icity. Then you think it depends on the wife?

Leon.--Yes, it does.

Jadwiga.--_Morbleu!_ as my husband says, and if the wife is weary?

Leon.--I bid you good-bye.

Jadwiga.--Why? Does what I say offend you?

Leon.--It does more than offend me. It hurts me. Maybe it will
seem strange to you, but here in my breast I am carrying some
flowers--although they are withered--dead for a long time. But they
are dear to me and just now you are trampling on them.

Jadwiga (with an outburst).--Oh, if those flowers had not died!

Leon.--They are in my heart--and there is a tomb. Let us leave the
past alone.

Jadwiga.--Yes, you are right. Leave it alone. What is dead cannot
be resuscitated. I wish to speak calmly. Look at my situation. What
defends me--what helps me--what protects me? I am a young woman, and
it seems not ugly, and therefore no one approaches me with an honest,
simple heart, but with a trap in eyes and mouth. What opposition have
I to make? Weariness? Grief? Emptiness? In life even a man must lean
on something, and I, a feeble woman, I am like a boat without a helm,
without oar and without light toward which to sail. And the heart
longs for happiness. You must understand that a woman must be loved
and must love some one in the world, and if she lacks true love she
seizes the first pretext of it--the first shadow.

Leon (with animation).--Poor thing.

Jadwiga.--Do not smile in that ironical way. Be better, be less severe
with me. I do not even have any one to complain, and that is why I do
not drive away Count Skorzewski. I detest his beauty, I despise his
perverse mind, but I do not drive him away because he is a skilful
actor, and because when I see his acting it awakens in me the echo of
former days. (After a while.) How shall I fill my life? Study? Art?
Even if I loved them, they would not love me for they are not
living things. No, truly now! They showed me no duties, no aims, no
foundations. Everything on which other women live--everything which
constitutes their happiness, sincere sorrow, strength, tears, and
smiles, is barred from me. Morally I have nothing to live on--like a
beggar. I have no one to live for--like an orphan. I am not permitted
to yearn for a noble and quiet life; I may only nurture myself with
grief and defend myself with faded, dead flowers, and remembrances
of former pure, honest, and loving Jadwinia. Ah! again I break my
promise, our agreement. I must beg your pardon.

Leon.--