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Page 87
STRANGER. Are you engaged to him?
DAUGHTER. No. Certainly not!
STRANGER. Do you want to marry?
DAUGHTER. Never!
STRANGER. I can see it by your mottled cheeks, like those of a
child that has got up too early; I can hear it by your voice,
that's no longer that of a warbler, but a jay; I can feel it in
your kisses, that burn cold like the sun in May; and by your steady
icy look that tells me you're nursing a secret of which you're
ashamed, but of which you'd like to boast. And your brothers and
sisters?
DAUGHTER. They're quite well, thank you.
STRANGER. Have we anything else to say to one another?
DAUGHTER (coldly). Perhaps not.
STRANGER. Now you look so like your mother.
DAUGHTER. How do you know, when you've never been able to see her
as she was!
STRANGER. So you understood that, though you were so young?
DAUGHTER. I learnt to understand it from you. If only you'd
understand yourself.
STRANGER. Have you anything else to teach me?
DAUGHTER. Perhaps! But in your day that wasn't considered seemly.
STRANGER. My day's over and exists no longer; just as Sylvia exists
no longer, but is merely a name, a memory. (He takes a guide-book
out of his pocket.) Look at this guide-book! Can you see small
marks made here by tiny fingers, and others by little damp lips?
You made them when you were five years old; you were sitting on my
knee in the train, and we saw the Alps for the first time. You
thought what you saw was Heaven; and when I explained that the
mountain was the Jungfrau, you asked if you could kiss the name in
the book.
DAUGHTER. I don't remember that!
STRANGER. Delightful memories pass, but hateful ones remain! Don't
you remember anything about me?
DAUGHTER. Oh yes.
STRANGER. Quiet! I know what you mean. One night ... one dreadful,
horrible night ... Sylvia, my child, when I shut my eyes I see a
pale little angel, who slept in my arms when she was ill; and who
thanked me when I gave her a present. Where is she whom I long for
so and who exists no more, although she isn't dead? You, as you
are, seem a stranger, whom I've never known and certainly don't
long to see again. If Sylvia at least were dead and lay in her
grave, there'd be a churchyard where I could take my flowers. ...
How strange it is! She's neither among the living, nor the dead.
Perhaps she never existed, and was only a dream like everything
else.
DAUGHTER (wheedling).Father, dear!
STRANGER. It's she! No, only her voice. (Pause.) So you think my
life's been ruined?
DAUGHTER. Yes. But why speak of it now?
STRANGER. Because remember I once saved _your_ life. You had brain
fever for a whole month and suffered a great deal. Your mother
wanted the doctor to deliver you from your unhappy existence by
some powerful drug. But I prevented it, and so saved you from death
and your mother from prison.
DAUGHTER. I don't believe it!
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