That you will see.
MAGDA.
You blame me for living out my life without asking you and the whole family for permission. And why should I not? Was I not without family? Did you not send me out into the world to earn my bread, and then disown me because the way in which I earned it was not to your taste? Whom did I harm? Against whom did I sin? Oh, if I had remained the daughter of the house, like Marie, who is nothing and does nothing without the sheltering roof of the home, who passes straight from the arms of her father into the arms of her husband; who receives from the family life, thought, character, everything,--yes, then you would have been right. In such a one the slightest error would have ruined everything,--conscience, honor, self-respect. But I? Look at me. I was alone. I was as shelterless as a man knocked about in the world, dependent on the work of my own hands. If you give us the right to hunger--and I have hungered--why do you deny us the right to love, as we can find it, and to happiness, as we can understand it?
SCHWARTZE.
You think, my child, because you are free and a great artist, that you can set at naught--
MAGDA.
Leave art out of the question. Consider me nothing more than the seamstress or the servant-maid who seeks, among strangers, the little food and the little love she needs. See how much the family with its morality demand from us! It throws us on our own resources, it gives us neither shelter nor happiness, and yet, in our loneliness, we must live according to the laws which it has planned for itself alone. We must still crouch in the corner, and there wait patiently until a respectful wooer happens to come. Yes, wait. And meanwhile the war for existence of body and soul is consuming us. Ahead we see nothing but sorrow and despair, and yet shall we not once dare to give what we have of youth and strength to the man for whom our whole being cries? Gag us, stupefy us, shut us up in harems or in cloisters--and that perhaps would be best. But if you give us our freedom, do not wonder if we take advantage of it.
SCHWARTZE.
There, there! That is the spirit of rebellion abroad in the world. My child--my dear child--tell me that you were not in earnest--that you--that you--pity me--if-- [Looking for the pistol-case]. I don't know what may happen--child--have pity on me!