Ethel... the sun is setting. Look at
the sky! And it's the last day of the month, isn't it?

ETHEL. Yes.

OCEANA. If father had been here we should have sat us down to one of our
services! Look here. [She goes to trunk, and takes out a human skull.]
Ah, old friend!

ETHEL. [Shocked.] Oceana!

OCEANA. He came from the Marquesas, I think. And here's where he was hit
with the spear. You see? Sit down. [She places the skull before her.]
See, Ethel--he used to smile. And now and then he had the toothache...
see that? He took himself very seriously; he was all wrapped up in
the things that went on in this little cracked skull. But he lacked
imagination. He never foresaw that somebody would carry him off to the
New Hampshire mountains, and make him the text for a Hamlet soliloquy.
Alas, poor Yorick! He did not know that he was immortal, you see;
that life proceeded from him... unrolling itself for generation after
generation without end; that all that he did would be perpetuated...
that where he sinned we would suffer, and where he fought we would be
strong. He did not know that he was the creator, the mystic fountain of
an unexplored stream... the maker of an endless future... [She stops;
a spasm of pain crosses her face.] Oh, Ethel! [Clasps her hand.] It is
terrible to die young, is it not?

ETHEL. Yes.

OCEANA. Then how much worse is it to die before you are born! To be
strangled in the idea... to be stifled by a cowardly thought!

ETHEL. What do you mean?

OCEANA. Oh, Ethel, stay by me, will you? Promise me you will stay by me.

ETHEL. I will!

OCEANA. I'm frightened, Ethel... frightened at myself. I've done
wrong... I've committed a crime! I ought not to have let him go! I ought
not to have let him go!

ETHEL. Henry?

OCEANA. No, we mustn't speak of him again. I can't bear to hear his
name. I have failed... I have failed. I've been crushed by civilization!
[Starts up.] But there's my island! There's the white beach, shining
in the moonlight, and the great breakers rolling in, and the palm trees
rustling in the wind. Let us go together... to my island! Let us go back
and get healed, before we try to face this world again!

[CURTAIN]

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Naturewoman, by Upton Sinclair

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