SOPHY.
Good morning, Mr. Bridegroom-to-be.
ROBERT.
How glad I am to see you so cheerful. But you Mary? You are sad, Mary? And I am so joyful, so over-joyful. The whole morning I have been in the forest. Where the bushes glistened brightest with the dew, there I penetrated, so that the moist branches should strike my heated face. There I threw myself down on the grass. But I could not stay anywhere. It seemed that nothing could relieve me but weeping aloud. And you—at other times as blithe and gay as a deer—you are sad? Sad on this day?
SOPHY. She surely is glad, dear Robert. But you have known her ever since she was a little child; when others proclaim their happiness, she hides hers in silence. MARY. No, Robert. Sad I surely am not. I only have a feeling of solemnity; it has been upon me the whole morning. Wherever I go, it seems to me as though I were in church. And—
ROBERT.
And what?
MARY.
And that now my life is soon to be broken off behind me, as if it were sinking away from under me, and that a new life is to begin, one so entirely new—don't be offended, good Robert! This to me is so strange—gives me such a feeling of anxiety!