JULIA.  Who was it?

[JEAN remains silent.]

JULIA.  Who was it?

JEAN.  You cannot make me tell you.

JULIA.  If I ask you as an equal, ask you as—­a friend:  who was it?

JEAN.  It was you.

JULIA. [Sits down] How funny!

JEAN.  Yes, as you say—­it was ludicrous.  That was the story, you see, which I didn’t want to tell you a while ago.  But now I am going to tell it.  Do you know how the world looks from below—­no, you don’t.  No more than do hawks and falcons, of whom we never see the back because they are always floating about high up in the sky.  I lived in the cotter’s hovel, together with seven other children, and a pig—­out there on the grey plain, where there isn’t a single tree.  But from our windows I could see the wall around the count’s park, and apple-trees above it.  That was the Garden of Eden, and many fierce angels were guarding it with flaming swords.  Nevertheless I and some other boys found our way to the Tree of Life—­now you despise me?

JULIA.  Oh, stealing apples is something all boys do.

JEAN.  You may say so now, but you despise me nevertheless.  However—–­ once I got into the Garden of Eden with my mother to weed the onion beds.  Near by stood a Turkish pavillion, shaded by trees and covered with honeysuckle.  I didn’t know what it was used for, but I had never seen a more beautiful building.  People went in and came out again, and one day the door was left wide open.  I stole up and saw the walls covered with pictures of kings and emperors, and the windows were hung with red, fringed curtains—­now you know what I mean.  I—­[breaks off a lilac sprig and holds it under MISS JULIA’s nose]—­I had never been inside the manor, and I had never seen anything but the church—­and this was much finer.  No matter where my thoughts ran, they returned always—­to that place.  And gradually a longing arose within me to taste the full pleasure of—­enfin!  I sneaked in, looked and admired.  Then I heard somebody coming.  There was only one way out for fine people, but for me there was another, and I could do nothing else but choose it.

[JULIA, who has taken the lilac sprig, lets it drop on the table.]

JEAN.  Then I started to run, plunged through a hedge of raspberry bushes, chased right across a strawberry plantation, and came out on the terrace where the roses grow.  There I caught sight of a pink dress and pair of white stockings—­that was you!  I crawled under a pile of weeds—­right into it, you know—­into stinging thistles and wet, ill-smelling dirt.  And I saw you walking among the roses, and I thought:  if it be possible for a robber to get into heaven and dwell with the angels, then it is strange that a cotter’s child, here on God’s own earth, cannot get into the park and play with the count’s daughter.

JULIA. [Sentimentally] Do you think all poor children have the same thoughts as you had in this case?