JEANNE
Lowering her hand.
No; I have asked for this flower simply because its fragrance seems to me immortal—it is always the same—as the sky. How strange it is, always the same. And when you bring it close to your face, and close to your eyes, it seems to you that there is nothing except this red rose and the blue sky. Nothing but the red rose and the distant, pale—very pale—blue sky....
EMIL GRELIEU
Pierre! Listen to me, my boy! People speak of this only at night, when they are alone with their souls—and she knows it, but you do not know it yet. Don't you know it, Jeanne?
JEANNE
Trembling, opening her eyes.
Yes, I know, Emil.
EMIL GRELIEU
The life of the poet does not belong to him. The roof over the heads of people, which shelters them—all that is a phantom for me, and my life does not belong to me. I am always far away, not here—I am always where I am not. You think of finding me among the living, while I am dead; you are afraid of finding me in death, mute, cold, doomed to decay, while I live and sing aloud from my grave. Death which makes people mute, which leaves the imprint of silence upon the bravest lips, restores the voice to the poet. Dead, I speak more loudly than alive. Dead, I am alive! Am I—just think of it, Pierre, my boy,—am I to fear death when in my most persistent searches I could not find the boundary between life and death, when in my feelings I mix life and death into one—as two strong, rare kinds of wine? Just think of it, my boy!