SCENE SIXTH.
Bergmann's garden in the morning sunlight.
Wendla.
Why have you slipped out of the room?——To hunt violets!——Because Mother seems to laugh at me.——Why can't you bring your lips together any more?——I don't know.——Indeed I don't know, I can't find words——The path is like a velvet carpet, no pebbles, no thorns.——My feet don't touch the ground.——Oh, how I slept last night!
Here they are.——I become as grave as a nun at communion.——Sweet violets!——Peace, little mother, I will put on my long dress.——Oh God, if somebody would come upon whose neck I could fall and tell!
SCENE SEVEN.
Evening twilight. Light clouds in the sky. The path straggles through low bushes and coarse grass. The flow of the stream is heard in the distance.
Moritz.
Better and better.——I am not fit. Another may be able to climb to the top. I pull the door to behind me and step into the open.——I don't care enough about it to let myself be turned back.
I haven't succeeded in forcing my way. How shall I force my way now!——I have no contract with God. Let them make out of the thing what they will. I have been forced.——I do not hold my parents answerable. At the same time, the worst must fall upon them. They were old enough to know what they were doing. I was a weakling when I came into the world——or else I would have been wise enough to become another being. Why should I be forced to pay for the fact that the others were here already!