SALA
There is no question of payment in this. Your son has a mind for essentials, Julian. You have said so yourself. And he feels that to have done nothing for a man but to put him into the world, is to have done very little indeed.
JULIAN
Then, at least, everything must become as it was before he knew anything at all. Once more I shall become to him a human being like anybody else. Then he will not dare to leave me.... I cannot bear it. How have I deserved that he should run away from me?... And even if all that I have held for good and true within myself—even if, in the end, my very fondness for this young man, who is my son—should prove nothing but self-delusion—yet I love him now.... Do you understand me, Sala? I love him, and all I ask is that he may believe it before I must lose him forever....
[It grows dark. The two men pass across the terrace and enter the drawing-room. The stage stands empty a little while. In the meantime the wind has risen somewhat. Johanna enters by the avenue of trees from the right and goes past the pool toward the terrace. The windows of the drawing-room are illumined. Sala has seated himself at a table. The valet enters the room and serves him a glass of wine. Johanna stops. She is apparently much excited. Then she ascends two of the steps to the terrace. Sala seems to hear a noise and turns his head slightly. When she sees this, Johanna hurries down again and stops beside the pool. There she stands looking down into the water.
CURTAIN
THE FIFTH ACT
The garden at the Wegrats'.
REUMANN (sits at a small table and writes something in his notebook)