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 grass 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 grass 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 grass, 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)