BERTHA. And your wife to be?
AXEL, Perhaps. Because I want to meet, my comrades at the café, but at home I want a wife. [Starts as if to go.] Pardon me!
BERTHA. Farewell, then! Are we never to meet again?
AXEL. Yes, of course! But at the café. Good-bye!
FACING DEATH
MONSIEUR DURAND, a pension proprietor, formerly connected with the
state railroad
ADÈLE, his daughter, twenty-seven
ANNETTE, his daughter, twenty-four
THÉRÈSE, his daughter, twenty-four
ANTONIO, a lieutenant in an Italian cavalry regiment in French
Switzerland in the eighties
PIERRE, an errand boy
[SCENE—A dining-room with a long table. Through the open door is seen, over the tops of churchyard cypress trees, Lake Leman, with the Savoy Alps and the French bathing-resort Evian. To left is a door to the kitchen. To right a door to inner rooms. Monsieur Durand stands in doorway looking over the lake with a pair of field glasses.]
ADÈLE [Comes in from kitchen wearing apron and turned-up sleeves. She carries a tray with coffee things]. Haven't you been for the coffee-bread, father?
DURAND. No, I sent Pierre. My chest has been bad for the last few drays, and it affects me to walk the steep hill.