VERONIKA
  Ah, yet could I laugh,
Piper, yet could I laugh, for one true word,—­
But not of all men.

PIPER
  Then of whom?

VERONIKA
  Of Kurt.

PIPER
Bah, Kurt the Councillor! a man to curse.

VERONIKA
He is my husband.

PIPER
[shortly]
  Thine?  I knew it not. 
Thine?  But it cannot be.  He could not father
That little Jan,—­that little shipwrecked Star.

VERONIKA
Oh, then you love him?  You will give him back?

PIPER
The son of Kurt?

VERONIKA
No, not his son!  No, no. 
He is all mine, all mine.  Kurt’s sons are straight,
And ruddy, like Kurt’s wife of Hamelin there,
Who died before.

PIPER
And you were wed. . .

VERONIKA
  So young,
It is all like some dream before the sunrise,
That left me but that little shipwrecked Star.

PIPER
Why did you marry Kurt the Councillor?

VERONIKA
[humbly]
He wanted me.  Once I was beautiful.

PIPER
[wonderingly]
What, more than now?

VERONIKA
  Mock if you will.

PIPER
  I mock you;
O Woman, . . . you are very beautiful.

VERONIKA
I meant, with my poor self, to buy him house
And warmth, and softness for his little feet. 
Oh, then I knew not,—­when we sell our hearts,
We buy us nothing.

PIPER
  Now you know.

VERONIKA
  I know. 
His dearest home it was, to keep my heart
Alone and beautiful, and clear and still;
And to keep all the gladness in my heart,
That bubbled from nowhere!—­for him to drink;—­
And to be houseless of all other things,
Even as the Lonely Man.
[The PIPER starts]
  Where is the child?

PIPER
No; that I will not tell.  Only thus much: 
I love thy child.  Trust me,—­I love them, all. 
They are the brightest miracle I know. 
Wherever I go, I search the eyes of men
To find such clearness;—­and it is not there. 
Lies, greed and cruelty, and dreadful dark! 
And all that makes Him sad these thousand years,
And keeps His forehead bleeding.—­Ah, you know!

VERONIKA
Whom do you think on?

PIPER
Why, the Lonely Man,—­
But now I have the children safe with me;
And men shall never teach them what men know;—­
Those radiant things that have no wish at all
Save for what is all-beautiful!—­the Rainbow,
The running Water, and the Moon, the Moon! 
The only things worth having!

VERONIKA
  —­Oh, you will not
Give him to me?

PIPER
  How give you yours again,
And not the others?  What a life for him!
[She hides her face]
And Kurt the Syndic, left without his sons? 
Bah, do not dream of it!  What would Kurt do?—­
And hearken here!  Should any hunt me down,
Take care.  Who then could bring the children back?