JULIAN
What?
IRENE
It was toward evening, and I had walked across the fields. I do it quite often, all by myself. Far and wide there was nobody to be seen. And the village down below was quite deserted, too. And I walked on and on, always in direction of the woods. And suddenly I was no longer alone. You were with me. And between us was the child. We were holding it by the hands—our little child. (Angrily, to keep herself from crying) It's too silly for anything! I know, of course, that our child would be a gawky youngster of twenty-three by now—that it might have turned into a scamp or a good-for-nothing girl. Or that it might be dead already. Or that it had drifted out into the wide world, so that we had nothing left of it—oh, yes, yes.... But we should have had it once, for all that—once there would have been a little child that seemed rather fond of us. And.... (She is unable to go on; silence follows)
JULIAN (softly)
You shouldn't talk yourself into such a state, Irene.
IRENE
I am not talking myself into anything.
JULIAN
Don't brood. Accept things as they are. There have been other things in your life—better things, perhaps. Your life has been much richer than that of a mere mother could ever have been.... You have been an artist.