ACT III
courir moi-même. Téléphones were Europe than in America.
Page 63. — i. Atrides; the Atridae (descendants of Atreus), noted in Greek mythology for the tragk horrors of their house.
Page 64. — 11-17. The same tradition is related near the end of Balzac's La femme de trente ans.
Page 66. — 4-5. tiroir aux valeurs. Note the absence of a safe-deposit box, which an American would'have had.
agent de change. The agents de change, ire government officiais.
Page 67. — 10. billets de banque. Note the payaient of so large a sum in cash, instead of by check. Checks are used much less in France than in America.
Page 68. — 4-5. je venais de signer: veuve Fontenais!
Sabine's self-betrayal by unconsciouSly forging her mother's signature is suggestive of a scène in a weU-known melodrama, Jim tke Penman, by Sir Charles Young (1886). At the end of Act III, Nina discovers that Jim is a forger by examining a check'on which he has unintentionally imitated her signature.
Page 69. — 1. ces murs par qui. Tins use of qui, referring to things, after a préposition, is common in literary French — contrary to the statemenl of most grammars. Frequently, in such cases, the noun is personified to a greater of less extent.
Page 70. — 3. J'ai . . . idées. On this powerful scène, one of the crucial points of the play, Doumic comments: "I
know nolhïng that surpasses, for inventipn in the horrible, the confession of this honest woman caught in a criminal act by the stockbroker . . . Neithcr déclamation, nor senti mentality, nor melodramatic claptrap, nothing but life, gloomy and indiffèrent." (Revue des deux mondes, 15 novembre, 1915, page 455.) This scène was much rewritten before reaching définitive form. (Binet, lac. cit., page 131.)
lOÔ NOTES
Page 73. — 22-23. * moins que tout aille. The c of ne after ri moins que is very unusual in literary French,
Page 78. — 7-8. Crédit Lyonnais; a large and well-known banking house of Lyons, wîth branches ail over France. Sabine, cornered, mentions the first bank that occurs to her.
Page 81. — s- Oui. By this tragic monosyllable, barely whispered, Sabine practicaily ofEers up her mother's lift as a sacrifice to hei daughter.
