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