The Baker's Wife (1938)

Fernand Charpin: Le marquis Castan de Venelles

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Quotes 

• Le marquis Castan de Venelles : I speak of croissants and brioches because at my castle -- which is really just a farm, but one rendered castle-like by my mere presence -- I generally host three or four women of easy virtue whom I keep in rustic luxury to provide pleasure for me in my old age and debauchery for my shepherds.

  Aimable Castanier : Perfectly understandable.

  Le marquis Castan de Venelles : Ah, no! The priest doesn't see it that way.

• Le marquis Castan de Venelles : Madame, the bread touched by your lovely hands will be received in my house like a present.

• Le marquis Castan de Venelles : Good morning, madame. I am the Marquis de Venelles, retired squadron leader but old lech on active duty. Meaning I'm very susceptible to your shining face and deeply grateful to you for being so lovely.

• Aimable Castanier : What would those two do together?

  Le marquis Castan de Venelles : Make love, quite simply.

  Aimable Castanier : Oh, come on! They just met yesterday. When I courted her, she took three years to say yes to marrying me.

  Le marquis Castan de Venelles : This may be different.

• Aimable Castanier : Can I speak to you man-to-man? Aurélie isn't interested in matters of love. Selling bread, balancing her register, mending her camisoles -- that kind of thing, yes. But speak of love and she won't even listen. When I kiss her, she just tolerates it. No disgust, but no pleasure. A door has more feeling. And I know: we've been married for five years. I'm telling you, though she's beautiful and elegant, and men look at her, and she seems made for love, love isn't made for her.

  Le marquis Castan de Venelles : So she's like a magnificent flower with no scent.

  Aimable Castanier : Exactly! A flower with no scent.

  Le marquis Castan de Venelles : Perhaps you have a cold.

• Le marquis Castan de Venelles : He doesn't want to believe it. It's not that he doesn't believe it. He doesn't want to.

• Le marquis Castan de Venelles : Where's Dominique?

  Esprit, un berger : He went off.

  Le marquis Castan de Venelles : With who?

  Esprit, un berger : Scipion.

  Le marquis Castan de Venelles : And who else?

  Esprit, un berger : The baker's wife.

  Aimable Castanier : Who told you that?

  Esprit, un berger : Dominique. They were to meet behind the church.

  Aimable Castanier : Did he say when they'd be back?

  Esprit, un berger : He took his savings and hugged his dog good-bye. He won't be back,.

• Le curé : I must admit I was alarmed by that dreadful scene.

  Le marquis Castan de Venelles : Not dreadful. Simply human.

  Le curé : That man wasn't human.

  Le marquis Castan de Venelles : On the contrary. In his madness, he was the weakness of all men. He was suffering.

  Le curé : From what?

  Le marquis Castan de Venelles : His love for a woman!

  Le curé : Can love for a woman wreak such havoc in a rational being?

  Le marquis Castan de Venelles : "Rational beings," as you call them, don't just have an immaterial soul. They have a heart of flesh. Of course, physical love for you is just a sin, known and catalogued. And you punish those who've tasted the pleasures of the flesh. Well, you've just seen the joys of the flesh, and now you see that they bare their own punishment.

• Le curé : My feeling of being happily settled in as a priest is precisely why that scene upset me so. Like the captain of a ship who sees another ship smashed on the rocks and thinks, 'My hull is no stronger, my rudder no larger, my maps no better, I too could run aground.'

  Le marquis Castan de Venelles : My friend, to be shipwrecked one must first set sail. Those who remain on the quay risk nothing. Furthermore, the love we saw earlier wasn't born of a glance, a dream, or a confession. Of course, the agitation you felt was no doubt an initial quivering of the flesh. But for love to have time to send down roots, you must have consented to what follows. For passion feeds on more concrete realities. When the baker spoke to us of his wife, it wasn't her soul he was describing.

  Le curé : It's true. It's true.

  Le marquis Castan de Venelles : In any case, I hope the baker's torment will inspire in you more indulgence toward us poor sinners. Perhaps it will help you understand that love isn't only pleasure.

• Le marquis Castan de Venelles : Put that broom down! How could you be so foolish? Take that broom and saw off the handle, and when she comes back, you can give her a good hiding and beat some virtue into her!

• Aimable Castanier : I've tidied up the bedroom and made the bed.

  Le marquis Castan de Venelles : Ah, I see. You're not a cuckold by chance. You're a cuckold by birth!

• Le marquis Castan de Venelles : What's your name?

  Aimable Castanier : Aimable Castanier.

  Le marquis Castan de Venelles : A charming name! The poet said, "Et mihi castaneae sunt molles, et pressi copia lactis." But that's irrelevant at the moment.

  Aimable Castanier : Glad to hear it.