om
the dead?

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

Our love is assuredly not dead, Irene.

IRENE.

The love that belongs to the life of earth--the beautiful, miraculous
earth-life--the inscrutable earth-life--that is dead in both of us.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Passionately.] And do you know that just that love--it is burning and
seething in me as hotly as ever before?

IRENE.

And I? Have you forgotten who I now am?

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

Be who or what you please, for aught I care! For me, you are the woman I
see in my dreams of you.

IRENE.

I have stood on the turn-table-naked--and made a show of myself to many
hundreds of men--after you.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

It was I that drove you to the turn-table--blind as I then was--I, who
placed the dead clay-image above the happiness of life--of love.

IRENE.

[Looking down.] Too late--too late!

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

Not by a hairsbreadth has all that has passed in the interval lowered
you in my eyes.

IRENE.

[With head erect.] Nor in my own!

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

Well, what then! Then we are free--and there is still time for us to
live our life, Irene.

IRENE.

[Looks sadly at him.] The desire for life is dead in me, Arnold. Now I
have arisen. And I look for you. And I find you.--And then I see that
you and life lie dead--as I have lain.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

Oh, how utterly you are astray! Both in us and around us life is
fermenting and throbbing as fiercely as ever!

IRENE.

[Smiling and shaking her head.] The young woman of your Resurrection Day
can see all life lying on its bier.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Throwing his arms violently around her.] Then let two of the dead--us
two--for once live life to its uttermost--before we go down to our
graves again!

IRENE.

[With a shriek.] Arnold!

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

But not here in the half darkness! Not here with this hideous dank
shroud flapping around us--

IRENE.

[Carried away by passion.] No, no--up in the light, and in all the
glittering glory! Up to the Peak of Promise!

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

There we will hold our marriage-feast, Irene--oh, my beloved!

IRENE.

[Proudly.] The sun may freely look on us, Arnold.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

All the powers of light may freely look on us--and all the powers
of darkness too. [Seizes her hand.] Will you then follow me, oh my
grace-given bride?

IRENE.

[As though transfigured.] I follow you, freely and gladly, my lord and