**********

MARGARET
Mon Dieu, c'était bon. C'est vous que c'était bon. All the time I wasted collecting stamps. Oh, God. Si j'avais lu plus de livres érotiques français, j'aurais plus m'exprimé plus clairement.

EDWARD
Je suis d'accord. You can always try to speak in English.

MARGARET
You speak English.

EDWARD
I am English.

MARGARET
You're supposed to be French. I had this plan, you've ruined it.

EDWARD
Why? What's wrong for being English?

MARGARET
Oh...

EDWARD
Cary Grant was English. Oh God! I hadn't believed in love at first sight.

MARGARET
I just lost my virginity, not my mind.

EDWARD
You know it's a long shot.

MARGARET
Insanity runs in my family.

EDWARD
I'm too old for you.

MARGARET
Who cares if our minds meet.

EDWARD
We'll fight everyday.

MARGARET
Make up every night.

EDWARD
I'll leave you over and over.

MARGARET
I'll form a club and beat you with it.

EDWARD
We will always have Paris.

MARGARET
Ah...

EDWARD
Seven years.

MARGARET
Seven years.

EDWARD
It's practically heroic.

MARGARET
They should do a piece about us in the Times.

EDWARD
Ah, to have used up the best years in a young woman's life.

MARGARET
Give me a kiss. There's no reason not to. This is a cab. We could go see a movie instead. There's a retrospective on that director.

EDWARD
Which one?

MARGARET
That French one you loved so much. You said that phrase I can't even remember. Please.

EDWARD
You'll be fine.

MARGARET
No, I won't. You're aging.

EDWARD
You're helping.

MARGARET
You can tell them I was dead that you give it to me posthumously.

EDWARD
The conventional response is to be happy that they're giving you an award.

MARGARET
Since when have we become conventional?

EDWARD
Margaret! Margaret!

MARGARET
I have a beehive in my stomach.

EDWARD
You are just overwrought.

MARGARET
And you are over-bearing.

EDWARD
I think you should try to get out more. You're becoming eccentric. Evening. Colic. No, no, no. No biting.

MARGARET
I've a constant fear for casual conversation. I want to be witty and wise, but how can I be when every fact I have ever known.

EDWARD
Some people are wise and some otherwise. Try smart. No, bad memory is a virtue. You'll come with anything fresh.

MARGARET
Or anything stupid.

EDWARD
Come on.

MARGARET
Bye!

ART
There she is. There's my little discovery. Open, simple, lacking all affectation.

MARGARET
Hi Art.

EDWARD
Hi.

ART
Nineteen weeks in the best seller's list and still carrying your genius so modestly. One might suspect that it was not there at all. I'm so proud of you.

MARGARET
Oh, I just love the way you thrust greatness so well, just as if you've discovered some new continent or for climbing your flag. How's your book coming, Art? Finished it yet?

EDWARD
I don't know what happens to Margaret in elevators. I think-- I think the blood just rushes to her head. That's what I love about you.

MARGARET
What? What do you love?

EDWARD
How sincere you are in your petulance.

MARGARET
I don't want him to be proud of me. He is a monster. He is a vampire. He knows the secret of other people's vanity. He uses it to pop up his own ego. He is this-- He is this--

EDWARD
He is your brother in law.

RICHARD
Thank God. Why the shroud?

EDWARD
Seventh wedding anniversary.

RICHARD
You're not marriage in bond.

RICHARD
You, go mingle, and  let me take care our guest-of-honour.

MARGARET
Oh, can't I stay with Edward, please.

RICHARD
No no no. Tonight is not about Edward.

**********

RICHARD
If Whitman was gay we should claim him our crane, Henry James the whole damn literary closet.

EDWARD
They are all stray dogs. What happens if they want to be judged by what they wrote rather than whom they fucked.

**********

MARGARET
Do you ever get tired of all the stuffy academics we hang around with?

EDWARD
No. You?

MARGARET
Yes. I mean no. No. I don't. I like stuffy academics. That's why I married you. I never know what Lily's talking about though.

EDWARD
Neither did she. You wouldn't exactly call Lily stuffy though, would you?

MARGARET
She is such a pretentious sex-pot fraud. There's something sweet about her.

EDWARD
Hmm. Like a overripe fruit. She always looks as if she's just been fucked.

MARGARET
No, with Lily, she probably has.

EDWARD
Hmm. Now he will get to watch us have sex.

MARGARET
We do? This isn't right.

EDWARD
What?

MARGARET
This.

EDWARD
What this?

MARGARET
This.

EDWARD
What do you mean?

MARGARET
This department, husband, career. Besides, I'm so young. All except my future's behind me.

EDWARD
This. All this. You, Margaret, are all that I need. I exist as I am --that is enough; if no other in the world be aware, I sit content; and if each and all be aware, I sit content.

MARGARET
Why do you always have to sound like a college professor?

EDWARD
That's what I am.

MARGARET
But you're not mine if you go quoting Wordsworth.

EDWARD
Whitman.

MARGARET
Whitman to your students. I am not interested to what Walt Whitman has to say on that matter. He's dead. I am not.

EDWARD
Margaret, please. Save something insanity for menopause.

MARGARET
Divorce lawyers should be on call like doctors.

EDWARD
Twelve o'clock at night is a pretty rotten time to start our lives all over again, don't you think? Come on. It's late and I'm tired. Just come to bed, please.

MARGARET
I'm just cranky.

EDWARD
I say. What's the matter with you?

MARGARET
Tonight was one of the biggest nights of my life and I don't think I enjoyed it. Any of it.

EDWARD
Oh, with your memory, you won't remember it very long. Come here.

**********

EDWARD
Existentialistic declare they are in complete despair, yet go on writing. That is--

SARAH
W. H. Auden.

ART
Edward -- Professor Nathan -- has a rather peculiar fondness for homosexual verse. Too much time spent in those English boarding schools.

EDWARD
Verse for homosexuality?

SARAH
I like Whitman myself.

ART
Oh, how convenient considering that would be what the good professor will be teaching this semester.

SARAH
A drunken, homosexual, American genius. A cliché. 

EDWARD
I got to be going. Night.

SARAH
Bye bye.

EDWARD
I suppose I'll be seeing you in class.

SARAH
Absolutely.

ART
Night. Night.

EDWARD
Night, Art. Bye.

**********

MARGARET
Is it morning already?

EDWARD
I just had some drinks with my students. Just love me.

MARGARET
No!

EDWARD
What?

MARGARET
I have the worst tooth-ache.

**********

EDWARD
So soon? You're really going so soon? Can I come? No, I can't.

MARGARET
Your students.

EDWARD
Eh-hem. Don't look for trouble when there isn't any, 'cause if you don't find it, you end up creating it. You just have to experience liberty, egality and fraternity without me.

ART
Hi!

EDWARD
Hi!

ART
Has the little woman packed for tomorrow?

EDWARD
It's an ongoing process as usual.

ART
Look who I bumped into in the elevators.

EDWARD
Sarah!

SARAH
How are you?

EDWARD
I am glad he bumped into you.

**********

EDWARD
Lend me an ear I implore you, this comes from my heart. I will always adore you till death do us part. She said yes. Americans love that stuff.

**********

MARGARET
I sit at home at my desk alone as I use to do on my Sunday afternoons. When you came back to me your arms ached for me and your arms would close me in. Edward Nathan?

EDWARD
No. Erica Jong.

MARGARET
You could just say goodbye.

EDWARD
OK. Go. Go on. You'll be late. Uh, JFK. And if she says she knows a shortcut, don't believe her. Or you'll end up in Connecticut.

MARGARET
Don't let any of the students up.

EDWARD
I've already paid for his silence. Got everything you need? Yeah? Diary? Laptop? No, of course not. I'll go and get them.

**********

EDWARD
Hi. What's this?

TILL
Food.

ART
Very exclusive food.

EDWARD
Thank you. Aren't you two suppose to be in Lily's housewarming?

ART
Aren't you?

TILL
We were but-- the beer was warm, the winds were cold and I was bored, weren't you honey?

ART
She's checking up on you.

TILL
I am not.

ART
And who can blame her? She's married to the villain of every pop song ever written.

TILL
We just thought you might like some company.

EDWARD
That's nice. Yeah?

SARAH
Hi. I thought you maybe lonely.

EDWARD
Hi Sarah.

SARAH
Oh, hi.

EDWARD
Every time I open that door someone seems to come in.

**********

EDWARD
I fell in love with New York when I first read Manhattan Transfer when I was a teenager. I decided then that was the place where I wanted to grow old. I'm not sure what I'm doing.

SARAH
Forty is not old.

EDWARD
Thank you Sarah. I'm not actually forty yet. Not quite yet. Though at least not approaching in the speed that Michael Johnson would envy.

SARAH
OK, so you're not forty. But even if you were, it's not old. It's a prime of life. Mid-life in fact. Sometimes I wish I was forty.

EDWARD
You will be. And I'm sure you will be wonderful. I suppose it was meeting Margaret really that clinched the deal both legally and emotionally. Hmm. We married and I came here to teach. Manhattan. A million people. Man--

SARAH
Manners free and superb.

EDWARD
That's right. You really know your Whitman, don't you? I haven't talked about the paper yet.

SARAH
We will.

**********

EDWARD
Oh, come on Margaret, don't be so naive! Who do you think know about Art's peccadilloes? All of Upper New York and most of Lower Manhattan?

MARGARET
What is all Upper New York and most of Lower Manhattan know about you?

EDWARD
That I missed my wife while she was away.

MARGARET
Didn't your Whitman groupies keep you company? I tried to call you but you're never home.

EDWARD
Yeah. Well, I had a busy week. A controversial we get through. The Board tried to deny tenure to a professor who's having an affair with one of his students. He's married. So I spoke on his behalf.

MARGARET
You did?

EDWARD
Eh-hem. We are always so f**king moral about it, so I told them my theory of adultery.

MARGARET
What theory of adultery?

EDWARD
That with monogamy comes the end of illusion. If a man has one mate for life then how come superior males perpetuate their superiority and adultery, the saviour of evolution? Get it? Honey, swans mate for life and look how bad temper they are.

MARGARET
What about the females? The superior females?

EDWARD
Ah, they get to enjoy another variety.

MARGARET
What would you do if I had an affair?

EDWARD
Hmm?

MARGARET
What would you do if I had an affair?

EDWARD
Tell you to stop. I was not talking about us. Not being in love with you, I can't remember what it's like. It must have been lousy. That's James Schuyler.

MARGARET
Why do you always have to quote other people? Don't you have anything to say for yourself?

**********

[Note: In US version, this scene below  is placed earlier in the movie, after the scene when Edward & Margaret comes home from the award party.]

EDWARD
Can't find your thumb?

MARGARET
It's been for hours, I haven't written a thing. It's really hard trying to follow the best seller.

EDWARD
I wouldn't know.

MARGARET
I'm sorry-- and about yesterday.

EDWARD
What am I going to do with you?

MARGARET
Something dirty.

EDWARD
No, no. Not now. I can't. It's the last day of the winter seminar, I can't be late.

MARGARET
Can't neglect your students, only me.

EDWARD
Tonight. I've to be late though, because after the reading I'll have to go to the village. Shall you come?

MARGARET
There's a book I really have to write in the apartment.

**********

EDWARD
When I was at the university, I was voted 'Man Most Single'.

SARAH
I like that. 'Man Most Single'.

EDWARD
What are you going to do? Publish me?

SARAH
Amongst other things.

MARGARET
Aaaaaaaaah!

EDWARD
Margaret!

SARAH
Mrs. Nathan!

**********

MARTIN
Oh, hi! Martin Court.

EDWARD
Edward Nathan.

MARTIN
Hi. I'm a friend of Margaret. From the château.

EDWARD
A husband of Margaret. In her apartment.

MARGARET
Drink? Wine?

MARTIN
Scotch.

EDWARD
Sit?

RICHARD
So, is Edward fighting for your honour?

MARGARET
No. English pussy.

EDWARD
Strange that you met your new chum at the château and didn't tell me.

MARGARET
I forgot. But that day at the library--

EDWARD
Not as eventful as yours? It was perfectly innocent, Margaret.

MARGARET
I have eyes, Edward. I can see.

EDWARD
Whom you gonna believe? Your eyes or me? Didn't you offer your friend a drink?

MARGARET
I offered him wine, but we ran out of scotch so I'm making him tea.

RICHARD
Margaret? Margaret? Margaret? Margaret? Ah, total psychotic break-down.

EDWARD
Are you free to supper?

MARTIN
Oh no no.

EDWARD
Of course you are free to supper. Between you and me: Margaret has been out of sorts since she got back from the château. Now it's spring but she comes through the door like a blast of winter, the sun pales, grey winds howl, leaves shrivel on the trees. I was thinking of buying her a puppy, but now you're here. Margaret, we're taking Martin out to supper.

MARGARET
Great!

RICHARD
What the hell is going on?

EDWARD
A la tienne!

MARGARET
Edward just asked my lover to have dinner with us.

RICHARD
Ah. He's not your lover.

MARGARET
That will be doing my husband, in fact. Eating tonight together in a restaurant.

MARTIN
This is really something. I love to be here. I love New York. The Big Apple. Every night is Saturday night.

EDWARD
Yeah. Chaos everywhere.

MARGARET
Chaos comes from a gun.

EDWARD
So everybody's fine. Is fine. I'm fine. We've never been here since we first married.

MARGARET
Well the food was never any good.

EDWARD
Seven years. Seven faithful years. Sounds awful, doesn't it? But it's true.

MARGARET
The awful truth.

EDWARD
I sometimes think that marriage is a bit like a ski-jump. It's sudden, it's swift, it's reckless, so leap into the void. You married, Martin?

MARTIN
Divorced. My mother always said that marriages are made in heaven but very few got back to the factory.

EDWARD
Yeah. But, um, divorce is such a big thing, isn't it? Whereas marriage, as you say, is a sacred institution. You can't run from love.

MARGARET
Are you free tomorrow, Martin? I'd love to take you sight-seeing, like in France.

MARTIN
Margaret was a perfect guide. She showed me so many things I'd never seen before. I mean many buildings.

EDWARD
Did Margaret ever tell you that we met in France?

MARTIN
No. She hardly mentioned you.

MARGARET
You're so hard enough as it is, honey. I did not want to do you justice. Edward has this wonderful British spirit. Makes you wonder why they lost in the war of independence.

**********

EDWARD
Margaret!

RICHARD'S BOYFRIEND
Hi.

EDWARD
Hi.

RICHARD'S BOYFRIEND
She's not here. 

RICHARD
She went out.

EDWARD
Where?

RICHARD
She didn't know.

EDWARD
Now someone not knowing where they are going? Martin and Margaret?

RICHARD
I really don't want to get involved.

EDWARD
You are involved, Richard!

**********

ART
Look, marriage is like a movie. If it's great, you stick with it. If it sucks, you walk out.

EDWARD
Really?

ART
It's a game, man. OK, every now and then, go out, get some popcorn, get some candy, come back and see if it gets any better, but--

EDWARD
Do you get any action on your personal ads?

ART
Zip. I gotta go drink the dragon.

**********

EDWARD
Lend me an ear I implore you, this comes from my heart. I will always adore you till death do us part.

MARGARET
How did I know I would be so vulnerable to poetry-- and you?

SARAH
I know what you're thinking.

EDWARD
No, you don't.

SARAH
I do. It's about every semester, isn't it? It's what's wrong with what this is, Edward?

EDWARD
Sarah.

SARAH
Am I willing enough? Able enough? For Christ's sake, I must be young enough.

EDWARD
Sarah, I'm not just a married man. I'm still in love with my wife.

SARAH
She left you.

EDWARD
Which should be a pretty good indication that I'm not worth all this trouble. City College is a big place. There's plenty of other opportunity for higher learning.

SARAH
F**k you.

EDWARD
I won't be seeing you next time.

SARAH
I'm not going anywhere.

EDWARD
I am.

**********

MARGARET
I'm a woman. I can take care of myself. Edward? Irreconcilable differences? That's rich. What happened to adultery?

EDWARD
I did not sleep with Sarah from Brighton any more than you slept with Martin. Did you?

MARGARET
I'll sign this right away. So you can head straight back.

EDWARD
The roads are treacherous at night.

MARGARET
It's afternoon.

EDWARD
I'm a slow driver.

MARGARET
Isn't it bad luck for the groom to see the bride the night before the divorce?

EDWARD
I can't sleep. Richard gave me your manuscript. It's great.

MARGARET
Thank you.

EDWARD
It's really funny. I quit City. I'm taking a year off.

MARGARET
Why did you leave?

EDWARD
I ask you the same question.

MARGARET
I asked you first.

EDWARD
Well, like I said, I'm stuck. For the first time in my life I really don't know what to do. My days have no shape, nights have no end. I'm nothing without you and I always will be till the end of my life, which is--which is kind of what it feels right now. God, I really don't know how to say any of this. All I know is that seven years ago I took a teaching job at city solely to be with you and somewhere along the line I seemed to have forgotten that. I don't care what's happened, I'm still in love with you. You married me once.

MARGARET
I did not know you then.

EDWARD
The man you married is still here.

MARGARET
The girl you married isn't.

EDWARD
I'm so proud of you. I'm really proud of you. I'm proud of what you've achieved without me. I'm proud of you not just because you're my wife. I wish I could have told you sooner, but now I've lost you.

MARGARET
No, no. I woke up one morning and I realized that I've spent a quarter of my life married to you and everything that I knew came from in here. I had to find out a few things for myself.

EDWARD
I know.

MARGARET
On my own.

EDWARD
So, you like being on your own?

MARGARET
I haven't signed the papers, have I?

EDWARD
How does your story end?

MARGARET
I'm not sure.

**********

EDWARD
I think only fair to warn you that as a child I used to get sick if I sat in the passenger seat.

MARGARET
Good thing you got over it.

EDWARD
Who said I did?

MARGARET
You're confused, aren't you?

EDWARD
Didn't we have this already?

MARGARET
We didn't have this. What we had was this. But it was different because we were the same as we'd always been. The makers of the diary are different because I was different but you weren't. And that's why I thought things could never be the same again. But now you're different, too and since we're both different even though this feels the same, it's different.

EDWARD
Better.

MARGARET
Better. Better.

**********

The making of this transcript is based on UK version.
Adapted by Brian Skeet, based on 1993 novel "Rameau's Niece" by Cathleen Schine.
Thanks to Anto for her kind contribution in this transcript.