Therese: It’s your turn Lisette.
Lisette Charlap - Lady’s Maid to Rachel:
Benedic, Domine, nos et dona tua,
quae de largitate tua sumus sumpturi,
et concede, ut illis salubriter nutriti
tibi debitum obsequium praestare valeamus,
per Christum Dominum nostrum.
Everybody: Amen!
Therese the Housekeeper: I’m always amazed that you can say Amen as a Communist who hates us.
Frederic the tutor: (mischievously) I don’t hate you, but as a Socialiste it doesn’t cost me anything to worship idols.
Therese: How can you believe we’re idolatres?
Frederic: Look at all the statues you bow down to in your eglises.
Therese: Ce ne sont pas gods.
Frederic: Evidement they’re gods!
Therese: They’re saints.
Frederic: Saints, gods, cette tout pareil.
Therese: C’est ne pas la meme chose!
Frederic: No, at least the trinity is real gods, but the saints are like pagans. You prier to St. Joseph to help you replace your ceiling like he’s Vesta, and then you pray to St. Matthew to pay for it like he’s Juno. And I’ll tell you something else, back in 71...
Lisette: Nous avons, we know. You were there when you communists shot the Archbishop. Unless you pulled the trigger yourself this time we don’t want to hear about it.
Louis the chef: I can at least have un legere appreciation for la socialisme, at least you care about the poor, even if your pauvre is everyone but Frenchman.
Frederic: It’s Frenchman too!
Louis: Mais Frenchmen can’t get what they need if they have to share it with tout le monde.
Frederic: Why shouldn’t we care about everyone?
Louis: Because you’re a Frenchman!
Frederic: I’m a Frenchman? How many times have you said that Jews can never be Frenchmen?
Louis: Detende Frederic, there is not a single antisemite in the world who would think of you as a Jew for having a Jewish grandfather.
Frederic: You’re an anti-semite.
Louis: Well you obviously are more Francais than Juif.
Frederic: Papa said I look like mon grandpere when he was young.
Louis: Well, maybe your grandfather wasn’t completely Jewish lui-meme, et qui sait, maybe there are a few Jews who are not devilish.
(everybody laughs incredulously and claps) Bravo Louis! Voici le progress!
Louis: But your name is Waldteufel, doesn’t that mean ‘forest devil’ in German?
Frederic: And how would un Monsieur born Ludwig Rohmer know that?
(everyone laughs)
Louis: Dis nous. Does Waldteufel mean 'forest devil?"
Frederic: Tu sais tres bien!
Louis: Does it?
Frederic: Bien sur.
Louis: Voila! Even your name tells us your Jewish side is devilish.
Frederic: (laughs) My name tells us I’m Alsatsian, like you. We have devilish names because the Germans forced us to take them.
Louis: They forced you to take devlish names because you’re devils.
Lisette: Charmante. So now Frederic's a Juif!
Frederic: Just the quarter below the waist.
Therese: Vraiment? It's not...
Frederic: Non, c'est ne pas coupe. Mais tu sais qu'on dit sur about Jews beneath the waist.
Lisette: HA! Everyone knows Therese knows from experience.
Therese: (slaps Frederic's arm) Tu leur a d'it?!
Frederic: You're a very bad Catholic mais une femme tres cher....
Lisette: (interrupting) Laisse her alone Frederic, she's a much better Catholique que tu n'es Communiste or Juif.
Frederic: I'm neither now.
Therese: Bien. Juif, Communist, they both lead the attack against l’eglisse Catholique.
Frederic: They do?
Therese: Certainement! Everyone obeyed le Saint-Siege until the Jews came!
Lisette: Why would la liberte de Juif be any raison for disobeying the Church?
Therese: D'Accord! How can it be anything else?
Frederic: Couldn’t it be la reciproque?
Louis: What does that mean?
Frederic: That la liberte makes Jews prosper.
Therese: Peut-etre liberte is corrupt!
Louis: That's what l'Action Francaise understands! La liberte IS corrupt! It doesn’t matter qui est le dominant. Pendante mille ans Europe has always been ruled by domination, not un service, and we will have un dominateur again.
Lisette: Louis you’re a Frenchman but you still think like a German.
(everybody laughs)
Louis: Domination is natural. Equality is not un verite Chretienne.
Frederic: It isn’t? Your savior said ‘Blessed are le pauvre.’
Therese: In the Kingdom of Paradis!
Lisette: Well maybe le saveur was wrong.
Therese: Lisette Charlappe ne blaspheme pas!
Louis: (suspicious and sarcastic) Lisette Charlappe doesn’t seem like much of a Christian.
Lisette: And you don’t seem like much of a cook.
(everybody laughs)
Louis: (incensed but must pretend he's being sarcastic) Au diable! I’ve been cooking for Madame since I was a boy! And how do they remercie a moi? They force me to go to a goddamn ecole de cuisine.
Frederic: They sent you to Le Cordon Bleu. It was a great honor. It’s l’ecole polytechnique for chefs!
Louis: Plus d'un demi-siecle ma famille make everything for Madame. Haut cuisine, Francais, Alsacianne, Provencal, Anglais, Russe, meme Juif!
Lisette: Sacre Saint-Sebastien! He made a kugel once!
Louis: (suspiciously) How do you know what a kugel is?
Lisette: I work for a Jewish family. You serve us the leftovers.
Louis: (laughs) Et tu mange the leftovers just before you avaler Monsieur Robert...
Lisette: BRULE L'ENFER!
(she smashes her plate and chases Louis around the room. Everybody else laughs.)
Frederic: This is becoming a daily occurence.
Therese: C'est une embarras.
Frederic: I should think Lisette will eventually catch Louis and scratch out his eyes.
Therese: Louis will stab her with a sous knife first.
Frederic: We should make a wager on it.
Therese: I would never do anything so Juive.
Frederic: S'il te plait Therese, the Jews aren't so ba...
Therese: MADAME RACHEL!
(everyone stops and stands at attention)
Rachel: There seems to be a broken plate sur le flore. (picks it up)
Therese: Please madame, let me get that.
Rachel: Non, ce n'est pas un probleme.
Lisette and Louis: Merci Madame Rachel. Merci beaucoup Madame.
Rachel: Please forgive me Louis, I promised le Marquis I would show him how magnifique your kougelhopf is. I don't suppose there is a piece de l'autre nuit.
Louis: Malheureusement non Madame, but I will make another right away.
Rachel: Please don't trouble yourself Louis. Louis: Ce n'est pas un probleme. I will make another right away.
Rachel: (hesitates) I feel very bad about it but... (vacilates) Merci boucoup Louis.
Louis: C'est mon plaisir.
(Exit Louis)
Rachel: I really do feel bad. I'm sure he didn't want to do it.
Frederic: He's much better off baking gateau than he was here.
(Enter Orthodox Jew)
Lisette: Madame your fiancee is waiting for you so you should probably not wait ici.
Orthodox Jew: (Yiddish Accent) Lisette Kharlap?
Lisette: (beat, looks at him confused) Oui?
Orthodox Jew: Entshildig mir. Ikh hob a letter far you.
Lisette: Une lettre?
Orthodox Jew: Es ist zeyer important ya read it?
Lisette: Importante?
Orthodox Jew: It may answer some qvestions.
Lisette: Questions?
Rachel: Vous ette un juif!
Orthodox Jew: Ye. (vocal shrug) Ikh bin a Yid.
Rachel: Pourquoi would you have a letter pour Lisette?
Orthodox Jew: Es ist nicht mein bizness. Ikh nor hobn a letter to deliver fun der Rebbe Kharlap.
Rachel: Rebbe Charlappe?
Orthodox Jew: Ye. Fun Rouen.
Lisette and Rachel: Rouen?!
Orthodox Jew: Dos hot mir gezogt der Rebbe.
Frederic: Tu parle Francais?
Orthodox Jew: Oy. Nicht zo gut.
Frederic: Atoh medaber Ivris?
Orthodox Jew: A bisl. Es ist fun der Tanakh und nicht far redn.
Frederic: Sprechen sie deutsch?
Orthodox Jew: Neyn. Ikh red tsu dir oyf Yiddish un Deutsch ist nicht mein schfrakh.
Rachel: Je ne comprende pas.
Frederic: He's speaking to us in Yiddish.
Lisette: What is Yiddish.
Rachel: I've heard of la langue Juive but I've never heard it.
(Lisette opens letter)
Rachel: Lisette what does it say?
Lisette: (concerned) Madame I would like to be excused.
Rachel: But Lisette?
Lisette: (agitated) S'il vous plait Madame.
Rachel: (confused) But we have
Lisette: Madame I am begging you!
Rachel: Je suis desole Lisette. We have to preparer for la demonstration in the morning.
Lisette: (sighs and steels herself) Bien sur madame. I will be upstairs to pack in a half hour.
Rachel: Merci Lisette. I will join you an hour later.
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