![]() ![]() The following is a passage from Act III of the play. All that is needed is for people to understand.” The Deputy is urged to infuse common sense into the Chamber of Deputies, so that the subject of this disease may be delivered from the conspiracy of silence and secrecy that surrounds it. The Deputy, after the manner of his kind, asserts that a law should be passed, but the doctor emphatically replies: “We want no new laws. He inquired as to his future son-in-law’s financial position, but he neglected to inquire into the most important matter of all-his health. ĭupont’s father-in-law agrees to a reconciliation, and is made to shoulder his share of responsibility. This the doctor refuses to grant, and takes up the attitude that a separation would be a calamity for all concerned. His daughter has fled to his bouse from her husband, and the Deputy calls on the doctor for a certificate which will provide grounds for a divorce. The Deputy Loches, Dupont’s father-in-law, who takes great interest in social questions, appears in act 3. Finally, the innocent wife learns from the nurse the nature of the baby’s illness, and realises the terrible result of her husband’s past conduct. There are protests from the relatives that the child will die if fed by hand. ![]() ![]() The doctor discovers that the child is suffering from hereditary disease, and in order to protect the nurse from contamination forbids it to be nursed any longer. The relatives are delighted, but suddenly the baby sickens, and is taken to the doctor whom Dupont consulted prior to his marriage. In act two the young couple are married, and there is a baby. The doctor explains the terrible consequences he may inflict on his intended wife and any children of the marriage, but is compelled to admit that such consequences may not arise.ĭupont clutches at this straw, and declares that he can postpone his marriage for six months, but no longer. Dupont will be a criminal to marry before three or four years have elapsed. Such circumstances do not weigh with him. The doctor retorts that he is a physician. There is property at stake, his relatives have a hand in the affair, and the circumstances are such that the marriage cannot be delayed for three or four years. Dupont retorts that he is to be married in a month, and that the engagement cannot be broken off. The doctor informs Dupont that it will take three or four years to cure him, and then he will be able to marry. The doctor explains that the case is not hopeless, that in fact a cure can be effected, and blames the secrecy which prevails with regard to the disease. Other men lead rackety lives and escape the evil effects, whereas he, as the result of a single transgression, is ruined and his whole life poisoned. George Dupont, a youthful notary in comfortable circumstances, is suffering from venereal disease, the result of “a wretched lark.” He explains to the doctor that he is not a rake, but has been unfortunate. The first act is laid in the consulting room of a Paris doctor. This is the synopsis of Damaged Goods, from the Liverpool Echo ( Liverpool, Lancashire, England) of Monday 19 th March 1917: In both the title and the description of Georges Dupont, Eugène Brieux uses nominally (i.e., as a noun) the adjective avarié, meaning (of food) gone off, rotten, and (of a ship) damaged - avarié is the past participle of the verb avarier, itself from the noun avarie, denoting damage caused to a ship or to its cargo. – In the original play, Georges Dupont, the young notary who suffers from syphilis, is described in the dramatis personae as L’Avarié. The literal translation of damaged goods into French is biens endommagés. John Hankin and John Pollock ( New York: Brentano’s, 1911). – The translation by John Pollock (1878-1963) of Les Avariés was first published in Three plays by Brieux member of the French Academy. The phrase came to specifically denote a person suffering from venereal disease, especially with reference to Damaged Goods (1911), the translation of Les Avariés (1901), a play by the French dramatist Eugène Brieux (1858-1932) about the dangers of ignorance concerning sexually transmitted infections. – figuratively: a person considered to be inadequate or deficient in some way-i n the past, when women were viewed as commodities to be evaluated in a commercial manner, the phrase especially referred to a woman’s loss of virginity. – literally: merchandise that has deteriorated in quality through unsaleability, exposure to the elements, etc. ![]()
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