Jean—Wonder? No. I wonder at nothing. I don’t see anything to wonder at.
Angelica—Now, I wonder all the time. I want to know the meanings of things. What makes this water flow, what makes the lamp burn, who made this cloth of my dress, these walls and foot-paths, the cressets and windlasses and charcoal-burners. I asked mother if she made the cloth and she said “no.” I said, “who did?” She said, “how should I know?” I said, “where did it come from?” She said, “Father brought it.” “Where did he get it,” I said. She said, “I didn’t ask him,”—and not a word more would she say. Where do my dresses come from, this cloth-stuff, do you know? Do they not come from The World Above?
Jean—Why, no. They just come from your mother. She sews them for you. And the stone in your precious ring, that Jacques calls an opal, do you know where it came from?
Angelica—(Eagerly) From The World Above?
Jean—(Very impatiently) Oh, no! I gave it to you. It came from me. I loved you and I gave it to you.
Angelica—But where did you get it?
Jean—I found it in the Court of Miracles at the edge of the Great Pool, of course, where we are always finding things. We never found anything that was not found there, of course, for that is the Great Place-of-Finding-Things.
Angelica—Do you believe that?
Jean—Believe what? That this is the Great Place-of-Finding-Things? Why, of course! How can you keep from believing what you feel with your very own hands and hear with your own ears? When I took hold of the scoop something slipped over the handle and I felt a little knob-like thing go between my fingers. I caught at it and cleaned away what was tangled around it and gave it to you.
Angelica—And I washed it and washed it and washed it, and made it clean, quite clean, and lo, it was a ring just right for my finger, for my finger, finger, finger! (She flourishes her hand joyously with the ring upon it.)