BERTHA.
Wherever you go, I will follow you. If you wish to go away now I will go with you.
RICHARD.
I will remain. It is too soon yet to despair.
BERTHA.
[Again caressing his hand.] It is not true that I want to drive everyone from you. I wanted to bring you close together—you and him. Speak to me. Speak out all your heart to me. What you feel and what you suffer.
RICHARD.
I am wounded, Bertha.
BERTHA.
How wounded, dear? Explain to me what you mean. I will try to understand everything you say. In what way are you wounded?
RICHARD.
[Releases his hand and, taking her head between his hands, bends it back and gazes long into her eyes.] I have a deep, deep wound of doubt in my soul.
BERTHA.
[Motionless.] Doubt of me?
RICHARD.
Yes.
BERTHA.
I am yours. [In a whisper.] If I died this moment, I am yours.
RICHARD.
[Still gazing at her and speaking as if to an absent person.] I have wounded my soul for you—a deep wound of doubt which can never be healed. I can never know, never in this world. I do not wish to know or to believe. I do not care. It is not in the darkness of belief that I desire you. But in restless living wounding doubt. To hold you by no bonds, even of love, to be united with you in body and soul in utter nakedness—for this I longed. And now I am tired for a while, Bertha. My wound tires me.