“You come to me so late,” Johanna whispered, with a shudder, and drew up her shoulders, “so very, very late.”
“Too late?”
“Too late.”
Christian reflected sadly for a little. He grasped her hand more firmly, and asked timidly: “Does he torment you? What is there between him and you?”
She started and stared at him, and then collapsed again. She smiled morbidly and said: “I’d be grateful to anyone who took an axe and killed me. It’s all I’m worth.”
“Why, Johanna?”
“Because I threw myself away to roll in filth where it’s thickest and most horrible,” she cried out, in a cutting voice that was full of lamentation too, while her lips quivered, and she looked up.
“You see both yourself and others falsely,” said Christian. “Everything within you is distorted. All that you say torments you, and all that you hide chokes you. Have a little pity on yourself.”
“On myself?” She laughed a mirthless laugh. “On a thing like myself? It would be waste. Nothing is needed but the axe, the axe.” Her words changed to a wild sob. Then came an icy silence.