I'll see what c'n be found in Paul's drawer. [She opens the drawer of the table and turns pale.] O Lord! [She takes from the drawer a lock of child's hair held together by a riband.] I found a bit of a lock o' hair here that was cut off the head of our little Adelbert by his father when he was lyin' in the coffin. [A profound, grief-stricken sadness suddenly comes over her face, which gives way again, quite as suddenly, to a gleam of triumph.] An' now the crib is full again after all! [With an expression of strange joyfulness, the lock of hair in her hand, she leads the young people to the door of the partition through which the perambulator projects into the main room by two-thirds of its length. Arrived there she holds the lock of hair close to the head of the living child.] Come on! Come on here! [With a strangely mysterious air she beckons to WALBURGA and SPITTA, who take up their stand next to her and to the child.] Now look at that there hair an' at this! Ain't it the same? Wouldn't you say it was the same identical hair?
SPITTA
Quite right. It's the same to the minutest shade, Mrs. John.
MRS. JOHN
All right! That's all right! That's what I wanted to know.
[Together with the child she disappears behind the partition.
WALBURGA
Doesn't it strike you, Erich, that Mrs. John's behaviour is rather peculiar?
SPITTA
[Taking WALBURGA'S hands and kissing them shyly but passionately.] I don't know, I don't know … Or, at least, my opinion musn't count to-day. The sombre state of my own mind colours all the world. Did you get the letter?