Vennema. Aren't you deluding yourself? Wasn't your life with us at home better?
Louise. Better? What do you mean, better?
Vennema. You know what I mean. Don't you regret running off with ... him ... and spreading sorrow in our hearts?
Louise. I loved him. And then I yearned for freedom, for the pleasures of life and travel. At home everything was so dull and monotonous. I couldn't stand the smug people at home. Their life is one round of lying and gossiping, of scolding and backbiting.
Vennema. But what of this sort of existence? You don't quite appreciate the damage you have done. How you have stained the fair reputation of your parents. I wonder whether that has ever occurred to you? You say that you do not like the people who are our neighbors back home, but it is these very people who make and unmake reputations. We must live with them. Can't you realize that?
Louise. Father, I'm sorry, but I couldn't go back to them. The commonplace tattlers with their humdrum, uneventful lives scarcely exist for me.
Vennema. They don't exist for you, you say. But, remember, that they despise you. They and their contempt do not reach you, but they reach us.
Louise [almost inaudibly]. Yes.
Vennema. But your future? Have you thought of that? What will it be? Wretchedness and contempt. When I came in and saw you stretched out in that condition, I....
Louise. Father, I want to forget. I don't want to think of the past.