MAURICE. Yes, why? It would be better if it had never existed.
HENRIETTE. [Walks excitedly back and forth] Indeed! But now it does exist. Like a rock on the road, a rock set firmly in the ground, immovable, so that it upsets the carriage.
MAURICE. The triumphal chariot!—The ass is driven to death, but the rock remains. Curse it! [Pause.]
HENRIETTE. There is nothing to do.
MAURICE. Yes, we must get married, and then our child will make us forget the other one.
HENRIETTE. This will kill this!
MAURICE. Kill! What kind of word is that?
HENRIETTE. [Changing tone] Your child will kill our love.
MAURICE. No, girl, our love will kill whatever stands in its way, but it will not be killed.
HENRIETTE. [Opens a deck of cards lying on the mantlepiece] Look at it! Five-spot of diamonds—the scaffold! Can it be possible that our fates are determined in advance? That our thoughts are guided as if through pipes to the spot for which they are bound, without chance for us to stop them? But I don't want it, I don't want it!—Do you realise that I must go to the scaffold if my crime should be discovered?