Mrs Scholz.
I’m only a poor ignorant woman. Your father was always above me. His mother was quite a lady too. But my father was once as poor as a rat. I’ll never get the chill of poverty out of my blood! I can’t alter myself. Well, it’s all the same!—for the year or two of life that’s left me!—The Lord will deliver me in his own good time.
Robert.
I would rather be delivered from the Lord.
Mrs Scholz.
For shame! What a scoundrelly speech! Delivered from the Lord.—I might as well take a dagger and stab myself here in the heart—Frightful!—Delivered from the Lord!—Where should I have been if it had not been for the Lord?—Are you really going away, Robert?
Robert (already on the stairs).
Oh, be quiet, mother! It’s peace I want, peace!—
[Goes up the stairs.