everything to me for ten years--my whole life. You've been everything,
everything! And now the one hope left me is that I may forget you!

YANETTA. Oh, forgive me!

ETCHEPARE. Never! Never!

YANETTA. Don't say that word--only God has the right to say--never! I
will come back to you. I'll be only like the head servant--no, the
lowest if you like! I won't take my place in the home again until you
tell me to.

ETCHEPARE. We have no house; we have no home. Nothing is left now! And I
tell you again it's your fault--and it's because you used to be there,
in the mother's place, my mother's place, you, a lie and a
sacrilege--it's because of that that misfortune has overtaken us!

YANETTA. I swear to you I'd make you forget it all in time--I'd be so
humble, so devoted, so repentant. And wherever you go I shall follow
you. Pierre--think, your children still need me.

ETCHEPARE. My children! You shall never see them again! You shall never
speak to them. I won't have you kiss them. I won't have you even touch
them!

YANETTA [_changing her tone_] Ah, no, not that, not that! The children!
No, you are wrong there! You can deprive me of everything--you can put
every imaginable shame upon me--you can force me to beg my bread--I'll
do it willingly. You needn't look at me--you needn't speak to me except
to abuse me--you can do anything, anything you like. But my children, my
children--they are mine, the fruit of my body--they are still part of
me--they are blood of my blood and bone of my bone forever. You might
cut off one of my arms, and my arm would be a dead thing, and no part of
myself any more, but you can't stop my children being my children.

ETCHEPARE. You have made yourself unworthy to keep them.

YANETTA. Unworthy! What has unworthiness to do with it? Have I ever
failed in my duty to them? Have I been a bad mother? Answer me! I
haven't, have I? Well then, if I haven't been a bad mother, my rights
over them are as great as ever they were! Unworthy! I might be a
thousand times more guilty--more unworthy, as you call it--but neither
you, nor the law, nor the priests, nor God himself would have the right
to take them from me. I have been to blame as a wife, it's possible, but
as a mother I've nothing to reproach myself with. Well then--well
then--no one can steal them from me! And you, who could think of such a
thing, you're a wretch! Yes, it's to avenge yourself that you want to
part me from them! You're just a coward!