en as quietly as a mother can when she--

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Interrupting.] And you must not look at me while I am telling you.

IRENE.

[Moves to a stone behind his back.] I will sit here, behind you.--Now
tell me.

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Takes his hands from before his eyes and gazes straight in front of
him. When I had found you, I knew at once how I should make use of you
for my life-work.

IRENE.

"The Resurrection Day" you called your life-work.--I call it "our
child."

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

I was young then--with no knowledge of life. The Resurrection, I
thought, would be most beautifully and exquisitely figured as a young
unsullied woman--with none of our earth-life's experiences--awakening
to light and glory without having to put away from her anything ugly and
impure.

IRENE.

[Quickly.] Yes--and so I stand there now, in our work?

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Hesitating.] Not absolutely and entirely so, Irene.

IRENE.

[In rising excitement.] Not absolutely--? Do I not stand as I always
stood for you?

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Without answering.] I learned worldly wisdom in the years that
followed, Irene. "The Resurrection Day" became in my mind's eye
something more and something--something more complex. The little round
plinth on which your figure stood erect and solitary--it no longer
afforded room for all the imagery I now wanted to add--

IRENE.

[Groped for her knife, but desists.] What imagery did you add then? Tell
me!

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

I imagined that which I saw with my eyes around me in the world. I had
to include it--I could not help it, Irene. I expanded the plinth--made
it wide and spacious. And on it I placed a segment of the curving,
bursting earth. And up from the fissures of the soil there now swarm men
and women with dimly-suggested animal-faces. Women and men--as I knew
them in real life.

IRENE.

[In breathless suspense.] But in the middle of the rout there stands the
young woman radiant with the joy of light?--Do I not stand so, Arnold?

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

[Evasively.] Not quite in the middle. I had unfortunately to move
that figure a little back. For the sake of the general effect, you
understand. Otherwise it would have dominated the whole too much.

IRENE.

But the joy in the light still transfigures my face?

PROFESSOR RUBEK.

Yes, it does, Irene--in a way. A little subdued perhaps--as my altered
idea required.

IRENE.

[Rising