History of Western Theatre: 17th Century to Now/French Post-WWII
Main dramatists of the period after World War II (1939-1945) are Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) and Jean Genet (1910-1986), the former with "Les séquestrés d'Altona" (The condemned of Altona, more precisely The sequestered of Altona, 1959) and the latter with "Les bonnes" (The maids, 1947) and "Les nègres" (The blacks, 1958). Mention should also be made of "Le maître de Santiago" (The master of Santiago, 1948) by Henry de Montherlant (1895-1972). A bridge is drawn between existential drama and the French Theatre of the Absurd in Jacques Audiberti's (1899-1965) "Le mal court" (Evil runs, 1947), also showing some affinity with Georg Büchner's "Leonce and Lena" (1836) and Alfred de Musset's "Fantasio" (1834).
The French Theatre of the Absurd took over in the 50s, whose main proponents comprise Romanian-born Eugène Ionesco (1909-1994) with "La cantatrice chauve" (The bald soprano, 1948) and "Rhinocéros" (Rhinoceros, 1959), the Irish-born Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) with "En attendant Godot" (Waiting for Godot, 1953), "Fin de partie" (Endgame, 1957), and "Oh, les beaux jours!" (Happy days, 1960), and the Spanish-born Fernando Arrabal (1932-?) with "Le cimetière des voitures" (The automobile cemetery, 1959), "Guernica" (1959), and "Le grand cérémonial" (The grand ceremonial, 1963). As with the British Kitchen Sink School, the better plays seem to arise early in the dramatic careers.
In Post-absurdist theatre, there are several trends of note, including the return of history plays, though largely imagined in the case of "L'Entretien entre M. Descartes avec M. Pascal le jeune" (The dialogue between Mr Descartes and the young Mr Pascal, 1985) by Jean-Claude Brisville (1922-?), consisting of a dialogue between the two mathematicians and philosophers based on their meeting in 1647.
"The sequestered of Altona"
"The sequestered of Altona". Time: 1940s-1950s. Place: Germany.
An industrialist learns he has only a few months left to live. He wishes his son, Werner, to take over his boat-construction business. He also requests that he, his wife, Johanna, and his sister, Leni, remain together in the 32-room family mansion, watching over his eldest son, Frantz, who has been kept sequestered in the house for thirteen years. Werner and Leni agree. Since Johanna wants her husband to accept the position but move elsewhere, the father explains why they should remain together after his death. In 1941, he received an offer from Goebbel to sell his field for the purpose of raising a concentration camp for Jews, an offer he accepted. Later, Frantz was caught harboring a rabbi inside the mansion. The rabbi was killed before his face by SS officers and the father forced to send him away in the march towards Russia. However, Johanna suspects the father himself tipped off the SS. The next part occurs in 1946, when American officiers were invited at the mansion, where Leni was in the habit of enflaming their desires and then dashing them with insults. One day, an officer attempted to rape her. She was able to defend herself by hitting him on the head with a bottle. To protect her, Frantz took the blame, and, thanks to a deal with an American general, was allowed to go abroad, but instead stayed home, hiding. Johanna hates that story. She does not change her mind, offering an ultimatum to her husband: either to stay or follow her. Over the years, Frantz has refused even to see his father, only allowing Leni to enter his room. The father tries to convince Johanna to speak with Frantz, at least to let him know he is dying. Frantz is not the humanist he first appeared from his father's anecdotes. Wearing an officer's uniform in shreds, he keeps Adolf Hitler's picture in his room and peppers it with oyster shells. Since the end of the war, he considers the entire country overrun with weeds, passing the time either drunk or engaging in an incestuous relation with his sister. From the father, Johanna obtains Leni's secret code, so that Frantz lets her in. She tells Frantz his father is dying and that, to get her husband back, she would like to see him either free or dead. Learning she succeeded in seeing Frantz, the father asks to see him, too, but she refuses to help him, thinking it might cause his son's death, Werner thinks his father's purpose is to replace him with the elder son as head of the business. Johanna changes her mind, communicating to Frantz his father's wish. As she seeks to attract him, he tells her: "I will abandon at once my life of illusions....when I love you more than my lies, when you love me despite my truth." He specifies that his condition is caused not by something he did, but by the fact he did nothing, except passively permitting a fanatic in his troup torture civilians. Leni confronts Johanna, but neither influence Frantz, who accepts to see his father. Frantz reads in the newspapers of his father's financial successes, he who has always played the game of "whoever loses, wins". The father is surprised that Frantz accepts to run the business, yet the latter reminds him of the time they once drove a car together at great speed, wishing to relive that experience. The father agrees. They go out together. Leni is certain they will die together.
"The maids"
"The maids". Time: 1940s. Place: France.
As mistress of the house, Claire commands the servant, Solange, to dress her in her finery. She incites her to fury so that Solange strikes her and threatens worse when the alarm-clock rings and Claire cries out: "Let's hurry. Madam will come back." In their play-acting, Claire blames her sister for always being late, so that they never reach the moment of their mistress' murder. Despite frustrations inherent in their servile state, Claire admits their mistress loves them. "Yes," comments Solange, "like the pink enamel of her latrine." To avenge themselves, Claire has written an anonymous letter to the police, accusing her mistress' lover of robbery, causing his arrest. Solange says she was once tempted to kill their mistress as she slept, but her courage failed her when she moved. "She will corrupt us with her softness," warns Solange. To their consternation, Claire learns on the telephone that the man was set free on bail. Claire blames her sister al the more for not failing to kill her. Now they may be well be denounced as false accusers and imprisoned. Despondently Claire declares: "I have enough of being the spider, the stem of the umbrella, the sordid and godless nun with no family." They whip up more accusations against her, but Solange admits: "Yet we can't kill her for so little." Then she changes her mind and suggests dissolving barbiturates in her mistress' lime-blossom tea. Their mistress enters. She is distressed about her lover's state, ready to follow him to a far-away prison. "I will have newer and more beautiful dresses," she decides. She gives Claire her silk dress and Solange her fur-coat. Then she notices the telephone off the hook. Solange blurts out her lover called. She is then led on to say her mistress is to meet him at a restaurant. The mistress wants to join him at once and leaves before drinking her tea. "All the plots were useless. We are damned," concludes Claire. Solange suggest they should escape, but Claire finds the suggestion impractical, being poor with nowhere to go. They curse their servile state. In despair, they resume play-acting, Solange this time in the mistress' role and asking for her tea. But then Claire takes on the mistress' role and swallows the tea, as Solange's hands cross themselves as if already handcuffed.
"The blacks"
"The blacks". Time: 1950s. Place: White-colonized Africa.
A group of black people prepare to present on stage the murder of a white woman before a court composed of blacks thinly disguised as whites, including a queen, a governor, a judge, a missionary, and a servant. Archibald Absalon Wellington is the master of ceremonies, guiding the spirit of the presentation towards greater hatred of white colonization. Before a hearse, Archibald asks Village what happened that morning. He answers he strangled a white woman named Mary with his own hands. The queen grieves. The missionary comments: "Be confident, your majesty, God is white." Some of the blacks are distracted, whereby Archibald must remind them that they must merit the court's reprobation: "They must be made to to pronounce our condemnation," he says. Diouf, a vicar, is dressed up as the victim, Felicity, a whore, plays Mary's mother, Bobo plays a neighbor. While Mary speaks to her eventual rapist and murderer, her mother constantly cries out for "pralines and aspirin" and reminds her it is time for prayers. The neighbor reminds her that her eyes may be ruined if she continues to work in the dark. Mary plays the piano, approved of by the queen: "Even in adversity, in a debacle, our melodies sing out." Mary is pregnant and her time has come. The neighbor as the midwife takes out from beneath her smock dolls representing the five members of the court. She is murdered and the court is in session for condemnation. The missionary considers she should be beatified, but the queen hesitates: "After all, she was sullied, defending herself to the last, I hope, but she may remind us of her shame." The blacks rebel and the court must escape. On their way, to ease fatigue, the missionary approves of alcoholic drinks. They get drunk despite the threatening atmosphere. "Dances occur only at night, none of which do not intend our deaths. Stop. It is a frightening country. Each brushwood conceals a missionary's tomb," warns the missionary. The judge succeeds in re-organizing the court in session, whereby the blacks begin to tremble, but Felicity rises and challenges the queen. Ville de Saint-Nazaire reveals that a traitor in their midst has been executed, but that a new leader of the rebellion is found. Though surrounded, the queen admonishes the members of the court: "Show those barbarians that we are great by our attention to discipline and, to white people looking on, that we are worthy of their tears." One by one, the members of the court are executed.
"The master of Santiago"
"The master of Santiago". Time: 1519. Place: Avila, Spain.
Members of the Order of Santiago meet at the house of the master of Santiago, Don Alvero. Three of the members decide to try their fortunes in the new world. To Alvaro, the present times are rotten, in comparison to the famous times when Spain ousted the Mores from Spain at the battle of Granada, when he "contemplated God in his cloak of war". The supposed purpose of converting Indians in the new world is "impurity and excrement", because the passion of lucre, instead of sending Indians to heaven, sends Spaniards to hell. When they leave, Alavaro, rejoicing in solitude, asks himself: "O my soul, do you still exist? O my soul, at last you and me!" His friend, Don Bernal, knows of the love-match proposed between his son, Jacinto, and Alvaro's daughter, Mariana. Because of Jacinto's expensive way of life, Bernal suggests to Alvaro that he enrich himself with others in the new world, which he immediately and irrevocably refuses. Alvaro is not interested in acquiring money, even for his daughter's sake, whom he best loves in the world, saying to his friend: "you will not steal my poverty." Alvaro harshly accuses his daughter of dishonesty, calling love "monkeyshine", in frustration asking himself rhetorically: "to be the father of a daughter is it to be a father?" Bernal, attempting to help his son and Mariana, asks the count of Soria to mislead Alvaro into thinking the king commands Alvaro's presence as an administrator in the new world, at which point Mariana rushes in and admits the deception. Alvaro is fed up with the world, deciding to live in St Barnaby's convent, where there is a convent for women, too, where Mariana can live. She accepts. He covers her with the white robe of the Order of Santiago, and, with the snow falling outside, father and daughter seem ready to live buried in mystical snow.
"Evil runs"
"Evil runs". Time: 1940s. Place: Fictional Shortland.
Alarica, princess of Shortland, must marry for political reasons Perfect, king of Occident. A knock is heard, with a voice stating that the king is come. The princess and king confer, but the princess' lieutenant discovers that Ferdinand is an impersonator and as the intruder leaves shoots him. Fernand is brought in alive. While Alarica and her governess discuss Fernand, a second knock is heard, stating that the king is come. It is discovered that this king is genuine. The king finds the princess attractive, but the cardinal in Occident reveals that the marriage prospects between them are annulled, as it is more in their country's interest for the king to marry the Spanish king's daughter. Says the cardinal: "We will marry Spain and make her pregnant." But in the cardinal's absence, the king proposes marriage to her. They set off for Occident, but when the subject of what to do with Ferdinand arises, Alarica proposes that he share their bed. The king is stunned, and no longer knows what will become of him. Alarica and Ferdinand have slept in the same bed, but find it difficult to agree. Says Fernand: "All that you deserve is for me to let you wade among your ideas like a comb in soup..." The king of Courtlande, Celestincinc, arrives, demanding to know what is a stranger doing in his daughter's bedroom. When the king begins to suspect his daughter is mad, she says; "Evil runs. A ferret! A ferret! At all costs let it run." Celestincinc orders Ferdinand's arrest. Alarica says that her life has only served so far to "mask the present tornado of my ferocity". Inspired by Alarica, Ferdinand proposes great improvements in the land of Courtelande, to the astonishment of the marshal, who find his plans "totally prodigious". Addressing the lieutenant and the marshal, Alarica proposes that they abandon fidelity towards her father and submit entirely to her and to her husband as queen and king of Shortland. They agree. Alaracia concludes: "Evil runs."
"The bald soprano"
"The bald soprano". Time: 1940s. Place: France.
"The bald soprano". Time: 1950s. Place: London, England.
While Mrs Smith prattles on domestic affairs, Mr Smith clicks his tongue. He reads in the newspaper mention of Bobby Watson's death. Mrs Smith says it is his wife, Bobbie Watson, she is now thinking about. They suggest that their children, Bobby and Bobbie, may be taken care of by an uncle and aunt, Bobby and Bobbie Watson, respectively, so that she may remarry. "Has she anyone in mind?" asks Mrs Smith. "Yes, Bobby Watson's cousin," affirms Mr Smith. "Who? Bobby Watson?" queries his wife. "Which Bobby Watson are you talking about?" he queries back. "The son of old Bobby Watson, other uncle to the dead Bobby Watson," she answers. "No, not that one," he says. "Bobby Watson, son to the old Bobbie Watson, Bobby Watson's aunt." After settling that matter, their invited guests arrive, a man and a woman who do not know each other. While talking, the two guests are astonished to discover the many things they in common, until realizing they are man and wife. The doorbell rings. Mrs Smith gets up to see who it is, but there is no one. The same thing happens twice more, until an angry Mr Smith gets up and sees a fireman at the door, who has been waiting there for 45 minutes. Interrogated on the subject of how can that be, the fireman reveals that he had seen no one when the bell had rung the first two times, but it was he who had rung the third time, then hid, as a joke. He recites experimental fables, such as "The dog and the bull": "Another bull asked another dog: why did you not swallow your trunk?- Sorry, answered the dog, it's because I thought I was an elephant." Before leaving, he asks about the bald soprano. "She covers herself as usual," answers Mrs Smith. After the fireman leaves, the two couples have an increasing amount of difficulty understanding each other, then run about confusedly.
"Rhinoceros"
"Rhinoceros". Time: 1950s. Place: Paris, France.
John scolds his friend, Berenger, for his excessive drinking and disordered life, a conversation interrupted by a rhinoceros running in the streets. They discuss where could it possibly have come from, Berenger's suggestions seeming implausible to John. Berenger's fellow office worker, Daisy, comes over to talk about the same subject. Berenger spills his drink on her dress. Once again, the conversation is interrupted by a rhinoceros running in the streets, a housewife moaning because her cat got squashed. They discuss whether it is the same rhinoceros. A grocer thinks it is the same, but John does not, explaining that the previous had two horns, therefore an Asia one, and the other only one, and thus an African one. Taken into consideration the speed with which they were running, Berenger casts doubt on whether his friend could reliably count the number of horns. "In addition, it was covered with dust," adds Berenger, calling him pretentious and a pedant, at which John is offended. An old man wonders which rhinoceros has one horn: the Asian or the African? John and Berenger quarrel further. According to Daisy, both are wrong. "The Asian rhinoceros has one horn, the African one, two, and vice versa," pronounces the grocer. After John leaves angrily, Berenger has qualms about his own attitude. "The least objection makes him froth at the mouth," says Berenger. A logician declares that even if the first rhinoceros had two horns and the second only one, that is no conclusive evidence the two were different, because the first one might have lost a horn. In the office where Berenger works, there is difference in opinion concerning the existence of the rhinoceros. Botard considers them an invention, offending Berenger and Daisy. Another office worker, Dudard, in love with Daisy, believes her eyewitness account. "He does not even know how many he saw," says Botard of Berenger. Suddenly, Mrs Beefsteak rushes in panic after viewing a rhinoceros. One of them damages the staircase in the office building. Botard continues to believe all this is just an illusion, but then sees one with his own eyes. Mrs Beefsteak recognizes one of them as her husband. Berenger sees two horns, but is unsure whether it is an Asian or an African one. Meanwhile, the department head, Butterfly, encourages them back to work while calling for help. At last, firemen arrive to get them out of the building. Later, Berenger visits John's home to apologize, but is horrified on seeing his friend turn into a rhinoceros before his very eyes. Eventually, Butterfly and Dudard also turn into rhinoceros, as does Daisy, yielding to their growing numbers, especially after hearing them on the radio, despite her promise to stay on Berenger's side. Against all odds, Berenger remains firm never to become one.
"Waiting for Godot"
"Waiting for Godot". Time: 1950s. Place: France.
Vladimir and Estragon, two vagabonds, wait for a man named Godot on a country road, who promised to be there, but is not. The two friends attempt to amuse themselves while waiting. Time passes and Godot does not show up. Why? Have they mistaken the agreed-on day? Are they at the right place? Estragon is hungry but it is Vladimir who takes out a carrot and eats most of it, remarking: "I'll never forget this carrot." Pozzo and Lucky enter, the first a boss of some sort, the second his servant if not slave, tied to the first with a rope. This relation seems scandalous to Vladimir and Estragon, but they do nothing to interfere. Worse than this, Vladimir and Estragon begin to inflict the apparently mute Lucky with the same abominable treatment. But Lucky is not mute. He eventually bursts out with an unpunctuated monologue incoherent in many parts and leading to nothing, after which he leaves with Pozzo. A young boy appears, sent by Godot to say he will drop by tomorrow. Vladimir is under the impression of having once experienced this event, but the boy denies it. The next day, nothing has changed except a tree has grown some leaves. Similar vaudeville-style exchanges are repeated to no avail. Although Vladimir mentions their waiting at the same place on the previous day, Estragon does not remember it. Pozzo and Lucky enter and fall, but are not helped, though Vladimir says it is necessary to do so and Estragon is willing in exchange for money. Pozzo is now blind and Lucky mute, though the former does not remember when that happened. They leave. The boy returns and leaves with the same message, but with no memory of the previous day. As the only one seeming to remember, Vladimir's existence seems all the more futile. The two friends decide to hang themselves on the tree. After that, they will have an erection. For this purpose, Estragon takes off his belt and, vaudeville-like, his pants fall down. The belt snaps off before they get a chance to try it out. They give up. They decide to go but do not move.
"Endgame"
"Endgame". Time: 1950s. Place: France.
Clov, unable to sit, takes care of the blind Hamm, unable to stand. While yawning, Hamm wonders: "Is there misery loftier than mine?" He is affrighted on learning that perhaps he has not made Clov suffer much, and is relieved to know he has. His father, Nagg, lives in a trashheap and asks for his pap. "Accursed progenitor!" cries out Hamm. He commands Clov to give him a biscuit. Hamm despairs that nature has forgotten them, but Clov corrects him by saying there is no more nature. Nagg lifts up his lid and tries to kiss his wife, Nell, in the bin next to his, but is unable to. Nagg laughs at Hamm's comments, and is scolded by Nell, who comments: "Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, I grant you that, but-" Next Hamm wishes to be placed in dead center of the room, getting there with some difficulty with Clov's help, who is then asked to look outside with a telescope, where there is only a grey landscape to be seen. Hamm gets a frightening thought: "We're not beginning to mean something?" A crablouse is bothering Clov, at which time Hamm commands him to kill it, for "humanity might start from there all over again." He has asked for a catheter but before getting it urinates on himself. He then asks Clov to set the correct positioning of an imploring black toy dog. Soon after, Nell dies, at which Nagg weeps. After asking Clov several times whether it is time for his pain-killer, Hamm discovers there is none. It is useless to go on any further. Clov goes away. After whistling for him with no response, he throws down the whistle and puts a bloody handkerchief over his face.
"Happy days"
"Happy days". Time: 1960s. Place: France.
Winnie is half-buried upright in earth. A bell of unspecific source is the signal to start her day, in which she takes out comb, toothbrush, toothpaste, handkerchief, lipstick, nail file, appetite stimulant, glasses, revolver, the latter kissed. Her husband, Willie, lives in a cave behind the mound, reading newspapers and postcards and pouring a soothing solution on his penis, so that she hears but does not see him. Under a parasol to protect her from excessive sunlight, she has orderly habits throughout the day, including singing a song at the same hour. As she chatters, Willie does not appear to be listening, so that he must be struck sometimes to get his attention. Music of unspecified origin sounds before Willie speaks a little, at which she rejoices. He defines the word "hog" for her. The parasol ignites from the excessive heat, but she remains optimistic. At the end of the day, before the closing bell sounds, she puts each item back inside the bag, except the gun. Winnie is content with little, concluding: “This will have been another happy day." On a subsequent day, started by the wakening bell, she is now buried up to her neck and so can no longer manipulate any item, though still confident this will be another of her happy days. She has not heard Willie for quite a while but thinks he can still hear her, or if not, to her he remains there in any case: "Oh, no doubt you are dead, like the others, no doubt you have died, or gone away and left me, like the others, it doesn’t matter, you are there." But Willie shows up at last, heading towards her, or else towards the gun, but he falls from the mound. He nevertheless call out her name, at which she rejoices: "Win! Oh this is a happy day, this will have been another happy day! After all. So far."
"The automobile cemetery"
"The automobile cemetery". Time: 1950s. Place: France.
An energetic Lasca encourages an exhausted Tiossido to run about a junkyard, while an elegant-looking butler, Milos, is taking orders for next morning's breakfast to assorted people living inside old automobiles. On noticing his wife's reluctance to kiss their customers, he smacks her on each hand with a ruler. Then Dila goes inside each car to offer sexual favors, at the end of which Emanou, born in a manger, son of a carpenter and a woman named Mary, also expresses a desire to lie with her: "We will turn about, embracing, like two underwater squirrels." She accepts. The next morning, Emanou specifies the police are out to get him for playing the trumpet to the poor. Incensed on seeing Dila with a customer, Milos grabs her by the hair and throws her down. Lasca and Tiossido's roles are reversed from the previous night, the latter being now the more energetic one. When Emanou's friend, Topé, learns there is a reward out for him, he offers to betray him to Lasca and Tiossido with a kiss. When Emanou offers Dila and Topé almonds from a bag, she says: "If ever the cops capture you, later, we'll eat almonds in memory of you." Topé kisses him, whereby Lasca and Tiossido arrest him. After Tiossido wipes his hands, they take him out to be whipped. He is next seen on a bicycle with his arms stretched out, on which Dila wipes the sweat off his face before he is taken away. The next day begins as any other, with Milos and Dila at their chores.
"Guernica"
"Guernica". Time: 1960s. Place: Paris, France.
Time: 1930s. Place: Guernica, Spain.
On her way to the bathroom, as a result of a bombardment, Lira is buried under mounds of rubble, from which her husband, Fanchou, cannot extract her. He seeks to encourage her, but a fall of stones hurts her arm, bleeding profusely. Accompanied by a journalist, a writer surveys the damage throughout Guernica specifying: "Add that I am preparing a novel and perhaps even a film on the civil war in Spain." They go out. To help pass the time, Fanchou suggests he might tell her a story: "Do you want the one about the woman who was in the bathroom and who remained buried under mounds of rubble?" To amuse her, he grimaces like a clown, but his wife is unable to see him. She asks whether the tree nearby is still intact; he answers it is. While seeking yet again to save her, Fanchou is pushed by an army officer, impeding his progress and then leaving without a word. Unable to do more, Fanchou gives her a child's balloon. A woman and a little girl pass by, the former pushing a wheelbarrow containing dynamite. The ballon bursts. Lira complains about her state. The officer comes back, but only to laugh while eating a sandwich, then goes away again. Fanchou asks her why she never had lovers. "That would be chic," he says. "You never think of me," he complains. "When I take off your clothes in front of my friends, you always look disgruntled." When suggesting she would perhaps be comforted by the presence of a priest, Lira reminds him that they are atheists. "Who, us?" asks a surprised and frightened Fanchou. The woman with the girl passes by again, this time carrying on her back arms of various sort. A frustrated Fanchou, unable to help his wife, blurts out: "It's your fault. Such a mania you have, reading in bathrooms!" The woman with the girl passes by once more, pushing a cart containing old guns. Fanchou suggests Lira might write down her will. While attempting one last time to save her, he is buried himself, a victim of yet another bombardment. The woman returns, this time alone, carrying a coffin. Two ballons rise heavenward. The officer ries to shoot them down, but is unable to. The voice of Fanchou and Lira, laughing, is heard above.
"The grand ceremonial"
"The grand ceremonial". Time: 1960s. Place: France.
A hump-backed Cavanosa meets in the park a stranger named Sil. Though rough and rude, she stays with him. Her boyfriend, kind and considerate, shows up to take her away, but she prefers to stay with Cavanosa, until the latter tells both to go away. Nevertheless, Sil returns with a whip. He is still rude, kicking and trampling her, then asks her to wait outside his house for a light signal, where she may help him move his mother's body whom he recently murdered, but his mother is not dead. She pleads with him not to have anything to do with women, who would only steal his money. He sits on her knee, then brings her a small coffin as a gift, with a doll inside. She calls him monster, which he deprecates. She asks to see the knife and then asks him to strike her, but he cannot. They appear to be reconciled a little. She bites him on the mouth and reminisces: "Another time, when you did not want me to go out without you, you nailed your hand on the door leading outside, threatening to stay like that until my return." She notices legs beneath his bedcovers, which he explains as one of his dolls he is in the habit of caressing. When the mother leaves, Sil knocks and enters. Cavanosa dresses her up as a Christ-like figure and she agrees to die. As did the mother, she also notices the legs beneath the bedcovers, not a doll but a dead woman dressed as she is, whom she helps to carry behind a screen. Her boyfriend shows up again. To prove her story, she sets aside the screen, but the dead body has disappeared. Cavanosa grabs the boyfriend unexpectedly, ties him up, and threatens him, but at last lets him go. The mother returns and watches outside the window while the police take away a body, explained by Cavanosa as the one he killed the day before yesterday. "I told you not to leave her in the cellar," reproaches she. Cavanosa wants Sil to go away, but she insists on staying until he agrees to turn her into her mother's slave. The next night, he meets another woman named Lys, with a similar disposition. He is rude to her but yet she wants to stay, retrieving for him a whip taken out from beneath her skirt. He decides to take a doll out from his car and go away with her.
"The dialogue between Mr Descartes and the young Mr Pascal"
"The dialogue between Mr Descartes and the young Mr Pascal". Time: 1647. Place: Paris, France.
René Descartes in his fifties meets Blaise Pascal in his twenties, two mathematicians and philosophers with a particular interest in religion. Descartes mentions that so far in his life, knowing the dangers inherent in expressing opinions about religion, he has "advanced masked". Despite his achievements, Pascal is beginning to lose interest in science, because he is looking for certainties only religious faith can supply, unlike Descartes. Pascal is outraged at Descartes' faith in numbers: "Can a Christian reason so? Don't you see that reason will make God superfluous to you?" Descartes denies that. Fearing God and his swaying lack of faith, Pascal wishes to work only for his salvation, while Descartes is confident he may be saved while working on scientific subjects. Pascal asks him to write a letter in support of a fellow Jansenist, unjustly accused by the Jesuits, the dominant movement of the time. Descartes refuses, for he has no wish to be mixed in superfluous religious quarrels. Pascal is disappointed and accuses him of cowardice, which the other denies. Another subject of controversy is Madame de Sablé's decision of dancing the night of the same day she had received communion, which Descartes considers a trivial matter, to Pascal's astonishment. To Pascal, physical pains "unite me with Christ". Dismayed at Pascal's austerities, Descartes tells him of a man who had saved his life while being trapped under a horse and likely to freeze to death. That man, despite his charity and goodness, lost his position as an ecclesiastic because of Pascal's accusations of eccentric beliefs and is now a pauper: is this serving God? He concludes by opining that matters relating to the dangers of damnation are debatable and that no certainty is possible, while, in Pascal's view: "The all I aspire to is beyond mathematics."