|
(Fredrik) |
|
She lightens my sadness, |
|
She livens my days, |
|
She bursts with a kind of madness |
|
My well-ordered ways. |
|
My happiest mistake, the ache of my life: |
|
You must meet my wife. |
|
She bubbles with pleasure, |
|
She glows with surprise, |
|
Disrupts my accustomed leisure |
|
And ruffles my ties. |
|
I don't know even now quite how it began. |
|
You must meet my wife, my Anne. |
|
One thousand whims to which I give in, |
|
Since her smallest tear turns me ashen. |
|
I never dreamed that I could live in |
|
So completely demented, contented a fashion. |
|
So sunlike, so winning, |
|
So unlike a wife. |
|
I do think that I'm beginning |
|
To show signs of life. |
|
Don't ask me how at my age one still can grow-- |
|
If you met my wife, you'd know. |
|
(Desiree (speaking):) |
|
Dear Fredrik, |
|
I'm just longing to meet her. |
|
Sometime. |
|
(Fredrik) |
|
She sparkles... |
|
(Desiree) |
|
How pleasant. |
|
(Fredrik) |
|
She twinkles... |
|
(Desiree) |
|
How nice. |
|
(Fredrik) |
|
Her youth is a sort of present-- |
|
(Desiree) |
|
Whatever the price. |
|
(Fredrik) |
|
The incandescent--what?--the-- |
|
(Desiree (offering a cigarette):) |
|
Light? |
|
(Fredrik) |
|
--of my life. |
|
You must meet my wife. |
|
(Desiree) |
|
Yes, I must. I really must. |
|
Now-- |
|
(Fredrik) |
|
She flutters. |
|
(Desiree) |
|
How charming. |
|
(Fredrik) |
|
She twitters. |
|
(Desiree) |
|
My word! |
|
(Fredrik) |
|
She floats. |
|
(Desiree) |
|
Isn't that alarming? |
|
What is she, a bird? |
|
(Fredrik) |
|
She makes me feel I'm--what?-- |
|
(Desiree) |
|
A very old man. |
|
(Fredrik) |
|
Yes--no! |
|
(Desiree) |
|
No? |
|
(Fredrik) |
|
But-- |
|
(Desiree) |
|
I must meet your Gertrude. |
|
(Fredrik) |
|
My Anne. |
|
(Desiree) |
|
Sorry--Anne. |
|
(Fredrik) |
|
She loves my voice, my walk, my mustache, |
|
The cigar, in fact, that I'm smoking. |
|
She'll watch me puff until it's just ash, |
|
Then she'll save the cigar butt. |
|
(Desiree) |
|
Bizarre, but |
|
You're joking. |
|
(Fredrik) |
|
She dotes on-- |
|
(Desiree) |
|
Your dimple. |
|
(Fredrik) |
|
My snoring. |
|
(Desiree) |
|
How dear. |
|
(Fredrik) |
|
The point is, she's really simple. |
|
(Desiree) |
|
Yes, that much seems clear. |
|
(Fredrik) |
|
She gives me funny names-- |
|
(Desiree) |
|
Like? |
|
(Fredrik) |
|
"Old Dry-as-Dust." |
|
(Desiree) |
|
Wouldn't she just? |
|
(Fredrik) |
|
You must meet my wife. |
|
(Desiree) |
|
Yes, I must, yes, I must. |
|
(Fredrik) |
|
A sea of whims that I submerge in, |
|
Yet so loveable in repentance. |
|
Unfortunately still a virgin, |
|
But you can't force a flower-- |
|
(Desiree) |
|
Don't finish that sentence! |
|
She's monstrous! |
|
(Fredrik) |
|
She's frightened. |
|
(Desiree) |
|
Unfeeling! |
|
(Fredrik) |
|
Unversed. |
|
She'd strike you as unenlightened-- |
|
(Desiree) |
|
No, I'd strike her first. |
|
(Fredrik) |
|
Her reticence, her apprehension-- |
|
(Desiree) |
|
Her crust! |
|
(Fredrik) |
|
No! |
|
(Desiree) |
|
Yes! |
|
(Fredrik) |
|
No! |
|
(Desiree) |
|
Fredrik! |
|
(Fredrik) |
|
You must meet my wife. |
|
(Desiree) |
|
Let me get my hat and my knife! |
|
(Fredrik) |
|
What was that? |
|
(Desiree) |
|
I must meet your wife. |
|
(Both) |
|
Yes, you must. |
|
Yes, I must. |