PIPER
Surely he lives!
VERONIKA
—Lives! will you swear it? Ah,—
I will believe! But he . . . is not so strong
As all the others.
PIPER
[apart]
Aie, how horrible!
[To her]
Sit you down here. You cannot go away
While you are yet so pale. Why are you thus?
[She looks at him distractedly.]
VERONIKA
You, who have torn the hearts out of our bodies
And left the city like a place of graves,—
Why am I spent?—Ah, ah!—But he's alive!
Yes, yes, he's living.
PIPER
Oh, how horrible!
Why should he not be living?—What am I?
VERONIKA
I do not know.
PIPER
Do you take me for the Devil?
VERONIKA
I do not know.
PIPER
Yet you were not afraid?
VERONIKA
What is there now to fear?