Farewell
FAREWELL "Come, Deputy of the Centre, come along! We shall have to mend our pace if we mean to sit down to dinner when every one else does, and that's a fact! Hurry up! Jump, Marquis! That's it! Well done! You are bounding over the furrows just like a stag!" These words were uttered by a sportsman seated much at his ease on the outskirts of the Foret de l'Isle-Adam; he had just finished a Havana cigar, which he had smoked while he waited for his companion, who had evidently been straying about for some time among the forest undergrowth. Four panting dogs by the speaker's side likewise watched the progress of the personage for whose benefit the remarks were made. To make their sarcastic import fully clear, it should be added that the second sportsman was both short and stout; his ample girth indicated a truly magisterial corpulence, and in consequence his progress across the furrows was by no means easy. He was striding over a vast field of stubble; the dried corn-stalks underfoot added not a little to the difficulties of his passage, and to add to his
RITA. Enough to last all our lifetime, I say. [Breaking off.] Come
now, let us go up to the house, all four of us. We must have
company about us in future. It will never do for Alfred and me to
be alone.
ALLMERS. Yes, do you go ahead, you two. [Turning.] I must speak a
word to you before we go, Asta.
RITA. [Looking at him.] Indeed? Well then, you come with me, Mr.
Borgheim.
[RITA and BORGHEIM go up the wood-path.]
ASTA. [Anxiously.] Alfred, what is the matter?
ALLMERS. [Darkly.] Only that I cannot endure to be here any more.
ASTA. Here! With Rita, do you mean?
ALLMERS. Yes. Rita and I cannot go on living together.
ASTA. [Seizes his arm and shakes it.] Oh, Alfred--don't say
anything so terrible!
ALLMERS. It is the truth. I am telling you. We are making each
other wicked and hateful.
FAREWELL "Come, Deputy of the Centre, come along! We shall have to mend our pace if we mean to sit down to dinner when every one else does, and that's a fact! Hurry up! Jump, Marquis! That's it! Well done! You are bounding over the furrows just like a stag!" These words were uttered by a sportsman seated much at his ease on the outskirts of the Foret de l'Isle-Adam; he had just finished a Havana cigar, which he had smoked while he waited for his companion, who had evidently been straying about for some time among the forest undergrowth. Four panting dogs by the speaker's side likewise watched the progress of the personage for whose benefit the remarks were made. To make their sarcastic import fully clear, it should be added that the second sportsman was both short and stout; his ample girth indicated a truly magisterial corpulence, and in consequence his progress across the furrows was by no means easy. He was striding over a vast field of stubble; the dried corn-stalks underfoot added not a little to the difficulties of his passage, and to add to his