Krakau. I guess you are all fixed now.... There's nothing else? [Turns from the chiffonier, having closed the drawer, and starts for his own side of the room.]
Helms [suddenly]. It's a terrible thing you've done to me, Krakau!
Krakau [in surprise]. What now?
Helms [his voice trembling]. You have made my dead wife a strumpet and my dead daughter a bastard. [Krakau bridles and turns to him with clenched fists. Helms continues pitifully.] And you have robbed me in my old age of a grandson ... all I have in the world. [Querulously musing.] When men are young they see red and kill for that sort of thing ... yes ... they kill.... But when you are old it's different.... I can't even be very angry with you, Krakau.... Isn't it queer?... It's all so far back ... in the past ... impersonal ... and blurred like a half-remembered dream.
Krakau [with contrition]. I shouldn't have told you.
Helms. You shouldn't have told me.... No ... but you did ... and I can't be angry with you.... I am an old fool.... After all ... honor ... fidelity ... marriage vows ... what do they matter when there is nothing to do but to sit and count the days until you die?
Krakau [chokingly]. Helms!
Helms [with a flash of anger]. But Knut matters. He is my grandson ... in spite of you.... You shan't take him away from me.
Krakau. I don't want to take him away from you.
Helms. Your blood ... perhaps ... but my grandson—