If anybody could find the way there again, it would be Aunt Mary.
_Pause._
And if anybody could show her the way it would be--you.
_She goes on in a different tone, as if to escape from the embarra.s.sment of her last speech._
Her saying just now she saw the sun. She often says things like that.
Have you noticed?
MICHAELIS.
Yes.
RHODA.
_With hesitation._
Her brother Seth--the one who died--has she told you about him?
MICHAELIS.
Yes.
RHODA.
What she thinks happens--since--he died?
_Michaelis nods a.s.sent._
And yet in most other ways her mind is perfectly clear.
MICHAELIS.
Perhaps in this way it is clearer still.
RHODA.
_Startled._
You mean--that maybe she really does--_see_ her brother?
MICHAELIS.
It may be.
RHODA.
It would make the world a very different--a very strange place, if that _were_ true.
MICHAELIS.
The world _is_ a very strange place.
_Pause._
RHODA.
Tell me a little about your life. That seems to have been very strange.
MICHAELIS.
_Vaguely, as he seats himself by the table._
I don"t know. I can hardly remember what my life was.
RHODA.
Why is that?
MICHAELIS.
_Gazing at her._
Because, since I came into this house, I have seen the vision of another life.
RHODA.
_With hesitation._
What--other life?
MICHAELIS.
Since my boyhood I have been--
_He hesitates._
I have been a wanderer, almost a fugitive--. And I never knew it, till now--I never knew it till--I looked into your face!
RHODA.
_Avoiding his gaze._
How should that make you know?
MICHAELIS.
_Leans nearer._