[Sadly.] It was so in spirit and in truth.
Let me tell you, Arnold—it is for the sake of this child of ours that I have undertaken this long pilgrimage.
[Suddenly alert.] For the statue's—?
Call it what you will. I call it our child.
And now you want to see it? Finished? In marble, which you always thought so cold? [Eagerly.] You do not know, perhaps, that it is installed in a great museum somewhere—far out in the world?
I have heard a sort of legend about it.
And museums were always a horror to you. You called them grave-vaults—
I will make a pilgrimage to the place where my soul and my child's soul lie buried.
[Uneasy and alarmed.] You must never see that statue again! Do you hear, Irene! I implore you—! Never, never see it again!
Perhaps you think it would mean death to me a second time?