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