When confronted with Lucien's accusations that all women are false, changeable and incapable of loving, and what is worse, that they become mothers, Jeannette replies:
“This isn't just some vague instinct I've given way to, something that makes it absolutely necessary for me to have a child to suckle. I love him. It's for him I want to sacrifice myself and die. This isn't the sort of love that will come surging up again like sap every time my waistline gets thick. It is the first and last time I know it till the skin of my stomach clings to my spine. The last time I shall be ready to give my blood, here and now, and my milk, if it would come.” 43
Lucien thinks that his role is to play an eye-opener to Frederic and Jeannette. He thinks that women have nothing to give, except their bodies for a minute and their everlasting changes of mood. He is trying to persuade Jeannette that Frederic cannot love her. He thinks that the thing that attracted the two of them is only sex. When Jeannette says that she is Frederic's wife, Lucien goes on to say:
“His wife? You? Don't make me die laughing. Look at him. Firm, frank, reliable – a real honest-to God little French soldier, fairly bursting with the right sentiments. You, his wife? You want him, he wants you. Good luck to you. Get on with it quick. But don't stand building a cathedral on it!' 44
Jeannette is so eager in her attempts to prove to Lucien that there is a higher cause worth living and dying for. She herself is prepared to die for it. It is the reason she cuts her wrist with a piece of glass. Nonetheless, on hearing that Julia has poisoned herself, Frederic runs out of the house, leaving Jeannette alone. Jeannette, motionless and with her hands clasped around herself, realizes that Frederic has not broken all the bonds that tie him to Julia and his world.
Wanting to hurt Frederic back for leaving her at the most intense and vulnerable moment of her love, Jeannette decides to get married to the rich Monsieur Azrias. Although Julia's out of danger, Frederic is numb with pain. Lucien is there to offer his comment:
“It hurts, doesn't it, at first? You have the feeling you just can't stand the pain another second. You ought really to yell out or to break something. But what? You can't break them. How about the furniture! Grotesque. It's when you realize there's nothing to break that you begin to grow up. You can live comfortably in pain, you know. You'll see when you get to know it.” 45
At this point in the drama, Frederic returns to his old self, to his partly living and decides to marry Julia. He enumerates all the trivial things that wait for him in his future life: “I shall have work to do. I shall marry Julia. I've got a whole house to decorate and a garden to clear and wood to cut for the winter.” 46
Jeannette is also trying to be someone she is not. All dressed in white, she comes to say good-by to Frederic. She thinks that everything would have been different if he had not left her that night in the wood. Before that, she could have done anything for him:
“I could see my own blood running for you and I was proud. You could have told me to jump out of the window, to enter into the fiery furnace and I'd have done it. I could have been faithful to you forever; the only thing I couldn't bear was not to feel you touch me any more.” 47
Jeannette felt betrayed because he wasn't able to be sure of her true feelings, to see that she was stronger that his mother, than Julia, that she deserved him more than anyone else. She felt betrayed because he was not ready to accept her. After that moment, everything changed. She didn't have anything more to give him but pain, to make him suffer as she did.
Having realized that she does not want to grow up or accept the ugly life of rules and conventions, Jeannette suggests that she die with Frederic. She wants to dive into the clean ocean with its great waves that wash everything. Frederic, on the other hand, thinks that death is not the solution. He thinks that life, although “grotesque adventure” 48 , as he calls it, belongs to them.
However, Jeannette remains faithful to her heart's decision and she plunges into the sea alone. Frederic, seeing her attempts and not being able to stand the pain, soon joins her. The see, with its great and clean waves accepts the two lovers.
All that Lucien has to say to his father is:
“Love. Unhappy love. Are you happy now? With your hearts and your bodies and your romance. Haven't we still got jobs to do, books to read, houses to build? Isn't it still good to fell the sun on one's skin, to drink wine freshly poured, to have water running in the streams, shade at noon, fires in winter, snow and rain even, and the wind and the trees and the clouds and the animals, such innocent creatures and children. That is, before they get too ugly? Isn't that right, love? Everything's good, isn't it? Well, there it is. Are you satisfied? That's the way it had to be.” 48
Although their Romeos and Juliets differ a lot from each other, both Shakespeare and Anouilh showed through their characters what the forcefulness of love means. They dramatically displayed that true love exists, but that it has many “impediments” in its way. They wrote about the irreparable damage society does to lovers. And they proved that true love can happen, but that its cost in the world of moral blindness and stupidities is very high.
43 Ibid., p. 316
44 Ibid., p. 316
45 Ibid., p. 323
46 Ibid., p. 324
47 Ibid., pp. 333-334
48 Ibid., p. 336
48 Ibid., pp. 339-340
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