October 4, 2023 • 36 mins
Act I: The Scheme Begins – Victoria devises her bold plan to outwit Don Carlos and reclaim her independence. The city of Madrid becomes the perfect backdrop for a plot full of hidden identities.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Act one of a Bold Stroke for a Husband by
Hannah Couli. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
please visit LibriVox dot org.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Dramatis Persona, Don Caesar read by Adrian Stephens.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Don Julio read by Gregg Giardano.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
Don Carlos read by Allan Mapstone.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Don Vicentio read by Todd.
Speaker 5 (00:37):
Don Garcia read by Jim Locke.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Don Vazquez read by Jim Hedrick.
Speaker 6 (00:46):
Gaspar read by Jake Malitzia Pedro read by Wayne Cook.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Servants read by David Perdi.
Speaker 7 (00:58):
Donna Olivia read by Jen Brooda.
Speaker 8 (01:02):
Dona Victoria read by Sonya.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Donna Laura read by Wendy Katz.
Speaker 9 (01:08):
Hiller Minute read by Matter Brach, Marcella read by Anna.
Speaker 10 (01:15):
Maria Sancha read by Larry Wilson.
Speaker 8 (01:19):
In this read by Lynette Hawkins's.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Stage directions read by Joanna Michael Hoyt. Scene Spain remarks
Although the bold stroke for a husband by Missus Cowley
does not equal to bold stroke for a wife by
Missus Sante Livre, either in originality of design, wit or humor,
it has other advantages more honorable to her sex and
(01:44):
more conducive to the reputation of the stage. Here has
contained no oblique insinuation detrimental to the cause of morality.
But entertainment and instruction unite to make a pleasant exhibition
at a theater or given hour's amusement in the closet.
Plays where the scene is placed in a foreign country,
particularly when that country is Spain, have a license to
(02:05):
present certain improbabilities to the audience without incurring the danger
of having them called such. And the Authoress, by the
skill with which she has used this dramatic permittance in
making the wife of Don Carlo's pass for a man,
has formed a most interesting plot and embellished it with lively,
humorous and affecting incident. Still, there is another plot of
(02:27):
which Olivia is the heroine, as Victoria is of the foregoing,
And this more comic feeble, in which the former is
chiefly concerned, seems to have been the favorite story of
the Authoress, as from this she has taken her title.
But if Olivia makes a bold stroke to obtain a husband,
surely Victoria makes a still bolder to preserve one. And
(02:47):
there is something less honorable in the enterprises of the
young maiden in order to renounce her state than in
those of a married woman to avert the dangers that
are impending over hers. Whichever of those females becomes the
most admired object with the reader, he will not be
insensible to the trials of the other, or to the
various interests of the whole Dramatis personae, to whom the
(03:08):
writer has artfully given a kind of united influence, and
upon a happy combination. It is that sometimes the success
of a drama more depends than upon the most powerful
support of any particularly prominent yet insulated character. The part
of Don Vincentio was certainly meant as a moral satire
upon the extravagant love, or the foolish affectation of pretending
(03:30):
to love to extravagance music. This satire was aimed at
so many that the shaft struck none. The charm of
music still prevails in England, and the folly of affected admirers.
Vincentio talks music and Don Julio speaks poetry. Such at
least is his fond description of his mistress Olivia in
(03:50):
that excellent scene in the third act where she first
takes off her veil and fascinates him at once by
the force of her beauty. In the delineation of this lady,
it is implied that she is no termagant, although she
so frequently counterfeits the character. This insinuation the reader, if
he pleases, may trust. But the man who would venture
to marry a good impostor of this kind could not
(04:12):
excite much pity if his helpmate was often induced to
act the part which she had heretofore with so much
spirit assumed. The impropriety of making fraud and imposition necessary
evils to counteract tyranny and injustice is the fault of
all Spanish dramas, and perhaps the only one which attaches
to the present comedy. A bold stroke for a husband
(04:34):
Act one seen one a street in Madrid and her
Sancho from a house right door. She advances, then runs
back and beckons to Pedro within haste.
Speaker 10 (04:47):
At Pedro Pedro, and.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Heer Pedro right door.
Speaker 10 (04:52):
There he is to see him just turning by Saint
Anthony in the corner. Now you tell him that your
mistress is not at home, and if his jealous downship
should insist on searching the house as he did yesterday,
Say that somebody is ill, the black has got a beaver, or.
Speaker 6 (05:14):
That fa folk. Get you in. Don't I know that
the duty of a laking magorite is to lie with
a good grace. I've been studying it now for a
whole week. And now if I done, or a devil
to surprise me into a truth, get you in? I say,
hid it comes.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Except Sancho right door and flat and her Carlos left
Pedro strots up to him.
Speaker 6 (05:40):
Dona Laude is not at home, sir.
Speaker 10 (05:42):
Not at home?
Speaker 4 (05:44):
Come sir, What have you received for telling that lie?
Speaker 6 (05:50):
Lie? Lie?
Speaker 4 (05:52):
Signor it must be a lie by your promptness in
delivering it. What a fool your mistress? Trust a clever
rascal would have waited my approach and delivering a message
with easy coolness. Deceive me now has been on the watch,
(06:14):
and runnest towards me with a face of stupid importance,
bawling that she may hear through the lattice, how well
thou o best her? Dona Laura is not at home, sir.
Speaker 11 (06:30):
Here to the lattice, Hai, by Lydia, she might have
long ears to reach from the grotto in the garden
to the street, Hau seasons him.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
Now, sir, your ears shall be longer if you do
not tell me who is with her in the grotto?
Speaker 6 (06:50):
Ne grotto?
Speaker 5 (06:51):
Sir?
Speaker 6 (06:52):
Did I say anything about a grotto?
Speaker 4 (06:55):
I only meant that fool dost thou trifle with me?
Who is with her?
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Pinching his ear?
Speaker 6 (07:05):
Oh why nobody, sir, Only the pretty young gentleman's vale,
waiting for an answer to a letter he brought there.
I have saved my ears at the experience of my place.
I've warned this fine court. But a week and they
shall be sent back to Sidkovia for not to be
able to lie. So I've been learning the art of
(07:26):
six days and nights.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
Well, come this way, if I will promise to be
faithful to me, I will not betrayed the nor at
present enter the house.
Speaker 6 (07:42):
Oh, sir, blessings on you.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
How often does the pretty young gentleman visit her every day?
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Sir?
Speaker 6 (07:52):
If he misses Madame stark Wild.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Where does he live?
Speaker 6 (07:58):
Truly? I know not, sir, how menathing by the honesty
of my mother, I cannot tell, Sir. She calls him
Florio Detty's Christian name is he the name I never heard?
Speaker 4 (08:13):
You must acquaint me when they are next together.
Speaker 6 (08:18):
Lord, sir, if there should be any blood spilt.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
Promise, or I'll lead thee by the years to the grotto.
Speaker 6 (08:28):
I promise, I promise.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
They take that, give the money, and if thou art faithful,
I'll trouble it. Now go in and be a good
lad And do you hear. You may tell lies to
anybody else, but remember you must always speak truth to me.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
I will, sir, I will exert. Looking at the money,
right door and.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
Flat tis well. My passion is extinguished, for I can
now act with coolness. All wait patiently for the hour
of their security, and take them in the softest moments
of their love. But if ever I trust a woman more,
(09:20):
may every.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
And her Two women veiled, followed by Julio.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Right, fie, ladies, keep your curtains drawn. So late the
sun is up. Tis time to look abroad.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Tries to remove the veils.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Nay, if you are determined, are night and silence. I
take my leave. A woman without prattle is like burgundy
without spirit. Bright eyes to touch me must be long
to sweet tongues.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Going right, ladies, exit left, sure tis jue hey, Julio,
returning Don Carlos.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Yes, but all the sober gods of matrimony, Why what business,
good man, gravity canst thou have in Madrid? I understand
you are married, quietly, settled in your own pastures, father
of a family, and the instructive companion of country wine dressers.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
Tis false by heaven, I have forsworn the country, left
my family, and run away from my wife.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Really, then, matrimony has not totally destroyed thy free.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
Will tis with difficulty. I have preserved it, though for women,
thou knowest are the most unreasonable beings. As soon as
I have exhausted my stock love tales, which with management
lasted beyond a honeymoon, Madam grew sullen. I found my
(11:09):
home dull and amused myself with the pretty peasants of
the neighborhood. Worse and worse, we had nothing now but faintings,
tears and hysterics for twenty four honeymoons. More So, one
morning I gave her, in her sleep a farewell kiss
(11:30):
to comfort her when she should awake, and post it
to Madrid, where, if it was not for the remembrance
of the clog at my heel, I should bound over
the regions of pleasure with more spirit than a young
Arabian on his mountains.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Do you find this clog? No hindrance in affairs of gallantry?
Speaker 4 (11:56):
Not much in that house there, But damn her, she's perfidious.
In that house is a woman of beauty, with pretensions
to character and fortune, who devoted herself to my passion.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
If she's perfidious, give her to the winds.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
Ah, but there is a rub, Julio, I have been
a fool, a woman's fool, in a state of intoxication.
She weeedd me, or rather cheated me out of a settlement.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Oh is that?
Speaker 4 (12:38):
Oh? But you know not its nature? A settlement of
lands that both honor and gratitude ought to have preserved,
sacred from such base alienation. In short, if I cannot
recover them, I am a ruined man.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Nay, this seems the worst claw then the other. Poor Carlos,
So be wived.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
And be pretty, Have compassion.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
And to a servant, write with a letter to Julio.
He reads it, and the nods to the servant, who
exits right an appointment.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
I'll be sworn by that air of mystery and satisfaction.
Come be friendly and communicate, Julio.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Putting up the letter You are married, Carlos. That's all
I have to say, You are married.
Speaker 4 (13:34):
Fool That's place long ago and ought to be forgotten.
But if a man does a foolish thing once, he'll
hear of it all his life.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Aye. The time has been when thou mightst have been
entrusted with such a dear secret, when I might have
opened the billet and feasted thee with the sweet meandering
strokes at the bottom which form her name.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
When what tis from a woman, then it is handsome.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Hmm, not absolutely handsome, But she'll pass with one who
has not had his taste spoiled by matrimony.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
Malicious dog?
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Is she young under twenty, fair complexion, azor eyes, red lips,
teeth of pearl, polished neck, fine turned shape, graceful.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
Old Julia, if thou lovest me, Is it possible she
can be so bewitching a creature?
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Tis possible? Though? To deal plainly, I never saw her,
But I love my own pleasure so well thou could
fancy all that and ten times more?
Speaker 4 (15:04):
What star does she inhabits?
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Faith? I know not. My orders are to be in
waiting at seven at the.
Speaker 4 (15:14):
Prado Prado, Hey, Gas, can't you take me with you?
For though I have forsworn the sex myself and have
done with them for ever, yet I may be of
use to you, You.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Know, faith, I can't see that. However, as you are
a poor, woe begone married mortal, I'll have compassion and
suffer THEE to come.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
Then I am a man again wife abaun't mistress fairwell?
At seven you say exactly, I'll meet THEE at Fay
the Pye.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Excientjulio left, Carlos right. Scene two, A spacious garden belonging
to Don Caesar and her Minette and Denice right, second
door entrance.
Speaker 9 (16:14):
There that will do. My lady sent me to make
her up a nosegay. These orange flowers are delicious, and
this rose how sweet?
Speaker 12 (16:24):
Puh?
Speaker 8 (16:25):
What signifies wearing sweets in her bosom unless they would
sweeten her manners? Tis amazing. You can be so much
at your ease. One might think your lady's tongue was
a lute, and her morning scold an agreeable serenade.
Speaker 9 (16:42):
So they are custom.
Speaker 6 (16:44):
You know.
Speaker 9 (16:45):
I've been used to her music now these two years,
and I don't believe I could relish my breakfast without it.
Speaker 8 (16:52):
I would rather never break my fast than do it
on such terms. What a difference between your mistress and
my donna? Victoria is as much too gentle as her
cousin is too harsh, Hi.
Speaker 9 (17:07):
And you should see what she gets by it. Had
she been more spirited, perhaps her husband would not have
forsaken her. Men enlisted under the matrimonial banner, like those
under the kings, would be often tempted to run away
from their colors if fear did not keep them in
dread of desertion.
Speaker 8 (17:27):
If making a husband afraid is the way to keep
him faithful, I believe your lady will be the happiest
wife in Spain.
Speaker 9 (17:37):
How people may be deceived, nay, how people are deceived.
But time will discover all things.
Speaker 8 (17:46):
What what is there a secret in the business minette?
If there is hang time, let's have it directly now?
Speaker 9 (17:55):
If I dare but tell you, Lord lad, I can surprise.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
You going nice stopping her.
Speaker 8 (18:04):
Don't go, I must go.
Speaker 9 (18:07):
I'm on the very brink of betraying my mistress. I
must leave you. Mercy upon me. It rises like new bread.
Speaker 8 (18:16):
I hope it will choke ye. If you stir till
I know all?
Speaker 9 (18:21):
Will you never breathe a syllable?
Speaker 8 (18:23):
Never will you strive to forget it?
Speaker 9 (18:26):
The moment you have heard it.
Speaker 8 (18:28):
I'll swear to myself forty times a day to forget it.
Speaker 9 (18:33):
Are you sure you will not let me stir from
this pot till you know the hole?
Speaker 8 (18:38):
Not as far as a thrush hops?
Speaker 9 (18:41):
So now, then, in one word, here it goes. Though
everybody supposes my lady and narn scold, she's.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
No more up looking out, Don Caesar without leufed.
Speaker 9 (18:55):
Out upont ey, oh, Saint Jerome, Here is her father,
and here's privy counselor Gasper. I can never communicate a
secret and quiet well, come to my chamber for now
my hands in you shall have the hole. I would
not keep it another day to be confidant to an infanta.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Excellent right and her Don Caesar and Gasper left.
Speaker 12 (19:20):
Take comfort, sir, Take comfort?
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Take it? Why where the devil shall I find it?
You may say, take physics, sir, or take poison, sir?
They are to be had. But what signifies bidding me
take comfort? When I can neither buy it, beg it,
(19:45):
nor steal it.
Speaker 12 (19:48):
But patience will bring it, sir.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Tis false. Sarah. Patience is a cheat, and the man
that ranked her with the cardinal virtue I was a fool.
I have had Patience at bed and board these three
long years, but the comfort she promised has never called
(20:14):
in with a civil How dear ay.
Speaker 12 (20:18):
Sir, But you know the poets say that the twin
sister and companion of comfort is good humor. Now, if
you would but drop that agreeable acidity, which is so conspicuous.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Then let my daughter drop her perverse humor tis a
more certain barter marriage than ugliness or folly, and will
send me to my grave at last without male heirs.
(20:53):
How many have laid seeched to her, but that humor
of her like the works of Gibraltar, no spaniard confined pregnable.
Speaker 12 (21:10):
Aye, well Troy held out but ten years. Let her
once tell over her beads unmarried at five and twenty,
and my life upon it. She ends the Rosary with
a hearty prayer for a good husband.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
What do you expect me to wait till the horrors
of old maidenism frighten her into civility? No, no, I'll
shut her up in a convent, marry myself and have
airs in spite of her. There's my neighbor, Don Vasqueth's daughter,
(21:53):
but she is but nineteen.
Speaker 12 (21:57):
The very step I was going to recommend, sir, you
are but a young gentleman of sixty three, I take it,
And a husband of sixty three who marries a wife
of nineteen will never want hers. Take my word for it.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
What do you joke, Sarah?
Speaker 12 (22:20):
Oh, no, sir, not, If you are serious. I think
it would be one of the pleasantest things in the world.
Madam would throw a new life into the family. And
when you are above stares in the gout, sir, the
music of her concerts and the spirit of her convertsatciornes
(22:41):
would reach your sick bed and be a thousand times
more comforting than flannels and Panada.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Come come, I understand ye. But this daughter of mine
I shall give her but two chances more, don't Garcia
and Don Vincentio will both be here to day, And
if she plays over the old game, I'll marry to
(23:10):
morrow morning. If I hang myself the next.
Speaker 12 (23:16):
You decide, right, signor at sixty three? The marriage noose
and the hempennus should always go together.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Why you dog? You do you suppose there's Don Garcia there.
He is coming through the portico. Run to my daughter
and bid her remember what I have said to.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Her exit Gaspar Wright.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
She has had her lesson, but another memento. Mayn't be
a miss a young slut, pretty and witty and rich,
a match for a prince. And yet but hist not
a word to my young man. If I can but
keep him in ignorance till he is married, he must
(24:09):
make the best of his bargain afterwards, as other honest
men have done before him.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
And your Garcia left.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Welcome, Don Garcia. Why you are rather before your time?
Speaker 5 (24:25):
Gallantry forbid that I should not when a fair lady
is concerned. Should Donna Olivia welcome me as frankly as
you do? I shall think I have been tardy.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
When you made your overtures, Senor, I understood it was
from inclination to be allied to my family, not from
a particular passion to my daughter. Have you ever seen her.
Speaker 5 (24:53):
But once that transiently, it is sufficient to convince me
that she is.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Ch Why, yes, though I say it, there are few
prettier women in Madrid, and she has got enemies amongst
her own sex. Accordingly they pretend to say that, I say, sir,
they have reported that she is not blessed with that
(25:21):
kind of docility and gentleness. That now, though she may
not be so very placid and insipid as some young women,
yet upon the whole.
Speaker 5 (25:39):
Oh, fi, sir, not a word. A beauty cannot be
ill tempered, gratified Vanity keeps her in good humor with
herself and everybody about her.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Yes, as you say, Vanity is a prodigious sweetner. And
Olivia could sit worrying how much she has been humored.
Is as gentle and pliant as and her minette.
Speaker 9 (26:08):
Right, Oh, sir, sell me from our mistress. She's in
one of her old tempers. The whole house is in
an uproar. I cannot support it. Hush, no, Sarah can't hush.
A saint could not bear it. I'm tired of a tyranny.
I must quit her service.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Then quit it in a moment. Go to my steward
and receive your wages. Go be gone, tis a cousin
of my daughters. She is speaking of.
Speaker 9 (26:42):
A cousin, sir. No, tis Donia, Olivia, your daughter, my.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Mysterress to Gothia.
Speaker 9 (26:51):
Oh, sir, you seem to be a sweet, tender hearty
young gentleman. Twould move you to pity.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
If I'll move you, hussy, to some purpose, if you
don't move off.
Speaker 5 (27:05):
I'm really confounded. Can the charming Olivia.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Spite sir, me and malice? My daughter has refused her
some cast gown or some.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Olivia without right?
Speaker 7 (27:22):
Where is she? Where is manette?
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Oh tis all over? The tempest is coming.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
And her Olivia right? Oh?
Speaker 7 (27:33):
You vile creature to speak to me, to answer me? Am?
I made to be answered.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Daughter, daughter, because I threw my.
Speaker 7 (27:44):
Work bag at her. She had the insolence to complain,
and on my repeating it, she said she would not
bear it. Servants choose what they shall bear.
Speaker 9 (27:55):
When you are married, Mama, I hope your husband will
bear your humor less pace should leave than I have
done my husband.
Speaker 7 (28:03):
Dosel think my husband shall contradict my will? Oh? I
long to set a pattern to those milky wives whose
mean compliances to great the sex.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Garcia aside opportune.
Speaker 7 (28:18):
The only husband on record who knew how to treat
a wife with Socrates, and though his lady was a Grecian,
I have some reason to believe her descendants matched into
our family, and never shall my tame submission disgrace my ancestry.
Speaker 5 (28:33):
Heavens, why have you never curbed this and temperate spirit?
Dan Sizar Olivia.
Speaker 7 (28:41):
Starting curbed, Sir, talk thus to your groom, curbs and
bridles for a woman's tongue.
Speaker 5 (28:49):
Not for yours, lady. Truly tis too late. But had
the torrent not so overbearing been taken at its spring,
it might have been stemmed and turned and gentle streamless
at the master's pleasure.
Speaker 7 (29:04):
A mistake, friend, My spirit at its spring was too
powerful for any master.
Speaker 5 (29:11):
Indeed, perhaps you may meet a petruchio gentle Catherine, yet.
Speaker 7 (29:17):
But no, gentle Catherine, will he find me? Believe it, Catherine,
Why she had not the spirit of a roasted chestnut.
A few big words, an empty oath, and a scanty
dinner made her as submissive as a spaniel. My fire
will not be so soon extinguished. It shall resist big words,
(29:38):
oaths and starving.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
I believe you so.
Speaker 9 (29:41):
Indeed, help the poor gentleman, I say to whose fate
you full returns.
Speaker 5 (29:47):
Up down says adieu. My commiseration for your fate subdues
the resentment I should otherwise feel that you're endeavoring to
deceive me into such a marriage.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Cross has left marriage, Oh mercy apart to Caesar?
Speaker 7 (30:08):
Is this don Garcia?
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Yes, termagant, Oh what a misfortune.
Speaker 7 (30:15):
Why did you not tell me it was the gentleman
you designed to marry me too, Oh, sir, all that
has past was in sport, a contrivance between my maid
and me. I have no spirit at all. I am
as patient as poverty.
Speaker 5 (30:31):
This mask fits too ill on your features, fair lady.
I've seen you without disguise, and rejoice in your ignorance
of my name. Since but for that, my peaceful home
might have become the seat of perpetual discord. I, sir.
Speaker 9 (30:50):
You would never have known.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
What a quiet hour Olivia strikes her impertinence.
Speaker 7 (30:57):
Indeed, Sir, I can be as gentle, and for being
as a pet lamb.
Speaker 5 (31:02):
I cannot doubt it. Madam. The proofs of your placidity
are very striking. But ad you, though, I shall pray
for your conversion, rather than have the honor of it,
I turned Dominican and condemn myself to perpetual celibacy.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Exit left now, Hussy, now Hussey, what do you expect.
Speaker 7 (31:27):
Dear me, how can you be so unreasonable? Did ever
daughter do more to oblige your father? I absolutely begged
the man to have me.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Yes, Vixen, after you had made him detest Ye, what
I suppose he did not hit your fancy madam. Though
there is not in all Spain a man of prettier conversation.
Speaker 7 (31:56):
Yes, he has a very pretty kind of conversation.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Tis like a parenthesis, like a parenthesis.
Speaker 7 (32:05):
Yes, it might be all left out and never missed. However,
I thought him a modest kind of a well meaning
young man, and that he would make a pretty sort
of husband, for notwithstanding his blundering. Had I been his
wife in three months, he should have been as humble
and complaisant as Ah.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
There it is there. It is that spirit of yours, Hussie.
You can neither conquer nor conceal. But I'll find a
way to tame it. I'll warrant me exit right.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Olivia and Manette follow him with their eyes and then
burst into a laugh.
Speaker 9 (32:49):
Well, Madam, I give you joy. Had other ladies as
much success in getting lovers as you have in getting
rid of yours. What contented faces, we should say.
Speaker 7 (33:01):
But to what purpose do I get rid of them,
whilst they rise in succession like monthly pinks. Was there
ever anything so provoking? After some quiet and believing the
men had ceased to trouble themselves about me, no less
than two proposals have been made to my inexorable father
this very day. What will become of me.
Speaker 9 (33:23):
Or should become of you? You choose one from the pair.
I hope believe me, Madam. The only way to get
rid of the impertinence of lovers is to take one
and make him a scarecrow to the rest.
Speaker 7 (33:37):
Oh, but I cannot invention assist me this one day
upon my.
Speaker 9 (33:43):
Word, Madam, invention owes you nothing, and I'm afraid you
can draw on that bank no longer. You must trust
to your established character of vixen.
Speaker 7 (33:54):
But that won't frighten them all, you know, though it
did its business with sober Don Garcia. The brave General
Antonio would have made a property of me in spite
of everything, had I not luckily discovered his antipathy to
cats and so scared the hero by pretending an immoderate
passion for young kittens.
Speaker 9 (34:15):
Yes, but you was still harder push by the Castilian
count in his engraved genealogy from Noah.
Speaker 7 (34:23):
Oh, he would have kept his post as immovably as
the griffins at his gait, had I not seriously imparted
to him that my mother's great uncle sold oranges and arragon.
Speaker 9 (34:34):
And pray, madam, if I may be so bold, who
is the next gentleman?
Speaker 7 (34:40):
Oh Don Vicentio, who distracts everybody with his skill and music?
He ought to be married to a vile degamba. I
bless my stars. I have never yet had a miser
in my list. On such a character, all art would
be lost, and nothing but an earthquake to swallow up
my estate could save me.
Speaker 9 (35:02):
Well if someone did. But know how happy would someone
be that for his sake?
Speaker 7 (35:10):
Now, don't be impertinent, manette. You have several times attempted
to slide yourself into a secret which I am resolved
to keep to myself. Continue faithful and suppress your curiosity.
Speaker 9 (35:23):
Exit right, suppress my curiosity, madam? Why I am a
chambermaid and a sorry one too. It should seem to
have been in your confidence two years and never have
got the master's secret. Yet I never was six weeks
in a family before, but I knew every secret they
had in it for three generations. Ah, and I'll know
(35:47):
this too, or I'll blow up all her plans and
declare to the world that she is no more a
vixen than other fine ladies. They have, most of them
a touch
Speaker 1 (35:57):
On exit right end of Act one,
Act one of a Bold Stroke for a Husband by
Hannah Couli. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
please visit LibriVox dot org.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Dramatis Persona, Don Caesar read by Adrian Stephens.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Don Julio read by Gregg Giardano.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
Don Carlos read by Allan Mapstone.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Don Vicentio read by Todd.
Speaker 5 (00:37):
Don Garcia read by Jim Locke.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Don Vazquez read by Jim Hedrick.
Speaker 6 (00:46):
Gaspar read by Jake Malitzia Pedro read by Wayne Cook.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Servants read by David Perdi.
Speaker 7 (00:58):
Donna Olivia read by Jen Brooda.
Speaker 8 (01:02):
Dona Victoria read by Sonya.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Donna Laura read by Wendy Katz.
Speaker 9 (01:08):
Hiller Minute read by Matter Brach, Marcella read by Anna.
Speaker 10 (01:15):
Maria Sancha read by Larry Wilson.
Speaker 8 (01:19):
In this read by Lynette Hawkins's.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Stage directions read by Joanna Michael Hoyt. Scene Spain remarks
Although the bold stroke for a husband by Missus Cowley
does not equal to bold stroke for a wife by
Missus Sante Livre, either in originality of design, wit or humor,
it has other advantages more honorable to her sex and
(01:44):
more conducive to the reputation of the stage. Here has
contained no oblique insinuation detrimental to the cause of morality.
But entertainment and instruction unite to make a pleasant exhibition
at a theater or given hour's amusement in the closet.
Plays where the scene is placed in a foreign country,
particularly when that country is Spain, have a license to
(02:05):
present certain improbabilities to the audience without incurring the danger
of having them called such. And the Authoress, by the
skill with which she has used this dramatic permittance in
making the wife of Don Carlo's pass for a man,
has formed a most interesting plot and embellished it with lively,
humorous and affecting incident. Still, there is another plot of
(02:27):
which Olivia is the heroine, as Victoria is of the foregoing,
And this more comic feeble, in which the former is
chiefly concerned, seems to have been the favorite story of
the Authoress, as from this she has taken her title.
But if Olivia makes a bold stroke to obtain a husband,
surely Victoria makes a still bolder to preserve one. And
(02:47):
there is something less honorable in the enterprises of the
young maiden in order to renounce her state than in
those of a married woman to avert the dangers that
are impending over hers. Whichever of those females becomes the
most admired object with the reader, he will not be
insensible to the trials of the other, or to the
various interests of the whole Dramatis personae, to whom the
(03:08):
writer has artfully given a kind of united influence, and
upon a happy combination. It is that sometimes the success
of a drama more depends than upon the most powerful
support of any particularly prominent yet insulated character. The part
of Don Vincentio was certainly meant as a moral satire
upon the extravagant love, or the foolish affectation of pretending
(03:30):
to love to extravagance music. This satire was aimed at
so many that the shaft struck none. The charm of
music still prevails in England, and the folly of affected admirers.
Vincentio talks music and Don Julio speaks poetry. Such at
least is his fond description of his mistress Olivia in
(03:50):
that excellent scene in the third act where she first
takes off her veil and fascinates him at once by
the force of her beauty. In the delineation of this lady,
it is implied that she is no termagant, although she
so frequently counterfeits the character. This insinuation the reader, if
he pleases, may trust. But the man who would venture
to marry a good impostor of this kind could not
(04:12):
excite much pity if his helpmate was often induced to
act the part which she had heretofore with so much
spirit assumed. The impropriety of making fraud and imposition necessary
evils to counteract tyranny and injustice is the fault of
all Spanish dramas, and perhaps the only one which attaches
to the present comedy. A bold stroke for a husband
(04:34):
Act one seen one a street in Madrid and her
Sancho from a house right door. She advances, then runs
back and beckons to Pedro within haste.
Speaker 10 (04:47):
At Pedro Pedro, and.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Heer Pedro right door.
Speaker 10 (04:52):
There he is to see him just turning by Saint
Anthony in the corner. Now you tell him that your
mistress is not at home, and if his jealous downship
should insist on searching the house as he did yesterday,
Say that somebody is ill, the black has got a beaver, or.
Speaker 6 (05:14):
That fa folk. Get you in. Don't I know that
the duty of a laking magorite is to lie with
a good grace. I've been studying it now for a
whole week. And now if I done, or a devil
to surprise me into a truth, get you in? I say,
hid it comes.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Except Sancho right door and flat and her Carlos left
Pedro strots up to him.
Speaker 6 (05:40):
Dona Laude is not at home, sir.
Speaker 10 (05:42):
Not at home?
Speaker 4 (05:44):
Come sir, What have you received for telling that lie?
Speaker 6 (05:50):
Lie? Lie?
Speaker 4 (05:52):
Signor it must be a lie by your promptness in
delivering it. What a fool your mistress? Trust a clever
rascal would have waited my approach and delivering a message
with easy coolness. Deceive me now has been on the watch,
(06:14):
and runnest towards me with a face of stupid importance,
bawling that she may hear through the lattice, how well
thou o best her? Dona Laura is not at home, sir.
Speaker 11 (06:30):
Here to the lattice, Hai, by Lydia, she might have
long ears to reach from the grotto in the garden
to the street, Hau seasons him.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
Now, sir, your ears shall be longer if you do
not tell me who is with her in the grotto?
Speaker 6 (06:50):
Ne grotto?
Speaker 5 (06:51):
Sir?
Speaker 6 (06:52):
Did I say anything about a grotto?
Speaker 4 (06:55):
I only meant that fool dost thou trifle with me?
Who is with her?
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Pinching his ear?
Speaker 6 (07:05):
Oh why nobody, sir, Only the pretty young gentleman's vale,
waiting for an answer to a letter he brought there.
I have saved my ears at the experience of my place.
I've warned this fine court. But a week and they
shall be sent back to Sidkovia for not to be
able to lie. So I've been learning the art of
(07:26):
six days and nights.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
Well, come this way, if I will promise to be
faithful to me, I will not betrayed the nor at
present enter the house.
Speaker 6 (07:42):
Oh, sir, blessings on you.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
How often does the pretty young gentleman visit her every day?
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Sir?
Speaker 6 (07:52):
If he misses Madame stark Wild.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Where does he live?
Speaker 6 (07:58):
Truly? I know not, sir, how menathing by the honesty
of my mother, I cannot tell, Sir. She calls him
Florio Detty's Christian name is he the name I never heard?
Speaker 4 (08:13):
You must acquaint me when they are next together.
Speaker 6 (08:18):
Lord, sir, if there should be any blood spilt.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
Promise, or I'll lead thee by the years to the grotto.
Speaker 6 (08:28):
I promise, I promise.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
They take that, give the money, and if thou art faithful,
I'll trouble it. Now go in and be a good
lad And do you hear. You may tell lies to
anybody else, but remember you must always speak truth to me.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
I will, sir, I will exert. Looking at the money,
right door and.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
Flat tis well. My passion is extinguished, for I can
now act with coolness. All wait patiently for the hour
of their security, and take them in the softest moments
of their love. But if ever I trust a woman more,
(09:20):
may every.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
And her Two women veiled, followed by Julio.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Right, fie, ladies, keep your curtains drawn. So late the
sun is up. Tis time to look abroad.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Tries to remove the veils.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Nay, if you are determined, are night and silence. I
take my leave. A woman without prattle is like burgundy
without spirit. Bright eyes to touch me must be long
to sweet tongues.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Going right, ladies, exit left, sure tis jue hey, Julio,
returning Don Carlos.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Yes, but all the sober gods of matrimony, Why what business,
good man, gravity canst thou have in Madrid? I understand
you are married, quietly, settled in your own pastures, father
of a family, and the instructive companion of country wine dressers.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
Tis false by heaven, I have forsworn the country, left
my family, and run away from my wife.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Really, then, matrimony has not totally destroyed thy free.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
Will tis with difficulty. I have preserved it, though for women,
thou knowest are the most unreasonable beings. As soon as
I have exhausted my stock love tales, which with management
lasted beyond a honeymoon, Madam grew sullen. I found my
(11:09):
home dull and amused myself with the pretty peasants of
the neighborhood. Worse and worse, we had nothing now but faintings,
tears and hysterics for twenty four honeymoons. More So, one
morning I gave her, in her sleep a farewell kiss
(11:30):
to comfort her when she should awake, and post it
to Madrid, where, if it was not for the remembrance
of the clog at my heel, I should bound over
the regions of pleasure with more spirit than a young
Arabian on his mountains.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Do you find this clog? No hindrance in affairs of gallantry?
Speaker 4 (11:56):
Not much in that house there, But damn her, she's perfidious.
In that house is a woman of beauty, with pretensions
to character and fortune, who devoted herself to my passion.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
If she's perfidious, give her to the winds.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
Ah, but there is a rub, Julio, I have been
a fool, a woman's fool, in a state of intoxication.
She weeedd me, or rather cheated me out of a settlement.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Oh is that?
Speaker 4 (12:38):
Oh? But you know not its nature? A settlement of
lands that both honor and gratitude ought to have preserved,
sacred from such base alienation. In short, if I cannot
recover them, I am a ruined man.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Nay, this seems the worst claw then the other. Poor Carlos,
So be wived.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
And be pretty, Have compassion.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
And to a servant, write with a letter to Julio.
He reads it, and the nods to the servant, who
exits right an appointment.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
I'll be sworn by that air of mystery and satisfaction.
Come be friendly and communicate, Julio.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Putting up the letter You are married, Carlos. That's all
I have to say, You are married.
Speaker 4 (13:34):
Fool That's place long ago and ought to be forgotten.
But if a man does a foolish thing once, he'll
hear of it all his life.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Aye. The time has been when thou mightst have been
entrusted with such a dear secret, when I might have
opened the billet and feasted thee with the sweet meandering
strokes at the bottom which form her name.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
When what tis from a woman, then it is handsome.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Hmm, not absolutely handsome, But she'll pass with one who
has not had his taste spoiled by matrimony.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
Malicious dog?
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Is she young under twenty, fair complexion, azor eyes, red lips,
teeth of pearl, polished neck, fine turned shape, graceful.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
Old Julia, if thou lovest me, Is it possible she
can be so bewitching a creature?
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Tis possible? Though? To deal plainly, I never saw her,
But I love my own pleasure so well thou could
fancy all that and ten times more?
Speaker 4 (15:04):
What star does she inhabits?
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Faith? I know not. My orders are to be in
waiting at seven at the.
Speaker 4 (15:14):
Prado Prado, Hey, Gas, can't you take me with you?
For though I have forsworn the sex myself and have
done with them for ever, yet I may be of
use to you, You.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Know, faith, I can't see that. However, as you are
a poor, woe begone married mortal, I'll have compassion and
suffer THEE to come.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
Then I am a man again wife abaun't mistress fairwell?
At seven you say exactly, I'll meet THEE at Fay
the Pye.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Excientjulio left, Carlos right. Scene two, A spacious garden belonging
to Don Caesar and her Minette and Denice right, second
door entrance.
Speaker 9 (16:14):
There that will do. My lady sent me to make
her up a nosegay. These orange flowers are delicious, and
this rose how sweet?
Speaker 12 (16:24):
Puh?
Speaker 8 (16:25):
What signifies wearing sweets in her bosom unless they would
sweeten her manners? Tis amazing. You can be so much
at your ease. One might think your lady's tongue was
a lute, and her morning scold an agreeable serenade.
Speaker 9 (16:42):
So they are custom.
Speaker 6 (16:44):
You know.
Speaker 9 (16:45):
I've been used to her music now these two years,
and I don't believe I could relish my breakfast without it.
Speaker 8 (16:52):
I would rather never break my fast than do it
on such terms. What a difference between your mistress and
my donna? Victoria is as much too gentle as her
cousin is too harsh, Hi.
Speaker 9 (17:07):
And you should see what she gets by it. Had
she been more spirited, perhaps her husband would not have
forsaken her. Men enlisted under the matrimonial banner, like those
under the kings, would be often tempted to run away
from their colors if fear did not keep them in
dread of desertion.
Speaker 8 (17:27):
If making a husband afraid is the way to keep
him faithful, I believe your lady will be the happiest
wife in Spain.
Speaker 9 (17:37):
How people may be deceived, nay, how people are deceived.
But time will discover all things.
Speaker 8 (17:46):
What what is there a secret in the business minette?
If there is hang time, let's have it directly now?
Speaker 9 (17:55):
If I dare but tell you, Lord lad, I can surprise.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
You going nice stopping her.
Speaker 8 (18:04):
Don't go, I must go.
Speaker 9 (18:07):
I'm on the very brink of betraying my mistress. I
must leave you. Mercy upon me. It rises like new bread.
Speaker 8 (18:16):
I hope it will choke ye. If you stir till
I know all?
Speaker 9 (18:21):
Will you never breathe a syllable?
Speaker 8 (18:23):
Never will you strive to forget it?
Speaker 9 (18:26):
The moment you have heard it.
Speaker 8 (18:28):
I'll swear to myself forty times a day to forget it.
Speaker 9 (18:33):
Are you sure you will not let me stir from
this pot till you know the hole?
Speaker 8 (18:38):
Not as far as a thrush hops?
Speaker 9 (18:41):
So now, then, in one word, here it goes. Though
everybody supposes my lady and narn scold, she's.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
No more up looking out, Don Caesar without leufed.
Speaker 9 (18:55):
Out upont ey, oh, Saint Jerome, Here is her father,
and here's privy counselor Gasper. I can never communicate a
secret and quiet well, come to my chamber for now
my hands in you shall have the hole. I would
not keep it another day to be confidant to an infanta.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Excellent right and her Don Caesar and Gasper left.
Speaker 12 (19:20):
Take comfort, sir, Take comfort?
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Take it? Why where the devil shall I find it?
You may say, take physics, sir, or take poison, sir?
They are to be had. But what signifies bidding me
take comfort? When I can neither buy it, beg it,
(19:45):
nor steal it.
Speaker 12 (19:48):
But patience will bring it, sir.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Tis false. Sarah. Patience is a cheat, and the man
that ranked her with the cardinal virtue I was a fool.
I have had Patience at bed and board these three
long years, but the comfort she promised has never called
(20:14):
in with a civil How dear ay.
Speaker 12 (20:18):
Sir, But you know the poets say that the twin
sister and companion of comfort is good humor. Now, if
you would but drop that agreeable acidity, which is so conspicuous.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Then let my daughter drop her perverse humor tis a
more certain barter marriage than ugliness or folly, and will
send me to my grave at last without male heirs.
(20:53):
How many have laid seeched to her, but that humor
of her like the works of Gibraltar, no spaniard confined pregnable.
Speaker 12 (21:10):
Aye, well Troy held out but ten years. Let her
once tell over her beads unmarried at five and twenty,
and my life upon it. She ends the Rosary with
a hearty prayer for a good husband.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
What do you expect me to wait till the horrors
of old maidenism frighten her into civility? No, no, I'll
shut her up in a convent, marry myself and have
airs in spite of her. There's my neighbor, Don Vasqueth's daughter,
(21:53):
but she is but nineteen.
Speaker 12 (21:57):
The very step I was going to recommend, sir, you
are but a young gentleman of sixty three, I take it,
And a husband of sixty three who marries a wife
of nineteen will never want hers. Take my word for it.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
What do you joke, Sarah?
Speaker 12 (22:20):
Oh, no, sir, not, If you are serious. I think
it would be one of the pleasantest things in the world.
Madam would throw a new life into the family. And
when you are above stares in the gout, sir, the
music of her concerts and the spirit of her convertsatciornes
(22:41):
would reach your sick bed and be a thousand times
more comforting than flannels and Panada.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Come come, I understand ye. But this daughter of mine
I shall give her but two chances more, don't Garcia
and Don Vincentio will both be here to day, And
if she plays over the old game, I'll marry to
(23:10):
morrow morning. If I hang myself the next.
Speaker 12 (23:16):
You decide, right, signor at sixty three? The marriage noose
and the hempennus should always go together.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Why you dog? You do you suppose there's Don Garcia there.
He is coming through the portico. Run to my daughter
and bid her remember what I have said to.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Her exit Gaspar Wright.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
She has had her lesson, but another memento. Mayn't be
a miss a young slut, pretty and witty and rich,
a match for a prince. And yet but hist not
a word to my young man. If I can but
keep him in ignorance till he is married, he must
(24:09):
make the best of his bargain afterwards, as other honest
men have done before him.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
And your Garcia left.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Welcome, Don Garcia. Why you are rather before your time?
Speaker 5 (24:25):
Gallantry forbid that I should not when a fair lady
is concerned. Should Donna Olivia welcome me as frankly as
you do? I shall think I have been tardy.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
When you made your overtures, Senor, I understood it was
from inclination to be allied to my family, not from
a particular passion to my daughter. Have you ever seen her.
Speaker 5 (24:53):
But once that transiently, it is sufficient to convince me
that she is.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Ch Why, yes, though I say it, there are few
prettier women in Madrid, and she has got enemies amongst
her own sex. Accordingly they pretend to say that, I say, sir,
they have reported that she is not blessed with that
(25:21):
kind of docility and gentleness. That now, though she may
not be so very placid and insipid as some young women,
yet upon the whole.
Speaker 5 (25:39):
Oh, fi, sir, not a word. A beauty cannot be
ill tempered, gratified Vanity keeps her in good humor with
herself and everybody about her.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Yes, as you say, Vanity is a prodigious sweetner. And
Olivia could sit worrying how much she has been humored.
Is as gentle and pliant as and her minette.
Speaker 9 (26:08):
Right, Oh, sir, sell me from our mistress. She's in
one of her old tempers. The whole house is in
an uproar. I cannot support it. Hush, no, Sarah can't hush.
A saint could not bear it. I'm tired of a tyranny.
I must quit her service.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Then quit it in a moment. Go to my steward
and receive your wages. Go be gone, tis a cousin
of my daughters. She is speaking of.
Speaker 9 (26:42):
A cousin, sir. No, tis Donia, Olivia, your daughter, my.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Mysterress to Gothia.
Speaker 9 (26:51):
Oh, sir, you seem to be a sweet, tender hearty
young gentleman. Twould move you to pity.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
If I'll move you, hussy, to some purpose, if you
don't move off.
Speaker 5 (27:05):
I'm really confounded. Can the charming Olivia.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Spite sir, me and malice? My daughter has refused her
some cast gown or some.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Olivia without right?
Speaker 7 (27:22):
Where is she? Where is manette?
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Oh tis all over? The tempest is coming.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
And her Olivia right? Oh?
Speaker 7 (27:33):
You vile creature to speak to me, to answer me? Am?
I made to be answered.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Daughter, daughter, because I threw my.
Speaker 7 (27:44):
Work bag at her. She had the insolence to complain,
and on my repeating it, she said she would not
bear it. Servants choose what they shall bear.
Speaker 9 (27:55):
When you are married, Mama, I hope your husband will
bear your humor less pace should leave than I have
done my husband.
Speaker 7 (28:03):
Dosel think my husband shall contradict my will? Oh? I
long to set a pattern to those milky wives whose
mean compliances to great the sex.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Garcia aside opportune.
Speaker 7 (28:18):
The only husband on record who knew how to treat
a wife with Socrates, and though his lady was a Grecian,
I have some reason to believe her descendants matched into
our family, and never shall my tame submission disgrace my ancestry.
Speaker 5 (28:33):
Heavens, why have you never curbed this and temperate spirit?
Dan Sizar Olivia.
Speaker 7 (28:41):
Starting curbed, Sir, talk thus to your groom, curbs and
bridles for a woman's tongue.
Speaker 5 (28:49):
Not for yours, lady. Truly tis too late. But had
the torrent not so overbearing been taken at its spring,
it might have been stemmed and turned and gentle streamless
at the master's pleasure.
Speaker 7 (29:04):
A mistake, friend, My spirit at its spring was too
powerful for any master.
Speaker 5 (29:11):
Indeed, perhaps you may meet a petruchio gentle Catherine, yet.
Speaker 7 (29:17):
But no, gentle Catherine, will he find me? Believe it, Catherine,
Why she had not the spirit of a roasted chestnut.
A few big words, an empty oath, and a scanty
dinner made her as submissive as a spaniel. My fire
will not be so soon extinguished. It shall resist big words,
(29:38):
oaths and starving.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
I believe you so.
Speaker 9 (29:41):
Indeed, help the poor gentleman, I say to whose fate
you full returns.
Speaker 5 (29:47):
Up down says adieu. My commiseration for your fate subdues
the resentment I should otherwise feel that you're endeavoring to
deceive me into such a marriage.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Cross has left marriage, Oh mercy apart to Caesar?
Speaker 7 (30:08):
Is this don Garcia?
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Yes, termagant, Oh what a misfortune.
Speaker 7 (30:15):
Why did you not tell me it was the gentleman
you designed to marry me too, Oh, sir, all that
has past was in sport, a contrivance between my maid
and me. I have no spirit at all. I am
as patient as poverty.
Speaker 5 (30:31):
This mask fits too ill on your features, fair lady.
I've seen you without disguise, and rejoice in your ignorance
of my name. Since but for that, my peaceful home
might have become the seat of perpetual discord. I, sir.
Speaker 9 (30:50):
You would never have known.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
What a quiet hour Olivia strikes her impertinence.
Speaker 7 (30:57):
Indeed, Sir, I can be as gentle, and for being
as a pet lamb.
Speaker 5 (31:02):
I cannot doubt it. Madam. The proofs of your placidity
are very striking. But ad you, though, I shall pray
for your conversion, rather than have the honor of it,
I turned Dominican and condemn myself to perpetual celibacy.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Exit left now, Hussy, now Hussey, what do you expect.
Speaker 7 (31:27):
Dear me, how can you be so unreasonable? Did ever
daughter do more to oblige your father? I absolutely begged
the man to have me.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Yes, Vixen, after you had made him detest Ye, what
I suppose he did not hit your fancy madam. Though
there is not in all Spain a man of prettier conversation.
Speaker 7 (31:56):
Yes, he has a very pretty kind of conversation.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Tis like a parenthesis, like a parenthesis.
Speaker 7 (32:05):
Yes, it might be all left out and never missed. However,
I thought him a modest kind of a well meaning
young man, and that he would make a pretty sort
of husband, for notwithstanding his blundering. Had I been his
wife in three months, he should have been as humble
and complaisant as Ah.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
There it is there. It is that spirit of yours, Hussie.
You can neither conquer nor conceal. But I'll find a
way to tame it. I'll warrant me exit right.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Olivia and Manette follow him with their eyes and then
burst into a laugh.
Speaker 9 (32:49):
Well, Madam, I give you joy. Had other ladies as
much success in getting lovers as you have in getting
rid of yours. What contented faces, we should say.
Speaker 7 (33:01):
But to what purpose do I get rid of them,
whilst they rise in succession like monthly pinks. Was there
ever anything so provoking? After some quiet and believing the
men had ceased to trouble themselves about me, no less
than two proposals have been made to my inexorable father
this very day. What will become of me.
Speaker 9 (33:23):
Or should become of you? You choose one from the pair.
I hope believe me, Madam. The only way to get
rid of the impertinence of lovers is to take one
and make him a scarecrow to the rest.
Speaker 7 (33:37):
Oh, but I cannot invention assist me this one day
upon my.
Speaker 9 (33:43):
Word, Madam, invention owes you nothing, and I'm afraid you
can draw on that bank no longer. You must trust
to your established character of vixen.
Speaker 7 (33:54):
But that won't frighten them all, you know, though it
did its business with sober Don Garcia. The brave General
Antonio would have made a property of me in spite
of everything, had I not luckily discovered his antipathy to
cats and so scared the hero by pretending an immoderate
passion for young kittens.
Speaker 9 (34:15):
Yes, but you was still harder push by the Castilian
count in his engraved genealogy from Noah.
Speaker 7 (34:23):
Oh, he would have kept his post as immovably as
the griffins at his gait, had I not seriously imparted
to him that my mother's great uncle sold oranges and arragon.
Speaker 9 (34:34):
And pray, madam, if I may be so bold, who
is the next gentleman?
Speaker 7 (34:40):
Oh Don Vicentio, who distracts everybody with his skill and music?
He ought to be married to a vile degamba. I
bless my stars. I have never yet had a miser
in my list. On such a character, all art would
be lost, and nothing but an earthquake to swallow up
my estate could save me.
Speaker 9 (35:02):
Well if someone did. But know how happy would someone
be that for his sake?
Speaker 7 (35:10):
Now, don't be impertinent, manette. You have several times attempted
to slide yourself into a secret which I am resolved
to keep to myself. Continue faithful and suppress your curiosity.
Speaker 9 (35:23):
Exit right, suppress my curiosity, madam? Why I am a
chambermaid and a sorry one too. It should seem to
have been in your confidence two years and never have
got the master's secret. Yet I never was six weeks
in a family before, but I knew every secret they
had in it for three generations. Ah, and I'll know
(35:47):
this too, or I'll blow up all her plans and
declare to the world that she is no more a
vixen than other fine ladies. They have, most of them
a touch
Speaker 1 (35:57):
On exit right end of Act one,
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