(He takes his purse out of his pocket.)

Eva: Please put that away, you naughty man.

Mme de Traventhal: Mr. Tartelet, I thought you considered yourself our friend.

Tartelet: I, your friend? That is a great honor, ma'am. I would be very glad, but-I wouldn't want to be paid two crowns a day for being your friend.

Mme de Traventhal: It's an advance on what we'll have to pay you later.

Tartelet: Later? I don't understand.

Mme de Traventhal: Well, for your future pupils.

Tartelet: My future pupils? I still don't understand.

Mme de Traventhal: But it's very simple. You know that George and Eva are engaged, and will be married some day-very soon perhaps-and later on (lowering her voice)-don't you see? A whole class of pretty little pupils.

Tartelet: Ali! Yes, yes, I see. I understand. Take young children in infancy, teach them to position their pretty little feet correctly as soon as they come into the world. Develop their charm in childhood to make sure they will also be charming as adolescentswhat a joy that would be, what a dream, what happiness!

Mme de Traventhal: That dream will come true, Mr. Tartelet. So you see, you can't leave us. And besides, what would you do? Go back to Paris and try to find work?

Tartelet: To Paris? Oh no, ma'am, no! No one dances there any more. All they do is jump around.

Eva: They jump around?

Tartelet: Yes, miss, they do. And not only in the salons. They jump around in the banks, at the stock exchange, everywhere. We even have talented choreographers, famous dancers themselves, who get the prefects and ministers jumping around.

Mme de Traventhal: What's this you're telling us?

Eva: That means there's no more dancing in Paris.

Tartelet: In Paris, miss, in Paris, the only kind of dancing they know is the money dance.

Eva: Sh! Here comes George.

(Enter George stage left, looking sad and thoughtful. Without seeing anyone, he sits down at the table and leafs idly through the open books lying there)

Eva (aside): Oh! My poor darling!

Mme de Traventhal: You're right. He's more depressed than ever.

George (placing his hands on the maps): Here's where they went, those incredible heroes, into the bowels of the earth, to the depths of the sea, through outer space! Lidenbrok,6 Nemo,7 Ardan," where no one had ever set foot before. And that other one, Captain Hatteras, conqueror of the North Pole. Some mysterious attraction draws me even more closely to him. I feel strong enough to equal them, maybe even surpass them, but I've done nothing yetnothing!

(He sits with his head in his hands, overcome)

Eva (going up to him): Your hand is burning, George.

George (looking up): Eva! It's you! (To Mme de Traventhal) And you, grandmother.

Mme de Traventhal: Are you in pain, George?

George: Yes. I feel as if I'm being consumed by a constant fever, which no human medicine can cure.

Eva: Not even friendship?

Mme de Traventhal (in a low voice, pointing to Eva): Not even love?

George: Eva! (Going up to hei) Eva dear, you know I love you and that my heart is yours-and yours, too, grandmother. But my imagination is stronger than my heart. Every hour of the day and night it carries me away from this castle, far away from this country, beyond the ends of the earth and almost into unknown worlds. And I hear a voice calling me: "Forward, farther, still farther!"

Eva: Calm yourself, George, I beg you. Ah! If you really loved me....

George: I do love you, Eva. Our two lives will be one some dayafter my dreams have been realized. But until then I'm not completely yours. I feel it. First I must go where my destiny calls me.

Tartelet: And one would need exceptional legs to follow him.

Eva (taking his hand): You're planning to leave us, then.

George: I'll come back to you, Eva.

Eva: And what if you don't find me here when you come back?

George: Not find you here! What do you mean?

Eva: I don't know. I just feel as if some danger is threatening me.

George: Danger? What danger?

Mme de Traventhal: What is it, girl? Speak up.

Eva: For some time now, whenever I leave the castle with old Niels, I've been followed by a man whose presence really terrifies me.

George: Who is this man?

Eva: I don't know, but he has strange, bizarre ways, and he frightens me. He seems to know in advance what I'm going to do and where I'm going to go.

George: And you say he follows you everywhere?

Eva: Everywhere, and the strange thing is that he only stops when I go into the church.