Helen. Does your manager believe such nonsense?
Gerardo. No, he does not believe it.
Helen. That's incomprehensible to me. I don't understand how a—respectable man can sign such a contract!
Gerardo. My rights as a man are only a secondary consideration. I am an artist in the first place.
Helen. Yes, you are. A great artist! An eminent artist! Don't you comprehend how I must love you? Is that the only thing your great mind cannot comprehend? All that makes me appear contemptible now in my relation to you is due to just this, that I see in you the only man who has ever made me feel his superiority to me and whom it has been my sole thought to win. I have clenched my teeth to keep from betraying to you what you are to me for fear you might weary of me. But my experience of yesterday has left me in a state of mind which no woman can endure. If I did not love you so madly, Oscar, you would think more of me. That is so terrible in you that you must despise the woman whose whole world you are. Of what I formerly was to myself there is not a trace left. And now that your passion has left me a burned-out shell, would you leave me here? You are taking my life with you, Oscar! Then take with you as well this flesh and blood which has been yours, or it will perish!
Gerardo. Helen ...!
Helen. Contracts! What are contracts to you! Why, there's not a contract made that one cannot get around in some way! What do people make contracts for? Don't use your contract as a weapon with which to murder me. I am not afraid of your contracts! Let me go with you, Oscar! We'll see if he as much as mentions a breach of contract. He won't do it or I am a poor judge of human nature. And if he does object, it will still be time for me to die.
Gerardo. But we have no right to possess each other, Helen! You are as little free to follow me as I am to assume such a responsibility. I do not belong to myself; I belong to my art ...
Helen. Oh don't talk to me of your art! What do I care for your art. I've clung to your art merely to attract your attention. Did Heaven create a man like you to let you make a clown of yourself night after night? Are you not ashamed of boasting of it? You see that I am willing to overlook your being an artist. What wouldn't one overlook in a demigod like you? And if you were a convict, Oscar, I could not feel differently toward you. I have lost all control over myself! I should still lie in the dust before you as I am doing now! I should still implore your mercy as I am doing now! My own self would still be abandoned to you as it is now! I should still be facing death as I am now!
Gerardo (laughing). Why, Helen, you and facing death! Women so richly endowed for the enjoyment of life as you are do not kill themselves. You know the value of life better than I. You are too happily constituted to cast it away. That is left for others to do—for stunted and dwarfed creatures, the stepchildren of nature.