ, ADINE
EGLÉ: What’s that? It’s another person again!
ADINE: Ah! ah! What new thing is this? (She comes forward.)
EGLÉ: She’s looking at me all over, but not adoring me at all; it’s not an Azor. (She looks at herself in her mirror.) And it’s even less of an Eglé... However I think it’s making comparisons.
ADINE: I don’t quite know what to make of that as a look, I couldn’t say what it lacks exactly, there’s something insipid about her.
EGLÉ: She’s the sort of thing I don’t like the look of.
ADINE: Has she any conversation?... Let’s see... Are you a person?
EGLÉ: Most definitely; I’m my own person.
ADINE: Really. And have you nothing to say to me?
EGLÉ: No. I’m ordinarily more likely to be the topic of conversation than to start one.
ADINE: But you are charmed?
EGLÉ: By you? I’m the one charms people.
ADINE: So you’re not pleased to see me?
EGLÉ: Sadly neither pleased nor peeved — should I be?
ADINE: What an extraordinary thing! You stare at me, I let you, and yet you feel nothing. You must have been distracted; a little attention while you study me; there, how do you find me?
EGLÉ: What is it with all this ‘you’? Why’s it all about you? As I say, I’m the one gets looked at, I’m the one gets told how she looks, that’s the way things are done here, and you think I’m going to look at you while I’m around?
ADINE: Of course. In company, the loveliest present must wait, until she’s noticed and they’re struck.
EGLÉ: So be struck.
ADINE: You’re still not paying attention are you? The loveliest present must wait, as one said.
EGLÉ: As one replies, she’s waiting.
ADINE: Well if it isn’t me, where is she? All three other people in the entire world are struck dumb by me.
EGLÉ: I don’t know these people of yours, but I do know there are three who are rapt because of me and think I’m wonderful.
ADINE: And I know I am so beautiful, so beautiful, that I fascinate myself every time I look at myself, see what I mean?
EGLÉ: What’s that supposed to do for me? Every time I stare at myself I’m enchanted, every time, me, me who’s talking to you.
ADINE: Enchanted? You may be passable, and even quite... pleasant — I’m being polite now, unlike you —
EGLÉ (Aside.): I’d like to shove her politeness right down her throat —
ADINE: — but to imagine any comparison between yourself and myself, well, that would be preposterous, as one can see.
EGLÉ: One is seeing, and finding one quite ugly.
ADINE: In which case, it’s your jealousy is blinding you to my beauty.
EGLÉ: It’s your face that’s blinding me actually.
ADINE: My face! Oh! I’m not upset you know. I have seen it. You go and ask the water in any puddle what it’s like, you as Mesrin, he’s mad about me.
EGLÉ: The water in the puddle — which is having you on — would tell me, if asked, that I am the fairest of them all, in fact it’s already told me; I’ve no idea what a Mesrin is, but he wouldn’t even look at you if he’d ever seen me; I’ve got an Azor worth ten times him, an Azor that I love, he's almost as attractive as I am, and he says I’m his life; you, you’re not anybody’s life; and also I’ve also got a mirror which has confirmed everything my Azor and the puddle have told me; beat that.
ADINE (Laughing): A mirror! You’ve also got a mirror! Eh! And what do you use that for? Admiring yourself! ha! ha! ha!
EGLÉ: Ha! ha! ha! ... see, I knew I wouldn’t like her.
ADINE (Laughing): Here’s one works properly, take it; learn to recognize yourself and shut up.
(CARISE appears in the distance)
EGLÉ (Ironically): Take but a glance in this one; realize your true mediocrity, and the modesty appropriate in my presence.
ADINE: Go away: since you refuse to take pleasure in the sight of me, you are of no possible use to me, and I’m not speaking to you anymore.
(They stop looking at each other.)
EGLÉ: And I don’t even know you’re there.
(They keep their distance.)
ADINE (Aside.): She’s mad!
EGLÉ (Aside.): She’’s seeing things — what world is she from?