oo.

IRENE

Yes. And nowadays I'm quite satisfied. But at that time...! Oh, mercy,
what a time that was! But you don't know anything about it, of course.
It was afterward I began really to love you--after I had lost you
through my own thoughtlessness. It was only then I learned how to be
faithful in the true sense. For anything that has happened to me since
then.... But it's asking too much that a man should understand that
kind of thing.

JULIAN

I understand quite well, Irene. You may be sure.

IRENE

And besides I want to tell you something: it was nothing but a
well-deserved punishment for both of us.

JULIAN

For both of us?

IRENE

Yes, that's what I have figured out long ago. A well-deserved
punishment.

JULIAN

For both of us?

IRENE

Yes, for you, too.

JULIAN

But what do you mean by that?

IRENE

We had deserved no better.

JULIAN

We...? In what way?

IRENE (_very seriously_)

You are so very clever otherwise, Julian. Now what do you say--do you
think it could have happened as it did--do you think I could have made
a mistake like that--if we--had had a child? Ask yourself on your
conscience, Julian--do you believe it? I don't, and you don't either.
Everything would have happened in a different way. Everything. We had
stayed together then. We had had _more_ children. We had married. We
might be living together now. I shouldn't have become an old-maidish
"young lady from the castle," and you wouldn't have become....

JULIAN

An old bachelor.

IRENE

Well, if you say it yourself. And the main thing is this: we _had_ a
child. I had a child. (_Pause_)

JULIAN (_walking back and forth_)

What's the use, Irene? Why do you begin to talk of all those forgotten
things again...?

IRENE

Forgotten?

JULIAN

... Things gone by.

IRENE

Yes, they are bygone, of course. But out there in the country you have
plenty of time. All sorts of things keep passing through your head. And
especially when you see other people's children--Lora has two boys, you
know--then you get all sorts of notions. It almost amounted to a vision
not long ago.

JULIAN

What?

IRENE

It was toward evening, and I had walked across the fields. I do it
quite often, all by myself. Far and wide there was nobody to be seen.
And the village down below was quite deserted, too. And I walked on and
on, always in direction of the woods. And suddenly I was no longer
alone. You were with me. And betwe