My Virtual Reading Room

Vincent. Ah, l'amour, l'amour! You see my darling one, on this earth where all our hopes are shattered, where all is deception and pain and disappointment, it's a marvelous consolation to remember we still have our love...

Mother. My big bear...

Vincent. All men are liars, Lucienne, faithless, false, hypocritical, vainglorious, or cowards; all women are perfidious, artificial, vain, capricious, or depraved; the world is nothing but a bottomless sink where the most monstrous beasts disport and distort themselves through oceans of slime. But there is one holy and sublime hope left in the world--the union of these two imperfect and horrible beings!

Mother. Yes, my darling. Perdican's big speech.

Vincent. [stops, surprised]. Is it? I've played it so often!

(From Jean Anouilh's "Eurydice")

Philippe. In spite of the way we've drifted apart these two years, I'm still your friend.

Frantz. Yes, but all you can offer me is intelligent advice, and that's what I need least. It's a luxury. Any stranger could give it to me. What I was hoping you could do for me--just for tonight--was what the truest and simplest friends do--take some of my unhappiness on yourself. It's too much for me to bear alone.

(From Jean Anouilh's "The Ermine")

Lucien....
[He points to a picture, a huge engraving hanging in a large black frame and yellowed from exposure through the open window.] Take the wife of Poetus, for instance. This old summer house has been very useful to our family. 
When my wife left me, I used to come and hide myself away here many a time. And one day, when I'd been staring blindly at the wall, I discovered this engraving, hanging lopsided in the middle of a panel. 

The glass is dirty, so you can't see it very well. It's the wife of Poetus, a Roman condemned to death by Nero.  She has just snatched the sword from the centurion's hand and, as Poetus hesitates, she stabs herself first, then hands the sword to her husband with a smile, saying, "Non dolet."

Jeannette. What does it mean--Non dolet?

Lucien. It means "It doesn't hurt." First Empire style, you know. She's no beauty, of course, maybe a little rotund for aesthetes such as ourselves, but all the same...[He sighs, half wistfully, half mockingly.]
Lucky Poetus!

(From Jean Anouilh's "Romeo and Jeannette")