[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]

Yes, 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

[Both]

Yes, you must
Yes, I must