The Lonely Way-Intermezzo-Countess Mizzie Part 21

I think there must still be a few crackers left in my bag. (_He takes a small package out of his traveling bag_)

IRENE

Thanks. That's fine.

JULIAN

This is quite a new fancy of yours, however.

IRENE

Crackers...?

JULIAN

No, nature.

IRENE

How can you say so? I have always had a boundless love for nature.

Don't you recall the excursions we used to make? Don't you remember how once we fell asleep in the woods on a hot Summer afternoon? And don't you ever think of that shrine of the Holy Virgin, on the hill where we were caught by the storm?... Oh, mercy! Nature is no silly illusion.

And still later--when I struck the bad days and wanted to kill myself for your sake, fool that I was ... then nature simply proved my salvation. Indeed, Julian! I could still show you the place where I threw myself on the gra.s.s and wept. You have to walk ten minutes from the station, through an avenue of acacias, and then on to the brook.

Yes, I threw myself on the gra.s.s and wept and wailed. It was one of those days, you know, when you had again sent me packing from your door. Well, and then, when I had been lying half an hour in the gra.s.s, and had wept my fill, then I got up again--and began to scamper all over the meadow. Just like a kid, all by myself. Then I wiped my eyes and felt quite right again. (_Pause_) Of course, next morning I was at your door again, setting up a howl, and then the story began all over again.

[_It is growing dark._

JULIAN

Why do you still think of all that?

IRENE

But you do it, too. And who has proved the more stupid of us two in the end? Who? Ask yourself, on your conscience. Who?... Have you been more happy with anybody else than with me? Has anybody else clung to you as I did? Has anybody else been so fond of you?... No, I am sure. And as to that foolish affair into which I stumbled during my engagement abroad--you might just as well have overlooked it. Really, there isn't as much to that kind of thing as you men want to make out--when it happens to one of us, that is to say. (_Both drink of their tea_)

JULIAN

Should I get some light?

IRENE

It's quite cosy in the twilight like this.

JULIAN

"Not much to it," you say. Perhaps you are right. But when it happens to anybody, he gets pretty mad as a rule. And if we had made up again--it would never have been as before. It's better as it is. When the worst was over, we became good friends once more, and so we have been ever since. And that is a pretty fine thing, too.

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_)