The Duponts flatter themselves that they have cheated the
Mairauts, the Mairauts that they have swindled the Duponts; while
Antonin deliberately simulates artistic tastes to deceive Julie, and
Julie as deliberately makes a show of business capacity in order to take
in Antonin. Every scene between father and daughter is balanced by a
corresponding scene between mother and son. Every touch of hypocrisy on
the one side is scrupulously set off against a trait of dishonesty on
the other. Julie's passion for children is emphasized, Antonin's
aversion from them is underlined. But lest he should be accused of
seeing everything in black, M. Brieux will not make the parents
altogether detestable. Still holding the balance true, he lets M.
Mairaut on the one side, and Madame Dupont on the other, develop amiable
impulses, and protest, at a given moment, against the infamies committed
and countenanced by their respective spouses. And in the second and
third acts, the edifice of deception symmetrically built up in the first
act is no less symmetrically demolished.
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