What game do we play?
Do we play?
Haven’t we decided it before?
Do you mean this morning?
Are you sure it wasn’t this afternoon?
Did the breakfast seem so heavy to you?
Had you a bad digestion, like me?
What do you think about the brioches?
Was it chantilly cream the one that overflowed?
Would have you preferred if it was chocolate?
Doesn’t that pleasure inflame you?
How do you heal that smart?
Have you ever felt such a severe pain?
Do you want to try with a butt on your nose?
Since when are you so violent?
Since when are you so idiot?
Did your cat die?
Would you lie if you say that weren’t you to kill it?
Are you completely paranoid?
What does it mean?
Don’t you know the word?
Are you saying I’m ignorant?
Do you to want to come to blows with me?
Why should I dare it?
Don’t you continue to provoke?
Don’t you think you are exceeding?
What do you think to make peace?
Do you ask it to me?
Do you accept?
Is there a contemptible trick hidden in this proposal?
Could I ever, with such a face?
Have you made it up this morning?
Are you saying that because you can perhaps see that?
Is it not eyeliner the one that is trickling?
Haven’t you ever been in love?
And do you ask it to me?
Don’t you understand?
Have you just cried for somebody?
Haven’t you ever suffered for a man?
And haven’t you ever bled for a woman?
Aren’t we on the whole so similar?
Besides the fact that we love to take a walk in the woods?
Do you know that you are pleasant?
Now, do you want to flatter me?
Why do you blush suddenly and become speechless?
Don’t you guess it?
Then, can I dare to say “we are friends”?
You held me spellbound with your words…
Affirmation! Cheated! One to zero. Well. What hard work, damn and blast! You are really good at this game!
Which game?
Weren’t we playing to Question against Question?
What do you want to say?
Do you tease me?
What are you talking about?
Wasn’t this the game in which you cannot answer except with another pertinent question that is not a repetition, a synonym and that does not come after a long hesitation?
Was this the skirmish?
Did you think it was love?
Wasn’t this the matter?
Do you really think I’m an invert?
Aren’t you?
Do you want to be offensive to me?
What do you say, then, of the make-up around your eyes?
Do you forget that I am also an actor?
Do you have a mirror to look at yourself?
For which reason?
Do you ever turn your eyes away from me?
Can’t I look what I want?
What would you say of somebody effeminate as you?
Who ventures to say I’m a silly woman?
Do you take offence for such a slight remark?
Don’t you have any other subjects?
Why do you avoid exactly this one?
Because after all I have been perhaps a bit nasty with you… I should apologize.
Affirmation! One to one, my friend! Really a beautiful game. Do you like it?

(The End?)

The DUEL OF QUESTIONS is a brilliant literary invention, included by the English playwright Tom Stoppard in his memorable Rosencrantz and Guildestern are dead. He also took it to the big screen with Tim Roth, Gary Oldman and Richard Dreyfuss as interpreters, and it was prized in Venice with the Gold Lion in 1990.

The duel in the film takes place in a pallacorda court, but if you want you can easily reproduce it sitting on a writing-desk or on a sofa. You play one against the other, with these simple rules:

1. The two players take turns in talking, parsing a conversation;

2. At her/his turn, the player must throw back to the sentence of the opponent – that is a question – with another appropriate question;

3. Rhetoric questions, (substantial) repetitions of question already posed, nonsense sentences and affirmations are not valid.

Each error of your opponent is worth one point: you have to decide the length of the game, particularly since it is really tiring.
(DDG)