ROSE
I don't know … I don't know!
[Trembling and kneeling, she crouches and stares at the floor.
AUGUST
[Overwhelmed and taken out of himself by the pity of the sight.] Rosie, get up! I won't desert you! Get up, I can't bear to see you lyin' there! We're all sinners together! An' anyone who repents so deep, is bound to be forgiven. Get up, Rose, Father, raise her up! We're not among them that condemns—not I, at least. There's nothin' in me o' the Pharisee! I see how it goes to her heart! Come what will, I'll stand by you! I'm no judge … I don't judge. Our Saviour in Heaven didn't judge neither. Truly, he bore our sickness for us, an' we thought he was one that was tortured an' stricken, by God! Maybe we've all been guilty of error. I don't want to acquit myself neither. I've been thinkin'. Before the lass hardly knew me, she had to say her yea an' amen! What do I care about the world? It don't concern me.
ROSE
August, they clung to me like burrs … I couldn't walk across the street safe … All the men was after me!… I hid myself … I was that scared! I was so afraid o' men!… It didn't help! 'Twas worse an' worse! After that I fell from one snare into another, till I hardly came to my senses no more.
BERND
You used to have the strictest notion o' such things. You condemned the Leichner girl an' despised the Kaiser wench! You boasted—you'd like to see someone come across your path! You struck the miller's journeyman in the face! A girl as does that, you said, don't deserve no pity; she can go an' hang herself! An' now you speak o' snares.