PRESIDENT. You did not want your child to come into the world?
LUCIE. I didn’t want it to.
PRESIDENT. Why?
LUCIE. Out of pity for him. I knew what sort of a life he would have, and I risked my own to save him from it. I acted like a good mother.
PRESIDENT. What you say is simply monstrous. [Silence]. You, now, have not the excuse of poverty. Your child would not have suffered from want.
LUCIE. He would have suffered from disease, and that is as bad as want.
PRESIDENT. No theories, please. Only facts.
LUCIE. Yes; facts, nothing but facts. You can see the theory of it for yourself. I had two children, two little girls. One is a deaf mute, the other had convulsions. She is dead now. The doctors told me that that was due to the alcoholized condition of my husband, whose father had been in the same state.
PRESIDENT. Most unfortunate.
LUCIE. Be pleased to let me speak!