Fear of De Sade

BARON: How didn’t I see it?

VOICE: Everyone sees what he wants.

BARON: How is it I never saw the same features, the same little breasts pressed into the silver corset?

VOICE: Not only the little breasts, but the two-months-gone stomach pressed in by the baroness’s silver corset. It was no accident the count presented you to her. She was already two months pregnant. You were useful to both of them. You were the alibi they needed to stay together after the child was born. They could get rid of the child of their adultery, they could give her to a convent, but they needed to prevent suspicion with a marriage.

BARON: I’ve played the role of a clown! I didn’t see a thing when I met her.

VOICE: You still don’t. You’re a slave to your feelings. You were their last chance. From then on it would be more difficult to trick even a blind man. She wasn’t just getting too old. She had to get married for other reasons. Like most people, she needed a façade to hide what her instincts had forced her to do.

BARON: I can’t see anything anywhere.

VOICE: Of course you can’t, in this darkness. And perhaps it’s better that way.

BARON: You’re saying that to console me.

VOICE: To spare you. Sometimes, sight is a terrible thing. If you could see me, you probably wouldn’t be able to bear my presence. Some even go mad.

BARON: How could I have been so blind? Seven months were enough. She never emigrated, minx! She’d have gone to the guillotine if she’d returned. She never left France. She hid her pregnancy in some convent or other, just as she did the child, who ended up escaping before the mother superior could use her. And if it hadn’t been for that sudden refusal of sex after the marriage, I’d have found out.

VOICE: They hid the girl for fifteen years.

BARON: The same little breasts pressed together by the silver corset.

VOICE: You weren’t that blind, in the end.

BARON: What a nightmare!

VOICE: That’s the same thing I heard the mother say in the refectory.

BARON: The minx!

VOICE: You also saw the revenge in the girl’s eyes.

BARON: No wonder!

VOICE: That’s right. Fifteen years.

BARON: Why didn’t I see it before?

VOICE: It was better that way. There were other things too you didn’t understand.

BARON: I’ve understood everything. I’ve been used by the count. He saved me from the Revolution because he needed me. Now I know why they appeared at the château.

VOICE: Do you understand?

BARON: But of course. They couldn’t let the revenge be carried out. When she submitted to me, Martine would avenge us both at the same time. How is it I didn’t understand at the time that she’s decided to give herself up as a sacrifice for such a valiant cause? What pleasure it would have been to deflower her for a cause like that! She wanted to avenge herself for the humiliation that they’d imposed on the two of us for the fifteen years when they kept her hidden with the nuns and then as a maid, and kept me as a blind clown. And all because of a rotten morality. Everything’s beginning to make sense.

VOICE: Everything?

BARON: Everything the count did for me. All the advice he gave me. Why he was never with the countess and why the baroness was never with me in those fifteen years. Why I never knew of Martine’s existence until that day. Why she accepted my proposal so promptly. Why she wanted to come to the château. To avenge herself. And why they appeared so soon after. Why the baroness wanted to take part in one of my orgies for the first time. Why she wouldn’t allow any prostitute to take part. Why the count persuaded me to obey the baroness’s sudden whims. Why they brought what they called an aphrodisiac!

VOICE: Why?

BARON: They wanted to get rid of the two of us at the same time, accusing me of the murder. That’s what they call the love of a father and mother? They’re monsters! They’ve killed their own daughter! My God!

VOICE: How many times must I repeat that the name of God only serves lazy people who end up getting lost on that shortcut to unreason?

BARON: And aren’t they monstrous assassins?

VOICE: Certainly.

BARON: Their own daughter!

VOICE: In the refectory, I heard the count say to the baroness that now the girl was a long way away, there was no way back. It’d be better to forget!

BARON: She’s in heaven! She’s an angel!

VOICE: Everyone sees what they want to.

BARON: What are you hinting at this time? Let’s have a minimum of respect for the dead! She was a virgin. And then there’s the scandal of her revenge. If I’d deflowered her, she’d have given me the chance to revenge myself for everything they’ve done to me. How they’ve used me. (horrified) Master!

VOICE: I’ve already asked you not to call me that. Now what is it?

BARON: The vision, again.

VOICE: And what do you want me to tell you?

BARON: That it’s not true.

VOICE: What?