Henriette.  Why must you go?

Adolphe.  And you ask that?  Do you want me to tell you?

Henriette.  No, I don’t.

Adolphe.  Good-by then! [Goes out.]

Maurice.  The Fall:  and lo! “they knew that they were naked.”

Henriette.  What a difference between this scene and the one we imagined!  He is better than we.

Maurice.  It seems to me now as if all the rest were better than we.

Henriette.  Do you see that the sun has vanished behind clouds, and that the woods have lost their rose colour?

Maurice.  Yes, I see, and the blue lake has turned black.  Let us flee to some place where the sky is always blue and the trees are always green.

Henriette.  Yes, let us—­but without any farewells.

Maurice.  No, with farewells.

Henriette.  We were to fly.  You spoke of wings—­and your feet are of lead.  I am not jealous, but if you go to say farewell and get two pairs of arms around your neck—­then you can’t tear yourself away.

Maurice.  Perhaps you are right, but only one pair of little arms is needed to hold me fast.

Henriette.  It is the child that holds you then, and not the woman?

Maurice.  It is the child.

Henriette.  The child!  Another woman’s child!  And for the sake of it I am to suffer.  Why must that child block the way where I want to pass, and must pass?

Maurice.  Yes, why?  It would be better if it had never existed.

Henriette. [Walks excitedly back and forth] Indeed!  But now it does exist.  Like a rock on the road, a rock set firmly in the ground, immovable, so that it upsets the carriage.

Maurice.  The triumphal chariot!—­The ass is driven to death, but the rock remains.  Curse it! [Pause.]

Henriette.  There is nothing to do.

Maurice.  Yes, we must get married, and then our child will make us forget the other one.

Henriette.  This will kill this!

Maurice.  Kill!  What kind of word is that?

Henriette. [Changing tone] Your child will kill our love.

Maurice.  No, girl, our love will kill whatever stands in its way, but it will not be killed.

Henriette. [Opens a deck of cards lying on the mantlepiece] Look at it!  Five-spot of diamonds—­the scaffold!  Can it be possible that our fates are determined in advance?  That our thoughts are guided as if through pipes to the spot for which they are bound, without chance for us to stop them?  But I don’t want it, I don’t want it!—­Do you realise that I must go to the scaffold if my crime should be discovered?

Maurice.  Tell me about your crime.  Now is the time for it.