MICH. A young Italian. My mother’s brother is a Catholic priest, and at that time he was living at Rome. My mother went there for her health when I was three years old. This young Italian saw her and asked permission to paint her. She came home and died of consumption. Then my uncle sent this portrait to my father with the news that the young painter had also died of consumption.
AUDR. How strange! And you’ve had it ever since?
MICH. I was only a child when it came. I fell into the habit of saying my prayers before it. So when I first left home my father gave it to me; it has been with me ever since, at Eton, and Oxford, and in my different curacies.
AUDR. Won’t you let me kiss it before I go?
(Leaning towards it.)
MICH. (preventing her). I’d rather you did not.
AUDR. Why not?
MICH. I have a strange belief about that picture. I’ll hang it up.
AUDR. (a little intercepting him). No. Let me look at it. Let me hold it in my hands. I won’t kiss it without your permission. (She takes it and looks at it intently.) Tell me—what is your strange belief about it?
MICH. My mother was a deeply religious woman, and before my birth she consecrated me to this service as Hannah consecrated Samuel. When she was dying she said to me, “I’m not leaving you. I shall watch over you every moment of your life. There’s not a word, or a deed, or a thought of yours but I shall know it. You won’t see me, but I shall be very near you. Sometimes my hands will be upon your head, but you won’t know it; sometimes my arms will be round you, but you won’t feel them; sometimes my lips will be on your face, but you won’t know that I have kissed you. Remember you are watched by the dead.”